September 8, 2024

This may very likely be my last blog documenting our mission. What a wonderful adventure it has been!! We have loved every minute of it and it is hard to believe it has come to an end. We were released on Thursday night by our Stake President, Robbie Yates. He is new since we left on our mission and we don't know him but he was very kind and let us talk about our mission experience. It was hard to go home and take off our badges. There are moments already where I feel like it was all a dream. A beautiful, wonderful, incredible dream that we will never forget!

It was a busy week working on leaving Oregon. It started on Sunday when we took Larsons with us to go and visit Tracey and her family. This wasn't really a goodbye because we will be back to visit them often. Tracey made us a yummy dinner then we walked the forest and played a little Bucket Golf. I actually didn't play too bad this time. Tracey's house is getting so empty with just Alyssa at home now. I know these changes have been hard for Tracey with Hayden in Boston and Danica in Boise. Hopefully Alyssa will enjoy all the attention :).

We had our last Office Staff meeting on Monday morning. Just as we expected the President took us all out to Black Bear Diner for brunch. But that was after pictures and a special musical number written especially for us by our very own Elder Larson. It has become tradition for him to write departing tunes for the Sr missionaries. Ours was set to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme and Elder & Sister Larson were joined by the young missionaries in performing it for us. It was so fun! At Black Bear Diner the President spoiled us all. You want shakes to go with your meals? Sure, no problem!!

The rest of Monday and early Tuesday we spent finishing our packing and cleaning. Then we picked up the trailer and headed to MLC to say our final goodbyes to many of the missionaries.

After MLC some of the missionaries followed us back to our apartment and helped us load the trailer. It really is true when they say many hands make light work. We had the whole trailer loaded in less than 45 minutes. We appreciated their help so much!

Wednesday morning we were off and headed for home. By then I felt numb and utterly exhausted. It had been such an emotional roller coaster. We dropped our keys off at the office and said even one more last goodbye! By then I already felt replaced. The new Sr couples had taken over our desks and were already hard at work. Just as it should be!

The best thing about coming home was getting to wrap my arms around Ryan and giving him a great big hug. He starts his chemo on Thursday so we are here just in time to give them support in whatever way we can.

Rachel and Chris were amazing helpers. They met us at the house and helped us unload everything quickly. Then the work began as we cleaned, unpacked, and tried to remember where everything went. The house was left in reasonably good shape but I still felt like I needed to clean and wipe down every surface before putting things away. Women are like that sometimes!! It has been exhausting but we are making progress. The kids all came back on Saturday and helped with some of the work which was very much appreciated. They cleaned windows, washed doors, hung up clothes, and connected the electronics. Sunday we attended church in our ward and it was so, so, so good to see everyone. We look forward to visiting even more at Empty Nesters tomorrow night and a Relief Society Activity on Tuesday. We returned at just the right time :).

Our "Homecoming" talks will be next Sunday, September 15th at 10:30 AM. We look forward to seeing lots of other friends and family there! Next week I will close this blog with copies of our talks and departing testimonies.

September 1, 2024

It is hard to believe that this was our last full week in the mission field. When I post next week we will be home!! This was a busy week training, wrapping up everything on our desks, and cleaning and packing up the apartment. I think we are just about ready. We will spend Sunday afternoon at Tracey's, then Monday the President will take all the Office Staff out to Black Bear for one last goodbye. Tuesday we will attend MLC and then the missionaries will follow us home and pack up our trailer. Wednesday we hope to drive away by noon.

Last Sunday was our last District Council with these cute young missionaries. They have made us feel loved and valued all week. It will be nice to get our Sunday nights back but I am sure we will miss it. Looking on the positive it will be fun to have Sunday dinner with family and play games too!

Monday was exciting because we got to be on a group call with our very own Elder Parker Rowan. His family patched us in and it was so good to see him!!! We should have been doing that every month. Now that we know how fun it is we will have to do it more often. He is so much like all of our missionaries here that it will be a good reminder of all those missionaries we are leaving behind. We had to laugh because just last week Elder Parker Rowan turned too soon in a parking spot and scraped the car beside him. We have lost count of how many incidents just like that Elder Jack Rowan has had to deal with! I was worried how Parker was handling things about his dad's illness but he seemed in good spirits and was taking things in stride so far.

Tuesday we had a long day of training but then we were able to go and hang out with the Hermanas for dinner and dessert. Elder Rowan has loved the opportunity he has had on our mission to speak Spanish with our young missionaries. They think it is pretty cool too that he can talk to them. He is going to miss that so this was a good ending to his Spanish experience. We headed over to Woodburn to take Hermana Anderson, Pace, and Mickelson to dinner. They wanted to take Elder Rowan to an authentic Mexican restaurant and it really did feel like we were in Mexico. There were lots of locals there and I even had Tacos Al Pastor! We weren't ready to part ways after dinner so we walked around the corner to a Mexican ice cream shop called El Paisanito. It was such a fun night!

On Wednesday night Elder Rowan put his last batch of cars up for sale. The batch included the beloved Toyota Tacoma that the Assistants drove for a good part of our mission. It was the car Elder Reil had his accident in. When they had the accident a piece of the front fender came off the car. The Elders saved it and then it became a "thing" in the office. If you drove the Tacoma you could sign the fender. Lots of Elders (and Sisters too) came in, got the key from Elder Rowan, and drove it around the parking lot. Then they signed the fender. Sister Larson and I decided we wanted to sign the fender too, so on Thursday we drove it and then had a signing party. Elder Rowan and Elder Larson had previously signed it. Turns out the church won't let us sell the Tacoma because there is pending litigation but when we drive away from here on Wednesday we will have the fender with us as a souvenir for Elder Reil. He is going to school in Utah now and promises to drop by!!!

On Thursday I got my hair cut for the last time in Oregon. The Sr Sister missionaries have all been going to the same hair stylist while we have been here. And the Sr Sisters before us went to her too. She is not a member but cuts the hair of several members and was recommended. Her name is Traci Mashburn and she is a sweetheart. She immediately puts you at ease and can keep up a steady conversation. At one point I was hoping to give her a Book of Mormon but it just never felt right. She loves Jesus and has been active in her community church in the past. Her best friend is a member of the church so hopefully someday the time will be right for her to learn more.

One of the biggest things stressing me out (after Ryan of course) about going home is having to give our "Homecoming Talk". It is so dumb that things like that get to me. I have been praying and pondering about it for a few weeks now and was finally able to get some thoughts down. As part of my talk I wanted to include some thoughts from our young missionaries about how they have changed on their missions. So one night I sent out a text to a random group of about 12 different companionships asking them that question. The responses I got back brought me to tears and reminded me again (as if I needed a reminder) of why we have loved our mission so much. These missionaries are amazing and give me so much hope for the future!!!

By Friday we were tired of training and things were slowing down. I pondered what to do to fill up our last full day in the office. The answer came to me! We should play pickleball!!! So funny. I have not played pickleball our whole mission except with family on (2) occassions. When we first got here we thought we would play often but it just never worked out. Elder Rowan hurt his knee playing with the young Elders early on and by the time he was better I was having problems with my sciatica pain. Then his shoulder started to ache and so it went. The Kanzlers (she is my replacement) are big pickleball players and they were really hoping they could play with us. I don't know what came over me but suddenly I wanted to play them. I was pretty sure they were going to destroy us but it turns out that we are very evenly matched. It is too bad we won't have more chances to play with them. And guess what? We actually beat them 2 games out of 3. It was a proud moment for me!!!

Our last activity for the week was participating in a zone wide service project. We got to volunteer at the McMinnville Air Show, featuring the Thunderbirds. In the morning we volunteered as ticket scanners and bag checkers and then in the afternoon we got to watch the show. It was HOT!!! We volunteered at this same activity last year but it was later in September and cooler. The most fun was watching the young missionaries get so excited as the planes did their flyovers. Several of them went home convinced they want to be pilots now :).

August 25, 2024

This week was intense! I spent the 1st part of the week in training with Sister Kanzler. She is going to do great. She has the skill set to do the job and hopefully my "Financial Bible" has the instructions she needs to help her when I am gone. She just needs to slow down and read through them :). Next week hopefully we will have a chance to do that and take things at a slower pace.

We had the opportunity on Monday to have a farewell dinner with the Weeds. I wish I would have gotten a picture. It has been great to continue our relationship with them since they live right here in Newberg and we have the chance to see them on occasion. They come to Utah frequently too so we plan on seeing them there too!

Tuesday was Waffle Day for the McMinnville Zone missionaries who live in Newberg. Okay, it is really the day the missionaries have interviews with the President, but Sister Phillips feeds them waffles while they wait their turns. She always feeds the Sr Missionaries too so we have just taken to calling it "Waffle Day."

Tuesday was tense while we waited for news on Ryan's PET scan and appointment with the oncologist. Our prayers were answered when he received the best possible outcome given what we already knew. The cancer has not metastasised or spread past the lymph nodes. It is Stage 3 with 70% cure rate. He will do 3 months of chemo and then another 2 to 3 months of radiation with chemo. It will be hard, hard, hard but the outcome looks good. He will be busy the next few weeks establishing base lines on things like his eye sight and teeth. He has to have an MRI and they have to place the PIC line for his chemo. It looks like his chemo will start by mid September after we are already home. Although the procedures are not fun it is good to at least have a plan and start moving forward.

Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday we attended our last Zone Conferences. They were emotionally exhausting as we said our goodbyes to all the missionaries we won't see again before we leave. It is comforting to know that in a year or so we will have out 1st Missionary Reunion and will be able to reconnect with many of them. Missionaries attending their last Zone Conference always give their departing testimony. Since we attended all (3) days of Zone Conferences, lucky us got to share our testimonies all (3) times. It was hard to get through those but I am grateful we could leave our testimonies with them and that they know we love our Savior, Jesus Christ, and that is why we have served for the last 1.5 years. Our Zone Conference theme this time was on the Prophet Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel. It was powerful and brought to rememberance many experiences we have had that have solidified our testimonies. It was a good theme to end on! Elder Rowan told the missionaries that if he were to write a book about our mission it would start with, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." We took so many pictures with missionaries at Zone Conference that I decided to make a collage of some of them just to document our experience.

The last place we had on our bucket list to visit before we went home was Crater Lake. We discovered it was only 1 1/2 hours south of Bend where we had our last Zone Conference. It was just too close to pass up so we got permission from the President to take a little detour on our way home. Friday night we stayed at Diamond Lake which was supposed to be only 30 minutes from Crater Lake. It was a cold and rainy night and prepared us well for the next day.

Events for the trip did not go as planned but in the end it all worked out! A few days prior to the trip we found out the north entrance to Crater Lake was closed because they needed the road for the fire fighters. That made our 1/2 hr drive to Crater Lake a 1 1/2 hr drive. The Larsons were going to do a boat tour which started at 9:30 AM and they had to be there at 8:30. That meant we had to leave Diamond Lake at 7:00. We were determined for things to work out so we started early on Saturday morning and actually made it to Crater Lake in good time. As we got closer to Crater Lake the fog and mist set in, but not before we snapped a photo at the entrance. There had been a prediction of snow and sure enough, we hit snow once we entered the park! We couldn't believe it!

We were still hopeful the boat ride would happen but when we got over there we found that all boat rides for the day were cancelled. We had purchased an auto audio tour of Crater Lake so the Larsons joined in with us and we enjoyed a nice drive around the rim of the lake. By 10:00 AM the fog had lifted and the day turned out great! We even made it back over to the trail leading down to the water so the Larsons could hike down and bring us back some pretty pictures. Crater Lake was beautiful!

We ended the day with a stop at the last Oregon waterfall on my bucket list. Salt Creek Falls is the 2nd highest waterfall in Oregon and just 50 ft from the parking lot you can get this beautiful view of it. It is in a remote area of Oregon and I never thought we would be over in that direction. But it just happened to be on the route home from Crater Lake. Lucky me!!!

August 18, 2024

And so the goodbyes and hellos begin! It has been a busy week with Transfers and New Arrivals. This is the last time we will participate in these events. It is hard to believe that our time on the mission is winding down.

The week started last Sunday with Sister's Devotional. Last Sunday I was having a particularly hard day thinking about all that Ryan is going to have to go through. Our Relief Society lesson was on trials and eventually I just had to get up and leave the lesson. When I got to Sister's Devotional later that night I was still having a hard time holding it together. One of our sweet Sister missionaries, Sister Bodily, saw that I was struggling. I told her why and she came and sat with me. She said that every time she saw me struggling she would reach over and hold my hand. Our devotional that night was on having the image of Christ engraved on our countenances. That night I saw his image on her face and on all the faces of our sweet sister missionaries! These Sister Devotionals have been such beautiful, spirit filled meetings and I have loved them!!!

Early in the week we got good news regarding Ryan's PET scan and oncology appointment. Prayers answered! Originally the appointments were scheduled two weeks out which seemed like an eternity when we just wanted answers and it was hard not to think about the cancer just growing during all that time. But now the appointments have been moved up almost a week and the PET scan is tomorrow and the oncology appointment Tuesday. Tender mercies for sure!

With Departures on Wednesday the office started to get busy on Monday with departing missionaries coming in for their interviews with the President. Elder Rowan had to leave for his final appointment with Tom to have some dental work done and Sister Larson & I went shopping for the New Arrival dinner on Wednesday. My last shopping trip with the mission credit card :). The energy and buzz in the office started to build that afternoon and it was fun to visit with some of the departing missionaries. The President buys dinner for all of them Monday night and he is always quick to tell them to buy for the office couples too!

Tuesday was Transfers so a busy day for Elder Rowan & Elder Larson. Sister Larson and I held down the office and visited with all the missionaries in and out during the day. The departing missionaries attended the temple with President & Sister Phillips in the morning. Sister Elzinga was the Family History Specialist the 1st half of our mission and knows the missionaries well. She always likes to come in and say goodbye to them when they get back from the temple. It was bittersweet to know this was my goodbye to her also. She truly was AMAZING! She provided every missionary with a birthday treat and taught them to love Family History (especially during Covid). She is an expert and then some in doing Family History. It was a sad day when the missionaries could no longer work with her except on their P day.

One exciting thing that did happen on Transfer Day was that we got Elder Nielsen back to Newberg. He is now one of the Assistants and we will love having these last few weeks with him!

When the young issionaries leave on Departure day it is tradition to have a group picture with everyone leaving. This time it was our turn to join in the picture as departing missionaries. Sister Larson prepares a folder for each missionary with their flight itineraries, boarding passes, letter from the President, etc. She also does her Matchy, Matchy thing so of course she had to prepare one for Elder Rowan & I.

Once the departing missionaries are off it is time to prepare and greet the arriving missionaries that same day. It was the last missionary meal I will prepare before leaving. It also happened to be Sister Phillips birthday the next day so it was fun to celebrate her.

The young missionaries were not the only ones to arrive in our mission this week. Elder & Sister Kanzler (from Sacramento California) also arrived. Sister Kanzler will be my replacement and I am excited to get started on our training. When I first arrived I did not have very good written instructions. The previous Referral Secretary created a great training manual for the General Secretary and we have used it often, even referring to it as the "Bible." I wanted to leave the Financial Secretary with her own "Financial Bible" so I have been working hard on it the last month or so. I think it will be helpful to her, especially since we only have about 9 days to actually train together.

We started training on Friday and that evening President & Sister Phillips took us all to dinner at La Sierra to welcome the Kanzlers. This is the Kanzler's third mission but first office mission. I think they are going to do great! The Lord is in charge and everything always works out!

Saturday we visited the Portland Temple for the last time while we are here and enjoyed the spirit we feel there and the beauty of the temple grounds. Later in the day we we went for a long drive through the hills and winding roads of the back country and just tried to soak it all in. We did soak it in, because in true Oregon style, it poured rain on us :).