Week Ending September 13, 2008

We were able to have Sunday dinner at Mom and Dad's with with grandkids.

Ryan and Rachel picked us up at the airport and brought us home for our 5 hour layover. It was great to spend time with family.

Chalisa and John were out of town and Tava was taking care of the girls. They were a little confused about whether or not we were done with our mission.

We had a two hour layover on the way back to Oregon and Chalisa and John visited in the airport with us then. It was wonderful to see everyone.

The bulk of this week revolved around the mission president seminar. It was conducted by Elder Clayton of the 70 – he is one of the 7 presidents, and Elder Perry of the 12 presided over it. I went to the meeting feeling a bit overwhelmed by this assignment. The first day I felt even more overwhelmed. I guess I was looking for some “feel-good” messages, and what I heard was – “you need to do more.” So at the end of day one, I was actually fairly down and wondered how I could possibly do more, when I already wasn’t doing what I knew I should do yet. I really had a great spiritual experience when I was reading the scriptures and re-learned that miracles come AFTER the trial of your faith. I know this is His work and He will prepare a way for it all to get done.

Anyway after that enlightenment I gained a lot more from the seminar and put a plan in place to do it all at a presidency meeting with my two counselors this last Saturday (yesterday) and I feel like we can do what is asked of us, and can have great success.

At the seminar – which was in San Diego - we had one afternoon when we went to Sea World. It was a bit different for me to be walking around Sea World with Mom in a skirt and me in business casual and both of us with name tags on. Most of the others were dressed similarly and some of the men just wore their slacks and white shirts – no tie. We stood out. Seeing Elder Perry there dressed like that was indeed foreign to me.

On Tuesday evening Mom had an allergic reaction to some shrimp which was hiding in a pasta dish and had to be taken to the first aid booth at Sea World (we had our dinner there with the others participating in the seminar after the park was closed.) They filled her up with Benadryl and she was knocked out from about 7:30 pm on, but was OK the next day.

On Wednesday we all went to the San Diego Temple, and Mom and I were the witness couple. Clint's mission president and his wife stood in the circle next to Sister Macdonald and she was quite teary eyed after that. It was powerful to be there with so many great people involved in this work at this level.

In addition to great instruction throughout the three days, I enjoyed the one-on-one time with various area 70s and other mission presidents. It felt good to learn more about this assignment and feel the Lord's spirit moving it along.

This next week is transfer week – it was actually delayed a week due to the MP seminar – and one of my assistants, Elder Payne, is leaving us. Elder Leet has been called to work with Elder Hall – who goes home in 5 weeks. Elders Payne and Hall have been great – they have served for 9 and 6 months respectively and have everything down so well. I will now have the opportunity to train new ones.

Mom feeds 22 incoming missionaries lunch on Tuesday and 12 out going missionaries dinner on Wednesday night and Thursday morning along with various office support staff. We then have breakfast for 20 for zone leader council on Friday. When she was shopping for all of this at Albertsons a lady in line said “You must have a lot of hungry people at your house.” She said, “yes I am feeding about 20, 20-year olds this week.” The lady's mouth dropped open in shock, then she just turned away. It wasn’t the missionary opportunity that Mom was hoping for.