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.
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