August 27, 2023

I haven't reported on how things are going in the office for a while. This week has been a little frustrating because we have encountered our first problem in the office that we can't solve ourselves! Grrrr! Such a minor little problem but a nusance just the same. The main printer in the office is down and this really leaves Sister Larson in a bind. I have my own little black and white printer but hers is the main office one that prints in color, etc. We have tried everything we could think of, including prayer, to fix it on our own and have failed so far. It has been a great learning experience to discover that the printer actually belongs to the FM group (i.e. the church) and not the mission. We are waiting for the repair man so we are learning to have patience. And before you ask if we have a maintenance agreement on the printer the answer is no. Apparently the church doesn't do maintenance agreements. If something gets old enough for repeated repairs we just get new ones!

Elder Rowan is in the process of rolling out the new cars program called CARS 2! Just like the movie :). It went live on August 15th. When all the kinks are out and everyone knows how to use it, it will be fantastic. It means the missionaries no longer have to track their daily mileage manually and mail in gas receipts at the end of the month. Instead they record it all in an APP on their phone and it will upload to our system so we can reconcile. It has been a rough beginning but hopefully by Sept 1st it will be up and running great for all the missionaries.

The missionaries all have MSF cards (Missionary Support Funds) that are debit cards through Bank of America. The church has decided to switch over to a bank in Hong Kong so I have a week to distribute all new cards to the missionaries and teach them how to use them. When I was first notified of this switch I thought it was bogus. A bank in Hong Kong? Sounds like fraud to me. But I was wrong and they are the real deal. We are a worldwide church after all! I am sure I will be getting lots of phone calls for a while. My old boss always encouraged us to work better, faster, cheaper and the church seems to have this same philosphy. They are always changing things and trying to make them better! Here is a picture of the office staff sorting and alphabetizing the new cards by zone so I can distribute. It was a team effort and I am grateful for all the support we give one another in the office.

Not to leave Housing out, yesterday we toured some missionaries apartment while out on a field trip. It is always interesting to go into these apartments and see what condition they are in. During our tour Elder Rowan and Sister Larson decided to give us a little improptu concert. This apartment had no shortage of musical instruments!

Another responsibility we have in the office is to take missionaries to the airport when they depart. We also take them when they have to go to a consulate in another state to get a Visa for a foreign country. And then sometimes we have to take them when they are leaving earlier than planned. This week we had two sisters leave because it was decided that a Service Mission would be a better fit for them. Sister Larson and I decided that we should take them ourselves so that we could offer them love and support. It was scary to drive in to the Portland airport on my own but I did it! It was a great experience because these two sweet sisters had the best attitude and were so excited to still be able to serve, just in a little different way.

We were able to visit the temple this week and that is always a joy. We also heard from our neice that our brother-in-law Roger was able to visit the temple after being away from it for many years. Roger is not doing well and is currently on hospice. He wanted to make sure he was "recommended to the Lord." What a blessing it was that he felt well enough to go and to actually achieve this goal. We love him and wish we could have been there!

Yesterday we took a field trip out to the coast with the Larsons. Elder Larson had never been to Lincoln City so we went that direction. We visited Lincoln City, Depot Bay, and Newport. It was an overcast day but still warm enough to enjoy and there was no wind! We had a great time! We walked on the beach, we played on the rocks, we saw fantastic overlooks, lighthouses, and the Devils Punchbowl. We even saw a number of whales swimming in the cove. One was named Marrissa and they said she had been visiting the cove for 11 years. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of that but it was an added bonus!

Finally, I wanted to share something that Elder Rowan said this week to our missionaries during District Council. He told them that when we are in the office the office lights are just normal and we can go about doing our work. But when they come in the office it was like the "Brights" go on and everything is just so much better and wonderful! That pretty much sums up how we feel about our mission!

August 20, 2023

What a week we have had! I don't even know where to start but I guess I will start at the beginning. Our week started out fun with a visit from Ryan and his family. They drove in Sunday night to stay with Tracey and her family for two days. We drove up to Traceys to be with them when they arrived. It was so good to see them after 5 months. To top things off Tracey was also enjoying a visit from her childhood friend Melody so that just added to the fun. We enjoyed a yummy dinner and visiting and then were visited by their friendly neighborhood bear! They have a small black bear that likes to visit their yard to eat the deer food so that was pretty exciting for everyone visiting. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!

The next day we were able to take an extra day off from the office to hang out with everyone. We went and visited Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. It was a fun day and interesting to learn all about when the volcano errupted in 1980. It was amazing to us how much regrowth has occurred in the 43 years since it happened.

Ryan's family then took off to spend a few days out at the coast. They had a great time! Back at the office we were dealing with a few personal emergencies. A beloved family member was having a difficult time and it was hard to be so far away. We prayed for this person and asked for inspiration to know what to do. Heavenly Father answered our prayers and sent some angels to help this person when we couldn't. It was a sweet reminder that our Heavenly Father is mindful of all of us and that he often sends others to be there for us. How grateful we are for beloved friends who answered the call when we asked for help!

We were just barely getting past one emergency when another occurred. We received a notification from Sandy City that we had a possible water leak. Apparently at our home in Sandy we had been using 10 gal of water continuously every hour for the last 5 days. How grateful we are for modern technology that allowed Sandy City to detect this and then notify us. We quickly had people at the house go walk the yard to look for a possible leak. Nothing! They searched the inside of the house for a leak and again nothing! It was then that we remembered how many homes in our neighborhood had water main breaks in their front yards. But how do you figure out if that is the problem? We had no idea. So we started calling neighbors who had a water main break between the street and the house. Brian & Cheryl Stone told us their experience and offered to share the name of who did their repair. Kent England told us about turning off the water to the sprinklers and the house and then seeing if the water meter was still running. That sounded like a great idea but we weren't there and couldn't do that ourselves. Kent came to our rescue and agreed to go over and check that out for us. Sure enough that was the problem! We gave Brian & Cheryl's plumber a call, they came the next day, confirmed the diagnosis and scheduled a repair. It is not done yet but again how grateful we are to friends and neighbors who have come to our rescue. They are truly answers to our prayers!

Ryan and his family came back to stay in Newberg for another two days before heading home. It was great to just hang out with them, eating and playing games. We worked in a visit to the Evergreen Aviation Museum which is just 20 minutes from our apartment over in McMinnville. Who knew that it was a lifelong goal of Ryan's to see the Spruce Goose which just happens to be housed in that museum? We learned all sorts of interesting things about airplanes as well as the Spruce Goose. Do you know why they found beach balls inside the lining of the Spruce Goose when they took it apart and put it back together again? (If it broke apart on the test flight than the beach balls would keep the different parts of the plane afloat). How many flights did it make? (Only 2) How much did it cost to build? ($18 million).

We finished the week off with Ryan and his family with a short visit to Silver Falls. The water was not flowing as much as normal, probably because it is August. But the trees, the ferns, the walkways are all still beautiful so we enjoyed a nice little walk to the viewing area. We are so grateful that Ryan and his family made the trip up to visit us. We love them so much!!

It would be easy to get discouraged after a week like this one but instead we are just convinced that Satan is working hard on us. Last week we put in our official paperwork to ask to have our mission extended from 12 months to 18 months and on Monday the approval came through. Our new release date is September 6, 2024. Satan knows that we are doing good things and growing our testimonies and he doesn't want that so he is throwing challenges are way. Too bad for him! We've got this!!!

August 13, 2023

It is a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest this week. It is going to be 102 degrees today and 107 degrees tomorrow! I think it will be good to stay indoors! Airconditioning in our part of Oregon is different. It does not usually get that hot here and when it does it does not stay hot for long. The apartments we rent for the missionaries and even our apartments do not have central airconditioning. Instead people use window airconditioners or fans and in the case of our apartment we have an airconditioner in the wall in our living room. When it starts to cool down all the a/c units from the windows are removed until the next year.

Since it is August that also means that it is Blackberry season! Hooray for us! We love the blackberries and it is so cool that we can just stop along the road and pick however many we want. Yesterday we did our first picking and had blackberries with ice cream for dessert and blackberries with our yogurt for breakfast this morning. For those that don't know, the blackberries grow wild here and are everywhere. The locals hate them because they are an invasive plant and will take over if you don't keep them cut down.

We had fun times in the office this week. It was President Phillips birthday Monday so we had a breakfast for him and invited all the local missionaries since it was their "P" day (their were 20 of us total). President Phillips is a humble, reserved man and even though he said he was out of his "comfort zone," he agreed to pose for a picture for us :).

It was also zone conferences this week and that is always a great time seeing and visiting with all the missionaries. I didn't take pictures of all the missionaries this time because you have seen them before. But here is a picture of me standing at the truck passing out the vehichle inspection clipboards. Notice the gray wagon in the back ground. We brought that from home thinking we might use it when going to the beach or other outings but it has come in really handy at car inspections. I pull that around as Sister Larson and I go about gathering up clipboards as we go from car to car checking the tread on the tires. The skills we have learned!

The third day of zone conferences is always "over the mountain," in either Bend or Redmond. They are both about 3.5 hrs away. It is a beautiful drive out there through the mountains and we have attempted to do some site seeing every time we are out that way. This time I identified some waterfalls that I thought we might enjoy visiting. They were Sahalie & Koosah Falls. They ended up being spectacular!!! You know me and waterfalls. The hike was about 1 mile round trip to see it all and was so doable. We hiked along the edge of the McKenzie River in a beautiful forest of trees. We are excited to go back again in the fall when the colors have changed!

For Zone Conferences this week we studied the talk, "Meek and Lowly of Heart," by David A. Bednar. One of the things I love most about zone conference is the chance to study and discuss one of the divine characteristics of our Savior Jesus Christ. This is such a good talk with so many thoughts on what it means to be "meek." I think often we confuse meekness with being timid and that is not what it is at all and this talk was such a good reminder of that!

August 6, 2023

As I typed the date for this blog entry I realized that today is our 5 month anniversary for being out on our mission. The time is flying by and in many ways it feels like we have always been here. We have and are learning so much and are grateful that we feel like we know what we are doing now. I can tell you today that I am glad for Sabbath Days! It has been a busy week and we are tired!!

This week Sister Larson and I prepared and served two meals to groups of 50-60. The 1st meal was for our monthly MLC. After debating for days of what to prepare we settled on Swedish Meatballs over rice with Normandy vegetables, rolls, and Snickerdoodle cookies for dessert. It was a fairly simple meal to prepare but it was HOT in the kitchen. We won't be doing that meal in the summer again.

A few days later we served dinner to our newly arriving missionaries and their trainers. We normally serve Costco lasagna for this meal but we were planning on 60 and did not have enough oven space for that many pans in the oven. So instead we served Fried Chicken from the Fred Meyer deli, baked potatoes, carrots, rolls, and rainbow sherbet for dessert. It should have been a simple meal too but was made a little more stressful when Fred Meyer called at 10:00 that morning and said their fryers were broken and they couldn't fill our order. We scrambled around and found a Fred Meyer 30 minutes away that could do it. It meant a little extra drive but in the end it all worked out. Whew!

It was definitely a bittersweet week as 26 of our missionaries departed for home. The missionaries all have an interview with the Mission President before going home so we had many of them coming and going in the office on Thursday. It was so fun to spend time with them and hear them bear testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ! They pretty much took over my desk area but I wouldn't have it any other way!!!

Here they are preparing to leave for the airport!

And here they are once they got to the airport!

With departures come new arrivals to take their place. More missionaries for us to love! We got 13 new missionaries and 6 reassigns who will be here for a short time waiting for Visas. Our Mission President tries to pick the best of the best to be trainers for the new missionaries. There is so much for them to learn and absorb they look like deer in the headlights when they get here. Here is a picture of all our trainers this time and what the luggage looks like all lined up for the new arrivals.

This week I want to talk about the amount of talent our missionaries have. They are amazing! They can sing like angels, play musical instruments, etch in leather, and draw and paint fantastically! That is not to mention all the sports they play and the drama clubs they have been in. They are truly inspiring! Below is a picture of Sisters Finlayson & Womack. Sister Womack plays the piano beautifully and Sister Finlayson found a cello at a member's house that she could play. These two sisters prepared a musical number, I Need Thee Every Hour, to play at a baptism of a Spanish "friend" they had been teaching. They practiced it for us and gave us chills!

Elder King showed off the leather etching he did for his scripture cover. The pictures he etched represented Oregon to him.

The woman in the purple shirt is Cindy Elzinga. She is a Service Missionary who has been teaching Family History to our missionaries for over three years. She is from New Zealand and has a great accent. For over three years she has been driving to all the Zones in our mission and teaching all the missionaries how to find ancestors on Family Search. She is amazing and VERY loved by our missionaries. I am so glad that she has been willing to share her skills and knowledge with our missionaries! The missionaries have been able to bless the lives of others on both sides of the veil!

This week we also had a Sisters Devotional which we do in our area right before transfers. The sisters share what they learned during their current assignments. For this Devotional we were asked to read "Forget Me Not," by Elder Uchtdorf. A fantastic conference talk from October, 2011. We discussed the talk and how it applied to us. Relevant to everyone, no matter our age or place in life! In the talk Elder Uchtdorf references the Forget Me Not flower. After our discussion Sister Wilson presented us with a hand painted picture of a flower done specifically for each one of us. Mine was a Peony! It will be a treasure I keep always! To conclude the evening we passed around note cards and each sister wrote something for every other sister there that they admired about them. Another treasure!!

To end on a humerous note I am going to conclude with a picture of some Elders apartment that Sister Larson took. She went with her husband to install an air conditioner and was surprised to find (4) beds all lined up in the living room. Apparently these missionaries did not want bunk beds so they kept the bedrooms for study rooms and lined up all their beds single file in the living room. Sister Larson said it reminded her of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!