Week Ending February 28, 2010 Week # 4

Spring is here! Beautiful blossoms are everywhere and so is unpredictable weather.

These are at the side of the mission home.

These have the most heavenly aroma and are near our driveway.


Here are some of the colors emerging at the Portland Temple.

This was the week that I worked with the assistants to make transfer decisions. It seems like yesterday that I was working hard to figure out how to work through my first transfer experience. I thought it was a little difficult because I didn’t know any of the missionaries and I had to depend so much on the spirit to direct where missionaries should be sent. This week was the 15th transfer I have worked on and I found it difficult for a different reason. Now I do know the missionaries and I want to be sure that it is the Lord directing this work and not my preconceived thoughts about any of the missionaries. Once again I found He did a great job of leading the way and I am calm with the decisions that were made.

This week one of our elders, who came in last month, had to go home with health problems. He has crohn’s disease and had delayed his arrival into the MTC by six weeks because he had a flare up right before he was suppose to arrive. He got it under control, but almost immediately after he arrived he had problems again. The doctors (both here and the ones the missionary department consult with in SLC) recommended that he go home and try to get it resolved. He wanted to stay, but he and his family know that his number one concern right now has to be to get healthy. We hated to send him home.

This week while I was getting my hair cut the shop was calm enough for me to have a good conversation with the woman who cuts my hair. I have had many discussions about the gospel with her on previous visits. One time she told me that she couldn’t afford to get married to her fiancée. I told her I would provide the church and perform the wedding ceremony for free. They are still considering taking me up on that. This time I asked her if she had ever read the Book of Mormon. She told me that she hadn’t. I told her about the book and testified of its truthfulness. She agreed to read it and I got one out of the car and gave it to her. We agreed to talk about it next time I was in. Let’s hope for the best.

This weekend our stake conference speaking assignment was right here in Santa Clara, about 20 minutes from our home. Because of how close it was, we were able to partake of the sacrament in our Eugene ward before we went over to the meeting. We were only asked to participate in the Sunday session, so it felt like a week off from speaking. We enjoy going there as we know a number of people in that stake, and today we found out that Sister Macdonald has a second cousin living there. She had fun connecting with him for a little while.

Spring must be getting close, as we saw a man on a large tractor mowing the park lawn for the first time of the year when we went for a walk one day this week. It is nice to see that Spring is coming (although this was a very mild winter) and see the hope of new life that comes with it. We are ready for longer, warmer, and mostly DRYER days.