Birthdays & Anniversaries have come to an end for March...but April's are as follows:
April 3rd: John Bullinger turns 19!!!
April 7th: Sara kirby moves ahead another year:)
April 24th: Payton Kirby turns 5!!!
April 26th: Steve and Holly celebrate their 5th Anniversary!!!
April 27th: marks 19 years ago that Jim and Jeanie were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple:)
Missionary Moments to share: this e-mail came from a senior couple who have left the mission...
March 10, 2013
Hello people we love!
We wanted to share this with you.
I spoke to a friend in another state this week and she related the following true account from a Senior Missionary Couple's homecoming talks.
~ Lest anyone think these mission calls do not come from heaven!!!
Love,
Susan and Jim
*********************************************
This Senior Couple put in their application to serve a mission, but added that they needed to be assigned "Somewhere Warm" because the sister suffered from Rheumatoid Arthritis. Imagine their concern when the call came to serve in Alaska!
They contacted the Missionary Department, to discuss the situation, but were assured this was where they were supposed to serve. They were called as Office Missionaries, so working inside should not affect her disease. This couple acted in great faith and accepted their call.
After a few weeks working in the Office, their Mission President was inspired that the Lord wanted them to be proselyting instead.
(Here the account started to sound very familiar to us! :) lol
[note from me: the couple that sent this e-mail to us served first in the mission office here and then were sent out to proselyte...and worked amazing miracles!]
[note from me: the couple that sent this e-mail to us served first in the mission office here and then were sent out to proselyte...and worked amazing miracles!]
Again, this valiant couple were obedient and trusted in the Lord despite what seemed totally illogical.
(I couldn't help but think of Isaiah 55:9; "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.")
One day they were impressed to knock on a particular door.
Imagine their overwhelming amazement and joy, when the door was opened by their own son who had left home at age 14 and never been heard from again! They were able to teach him, his wife and their grandchildren the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and see him return to the Church and the rest of the family baptized.
(I can only imagine the decades of heartfelt prayers they had offered in behalf of this prodigal son. They were so grateful to have been called to Alaska!) ************************************************************************
Serving in the mission office has given us many reminders that there are miracles happening across this mission and throughout the world every single day. We need to be looking for them or they can pass us by unnoticed, which is very sad.
Family notes (or little bits I have heard from family members): I should have mentioned last week that Taylor and DJ had spring vacation: Taylor had girls camp during that week and DJ went to “smart kids camp”!
They both had a great time; Taylor was presented with a special award...can’t remember exactly what it was called, but maybe something like “most spiritual” for the Beehives:). Jim said the bishop called her and said he would be presenting her her graduation certificate from Primary on Sunday (a little late) and would she be willing to give a talk - and she said yes. According to Jim the bishop suggested that she might want to consult her parents, but she did it and prepared and gave it all herself - setting a great example for her siblings in the future (Grandma’s thought). Great going Taylor! DJ had amazing adventures learning all kinds of new things; from what I can tell it was kind of like a week full of field trips to amazing, interesting places...so it would be fun to hear more from himself about all that he did.
Christine has been working on a new diet suggested by her health care professional that might hopefully make a difference in the headaches that she struggles with. It eliminates almost everything one would enjoy, which takes a lot of will power. At first it seemed like it might be having some effect, but when I last talked with her briefly, it didn’t sound so good. Please keep her in your prayers. I don’t know much more about the Bullingers...except that Rachel is busy cheerleading and loving it, and Michael is busy filming games and loving it. Hope I’ve got that right.
I talked with Sara last week and she was headed off to Arizona for a horse show with her barn kids. Patrick was holding the fort down at home with help from a friend with the girls. Guess maybe it was spring break in Utah this past week? Hopefully they have all made it safely back by now and had a great experience.
Emily and Adam seem to be doing well with their expanded family...Em’s birthday was Thursday but haven’t heard how or if she celebrated it:).
Steve and Holly seem to be doing OK out there in Georgia although when we talked with Steve last night he was sick; he said it was a cold and that Holly had had the same thing but was now over it. So maybe keeping him in your prayers would be a good thing too. We were talking with him because we were putting all his stamp, coin, and basketball card collections in a box to send to him and had some questions...then he spent some time teaching Dad how to photostream(?) pictures on the iPad. It seemed to work very well. Hmmm...guess someone is at least learning more about these things:).
Charlotte and Seth are doing well; Seth’s parents are visiting this week during California’s spring break. Charlotte said Seth planned to use the extra bodies to help get in his supply of wood for next winter:). Hoping they all have a good visit.
Mary Elizabeth is headed our way, flying to Portland on Tuesday, driving to Washington to check on a store on Wednesday, headed to Roseburg with Michael on Thursday, coming to see us sometime Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday, going to church with Michael on Sunday and spending the evening with Portland friends, then flying back to Provo on Monday. She’s a traveling girl now:)!
Dad and I have worked hard at the office - seems like I might finally be catching up with addresses and missionaries, although even Friday there were another dozen changes. Change is the only thing you can really count on here:)!
Spent a goodly number of hours trying to arrange flight, hotel & car to go for Rose Elizabeth's baby blessing on April 27th. I used the people at vacation choice but when they tried to book the flight part, MasterCard was requiring a security code that I didn't remember or have which was the start of a long effort to pay for the tickets, resulting in a price increase of over $200. With USAA's help we finally got that sorted out and went back to the drawing board to find tickets - finally got them late that night as I continued to search. We are so happy we will be able to make it just for the weekend. (That was kind of the tricky part of making reservations that would fly us in late Friday night and back Sunday night so we wouldn't miss any of our time at the office.)
Still working on our Tai Chi together - maybe making a little progress. We will miss this next Tuesday because a couple that worked in the office is coming through Eugene and will have dinner with us & visit. Hard to make a lot of Tai Chi progress when you don't get to the classes! Visiting with our friends will be fun though.
Did go down to Roseburg Thursday for my annual appointment with Dr. Van Dis, the cardiologist. Came home with the pronouncement that my heart is the best part of me! He had them do an echo-cardiogram and everything is working perfectly. So that is nice to know. We stopped at the house before heading back to Eugene and picked up a number of things, including Steve’s stamp collections, coin collections and basketball card collections. Spent last night sorting and packaging them to mail on Monday. He should be able to fill a lot of hours organizing all that stuff:)!
That is all for this week; I mailed a letter to each and every one of you and hope you will respond:) Remember, I won't have much information to put under "family notes" unless you let me know what's happening in your lives! Love you, Mom
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