July 21, 2024

This week was a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Monday we had Office Staff meeting and Elder Rowan and Elder Gamett showed up wearing the same tie. Elder Gamett has been hoping for that to happen and it finally did. The young missionaries love their floral ties so early in our mission Elder Rowan asked for some too so he could be like them. Matt ordered some from AndCollar and Elder Rowan has loved matching with the missionaries!

After Office Staff meeting Elder Rowan and I left to go with the Larson's to clean the Vernonia apartment. Elders have been living there but now a Sr MLS couple will be there. We needed to clean and "stage" the apartment so it would be ready for them. We spent 5 hours cleaning and when we were done it looked much better than I had imagined it could. We worked hard and we were tired after. It makes me worry about going home and returning to the real world of cleaning, housework, and home improvement projects. I have gotten "soft" in the last year and a half and that part of going home worries me :). There is something to be said about living in a small apartment.

On Monday too Sister Emma Peterson stopped by the office before we left for Vernonia. She has been home for a few months but came back to visit and attend the temple with someone she taught. It is so fun to see these missionaries! Sister Peterson shared with us that she has been talking to Elder Leve since he went home last month and that romance is blooming. They are both the sweetest, kindest humans and it would be a great match. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

The Larson's daughter, husband, and six children came to visit this week. I mention that so others considering missions will know that it is common to have family visit. It might get a little crowded in our small apartments but you can manage anything for a few days. Senior missionaries have so much flexibility!

We had one bit of sad news this week and that is that Elder & Sister Bready are returning home to comeplete their mission remotely. They arrived in February to take over as our Mission Medical. Elder Bready was an anetheseologist and has been really great taking care of the missionaries. He had two back surgeries in the last two years that left him with nerve pain and weakness in his leg. But now it appears the disks in his back have herniated above and belove his previous surgery. He is in terrible pain, can't sleep, and needs surgery immediately. They are hopeful they can finish their mission from home. It isn't ideal when they won't be able to see and visit the missionaries but it is pretty common to do Mission Medical remotely. They leave next Saturday and we will be sad to see them go.

On Thursday we were notified that we are getting MORE new cars!!! We just finished up with all the last new cars and were really hoping not to get any more before we left. But Friday we had to go pick up (6) Ford Maverik trucks. We have been expecting these since January and the dealership finally realized they were on their lot after all this time. We are still missing (1) and I am convinced it is on that car lot somewhere. Then we were told we also need to pick up (12) Toyota RAV4's by next Tuesday and that he will have another (5) by the next week. That is (23) new cars in a week to be dealt with!!! The "church" with a small "c" and I are going to have a long talk if they tell us we have to trade these out for cars we just got 4 months ago. That is way too much work and doesn't make any sense. We have over (25) RAV4's that are about 1 1/2 years old but we are told we can't sell them until they are (2) years old but all the other cars we have we just got in the last 4 months. The Sisters & I had fun driving the Maverik trucks back to the office. Go Sister power!!!

On Saturday the new Senior MLS couple, the Hathcock's, arrived. That makes (3) MLS couples in our mission now. They have been assigned to Vernonia which is the small town up the canyon that we rode our bikes last week. It is a small, rural community with a small branch. The branch is super excited to get a senior couple and the Hathcock's are excited to be there. They are from a small community in Missouri and think it will be a perfect fit. We met them at the office today and then the President took us all out to a late lunch.

Today my birthday celebration started early when the Sister missionaries came over to play games with us. It was only for a short hour from 9:00-10:00 PM but it was fun. We miss playing games with our family all the time so this was a nice early birthday present!