Week Ending July 25, 2009 Week # 3

Elder Fawcett and his family came back to visit the mission. They were able to find us in Corvallis just after interviews. It was so good to see him and to meet his family.

Here are our elders near Reedsport. They helped with "Christmas In July," a community restoration project. The picture shows the elders, two members and Pastor Allen. Each pair of elders worked with a different group from the community. It went a long ways towards changing views about the church in a community that has not had favorable views of the Mormons. Thanks for your hard work elders!

This is another view of Dorena Lake, near Cottage Grove. It is a beautiful and peaceful place. We have yet to see a lake crowded with boats. In fact, most lakes are just plain empty.

We did our interviews in a little different order this week in order to accommodate a request by the Bend Stake that we speak to their young men before they left for a three-day “Zions Camp.” This means that in addition to interviews in Corvallis on Tuesday and Salem on Wednesday, we drove to Bend on Wednesday evening and had our interviews there on Thursday. In these three days we interviewed 34, 22 and 18 missionaries respectively for a total of 74 interviews in three days. I found myself a combination of drained and refreshed as I visited with that many missionaries. I certainly feel like I know a lot more about how the missionaries are doing and I gain insights to their commitment and love for the work they are doing when I am able to visit with them one on one.

On Tuesday evening the zone leaders in Salem and I were invited into a training meeting with the stake presidency of the Salem Stake along with four recently called bishoprics. This stake president's brother is the stake president in Grants Pass where we had spoken to the bishops last Tuesday evening. I am thrilled that they are both so committed to missionary work and do all they can to emphasize the importance of this work.

Wednesday night we were invited to meet with the two stake presidents in the Bend area at the home of President Perdue in Redmond. We had a lovely dinner with them and their wives. Again their commitment to missionary work is leading to more success in their stakes.

Thursday morning the zone leaders in Bend and I spoke to about 75 young men before their camp. It was a well planned out event and they all had matching T-shirts. I was impressed that they were there at 7:30 in the morning and excited to be going.

Friday we started the process of preparing for transfers again. I still have one more zone to interview this next week, so at this point all transfer work is very preliminary. I was impressed again that we are not just moving people around, we are making important decisions. These transfers will lead to actions that have an eternal significance. Some of my dear friends are people I met on my mission because a mission president was impressed to put me into a specific area with a specific person. I always keep that in mind as I prayerfully complete this process.

Week Ending July 18, 2009 Week # 2

We may be old, but we're still daring enough to stand right next to a man-eating plant...

and we still love each other enough to put our arms around each other often...





and we most certainly don't move as slow as this guy, yet. They don't know what old is. Give them time.

On Monday night, July 7, 2009, we met the Portland Mission president and his wife in Salem, which is the dividing line between our two missions, and enjoyed dinner with them. It is very invigorating to talk with President and Sister Dyches. We compare notes on what is going well in their mission and share with them things that are working in ours. We also just get to know each other, which is the best part. We get together in meetings with the mission presidents in the northwest area twice a year, but I get so much out of this informal exchanging of ideas over dinner we have every couple of months. We have really grown to love the two of them and respect them for all they are doing.

Although we started interviews last week in the Coos Bay Zone while we were holding the seniors conference out there, this week we started interviews in earnest. We interviewed almost 70 missionaries Tuesday through Friday and went to Medford and back to visit with them. One of the zone leaders asked me how I liked interviews and I truthfully told him that I loved meeting with the missionaries. To do so builds me up as well. I left unsaid that by the end of the week I find myself really tired. I think striving to be “emotionally up,” in tune and sensitive to the spirit takes a bit more out of me than I can plan for. I do know that although I am somewhat exhausted by the end of the week, the Lords strengthens us and on we go.

Tuesday night after interviews in Roseburg and Grants Pass we had dinner with the Grants Pass stake president, President Lathen, and his wife. Afterwards Sister Macdonald and I attended their stake Bishopric meeting. The total meeting was dedicated to missionary work. As we visited with the leadership of that stake for about an hour and a half, we were impressed with their commitment to missionary work. Interesting enough, President Lathen's brother is a stake president in the Salem Stake and he has invited me to be in his stake next Tuesday evening with his Bishops. I am happy that there is a growing interest in missionary work throughout the mission.

Sunday evening Elder Burton from Payson, Utah stopped by with his girlfriend for dinner. He was touring the mission and we enjoyed the evening with them and the Strattons from the office. It's great to see how happy and well he is doing.

A few weeks ago we sent a letter out to all the missionaries who went home in our first year of service. That prompted many of them to drop an e-mail or to call us. It is good to hear from them and know they are continuing to make progress in their lives.

As Sister Macdonald was visiting with one of the elders after I had interviewed him, he told her about this great older couple they were teaching. He told her they were very receptive to the gospel even though they were quite old. He was impressed that an old couple would listen to young men and humble themselves to feel the spirit as they were taught. Then she made the mistake of asking how old this couple was. The answer: the man was about fifty and the woman in her late forties. I guess we know how they really feel about this “old couple” who are leading their mission.

Week Ending July 11, 2009 Week # 1

I love this picture. True personalities are really showing through. Did I just admit to that?

Now we look like missionaries. It's a little scary, but I see them change just this quick fairly often. All you have to do is go from meetings to lunch time. They are very well behaved.

Laura and Thales Smith, Andrea Stratton and Tom

Thales is Tom's counselor that is over the senior missionaries. Sister Stratton works in the office and we wouldn't survive without her either.

We thoroughly enjoyed each other's company for the day. Dinner was good too, but the visiting was the best. Thanks to the Smith's for putting everything together.

Strattons, Dixons, Romeros, Kirkhams, Macdonalds, Christensens, Schulthies, Smiths

This is just after our meetings at the Chapel in North Bend. You can see the ocean from here.

The Dixons help in the office. We wouldn't survive without them. Here they are at Shore Acres. It was such a beautiful garden.

On Sunday night, July 7, 2009, I received more than the normal amount of phone calls from various missionaries with a wide variety of issues and health problems. Most of them could be handled over the phone. With one of them I asked my counselor in Roseburg to go visit a set of elders there. They turned out to be fine and I was grateful he was close enough to be there quickly. The one call that caused us the most concern was a call from an Elder who had been out only five days. He was calling from the emergency room of the hospital in Prineville (never a good place to be calling from). His companion was having an appendicitis attack. He was a bit nervous, but was handling it great. Prineville is about 2.5 hours away from us. I called the stake president in the area who was good enough to go visit with them. He met them after they arrived at the hospital in Redmond, about 30 minutes away from Prineville, where the stake president livesand where there was a surgeon to take care of the elder. The stake president knew the surgeon and after the appendectomy was completed he spoke with the doctor and called the missionary's parents to update them.

The next day Sister Macdonald and I drove to Redmond and spent a couple of hours with the elderand his district. He had been released that morning. We bought an ice cream cake from DQ and they all seemed to enjoy it. I was glad it went so well and that he was healing quickly. We have talked with him a couple of times this week and now he wants us to quit mothering him and just know that he is okay.

Tuesday was our zone leader’s council (ZLC) and Sister Macdonald always has a fair bit of food to prepare for that meeting. She was able to pull it all off like a pro even though her Monday prep time was significantly reduced since we drove up to Redmond. In addition to the normal items covered at ZLC I led a lengthy discussion on Christ-Like Leadership. It was great to lead these young men through the scriptures and discussion on how to lead their zones in love and try to do it the way the Savior would. They were so receptive to the idea and each contributed wonderfully to the discussion.

Normally this week allows a lot of catch up time as it is between interviews and Zone Conferences, but we added a seniors conferences into our schedule. We have 7 senior couples serving in the mission (we could use a lot more) . We have two sets in the office and five in various towns in the mission. Most of them are along the coast and one in Lakeview. The Lakeview couple had a son and his family scheduled to come visit them so they didn’t make it over to Coos Bay where we held the conference. However, the other six couples and my counselor, Thales Smith and his wife Laura, made it too. We had a chance to get to know them all better and train them in the expectations of being a senior missionary. We taught them that they don’t need to live by the exact hours of a young missionary, but they should make sure they get their hour of individual study time and their hour of companionship study time too. We then enjoyed an hour and a half or so at Shore Acres, a beautiful botanical garden by the sea. We all had dinner together before everyone headed back to their respective areas.

Sister Macdonald and I had traveled over to Coos Bay the day before the senior couples and interviewed the missionaries in the Pacific Zone earlier in the morning. After we finished the interviews and before the seniors conference we all had lunch together. It was great to see the young elders and the senior missionaries visiting throughout lunch. That and attending a portion of a combined district meeting on Friday, with some of Sister Macdonald’s homemade banana bread, was most of the interaction I had with the younger missionaries this week.

Oh, one more thing I should report. Saturday the assistants came by with a picture album. They had collected pictures from all of the missionaries who wanted to contribute to it. They had written personal notes on the backs of some of their pictures, to celebrate our one-year mark. It was a nice surprise and something we will enjoy looking at through the years. We think Sister Stratton might have had something to do with it too. She's a sneaky one. It's wonderful.

Week Ending July 4, 2009 Week # 6

This is a view of Dorena Lake. The "smooth" was killing Tom, perfect for skiing.

I snatched a picture of the Strattons while we were taking a break to take in the scenery and the wonderful scents.




Tom hurried ahead (so like him) and got a picture of the rest of us coming down the road.

Sixteen new arrivals this month. Not a record by any means, but more than we've had in a while. It's good to have so many excited missionaries join us. Sister Wilson looks just like Amber Harper, one of my favorite Laurels from years past.

Aren't they handsome! Oh it is difficult to say good-bye, but so wonderful to be in the temple with them. It is with great fondness that I refer to them as "My Boys".

Activities the night before going home. This arm wrestle went on F-O-R-E-V-E-R! Everyone watching refused to let them call it a draw, so they kept on, dripping with sweat, until Elder Turner triumphed.





Then after a very short rest Elder Turner accepted a challenge from Elder Hazelett. This wrestle also went on for a while. Elder Hazelett won.





Elder Wood at the airport taking his "Sinatra" pose. How we will miss his impressions of famous people. Can't wait to see him on the big screen.

We have just had another round of transfers. We were excited to say hello to a great bunch of new missionaries and sad to say good bye to some we have really come to know and love. That is what happens on transfer week and we are learning that we just have to adjust to the emotion of it all. We did have dinner with Elder Livingston (who had been my assistant) and his companion, Elder Bosen, on Sunday, June 28. We were able to offer more of a personal goodbye. One of the departing missionaries took the time, as some others have in the past, to write us a very nice personal letter about the difference that Sister Macdonald and I had made in his life. We will keep that letter, as we have the others. We were grateful that he took the time to write it.

The 4th of July fell on a Saturday this year, which is the day we try and take as a preparation day. We enjoyed a bike ride from Cottage Grove up to Dorena Lake with the Strattons. We started early so the heat wouldn't get bad. Two elders were kind enough to loan us their bicycles so we could go, but if Sister Macdonald decides she wants to go on rides more often, perhaps we will buy a couple of bikes to keep here. It was about a 16 mile round trip with a fairly gradual upward climb on the trail on the way to the lake and a welcomed decline on the ride back down. The ride around Dorena Lake was beautiful. I will admit that when I saw smooth water and only a few speed boats out on the lake, my thoughts went back to wonderful days of boating with family and friends. If someone would have offered me a ski rope and a quick ski, I am positive I would have easily given in to that temptation. Being with the Strattons made me realize how you can see the exact same thing and have different thoughts - as he could only think of fishing. :>)

As we always do with the departing missionaries, we enjoyed a trip to the temple on Wednesday. The calmness we feel there is always so pleasant. It is a joy to live close enough to the temple, both here and at home, to go regularly. We are grateful to be able to send our missionaries home on that high note. We pray that it will set a pattern of regular temple attendance that they will follow in their life once they return home.