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.