Catching Up

Monday night, March 31st, 2014  We got into Las Vegas I think around 4 or 4:30 and got settled in a little at the RV Park.  Elder and Sister Terry came over a little while later and we sat and visited for a time before going out to eat - we ended up at Applebees and I have to say I had one of the best meals I have ever had!  I can’t remember what it was called (should have typed this that night) - something like Cilantro Lime Chicken and Shrimp.  It was fantastic...makes me want to go again - which is kind of amazing because I have never been an Applebees fan:)!  We parted company after dinner and made our way “home” - and to bed.  Got up very early the next morning (5:30 for me) and got ready to go to the Las Vegas Temple - made it there for the 7:30 am session and were proud of ourselves:).  It feels so good to be able to visit the temple - any temple - again...though I must say I love my small temple in Medford:).  After leaving the temple we went to the Deseret Book Store where Sister Terry is now working and I shared a picture I had saved for her and forgotten to show her the night before...also picked up a couple of pictures of the Savior and a temple one to put up in the motor home.  Do miss my pictures that have lived upon my walls!  Then we went back to the RV park and did all the necessary things to get on the road - which wasn’t until actually noon I think.

Tuesday - continued - we arrived in Saint George about 4:30 or so and went to visit with Barbara Lewis, a Melrose Ward member who moved to St. George I think just a short time before we left on our mission.  She moved there because her husband developed cancer and wanted sunshine - so they settled on sunshine in St. George and that worked well for him.  Unfortunately for Barbara, she spent the next 2 years as a caregiver and it was a very difficult time.  Now she is alone, but pretty upbeat and fun to talk to.  For any from home who don’t remember, she was originally from Poland and ended up in a Siberian prison camp with her mother and sisters during WWII but survived it - all 4 of them - and her stories are amazing!  She is a very strong woman - and a very good one!  We ended our visit in time to make it back to the St. George Temple for the last session (8 p.m.) and I was very grateful for that. It was a good experience - the only thing that could have made it any better would have been to have our own children with us and/or to have our own family names to take through:)!  I am definitely going to work on that in the coming months! 

It is an older temple, rich in history - and Dad says we took our children there when we went through there in our old Winnebago.  Probably just Jimmy and Christi because I don’t remember having any vacation time to do anything like that once we returned from Germany:).  Anyway, he is totally impressed with how much has grown up around there since we were there...amazed. We came back to the motor home and actually stayed up for a couple of hours, getting to bed pretty late.

Wednesday: got up this morning a little later (7 for me; 8:15 for dad) and took the time to make a real breakfast for dad.  Then worked on cleaning things up while he went outside to load the car and do some other things preparatory to leaving.  He’d been gone quite a while and when I looked I discovered that he was deeply involved in conversation with the owner of a very fancy, expensive and big motor home just across from us:).  He is so good at talking to people and I am so not:).  Said he learned quite a few interesting things from the man - who said Winnebago (the mfr of ours) makes the BEST motor homes - even tho that is not the one he had:)  Finally got on the road - and now are getting closer to Payson.  The plan seems to be that Christi and Ammon and going to come down to Sara’s (they were in SLC for a medical appointment for Ammon today) and so is Mary, when she gets out of a  7pm meeting - so it sounds like I should have been napping instead of typing:).

Looks like my blogging ended at Sara's...so sorry.  We had a wonderful time there and really enjoyed having grandchildren "dropping in" to our home each morning and day:)! And really enjoyed our time together at the Science Museum in SLC - so many fun places for kids in today's world:)!

Thursday, 24 April, 2014 Haven’t done my blog since forever.  And...have not been writing in my journal, despite the fact that several times I have thought, Oh - I need to write that down in my journal!!  I had planned to sort of save the blog for special things and get back to my paper journal...but in the chaos I am living in, perhaps the computer is better.  So here is a new begining - for me; if you care to read along, feel free:).  If it is too long and boring, that's OK:).

We’ve been working on sorting and packing things - Jim, mostly in the garage, and me, mostly in the old office room - now filled with books and files.  It gets very old and very un-satisfying - but I know it needs to be done.

I was very happy to have something to do last night as we joined with other ward members to clean our building.  This weekend is stake conference and the stake presidency will be re-organized.  I am supposed to talk for 7 minutes (wonder how they came up with that?) at Saturday evening’s adult session - about our mission.  Have been working on a draft of sorts; this morning I sat in the bedroom and timed my reading of it - unfortunately, it took 12 minutes.  So - have to go revise a lot.  My desire is to speak the words the Lord would have me speak and am praying for the Spirit’s guidance.

Today I was really happy when the sister missionaries called and asked if I could accompany them to an appointment.  Of course I said yes and of course it was wonderful.  They were visiting a lady  they had “sort of” tracted into.  At least they were tracting when she ended up chasing after her dog and they helped get it back and then enjoyed visiting with her and gave her a book of Mormon - and when they checked back she had read what they had suggested and agreed for them to come today.  When we got there she said she was very tired and asked if we could we keep it short - to which they agreed.  But she talked so much that it was not short at all - and I was so impressed with our sister missionaries (Sister Falapapalangi and Sister Peterson) as they continued their teaching even when she told them she would never be baptized.  It was a great learning experience for me.  And I hope they invite me again:).

Came home planning to make asparagus soup + sandwiches for dinner and was especially looking forward to the soup.  Then, as I am blending the cooked asparagus et al, the center part of the top of my blender went right through the top - and got caught in the blades even tho I tried to stop it immediately.  When I pulled it out, there were pieces of the plastic broken off - so I was afraid to have us eat it, now wanting to swallow plastic shards.  Plus I couldn’t finish blending it beccause of th eplastic in it.  So very sad was I.  So Very Sad. My wonderful asparagus soup went to the compost pile - I was afraid to put it down the disposal because of the plastic shards:(.

Back to work on boxes & files tomorrow.

Saturday night (4/26) was the adult session of Stake Conference - a stake conference where our stake is being reorganized.  Hard to believe it has been over 9 years since President Hopkins was called...but true.  In a touching remark on Sunday he said it would be the first time in 17years that he would be coming in to church with his family - including his 17 year old son:).  Such service.

My talk went well; I had worked on it lots because I had received a call that it was to be 7 minutes, not the original 10 I had been told.  I think that was because when President Hopkins gave me that assignment, he hadn’t received the word that the presidency was going to be reorganized.  So be it.  But it is really hard to put 2 years of your mission experience into 7 minutes.  I am copying it at the end of this blog - so I will remember it forever, because I want to:)!

We sat next to Brother and Sister Lander (Scott & Devenie) prior to beginning (then I had to go up on the stand); Dad teased Brother Lander about being the one chosen as the new Stake President; he smiled and said he was only in Sunday School now - and then teased Dad back about the same thing.  Sunday morning we found out that Brother Lander WAS the new stake president:)!  His new counselors are Brother Wadsworth (Lorraine Wadsworth’s son, for those of you who know our dear piano teacher) and Brother Finlayson.  Brother Wadsworth has been serving almost forever as the bishop of the South Umpqua ward - and was assigned down there before that as they struggled to keep the Canyonville and Myrtle Creek wards alive independently.  Brother Finlayson and his wife (Sherrie) were in the process of putting in papers to serve yet another mission - at least their 3rd and possibly their 4th...I really don’t know for sure.  It will be a wonderful stake presidency - I can’t imagine any better:).

Today (Monday, 4/28) I went with Dad to our 2nd storage unit - which I had just left up to him so far.  Yesterday he wanted to talk about our “vision” of how everything was supposed to be progressing - and ultimately I felt he felt totally insecure about what and how things were going into that storage area, so I said how about I’ll come over with you in the morning?”  And I did.  I sort of suggested some reorganizing and after twenty to thirty minutes it looked pretty good and I think we had a sense of direction as to where we were going (in there at least).  Dad was grateful:).

As we were driving down Oak Hill Road on the way over to the storage room, thoughts were running through my mind (as always lately) about our future (the unknown one) and a song came to my mind.  I ended up googling the words that had come to me... “there’s a place for us, somewhere a place for us...” and was reminded that it came from the musical West Side Story.  There were lots of possibilities for listening to it on the way over and we did.  Brought tears to my eyes - but we decided that it is now our “theme song” for this portion of our life:).

OK - have to go back to sorting stuff - but will put my talk here first so that I will have it:

If the Stake president called you into his office, asked what your future plans were, and you answered something along the lines of putting your life and home in order so that you could put it up for sale and then put in papers to serve a mission, which was our answer In December 2011, you might be as surprised and shocked as I was to hear him say he would like to change our plans - and have us serve in the Oregon Eugene Mission Office, starting as soon as possible. My immediate thought was “How could we possibly do that - our home isn’t sold, we have 25 years and 7 kids of stuff to sort out, not to mention horses, sheep, chickens, etc.)?”  However, he expressed confidence in us; we accepted the call, and over the next couple of months the Lord showed us how - step by step with the help of our children, ward members and missionaries, to take care of all those things - to include finding someone to rent our home and finding a place to live in Eugene and moving there.

It really didn’t occur to me at the time to not accept the call, but over the months that followed I found myself questioning the Lord multiple times.  I struggled to adapt and to learn all the things new to me in the office. Finally, I decided to make a list of my blessings - to help me get out of my valley of depression.  But as I started that list, blessings did not come to my mind while the hardships, the struggles, and the things I had given up came readily.   Going through papers recently that I had collected during our mission I came across that list and decided to keep it as a reminder of where I have been and how far I have come since that time.  Somehow, as I struggled to learn and do what was needed, the Lord opened the eyes of my understanding to recognize and to receive the blessings he was offering to me; and there were SO MANY:  Missionary conferences with general authorities where the spirit was so very strong that I came away uplifted, strengthened and edified,  senior missionary conferences where I got to meet and spend time with other senior missionaries and learn of their trials and successes, fun outings with the other office couples and the couples serving at Camp Alpine - an exquisitely beautiful place for scouting and girls camps, times in the office when things happened that required all of us working together as hard and as fast as we could - for a variety of reasons - and then feeling the success of our efforts,  wonderful times of greeting newly arrived missionaries and doing all we could to help make that arrival a memorable one, times of doing all we could to meet the special needs of a particular missionary...and the list goes on. 

Watching the success of the mission, as defined through  baptisms, reactivations, and often just service given our Heavenly Father’s children was an incredible opportunity.   Sometimes I think we feel too small or inadequate to make a real difference in this world. Well I began to see much more clearly how very much the service given by each and every missionary (young or old) added to the whole and how important each and every one of US is - whether we are serving as a full time proselyting missionary, a full time member-leader support missionary, a part-time service missionary or as a member missionary which we ALL are!   I began to understand that We ALL have something to contribute and the Lord wants us to be actively doing it.  If we don’t see or understand how - prayer, and fasting, if necessary, along with studying Preach My Gospel, will help us find the way.  There are people within the boundaries of every ward & branch whose lives need the touch of faithful, Latter Day Saint members.  

We were called to serve during an amazing time period in the Oregon Eugene Mission - a time in which the age for serving was lowered, resulting in a wonderful influx of younger missionaries; a time when we were testing a device called a TIWI in all the cars which helps safeguard our missionaries and has reduced the accidents in our mission by an incredible amount. A time in which we prepared for, trained for and participated in a division of our mission and the creation of the new Oregon Salem mission.  Looking out over probably 18 to 20 faces of Seniors, from the Portland Mission, from the Oregon Eugene Mission and from the soon-to-be Oregon Salem Mission as we all gathered together to help ensure the smooth beginning of the new mission I could not help but wonder at how perfect the Lord’s plan is.  Where else would you find that number of seniors gathered together, one in purpose, all at their own expense of time and money?  Of course, that thought could have been applied to our Senior Missionary Conferences as well - and what a blessing it has been to meet, become friends with, to learn from and to feel the spirits of so many amazing senior missionaries - and to hear of their miracles:)!  Not to mention getting to work with so many absolutely amazing young men and women and to feel of their spirits and testimonies. It was also a time of testing for Facebook, testing for finding and fixing problems with missionary use of Facebook.  As the referral secretary I was thrilled to receive a referral on the computer one morning for a person who had been taught their first missionary lesson on Facebook and wanted now to be taught by the elders in our area!  How completely amazing is that???  And how amazing was it for me to learn that I could send referrals all over the world, including places like India & China, which I did.  And, just a few weeks prior to our departure, our missionaries were given iPads! How amazing it was to sit with one of them and have him show me some of the things he could do with it.  As he talked and demonstrated things to me I began to see a multitude of positive changes that would happen in the mission and even in the office as our missionaries became adept at using this modern technology for the Lord’s purposes, as opposed to the world’s use of it.  What a gift to enable our missionaries to do more and more.

Of course every thing I have mentioned requires learning and I  learned a LOT!

Besides my physical limitations, my office skills were limited to what I had learned 50 years ago in a summer job before college plus limited experience on personal Mac computers. Note: the computers in the office were NOT Macs!.  Despite my limitations - which were huge! - I was able to contribute in that office and to help to accomplish the necessary work.  And, while doing that I was incredibly blessed.  I watched as other senior missionaries, some with limited finances, some with health problems, and some with other limitations came to serve the Lord in the best way they could - and how He used every one of them.  Above all, I learned that It isn’t how big our individual successes are that counts - it is the combination of all of us working together to make the glorious grand whole of what the Lord wants us to accomplish.  And in this time of hastening His work, what a glorious thing it is to participate in and be a part of it!  As I think of the Savior and His love for each and every one of his children, and of the blessings I’ve received as a member of His Church and all of the love I have felt, how can I NOT want to share that with others?  How can ANY of us not want to do that?  I was sad to hear recently that we had 7 of our Senior Couples in the mission scheduled to return home and none yet scheduled to replace them; Seniors, we are wanted and needed!

I have learned first hand the truth of the following statements:

From Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “When we obey the commandments of the Lord and serve His children unselfishly, the natural consequence is power from God—power to do more than we can do by ourselves. Our insights, our talents, our abilities are expanded because we receive strength and power from the Lord.”4

And from Elder Craig A. Cardon of the Seventy: “If we exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the enabling power of His Atonement strengthens us in our moment of need [see Jacob 4:7], ...

I testify that these things are true and that if we have a desire to serve we are called to the work (as it says in D&C 4:3) and we can do our part - whatever that part is. I am so very grateful for the opportunity given to me and I pray each of us will do all in our power to serve as the Lord would have us do, that we may receive the blessings He is just waiting to pour down upon us.

And if you would like to see and hear marvelous experiences of senior missionaries all over the world, go to lds.org/callings/missionary/senior-missionary-stories and watch the videos - especially the one of the Wymans - a couple who served in the OEM.  You will be amazed - and encouraged:)!