September 1, 2024

It is hard to believe that this was our last full week in the mission field. When I post next week we will be home!! This was a busy week training, wrapping up everything on our desks, and cleaning and packing up the apartment. I think we are just about ready. We will spend Sunday afternoon at Tracey's, then Monday the President will take all the Office Staff out to Black Bear for one last goodbye. Tuesday we will attend MLC and then the missionaries will follow us home and pack up our trailer. Wednesday we hope to drive away by noon.

Last Sunday was our last District Council with these cute young missionaries. They have made us feel loved and valued all week. It will be nice to get our Sunday nights back but I am sure we will miss it. Looking on the positive it will be fun to have Sunday dinner with family and play games too!

Monday was exciting because we got to be on a group call with our very own Elder Parker Rowan. His family patched us in and it was so good to see him!!! We should have been doing that every month. Now that we know how fun it is we will have to do it more often. He is so much like all of our missionaries here that it will be a good reminder of all those missionaries we are leaving behind. We had to laugh because just last week Elder Parker Rowan turned too soon in a parking spot and scraped the car beside him. We have lost count of how many incidents just like that Elder Jack Rowan has had to deal with! I was worried how Parker was handling things about his dad's illness but he seemed in good spirits and was taking things in stride so far.

Tuesday we had a long day of training but then we were able to go and hang out with the Hermanas for dinner and dessert. Elder Rowan has loved the opportunity he has had on our mission to speak Spanish with our young missionaries. They think it is pretty cool too that he can talk to them. He is going to miss that so this was a good ending to his Spanish experience. We headed over to Woodburn to take Hermana Anderson, Pace, and Mickelson to dinner. They wanted to take Elder Rowan to an authentic Mexican restaurant and it really did feel like we were in Mexico. There were lots of locals there and I even had Tacos Al Pastor! We weren't ready to part ways after dinner so we walked around the corner to a Mexican ice cream shop called El Paisanito. It was such a fun night!

On Wednesday night Elder Rowan put his last batch of cars up for sale. The batch included the beloved Toyota Tacoma that the Assistants drove for a good part of our mission. It was the car Elder Reil had his accident in. When they had the accident a piece of the front fender came off the car. The Elders saved it and then it became a "thing" in the office. If you drove the Tacoma you could sign the fender. Lots of Elders (and Sisters too) came in, got the key from Elder Rowan, and drove it around the parking lot. Then they signed the fender. Sister Larson and I decided we wanted to sign the fender too, so on Thursday we drove it and then had a signing party. Elder Rowan and Elder Larson had previously signed it. Turns out the church won't let us sell the Tacoma because there is pending litigation but when we drive away from here on Wednesday we will have the fender with us as a souvenir for Elder Reil. He is going to school in Utah now and promises to drop by!!!

On Thursday I got my hair cut for the last time in Oregon. The Sr Sister missionaries have all been going to the same hair stylist while we have been here. And the Sr Sisters before us went to her too. She is not a member but cuts the hair of several members and was recommended. Her name is Traci Mashburn and she is a sweetheart. She immediately puts you at ease and can keep up a steady conversation. At one point I was hoping to give her a Book of Mormon but it just never felt right. She loves Jesus and has been active in her community church in the past. Her best friend is a member of the church so hopefully someday the time will be right for her to learn more.

One of the biggest things stressing me out (after Ryan of course) about going home is having to give our "Homecoming Talk". It is so dumb that things like that get to me. I have been praying and pondering about it for a few weeks now and was finally able to get some thoughts down. As part of my talk I wanted to include some thoughts from our young missionaries about how they have changed on their missions. So one night I sent out a text to a random group of about 12 different companionships asking them that question. The responses I got back brought me to tears and reminded me again (as if I needed a reminder) of why we have loved our mission so much. These missionaries are amazing and give me so much hope for the future!!!

By Friday we were tired of training and things were slowing down. I pondered what to do to fill up our last full day in the office. The answer came to me! We should play pickleball!!! So funny. I have not played pickleball our whole mission except with family on (2) occassions. When we first got here we thought we would play often but it just never worked out. Elder Rowan hurt his knee playing with the young Elders early on and by the time he was better I was having problems with my sciatica pain. Then his shoulder started to ache and so it went. The Kanzlers (she is my replacement) are big pickleball players and they were really hoping they could play with us. I don't know what came over me but suddenly I wanted to play them. I was pretty sure they were going to destroy us but it turns out that we are very evenly matched. It is too bad we won't have more chances to play with them. And guess what? We actually beat them 2 games out of 3. It was a proud moment for me!!!

Our last activity for the week was participating in a zone wide service project. We got to volunteer at the McMinnville Air Show, featuring the Thunderbirds. In the morning we volunteered as ticket scanners and bag checkers and then in the afternoon we got to watch the show. It was HOT!!! We volunteered at this same activity last year but it was later in September and cooler. The most fun was watching the young missionaries get so excited as the planes did their flyovers. Several of them went home convinced they want to be pilots now :).