June 30, 2024

I think I have mentioned before that one of the things I miss the most on our mission is the opportunity to reach out and have one on one contact with others. Of course we do that on a daily basis in the mission office with the young missionaries and even with the Sr missionaries at times, but I am talking about the ministering type of contact. We know people in our ward here but not on a real, personal level. And really, we don't have time to get to know them on that level. That is not our mission assignment and we just have to accept that for now.

Our Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, will turn 100 on Sept 9th. He was asked by the media what he wanted for his birthday. This was his reply:

“I am soon approaching my 100th birthday,” President Nelson wrote in a social media post on Saturday, June 1. “One of the places where the Savior used the number 100 in the scriptures was the parable of the lost sheep. Though 99 of his flock were safely by his side, the shepherd went in search of the one who was lost. “At age 99, I have no need of physical gifts,” he continued. “But one spiritual offering that would brighten my life is for each of us to reach out to ‘the one’ in our lives who may be feeling lost or alone.”

I LOVE THIS!! I may not have people here that I can reach out to but I do have family and friends back home. With President Nelson's invitation in mind, and with the fact that we will be going home in a little more than 2 months, I have started to take the opportunity to reach out to some of the Sisters in my home ward that I have missed and reconnect with them. They may not be lost or alone but everyone needs to know they are thought about and missed. It has been sooooo good to visit with them whether it has been through text or a phone call. That one on one connection is priceless and I am grateful for the reminder from out Prophet to reach out and make the effort.

Not much out of the ordinary has been happening in the office this week. We have been doing our usual work and gearing up for the start of our 6 week rotation next week. Elder Rowan has had a breather from getting and giving out new cars which is good. He spoke with Elder Zahlman who will be replacing him and got things worked out for training. Elder Zahlman has already been a Vehicle Coordinator in the Kentucky Louisville Mission for the last two years so he should know what he is doing. His wife will be the General Secretary and they will only have about a 5 week break from ending one mission and starting another. Elder Zahlman will come in for 3 days during August and then the Zahlmans will start their mission on Septerber 2nd, just two days before we leave. My replacement, Sister Kanzler, will start her mission on August 15th. Her husband will be the Housing Coordinator and will have almost two months with Elder Larson before they go home. I spent a good part of my week working on written instructions for her. She worked for many years as an Office Manager for an accounting firm, so I think she will pick up things quickly.

We had Spanish Zone Conference on Tuesday and used up the last of our pork from Mission Tour. We are glad to be done with it but the Spanish missionaries are none the wiser and only know that they got Cafe Rio, which is always a hit. The Spanish missionaries love to move the tables around to try and get closer to each other so this was their arrangement for this week. The Assistants came in the office this week and pointed out that they looked like an oreo cookie so I had to snap a picture of them. We have been admiring the hydrangeas in the front of our church building all week so I finally had to stop and take a picture of them. They are beautiful!!

Late one night this week we had a knock on our door. It was the Social Media Sisters, Sister Bodily and Sister Murray. They were just getting home and brought us a pan of "mystery meat"! The members they had dinner with gave it to them and they didn't want it. Sister Bodily just wasn't a fan of something she couldn't identify. We decided it was a loaf of turkey like they would slice in the deli at a market. The members told them it was turkey and it looks good and tastes good but the strange thing is that even though it is turkey, it tastes like ham!!! We can't figure it out. We are never ones to waste food so we have been putting it to good use. We have had it with rice and salad, made a chef salad with it, and made sandwiches For multiple meals.

Next week it will be Transfers and New Arrivals. So many of the missionaries that we have come to love will be leaving us. We lose 17 missionaries and get 17 new missionaries. We are glad to be getting so many new ones because our numbers have been down for a few months but it is strange to think that we will really not get to know these new missionaries very well. But more about that next week.......

We have filled our Saturdays up with all the activities we want to do before we go home. This Saturday was the Willamette Jet Boat Excursion. It was like doing a shore excursion while on a cruise and we loved it!! We went with the Larsons and it was a blast! We had perfect weather for a boat ride--just hot enough to be really fun when we got wet. They took us on a 32 mile boat ride down the Willamette River which goes through the heart of Portland. The river was much prettier than we see from the freeway with lots of greenery and beautiful homes along the banks. The 2 hr ride was narrated and included both fast and slow times with turning donuts and making sudden stops to throw water over the front and sides of the boat. The turnaround point was in Oregon City at Willamette Falls, so an added bonus there for me! We could even see the bridge on the I5 Freeway that we cross when we go into Portland to the Airport or to Tracey's.

Sunday has been a busy day for us with District Council in the afternoon after church and Sister's Devotional in the evening for me. Our District Leader gives even the Sr missionaries assignments for District council that make us grow and stretch. Today Elder Rowan gave the life lesson. He talked about how the example you set for your children will influence how they grow up. He got permission to play the song, "Cats in the Cradle." I had to give training on a Christlike characteristic. I chose integrity. It was good to spend some time studying this characteristic. I found a talk by Tad Callister I really liked from 2011 entitled, "Becoming Men and Women of Integrity". Sister's Devotional is always special. The Sister Training Leaders are amazing and come up with the best topics to discuss. This time it was about comparing ourselves to others and the danger in doing that. We need to remember that our perfect, loving god will only compare you with the old you. He is only concerned with how you are becoming better and not how you compare to someone else.

June 23, 2024

Summer means that lots of people are out and about, taking vacations, and going around visiting. We are the lucky recipients of some of those visits. In the last two weeks we have had two of our former Assistants to the President come to the mission with their parents to visit. How fun it is to meet their families, and even better, to finally be able to hug them. It is really hard when some of these Elders go home and we can only give them a hand shake and not a hug. We spend so much time with them they become like family. Two weeks ago Elder Henrie and his parents came for a visit and this week Elder Weaver and his family were here. They served as Assistants together and went home in December.

Our sweet young convert, Athena, also came to visit us in the office. Athena is a George Fox student and was baptized in November. She has gone home for the summer and we miss seeing her at church and around the office. She lives in a small community about an hour from here. Her family has a large property and she took the time to pick roses for all of us in the office. We found vases in the kitchen and we all have bouquets on our desks now :).

This week we traded out the last of the new cars (until we get more). That meant we just had to drive out to Tillamook to deliver a car. While we were out there we decided to make a day of it. After meeting with the missionaries to trade the car we headed up to Rockaway to walk the Old Growth Big Cedar Trail. It is a beautiful walkway through the wetlands to one of the oldest and biggest cedar trees in the Pacific Northwest.

Since we were in Rockaway we decided we should take advantage of being there and go see my cousin Tom and his wife Delta. We had a nice visit with them although we were sad to find out that Tom has bone spurs in his back and is not walking well. Hopefully he will have surgery soon and get back to walking his dog Cooper on the beach.

We tried to go visit the MLS couple in Rockaway, the Olsens, but the timing did not work out and we were sorry to miss them. We ended the day sitting on the beach for a short while because we couldn't be that close to the ocean and not take advantage of it.

Wednesday we had the Elders over for dinner and I am sorry I did not get pictures of it. Safeway had a killer deal on baby back ribs and we know how much the Elders like MEAT!! They were so excited when they saw what I had prepared. It was definitely a hit!!! Thurday afternoon we headed up to Tom's dental office to have our teeth cleaned. Such a blessing while we are here. We were each able to visit with Tracey for an hour so that was an added bonus. Tom found another bridge gone bad in Jack's mouth so it will be fantastic to get that repaired while we are still here too!

Early Friday I left the office to run an errand. Some of the Sister missionaries followed me out because they were headed out on exchanges. I was touched when I glanced in my side mirrors and saw them praying before they left. These missionaries are so good!

The temple in Portland has been closed for the last 7 weeks and just reopened this week. We were able to head up there Friday evening for a session and are so grateful the temple is so close to us. The closest temple to us besides the Portland temple is over 3 hrs away so we were not able to attend the temple while the Portland temple was closed. It felt good to be back!

Last year the Sr Sister missionaries were able to attend the Lincoln City Kite Festival while our husbands were busy with other things. This year we wanted to take them because we knew they would enjoy it. It was a beautiful day, warm with clear skies. The only problem is that there was just not much wind. Kites need wind!! We were able to see some kites fly but the big ones couldn't go up and the inflatibles could not be launched either. No matter, we still enjoyed a beautiful day just sitting on the beach :).

Today we were finally able to connect with Jack's nephew, Greg Moon, and his wife Katherine. They live about an hour from us in Vancouver, WA. We love them so much and had such a good visit. We vowed to not let so much time pass until we see them again.

June 16, 2024

Happy Father's Day! A huge shout out to Elder Rowan on this day! As we serve this mission and interact day to day with the young missionaries I am reminded of the wonderful father Elder Rowan was to our children. He treats the young missionaries the same way he treated our children. He is kind, endlessly patient, and always loving. He is all about the fun and spending time with them. I beg him to disciple them when they need it and he just can't do it! He is never crude, harsh, or critical--sarcastic, yes, but always in a teasing manner. I hope and pray that the young missionaries and our own children know how much he loves them and how tender his heart really is.

Some weeks there is not much new that goes on in the mission office. This was one of those weeks. We picked up new cars, delivered new cars, and just did our regular work. We did put smiles on these young missionaries faces when we took them to pick up new cars. It is a chance to leave the mission boundaries and drive a brand new car. Who wouldn't like that?

We talk alot in the mission about protecting the widow's mite. That means we are conservative in our spending of church funds that are someones very personal tithing donation. I took that to a new high this week when I peeled stamps off self addressed envelopes we no longer need. I just couldn't bear to throw away 25 unused stamps. With a little googling I learned you could put the envelope in the microwave and then gently peel the stamps off. We may need to glue them on to reuse them, but hey, if it works, why not!

Since there is not much to write about our activities this week I will just share some of my thoughts. Last Saturday we attended the graduation of our granddaughter Danica. There were (8) Valedictorians at her high school and they had (6) of them speak at the graduation. They all gave nice speeches and for the most part they all thanked their parents, families, teachers, friends, etc. One of the valedictorians is a member of the church and the grandson of the couple replacing us here in the mission. His name is Carson Kanzler. He thanked all the usual people but then he went on to thank his Savior, Jesus Christ, for always being there for him. He continued talking about the Savior for another few minutes. In the mission we talk a lot about the characterics of Christ that are listed in Preach My Gospel. It is a goal in the mission to continually work on these characteristics and try to become more like our Savior. Carson demonstrated the characteristic of Integrity to me. Integrity means being true to God at all times and not lowering your standards or begavior to impress or be accepted by others. Carson was brave to acknowledge his love for the Savior at a high school graduation in Washougal, Washington. Every day we watch our missionaries demonstrate Integrity as they go out and teach about our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, and the restoration of the gospel. These youth are AMAZING!

In our Office Staff meetings on Mondays we always start with a thought and a prayer. They are rotated and done by someone different each week. This week our thought was given by President Phillips. I loved his thought and want to remember it so I am going to record it here. He talked about different ways we receive answers to prayers. In Ether 2 we learn of 3 different ways that prayers are answered. After the brother of Jared had built the barges they were commanded to build, he went to our Heavenly Father in prayer to ask 3 questions. Question #1 - There isn’t any light in them. Question #2 - How do we steer them? Question #3 - How do we get air to breath in them? With question #3 he received a direct answer, make a hole in the top and in the bottom and when you need air, unstop the hole and stop the hole if water starts to come in. With question #2 he was told to not worry about steering. Heavenly Father told him that He would “bring you up again out of the depths of the sea”. In other words He would take care of things and not worry about it. With question #1 The brother of Jared had to do more homework and come up with a solution and then take it to Heavenly Father in prayer and then he was given the help he needed to light the stones. We too receive answers to our prayers in different ways but we can always trust that our Heavenly Father will answer them.

We couldn't let a "P" day pass without going out and doing something fun. Rain was predicted so we had to come up with an indoor activity. We settled on going to see an inspirational movie called "Young Woman and the Sea." It was fantastic! It is the true story of Trudy Ederle, the 1st woman to swim the English Channel. It was originally made as a Disney+ original movie but then they decided to do a limited release in the theaters. It was only playing at one place in Portland but it was well worth the drive. We loved it and highly recommend it!!

The Larsons were out of town visiting apartments and traveling to Burns so just the Bready's went to the movies with us. We were close to the Portland Rose Gardens and since they had never been there we decided to make a short stop. June is Rose month in Portland and the gardens were looking beautiful. The rain stopped just long enough for us to take a nice stroll around the gardens. Elder Rowan saw a news report about a "Ketchup & Mustard" rose so we were on a quest to find it and were excited when we finally did!

We were not going to go to Tracey's for Father's Day since we just saw them last weekend for the graduation but Hayden was coming home and this would probably be our last chance to see him before he moves to Boston. We had to take advantage of that opportunity and had a nice visit and dinner with all of them.

June 9, 2024

This week was the start of our (6) week cycle now that Transfers & Zone Conferences are over. That means it is usually a quieter week where we get caught up on our office duties and try to get a little rest. Although it was quieter, it was still busy for Elder Rowan because he is still getting so many new cars in. The Church has told him that we need to keep all of our Hybrid Rav4s for (2) years so that means we are running out of old cars to change out. We are now trading out cars that have 5,000 miles or are 2024's. It is crazy! This week I went with him and the Sister missionaries to pick up (3) Subaru Crosstreks and he went with the Assistants to pick up (3) Hyundai Tucson's. Then on Monday we have to pick up (5) Toyota Corollas. We currently have (21) cars sitting in the parking lot waiting for something to happen with them. Eleven will be picked up for auction next Tuesday and then we have to start assigning out the new ones. Usually the mission cars are white, gray, or silver. But these Subarus have been more bold colors like green and red. The green ones are an olive green and the Social Media Sisters are begging for one :).

We had to go to Salem to pick up the Subarus so I asked Elder Rowan if we could stop at the Peony farm to walk around before they closed for the season. They are open to the public for about 6 weeks to tour the gardens. We were at the tail end but they were still really pretty and I am glad we got there. They pick the peonies and sell as cut flowers but mostly they divide and sell the roots. Who knew there were so many varieties of peonies?

Tuesday was MLC so that meant we prepared dinner for the group. We were lucky this time because we had 20 lbs of frozen pork left over from Mission Tour so we were able to make Cafe Rio for the missionaries. Some missionaries do not know what Cafe Rio is if they don't come from Utah/Idaho, etc. but if I had to pick a favorite meal of the missionaries, this is what I would pick. They were so happy and it was not a hard meal for us :).

We had some printer problems at our apartment this week which are always frustrating because we are not that savvy at fixing them. We are always grateful when we can call our SIL, Chris, for help. I was proud of myself that I could do lots of trouble shooting but in the end Chris helped me figure out that some of our USB ports have gone bad. We are just crossing our fingers that we can limp along until we get home before worrying about a new computer. In the meantime a USB Hub solved our problems since we still have a few USB ports that work. Hooray!!

Elder Rowan spent all day Friday driving around the southern part of our mission with Elder Larson. Elder Larson had not visited many of the apartments in that area and wanted to have eyes on them. Elder Rowan helped him with his inspections and they gathered up broken items from apartments, things they should not have in apartments, and delivered things that they needed for the apartments. They had a fun day visiting with all the missionaries while still getting lots of things done.

On Sunday nights we usually have our District Council. The young missionaries do Accountability which means they talk about who they are teaching, problems they have, etc. For a while they had us Sr missionaries do accountability too but it was usually pretty lame because we did not have much to report. A few weeks ago they came up with the idea of having a Sr missionary do a 5 minute life lesson instead of Accountability. They want us to impose our knowledge and wisdom on them. It is my turn tonight and I am stressing a little over what to talk about. I am not sure what they expect. I think I will talk about credit cards. We will see how it goes :).

We were very blessed this week that we got to attend the graduation from high school of our granddaughter, Danica. Danica has worked very hard and graduated in the top 5% of her class and was the Salutatorian. She missed out on being one of the Valedictorian by one A- she got in one of her college classes (:. She is also graduating with her Associates degree here in about (2) weeks. She received a scholarship from Boise State and will attend there in the fall with many of her friends. She is amazing and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for her.