December 31, 2023

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!! Tomorrow it will be 2024! We are looking forward to a fantastic year continuing our work in the Oregon Salem Mission. Now that we mostly know what we are doing we can work on building relationships, strenthening our testimonies, and sharing the gospel more. Our district leader has challenged us Senior Missionaries to give out at least one copy of the Book of Mormon. Elder Larson has already succeeded by giving one to one of our Landlords. This is one of my New Year's resolutions. We will find a way!

Christmas Day was a fun, exhausting day! We were able to facetime with all of the kids and share in what they got for Christmas. We started out with Ryan and family and it was extra special because Parker was on the call with us too. A special shout out to my friend Pam Fenlon who made missionary pillowcases and mailed them to Parker and his companion. They were happy when they opened them and said the mission provided ones were rough and these felt much better! It was so good to see Parker's smiling, happy face! Ryan and Rachel's families were able to spend Christmas Eve together so that made this mama's heart happy to know that everyone was well taken care of. Next up was Rachel & Chris and I am always so impressed with the thought and care they take in getting each other gifts. We had a quick call with Tracey even though we had just seen them the day before because they had to show off the new kitty Alyssa got for Christmas. She has wanted a cat forever so she is one happy girl! Our last call was with Matt and family and it is always fun to go child by child to see what each of them got. We are so blessed with modern technology which allows us to see and talk with them just as if we were there!!

In the midst of all the family conversations we were hard at work preparing Christmas dinner for us and 8 other missionaries. We had the Larson's, Sister Cox & Sister Ebmeyer, Sister Walker & Sister Jacobsen, and Hermana Pace & Hermana Winsor. The Sisters had no other dinner invitations so they got to be our adopted family for the day! We were very lucky to have them!!

For dinner we had ham (left over from MLC which we had frozen), loaded mashed potato casserole, sweet potato casserole, broccoli, spinach salad, rolls, and frozen raspberry salad. It was all yummy and then we had ham & cheese on rolls with chips later in the evening. The Elders joined us later in the evening for games and it was quite the party!! We played Heads Up, some played Hand & Foot, and then the Elders left and we ended the evening watching Testaments! What a wonderful day it was!!!

It was a quiet week in the office after all the activity leading up to Christmas. But there are always things to be done so we still kept busy. Elder Rowan delt with car issues and I handled the finances. There were a few extra things to get done for year end making sure all the expenses in 2023 were entered for the year but it was not the year end crunch I am used to from my working days. Hallelujah!! One of the extra responsibilities I have taken on is keeping the Mission History. The Church requires every mission to turn in an annual history of the mission. It used to be that it was printed, put in a 3-ring binder and mailed in to Salt Lake. Now we just have to have a digital copy of it that we submit on a thumb drive. I worked on that this week learning how to edit and combine PDF files in Adobe Acrobat and that was fun. I am always glad when I can learn something new :).

Friday Tracey and her family made the trip down to Newberg to play pickleball with us and go out to lunch at Mod Pizza! What a fun afternoon!! I haven't played pickleball since we came on our mission so it felt good to be back on the court. I thought they would last an hour but we actually managed to play two hours and it was really fun. I just wish we had remembered to take pictures!

Friday night we were invited with the Larson's to dinner at Hermana's Finlayson, Burt, & Petersen. Early on in our mission these same Sisters had us to dinner as a thank you for the new apartment they moved into but this time they just wanted to visit with us. We marveled at how far we have come at knowing the missionaries. For instance, we now know that Sister Burt has a boyfriend on a mission in Korea, Sister Finlayson plays the Cello beautifully, and Sister Petersen is a great cook and an even better piano player.

Saturday was our P day so we spent some time putting Christmas away and then doing a few things in the office. We had some Kohl's Cash to spend and then headed up to Washington Square Mall where the Light the World Giving Machine has been set up since December 19th. Turns out that outside of Utah the Giving Machine doesn't have all the International Charity offerings. Instead they partner with local charities in the area to support them. What a nice idea to give back to the community. Before we got there we had decided we wanted to buy a water well because we felt it would have lasting value to a community. That wasn't offered at the Giving Machine at the mall so we had to go online to purchase it but that was okay. How cool is that to know we bought a well for a community! At the mall we were also able to buy a goat that will help a woman provide income for her family. The Giving Machine is AMAZING and such a fun way to donate to a charity!

Today is New Year's Eve but it looks like it will be a quiet day for us since it is Sunday. Fun fact is that the date today is 123123. Not sure that will ever happen again! We did have a great experience at church this morning though. Our Mission President was contacted by one of the wards in the Stake to see if the Senior Missionaries could come and talk about missions for senior couples. They were having a 5th Sunday discussion on Elder Rasband's talk from General Conference, "How Great Will Be Your Joy." We felt a bit like celebrities wearing our missionary badges and being the center of attention. It was fun to share the knowledge we have gained about missions and hopefully inspire other senior couples to consider going. We joined with the Larson's, the Ellis' (she was the mission nurse serving from home right before we got here), and the Hall's (a couple from the ward we spoke in that served a MLS mission in Australia from 2015-2017). Here we are pictured together.

As this year draws to a close we would like to leave our testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He has not promised us that things would be easy but he has promised us that he will be with us--to help us and to strenghen us. In my reading this week I found this scripture in Alma 36:3, "Whosoever shall put their thrust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day." I hope each of you feels the love and support from our Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ. We love you too!

December 26, 2023

I know this post is late but that just goes to show how busy the last week has been. It wouldn't be the holidays if we didn't pack something into every day. But I am grateful for the fun, busy time that helped us get through the holidays while being far away from most of our family and friends. This year was all about new friends, some family, and lots of "adopted" family!

We started the week out on Tuesday feeding the missionaries. In the ward we attend we can sign up to feed the Elders who also attend that ward. But the Sisters are assigned to the other ward in our building and that ward mission leader only has people sign up to feed the Sisters on the weekend. We were feeling especially sad for the Sisters so we told them to come to dinner too! There are (4) Elders & (4) Sisters so it would have been (8) missionaries but the Assistants had to travel over the mountain at the last minute and couldn't come. Probably a good thing since our little kitchen struggles to accommodate a crowd that size. We made them Salisbury Steak, Mac & Cheese, carrots, breadsticks, and Butterfinger Ice Cream Pie. We always look forward to the message they share with us.

Wednesday night we headed to Hillsboro to do some last minute Christmas shopping. It is about a 30-40 minute drive from here and it was scary coming home in the fog on the narrow winding roads through the hills. Our eyes are not as good as they used to be! Thursday was our night to do a gift exchange with the Sr Missionaries. It was only the Larson's, Sister Incze and ourselves but we had a great time. Sister Larson made us hot chocolate and cinnamon breadsticks and then we opened gifts. We received blankets, books, jams, butter sauce, and a cute heart keepsake. Elder Rowan received a police remote control car from Elder Larson since he is the "Car Police" of the mission. I caught Elder Rowan playing with it a few days later as happy as a kid in a candy store. He said he never had his own remote control car before :).

We finished the night up with going out to look at Christmas lights. Newberg really gets in to the spirit of things and I was even able to find a map on Facebook of all the best places to go in Newberg. We only hit a few of them but it was fun. We even found a house like the one at home where the lights are synced with music you turn your radio to. It was just like sitting in our neighborhood in Sandy!

Friday night we hosted District Council and it was really special. Elder Cordray plans the agenda for our District Councils and we are so impressed with him. He has been on his mission less than 6 months and came out immediately from graduating from high school so he is still only 18 years old. To begin our meetings each companionship has to tell a miracle they had that week, counsel about someone they are teaching, set a goal, and put names on the prayer roll. This week after the business was concluded we watched a Christmas message from 2020 by our new apostle, Elder Kearon. It was called, "Bringing Christmas Into Focus." Afterward, each missionary bore their testimony of the Savior and what Christmas means to them. The spirit and love in the room was strong!!

Saturday we were able to spend time with Tracey's family and celebrate Hayden's 21st birthday. For our Christmas present this year Tracey gave us an "experience." They wanted to do something all together so they got us all tickets to go see "Cirque Dreams Holidaze" downtown at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. It is a beautiful theater similiar to the Capitol theater at home only bigger and even more fancy. We started out at Red Robin which Hayden had been dreaming of. The restaurant was short on help so we had a long wait but they made it worth the wait for Hayden by bringing him all the Campfire sauce he wanted. :)

Hayden will graduate from college this spring in Criminal Justice but hopes to get into some kind of journalism/reporting/podcasts. His girlfriend Joey is also graduating and they are headed back east this summer for her to attend law school. We are excited to see where the future takes Hayden. He is super smart, funny, and has an opinion about everything!

After dinner we headed to the theater to watch the show. This is what the reviews said about it, "This annual tradition wraps a Broadway-style production around an infusion of contemporary circus arts. As lights dim and the music swells, audiences will have visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads as a fantastical cast of holiday storybook characters come to life." It was a fun and different holiday show--part circus, part Nutcracker, part hokey--but always entertaining!

Sunday we joined with Tracey again to attend church with her and her family and exchange gifts. The kids are all growing up and this year they got the boring gift of carry-on suitcases. I am sure traveling is in their future so hopefully they will be something that will last them for a long time to come. We made sugar cookies, played games and Tom tried on the apron that came with his BQ set!

We got home in time to join with the Larsons and some of our missionaries for an old fashioned re-enactment of the Nativity story. This is a tradition that the Larsons do every year and we were glad we could keep the tradition alive for them when they were far away from home and family.

This post is getting pretty long so I think I will end the week there and save Christmas Day for next week. After all, I was meant to be writing this on Sunday before Christmas had even happened.......

December 17, 2023

Christmas is almost here! Just a week away. I am so grateful for all the reminders around us of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. He can change lives if we just let him! That is what this missionary work is all about and I am so grateful I get to be a part of it.

This week started out great. I mentioned last week that we had some former missionaries come for a visit and Monday we got to share in a fun breakfast with them and ask them all about their lives. It was a blast! Pictured below are Elder Williams, Elder Hyde, Elder Olsen, Elder Royts, & Sister Lynam.

After our breakfast we headed into the office for our Office Staff Meeting with President & Sister Phillips and then left for the day to head up to Washougal. While we are here Tom is going to replace some of my crowns that are getting older and worn out. Monday he replaced (2) of them with another one sometime next year. It is so generous and kind of him. I survived the two hour appointment and then we met up with Tracey to donate blood. What a great gift to give at Christmas time. So glad she suggested it. Next up was a birthday dinner with Danica and the family. This beautiful girl just turned 18!! I don't know how that can be. She celebrated her birthday on Tuesday by playing in her high school basketball game but Monday she wanted me to fix her favorite dinner of Parmesean Chicken. I was happy I could help make the day special. Danica will graduate this year and I can't wait to see where life takes her. We are glad we can sit on the sidelines and cheer her on!!

Tuesday we got to play Santa's elves and sort all the missionary gifts by zone. We then color coded them and prepared them for transit to the various zone conferences. It was a big job but many hands make light work.

President & Sister Phillips also got into the gift giving mode and prepared a gift for each and every missionary. Their generousity continues to amaze me!!!

The rest of the week was taken up with Zone Conferences. We love traveling to each different area and visiting with the missionaries there. One of my jobs is to coordinate with the Stake Relief Society Presidencies regarding the lunch they serve our missionaries. We are so grateful they provide this service and we don't have to do it. One of the buildings we met in this time was still decorated from a Youth Snowball Dance so we really got to eat in style. The theme of our Zone Conferences this time was Teaching Faith in Jesus Christ and concentrated on improving our teaching and teaching so that new members recognized that their journey doesn't end with baptism. They are just getting started and receiving the Holy Ghost and partaking of the Sacrament each week are equally as important. Elder Rowan was given a few minutes to address the missionaries about safe driving and what to do if they get in an accident. I have been preparing new Accident Packets for all the cars so we got those passed out with updated instructions. Mental heath challenges are a big problem for these young people on their mission so Sister Phillips also gave some excellent counsel using Mark 5:1-20.

When we got back from Zone Conferences Friday night we were met with a display of nativites outside our office. These were not just any ordinary nativities. These had to be part of a Boys Activity Day event or something similar. I thought it was such a good idea I had to document it here for later use. It appears that each group was given a sack containing the same materials with the challenge to create a nativity. It looked like they got red potatoes, foil, nails, plastic eggs, forks, tissue papper, straw, twigs, and leaves. Here are just a few pictures of their creations.

In July of this year the Church released a new version of Preach My Gospel. It is the 1st update since it was orginally released in 2004. President Phillips was so excited. We were told that the missionaries would get their copies in early October which was a huge disappointment. They wanted them right then!! Well, October came and went and still we didn't get them. Then about 2-3 weeks ago we got emails saying they had finally been ordered. Then early last week we got updated emails saying they were backordered until Feb 2024. President Phillips was not happy about that and told us to forward the email to someone higher up in the church. Not sure exactly what his position is but the very next day we got notice that the manuals were being shipped this week!! They came and everyone is SOOOOOO happy!!

One of the fun parts of being on this mission is to see the growth in our missionaries. That is never more apparent than when they go home and give their "homecoming" talks. Because Facebook is so encouraged in the mission we have the blessing of being Facebook "friends" with most of our missionaries. That means we can stay in touch with them when they go home and get invites to watch their "homecoming" talks on Zoom. How lucky we are to be on this mission Post-Covid when so many Sacrament meetings are still on Zoom. Today we got to listen to Sister Garrett. We love her and are so grateful we got to serve with her.

Talking about people we love, we also want to give a birthday shout out to our son-in-law Christopher Hugie!! We love and appreciate him. He takes such good care of us and always watches out for what he can do for us. We are so grateful he is a part of our family! We don't know what we would do without him!

December 10, 2023

It has been a busy, busy week! One of the busiest since we have been here but a good week too with seeing lots of missionaries. The week started out with our 1st holiday party at President & Sister Phillip's for the office staff. They were kind enough to host it at their house and served us Chicken Tikka Marsala and Nan bread. It was yummy! This was the party with the White Elephant gifts and it turned out to be alot of fun. I shouldn't have doubted that since the young missionaries were involved too. Below are some pictures of just some of the great finds.

Sister Jacobsen opened a homemade craft created by Sister Phillip's grandkids.

Elder Reil received a "put it together yourself" putting iron.

My personal favorite was the copy of Fascinating Womanhood opened by Sister Wilson. Sister Incze has been telling the young sisters all about the book so she found one on ebay to share.

And I can't leave out President & Sister Phillips. President Phillips got a baby picture of Elder Reil and an autographed copy of a piece of their Tacoma truck that was in an accident recently and Sister Phillips got a family of yarn dolls that we think represented that we are all different (we found it in our apartment storage closet).

The Mission Home is a beautiful house and it was fun to see the Christmas decorations from the back deck and then from the street looking up towards the back of the house. Someone over the years purchased the nativity scene which can be seen from blocks away.

Tuesday was MLC which meant that we prepared dinner for 50. We decided to have ham, party potatoes, green beans, salad, and rolls. We thought we could buy a boneless ham and have it sliced by the butcher. Turns out the butcher won't slice them for you anymore so it was a mission miracle that we found an electric knife and each took a turn slicing them. Julie Schupe sent some Christmas Peppermint Cookies and the missionaries gathered together to send a thank you song to her.

It was decided to send an email to all our missionary parents asking them to send at least one Christmas package for their missionary to the mission office. That way we would be aware of any missionaries not receiving something from home. The response has been tremendous and we have at least 200 packages in the office so far. We have also had parents who have offered to send extras to those who don't receive anything. It has been beautiful to see. Next week we will take on the task of organizing all the packages and delivering them at zone conference. Stay tuned on how that goes!

It was also transfer week so we had missionaries in and out of the office Wed, Thur, and Fri. It is so fun to have a chance to sit and visit with the departing missionaries especially. We talked about their plans when they get home, the best and worse food they had on their mission, dating tips, and more. Here is a pic of the winner of the worse food on their mission. This was from one of our Spanish speaking missionaries. And yes, those are cockroaches! Hard to believe they got that right here in Oregon!

We said goodbye to (4) of our local missionaries that we have become especially close to. Elder Weaver, Elder Henrie, Sister Garrett, & Sister Wilson. We also said goodbye to Sister Finlayson as she was transferred to a different area.

I also said goodbye to Sister Conrad! Her mother and I worked together in the Draper temple so I am sure I will see her again. I know how happy her mom is to have her home!

The sisters are amazing! It is so kind that they take the time to leave us with farewell notes that we will cherish forever.

And here is the whole departing group! They take a piece of our heart home with them. They are such an example of courage, testimony, perseverance, and love!!

Other happenings this week were an early morning airport run for Sister Larson and I. So grateful we were able to do it in dry weather. We also attended our Ward Christmas party and that was fun. They actually had a live band made up of ward members and they were pretty good! We even got in a dance or two! We also had a visit from a few of our missionaries who went home in August. My, how different they look when they are no longer missionaries. Pictured are Elder Williams, Elder Hyde, Elder Olsen, Elder Roits, and Sister Lynam.

We ended the week today with a visit to a Memory Center to sing Christmas songs with some of our zone, dinner at Sister Incze's, and then our Stake Christmas Concert. It has been a full week. I am tired!!