Washington, D.C. South Mission

Dear Family, Mission News On Thursday I did training on submitting new member conversion stories for all of the young missionaries. The training was only 10 minutes, but I did it over Zoom. I was a bit like talking to myself because I could not see my audience. Mom and I are still recovering from our colds. Mom especially was under the weather. Mom’s cough was so bad that she did not sleep well. I think we are mostly over the symptoms and we are at about 90%. One of the senior couples wants to extend a few weeks. When I was talking with someone in the missionary department, he said that big changes are coming for senior missionaries. President Nelson is supposed to make the announcements. No details in the rumor, but a rumor nevertheless. Elder Shurtleff is on the far right, Elder Leavitt is fourth from the right. Mom and I are on the right. The other 4 were fairly recently baptized. At least two of them are planning on serving missions. We attended a Woodbridge Stake ...

Dear Family, Remember me? I just didn’t get up enough energy to get a letter written last Sunday or any day this past week. I’ll do what I can to catch up. On February 3rd we had our new missionaries fly in. Although we only had 16 new missionaries come, Dad still had to drive to the airport. Rather than a passenger van, he got to drive the u-haul. Ever since the elders had their mishap with the larger u-haul not making it under the overhang at one of the church buildings, the young elders do not drive the u-haul anymore. I went at 4:00 to pick up the dinner for the missionaries and only had to wait 12 minutes for the meal. I was able to get to the mission home before the missionaries arrived. Because of the huge snowstorm in Salt Lake, the plan was an hour late taking off and the missionaries were late coming. The one missionary coming from the Mexico MTC arrived a little early, so President Caplin interviewed her there at the airport. It was good to meet the new missionarie...

Dear Family, Mission News The Sunday evening before transfers there is a Come unto Christ Devotional. There are 4 recent converts that tell their conversion stories. Missionaries sing and the President and his wife speak. This meeting is usually very good, but this Sunday it was great. The speakers were very good speakers and their humility brought a wonderful spirit into the meeting. This was transfer week and everything went very smoothly. As always there were a few little hiccups, but these were easily worked around. On Monday the new missionaries arrived, we had dinner with 16 of them and we took 8 Sister missionaries to the Hotel and were home at 8:30 which included a stop at Walmart. We have never been home that early before. We are usually home around 11:00. Every transfer is different because the number of missionaries coming and going are different. The ratio of elders to sisters differs as well. So the number of vehicle and drivers varies too. Then TIWI card and keys ...

Dear Family, Here it is another week and month. Where does the time seem to go. We finished up January with only one little snow storm with all of the snow gone by the next day. We thought last year was an easy winter, but this one has felt more like a cool spring. In fact, we have seen more sun shiny days this past winter than we did most of this summer. A shout out birthday wish to Aunt Lis 2-1-20. Hope you day was wonderful!! This past week has been busy and although not so many meetings a bit stressful. I have been trying to set up someone to come and do the annual audit. I don’t know why I have been so lucky to do two audits in an 18-month mission. I talked with the stake president of one of the local stakes (the son of Sister Chesbrough in our office) about using one of their auditors. He put me in touch with the 2nd counselor who is over the auditing team. I sent two texts with no response so finally called and was able to talk with him. He got back on Friday with t...

Dear Family, Mission News We took Elder Miller to the airport yesterday. He is a fine missionary that is going home for health issues. Later we went to the baptism of Lucy, a friendly, happy woman from Brazil. She was married Wednesday to her companion of 30 years or so. Her husband, Patrick will probably be baptized in the next few weeks. It was a very nice service and she is loved by many members. Sister Caplin, Sister Bourgeous, Lucy, Antonia (Lucy’s Baziian friend) Elder and Sister Nelson, Sister Kirk I completed my survey of stake high councilors. It was fun to feel their enthusiasm for the work and learn of their innovative ideas for moving the work along. Finally I got the program for inviting new converts to write their conversion stories restarted. Friday 4 sisters and their companions came in for their departing interviews with President Caplin. That shoots down getting anything done for much of the day. However, it is always a lot of fun to be with the young miss...

Dear Family, Mission News On Wednesday I went to the Gainesville district meeting and discussed of Conversion Stories. I also delivered the mail. I like being with the young Missionaries. I am conducting a little survey with the 9 high councilors in the 9 stakes that are responsible for missionary work in the stakes. I am just asking them: What’s working in your stake? What are you excited about? What can the Mission do to support you? It has been fun for me to look at missionary work from the stake organization side. Some of the stakes are doing innovative things to move the work forward. There is a lot that can be done by members to move the work forward. The expression in our mission is that Gathering Israel is member centered and missionary supported. The missionaries just assist the members. Le Grand Richards said, “Any calling above a bishop is all talk”. There is a lot of talk on the stake level but all of the work is done on the ward or family/member level. We went t...

Dear Family, Another week has gone by—a busy week, but uneventful. We did better at getting to the office a bit earlier—closer to 8 than 8:30. The one thing that seems to have made the difference is making our lunches the night before. This way we have a little more time for our Come Follow Me study. The office was a little quiet today because of the holiday. It kind of gives me a day to get things done without having more things coming in to do. That probably gives me a false sense of getting things done because double emails and requests come the next day, but at least for today it was good. A little after 5 we were getting ready to lock up and go home when President and Sister Caplin came in to get the missionary mail for interviews the next day and for President Caplin to sign papers. It was fun to visit with them and talk about some of the wonderful things we have seen with the missionaries. No one else was at the office, so it was a little more relaxed visit. I shared wit...