Week Ending October 24, 2010 Week # 2

Our assistants, Elders Jestes and Brauer, have been extra busy lately helping President do mission president training in all the zones along with taking care of their own area. They are a big help.

They took a quick hike to some falls to break up a long drive...and to see some beautiful waterfalls. Like the shoes?

On Sunday, October 17, 2010, we needed to call our good friends who preside over the Oregon Portland Mission to coordinate the timing of the exchange of Elder & Sister Kikuchi who will be touring both of our missions next week. When we spoke to them we found out that on Saturday the 16th they had a tragedy in their mission. One of their elders died from a brain aneurism. You can read about it on their October 18, 2010 entry to their blog at: http://www.oregonportlandmission.blogspot.com/ . We share their grief and sorrow over this tragedy and add our prayers to theirs that this family, the missionary who was with him at the time and the rest of their mission will be comforted at this sad and difficult time. We are so grateful that we have not experienced this type of challenge in our mission and I am sure that Sister Macdonald and I both have prayed even more fervently this week that our missionaries would be watched over and protected.

This week we were pleased to once again have a round of mission president training (instead of a round of interviews) as we taught in the Eugene, Coos Bay, Klamath Falls and Cascade Zones. Sister Macdonald was over her illness from last week and was able to again travel with me. This was a welcome addition to Elder Bauer and me traveling alone last week. In addition to training the missionaries in these zones, Sister Macdonald and I determined that it would be helpful if she would visit with all of the new missionaries and as many of the other missionaries as she could while I trained the missionaries. We felt like this worked out much better as she could give some counsel to them and also determine if any of them needed to be interviewed by me before we left and headed to the next town.

Again this week, Elder Bauer headed out to Coos Bay on Monday night so that he could go on a couple of exchanges before we arrived. He also did an exchange in Klamath Falls and in Prineville (which he really enjoyed as he started his mission in this town) which is in the Cascade zone. While he was on these exchanges, Sister Macdonald and I had dinner and visited with the stake presidents and their wives in Klamath Falls and Bend. I am grateful for our regular contact with these good leaders, and I am confident that our regular meeting with them has been a large influence in their additional commitment to the spirit of missionary work.

This training cycle we have been teaching the importance, as emphasized in Preach My Gospel, of using our time wisely. I think having Sister Macdonald visit with the missionaries, and having one of the assistants with us who drove some of the time while I worked on reading letters and made calls etc., helped us practice what we preached and use our time more effectively as we traveled. Since the assistants have another elder serving with them this transfer, it also didn’t slow down the work in their area.

The missionaries were so kind to me this week. I had my birthday this week and most of the letters to the mission president included some kind birthday wish, the zones we visited sang happy birthday to me, and I received many calls from current and former missionaries and friends as well. I definitely felt the love – Many Thanks!

On Saturday I went to a baptism in Corvallis with Elder Jestes, my other assistant, and he stayed there for the weekend to go on a few exchanges. We will meet up with him when we travel there on Tuesday to train in that zone. Elder Webster got a ride back to the area as he had taught the young man being baptized and I had the opportunity to drive him back to Eugene. I always enjoy any one-on-one time that I can get with any of our missionaries.

On Sunday our ward had their primary program and we enjoyed imagining our grandchildren doing theirs and also thinking back to the times when our children were young. We enjoyed many pleasant thoughts. We were also invited to do a fireside for the youth in our Eugene ward. It was great to be with the youth and feel their excitement for life and for the gospel.

Week Ending October 17, 2010 Week # 1

Elder Orgill came by for a visit and brought two of his nephews. They were so cute. Boy do they love their Uncle.

Here he is with his parents. It was so good to meet them. We had a nice, but way too short visit. His nephews and I were just getting out the toys.

Sister Wood came by for a visit too. We had a great time visiting with her. I do wonder if we'll get visits when we leave Oregon. I sure hope so.

Since this transfer cycle had “week one” close to the beginning of the month, we held our zone leaders council, as we have historically done, on this week, right after transfers. I think that is the best way to do it, as the companionships know they will be together for the next six weeks and their goals are set for the next transfer. We only had three new zone leaders this time, which is fewer than usual. The new ones fit in so well that we had very cohesive discussions as we met. The zone leaders do so much more sharing of ideas than they use to. I think we are preparing them to work well in church and business councils that they will be a part of in the future.

This week we also started a round of mission president training (instead of a round of interviews this transfer cycle) as we taught in Roseburg, Grants Pass, and Temple Zones. Sister Macdonald was not feeling well on Thursday morning, so she did not make the trip with me. My assistants and I had already planned that one of them would go with us to each zone that we taught in and would assist me in the teaching. This transfer we assigned an elder to be with the assistants in a three-some so that they could still work their area while the other one was traveling with me. That way they could do some exchanges with the missionaries in each area as we traveled. This week Elder Bauer went to Roseburg on Tuesday following zone leaders’ council and I met up with him on Thursday morning when I arrived there. I was glad for the company this week and to have him assist in the teaching. He did great.

On Thursday afternoon we met with the stake presidency in Grants Pass for their monthly lunch with the missionaries and then taught that zone. That evening we traveled to the Medford area and Elder Bauer did an exchange in Ashland. I followed up on letters from the missionaries and made various calls etc. On Friday we taught the missionaries in the Temple zone and I was able to meet that afternoon and evening with the stake president in the Medford stake and then the Central Point stake president. Afterwards I attended a baptism of a very good man the sisters had been teaching in the Central Point 1st ward. It was good to have a chance to visit with him and see the excitement of this new member, and also to visit with another man and his family who have a date to be baptized in a couple of weeks. As I shared my testimony with this investigator he shared his with me. He too will make a great new member.

On Saturday and Sunday I attended the Correlation Council Meetings in Medford and Eugene with the area 70 and the stake presidents. Since I meet with most of the stake presidents so often, this meeting is primarily a review of issues I have previously covered with them.

One thought that was shared in our council meeting was that when we are tested and we are asked to do something that is hard, our testimony can either shrink or grow into a true conversion. As I read the scriptures and hear of the experience of early members of the church I see this happen to them. I pray that I can make that same transition.

Week Ending October 10, 2010 Week # 6

Elder Hardwick stopped in for a quick visit. It was so good to see him!

These new elders arrived on an amazing Fall day in Oregon. They were so excited to be here and wanted to get to work. We fed them and sent them off.

Such a beautiful day to be at the temple. The grounds were beautiful and peaceful. We could have stayed there all day. But alas, hunger will set in so we loaded up the cars and headed toward Eugene for (a snack) a testimony meeting and dinner.

On September 6, 2010 we received three missionaries who were awaiting visas to go to Brazil (to two different missions) and one to Portugal. In the last week, on three different days they were all able to depart for their assigned missions. We will miss all three of them and believe that the training they received here will help them in their missions.

We were at the airport awaiting our 15 new missionaries. We saw them coming down the escalator when Sister Macdonald leaned over to me and said, “Wow, can you feel it? This is a good group of missionaries.” As we visited with them we could feel that this group has great promise and a lot of enthusiasm. They will do much to build the kingdom here.

It was good to go to the temple with the nine departing missionaries and with the Campbells from the office. Only four of this group had been to the Portland Temple before. It was fun to be with them as they saw the beauty of this temple, and more importantly felt the spirit of the house of the Lord. Sadly, the day after one of our missionaries went home his brother-in-law died a tragic death. When our missionary reached out to us there was such a bond of love between us and we sorrow with him and his family as they mourn. We pray the Lord will support them at this time.

On Saturday there was a mission wide meeting for local leadership (not missionaries) with Elder Bowen of the 70 regarding missionary work in the wards and stakes. I was so impressed with the large number of people that came to the meeting. I say this because the meeting was an extra meeting that was just called a couple of weeks ago. Most of these same leaders were invited to a meeting when Elder Bednar was here last month. Their travel commitment is so significant. The meeting was good, and could only help with our missionary efforts. Later that night we went to a baptism in Salem and to a dinner meeting with about a dozen LDS doctors and their spouses in the area. It was good to be able to thank them personally for all they do to help with our missionary health needs.

Sunday I met with two of the local stake presidencies and the zone leaders assigned to their stakes. Again, these good men understand the responsibility they have to welcome all into the kingdom. At the meeting on Saturday Elder Bowen called all of the local leaders full time missionaries, and me a part time missionary because I will go home after three years and they will stay on to build the kingdom for years to come. This perspective really drives home who has the long-term responsibility.

I will close with a bit of irony, last week I mentioned that we needed to send a missionary home who had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. In this incoming group of 15 missionaries, three of them are diabetics. So I am confident that once our elder who went home gets stabilized, this will be a great place for him to serve.

Two Weeks Ending October 3, 2010 Weeks # 4 & 5

Our newest granddaughter. Thank goodness for Skype. We could see her and hear her, just couldn't snuggle her. Isn't she beautiful?!

Bart and Renae taking a look at Heceta Head Lighthouse from a distance and the sealions down below in the rain and wind. The umbrellas collected more rain than they repelled. Not the best day for a trip to the coast.

President started walking fast when he saw I had the camera, but I got him anyway. The Pinnacles at Crater Lake were amazingly erie. We had never seen them before. Glad we took the time.

Dad, Mom, Necia & Lyle with us at Sahalie Falls. There wasn't as much water coming from them as we are used to seeing, but they were still worth seeing. Koosha Falls were beautiful, mostly because of the leaves turning colors all around them. So glad we took the time to walk to them.

It was great to get out in week four and visit with our missionaries in the south and the east, and also to see the stake presidents in those areas. Specifically we traveled to Roseburg, Grants Pass, Medford area, Klamath Falls, and Bend. We enjoyed having dinner with the stake presidents and their wives in the stakes of Grants Pass, Central Point and Redmond, and I also met with the stake president in Bend. Each of these stake presidents are so committed and trying hard to build the kingdom in their stakes. We are, of course, implementing the new plan that calls for interviews only once a quarter, and then we do other specialized training by the mission president with the missionaries in the other two months. We have remained committed to visit every zone at least every transfer to make sure we get some face time with every missionary every six weeks, and hopefully more often. Due to moving a few things around in the last two transfers to accommodate Elder Bednar’s schedule and the mission president’s seminar, it had been eight weeks since we had seen some missionaries more than just briefly at the mission conference, and just over three months since we had sat down with some of them in an interview setting. For most that was not a problem, but for some we definitely needed to visit them and help steer correctly, and give direction. I am sure that some of this is just expectations, as I seldom saw my mission president while I was out. However, this experience showed me the importance of regularly checking in on everything that we really care about. I hope that in my prayers and my important family and other relationships I “check in” as I should. In week five my assistants and I worked on transfers and some specialized training that I will be doing in October on "using time wisely". Once again the transfer process was a revelatory experience for me. An elder asked if working on transfers was similar to how Elder Bednar explained the assigning of missionaries to individual missions. I assured him it was. While the Brethren have 340 missions to choose from as to where a missionary should be assigned, I have only about 85 areas. Otherwise the process is much the same. I was again grateful for the Lord’s quiet promptings, and sometimes not so quiet promptings on what should happen. As in all things these two assistants of mine, Elders Bauer and Jestes, are like the other assistants I have had – great. They do so much behind the scenes to help the work move forward. They never seem to care if they get any credit; they just do as the Lord would have them. We just love them and all of our other missionaries. On Saturday, September the 18th shortly after we returned home from the mission president seminar, Sister Macdonald’s brother and his wife, Bart & Renee, came up this way after spending some time with one of their children’s families in southern California. We enjoyed seeing them and had a nice couple of days with them. We have been blessed that this great mission we have been called to is so close to our home. It has allowed dear family and friends to come and spend a little time with us. We love each of them and their efforts to keep in touch. Just over a week later one of her sisters, Necia and her husband Lyle, came by for a couple of days and brought Sister Macdonald’s parents with them. Again it was great to see them. They were so kind to allow me to work on transfers while they enjoyed a day trip in the area without me. These two siblings had both mentioned wanting to get up here while we were here. Since our time here will end next summer, it made their trips close to each other, and we loved seeing them! At the end of week five we made an extra trip to the southern part of the mission as we were invited to go through the Medford Temple with a woman who was baptized in Klamath Falls in 2009. We were also able to attend the funeral for my counselor’s wife’s father in Klamath Falls. He had also joined the church in Klamath Falls within the last couple of years while in his mid nineties. It was great to see how strong his family is. They had six children all of whom were married in the temple and are active in the church. Although he wasn’t a member until very late in life he supported his children in their church attendance. His late wife must have been a great influence in that family. A temple endowment and a funeral, two crowning events for two good people who are living and have lived their lives as they should, remind me why the gospel is so important. While we were traveling to these two events, one of our elders was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. We were so blessed that he was in an area near our mission doctor and that he could be seen so quickly. Our doctor got him stabilized, and took great care of him. Although this was not life threatening, he went home on Saturday, October 2, 2010 so that he could get this disease under control and stabilized. I was grateful we were back on Friday night so that I could take him to the airport and go through security with him as he had only traveled by plane once before, to come on his mission. Then I was able to spend some time with him at the gate and insure him he had done a great job here. Hopefully he will be able to come back to us in a couple of months.

At the tail end of this week we received the await call that a new granddaughter had joined the family. Evie Rain Macdonald was born October 2. As you can see, she is beautiful. She is also healthy. Her big brother is anxious to be the big helper. We are so blessed.

Week Ending September 19, 2010 Week # 3

A beautiful day at the San Diego Temple. It was chilly outside, but the sun was shining and the sky was blue. This is something we hadn't seen in Eugene for a while.

The Mormon Battalion Visitors Center was really a great place. The sister missionaries there did a very good job and it was fun to visit with them.




President was "selected" to be the model for the battalion gear. The cameras were flashing every where!



We had a visit from the remaining cast of District 2. Many of the mission presidents and wives had questions for them. Their personalities really came through. It was fun to spend some time with them for some "behind the scenes" information.

This was the week of our annual mission president’s seminar. The dates of the seminar were the 15th through the 18th (Wednesday through Saturday) and it was held in San Diego. This was the same city we met in for our first seminar in 2008. Although the actual location was different, we followed the same format of having in attendance the 17 missions in the west area (which includes the California & Hawaii missions) and the 9 missions in northwest area (which includes the missions located in Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and one Canadian mission). Elder Clayton presided at the meetings. In the past the annual meetings were presided over by a member of the twelve, but I understand that policy is changing. Of course we would have been richly edified if one of the twelve had come, but we came home lifted and wiser. That being said, this seminar didn’t lack any in the companionship of the spirit and we were able to learn much in some of the “how-to-dos” of running a mission.

The things we learned are included in our personal journals and are centered on the fundamentals contained in Preach My Gospel. In addition to Elder Clayton, Elder Bowen of the 70 and Stephen Allen of the missionary department came. Brother Allen was able to teach much about what is happening now and also some things that are being tested in various areas of the church. These tested items related to reaching people through internet, texting, and advertizing campaigns and other more modern, nontraditional missionary methods. These approaches have resulted in more hits to Mormon.org and more media referral last month than ever before in a month.

It was good to be there and be instructed, but also somewhat melancholy to see some of the mission presidents and their wives for the last time in the mission field. While I will see the Northwest mission presidents at the midyear seminar in the spring, this was the last one to be attended by Sister Macdonald and the other mission president’s wives in our class. Some of the people we will miss seeing include the Dyches from Portland, of course, with whom we have grown quite close, the Reeves in Riverside who was our youngest son’s (Clint) mission president for the second half of his mission, and Keith and Ada Wilson in Everett, Washington who have been friends and co-workers for many years, as well as all the presidents we came through the MTC with. There were hugs and feelings of love expressed, and times that will not soon be forgotten.

Associated with these gatherings is an activity or two. This year we went to the Mormon Battalion visitor center in old town San Diego and also enjoyed a short dinner cruise in a boat made to look like an old time paddle boat. The food was wonderful, the atmosphere was fantastic and the company was better than both.

Most of our missionaries didn’t know we attended this meeting, but their obedience and hard work made it easy for us to be gone with only limited phone calls back and forth. We are so glad they are doing so well and are easy to lead, motivate and love.