January 28, 2024

Another busy week in the books! Last Sunday we had dinner at Sister Incze's with all five Elders in our ward and then we had District Council with our new District Council Leader, Elder Jack Nielsen. He is young and has only been out 7 months but he is already doing great. Later Sunday night Sharon & Paul came back to spend another day with us. Our plan had been to take them to the Old Columbia Hwy to see Multnomah Falls and some of the other falls along that highway. We also wanted to have lunch at the lodge. With the freezing rains we have been having we knew that it might be tricky but it was even worse than we thought. The lodge was closed and when we got there we found out that even the Old Columbia Hwy was closed. We knew we could see Multnomah Falls from Hwy 84 so we headed over that way with the hopes we could walk up to the viewing area but even there the parking lot was was frozen and too icy to walk on. We snapped some pics from our car and moved on to other activities.

Thank goodness we also had plans to drive up to Tracey's and have dinner so the day was saved! We made a quick drive by the Portland Temple and were saddened to see that the temple grounds had lost some beautiful trees in the ice storm. Apparently heavy ice and strong winds don't mix and there were trees down all over Portland and Washington. We had a great dinner of Marsala Tikka Chicken, courtesy of our mission president's wife (it was her recipe), and a fun time visiting with Tracey's family. We were sad to have Sharon & Paul leave the next morning. We wish they could have stayed longer.

The rest of the week was taken up with Zone Conferences. We were in McMinnville, Lebanon, & Redmond. The weather was really rainy so Sister Larson and I opted not to check the tire tread on the cars during car inspections. Elder Rowan & Elder Larson still topped off the windshield wiper fluid and after seeing how wet they were we were happy with our decision.

At Zone Conference Sister Phillips decided to be a little more secular and teach the missionaries how to conduct music. It was surprising how excited the missionaries in each conference seemed about it. Such a good skill for them to know. I have to admit I even learned a few things since I am not musical. I tried to practice at church today though and I still don't know what I am doing :). I know we are not supposed to take pictures in the chapel but I just had to snap this.

We also talked about relying on the spirit and the President warned that he would call people up to share a 1-2 minute experience on relying on the Spirit. I knew there was a chance we could be called upon so I thought of an experience but I really didn't think he would call on a Sr Missionary. You can imagine how surprised I was when he called on ME! I am glad I was prepared and that the spirit directed me on what to say.

We also do work when we travel around to the zone conferences. I am in charge of coordinating all the luncheons with the Stake Relief Society presidencies so I check in with the kitchen, gather up receipts for reimbursement, and make sure everything is under control for lunch. Elder Larson takes housing supplies to missionaries over the mountain and sometimes, like this time, we have to empty an apartment and bring everything back in the trailer to the storage unit. It was dark when we got to Bend and we were extremely grateful that the Housing Mentors had packed everything up and there were missionaries to help load the trailer.

Our ride back over the mountain was uneventful until about an hour from home. Then things got interesting as Elder Rowan started getting phone calls about car problems. It had already been a bad week for cars. We have to keep reminding ourselves that these missionaries are still teenage drivers for the most part. We expected accidents when the freezing rain hit, but no, these were just accidents from missionaries being careless. Last week we had one set scrape the side of their car on another person's mirror when backing out of their carport, another mashed the front headlight when they hit the pole in their carport, and yet another hit the gas instead of the brakes and ran head on into a tree. But back to the car problems on the way back from zone conference. Poor Elder Rowan. He was going back and forth between two different car problems. One set of Elders "accidently" got their car stuck in a ditch and were afraid to try and get it out. It was so far in one of the tires was off the ground. Elder Rowan had them call a tow truck to pull them out and when the tow truck driver arrived he asked them what they knew about God. That lead to a whole missionary lesson that Elder Rowan heard them giving as he waited to talk to them. It ended with them setting up a teaching appointment with the driver and the missionaries are convinced it was meant to happen so they could meet this person. The other car problem was a more serious car accident but thankfully no one was hurt. Our Elder was going the wrong way on a oneway street and when he tried to pull into a driveway to get out of the way he was t-boned. Like I said, a bad week for cars!!!!!

Our missionary miracle of finding an apartment for the Bready's fell through when our apartment manager was let go and with her went the verbal agreement we had for the apartment. We scrambled to come up with another solution and are grateful that a nice AirBnB presented itself and we were able to secure a nice place for them to stay until their apartment is ready. We were sad to have one of our brand new missionaries go home but hope he can resolve his issues and come back to join us. President Phillips always instructs the new missionaries that if they have serious transgressions they have not repented of that he wants them to repent early and not carry that guilt throughout their missions. He tells them, "Not on my watch!" It takes lots of courage to come forward and confess your sins.

One of the blessings of getting to know all these missionaries is that sometimes we get to Zoom in to their homecomings. We had that opportunity today with Sister Imlay. She gave a wonderful talk on the Atonement and reminded us of what President Henry B Eyring said about knowing if the Atonement of Jesus Christ was working in our lives. He said, "If you have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost today, you may take it as a sweet evidence that the Atonement is working in your life."

After each zone conference luncheon a picture is taken of the whole group. Here are the pictures from these zone conferences.