The sisters welcomed us dressed in old ties and suit coats they found hanging in the closet of their apartment. They are so much fun!
Elder and Sister Kakuchi were delightful!
President and Sister Wright have always got our backs--whatever we need in the Medford area. They are wonderful, dedicated and a lot of fun.
Camrie, you look beautiful! What an exciting day for you. Wish we could be there, but how blessed we are to live in the time we do. Skype is such a blessing. We are so proud of you!We started this week on Tuesday and Wednesday by finishing another round of mission president training as we taught in the Corvallis and Capital Zones. We loved seeing all of these good missionaries. We also had the opportunity to have a lovely dinner and visit on Tuesday night with President & Sister Sherry (he serves as a counselor in the Corvallis Stake.) Later that evening I went out to the Monmouth Stake with the Capital zone leaders and we visited with the stake president there, President Petersen. Both of these stake leaders were very willing to discuss how they could help the church grow in their stakes. It was also good to visit with the zone leaders in route.
On Wednesday afternoon, after we finished the training in the Capital Zone, we traveled back to Eugene and made final preparations for the mission tour with Elder & Sister Kikuchi. Sister Macdonald made a lovely dinner for the Kikuchis and the Dyches from the Portland mission as they were bringing the Kikuchis to Eugene after they finished touring their mission. They were originally scheduled to arrive at 6:00, then 7:00, and finally arrived at 8:00. By then they did not want a large meal and only had a bowl soup. They all said the soup was good. We have untouched leftovers for a future meal. ;> Elder Kikuchi and I visited that evening about things our mission needed and reviewed how the mission has done over the last couple of years.
On Thursday we held a zone conference in Eugene for all the missionaries north of Roseburg. We would normally hold this in two sessions of zone conference, but it worked out great this way. Elder Kikuchi is fairly direct and he taught the missionaries powerfully that although this mission has already been blessed with more baptisms in a single year than the mission has ever seen since it was organized, the windows of heaven would only fully open after ALL the missionaries were being completely obedient to the morning schedule. While most of the missionaries are already obedient in this area, the principle he taught is the power of us all being united and doing all that we should. After we finished our conference in Eugene, we drove to Medford to be ready for our conference there on Friday.
On Friday Elder Kikuchi taught basically the same things he taught in the North. He did so with a lot of energy. I am sure he has taught this same principle in many other missions this year, but he still maintained a very high level of energy and enthusiasm and the missionaries received it well in both locations. That evening we enjoyed a meal at President Wright’s home in Jacksonville and we were joined by the stake presidents and their wives from the Medford and Grants Pass Stakes. I think these stake presidents enjoyed the opportunity to have an informal meeting with a member of the seventy.
Saturday morning, while Elder Kikuchi visited with and released the Medford temple president, we had a wonderful family experience. Our oldest grandchild was baptized in Utah. Since we were serving here, our son-in-law received special permission from their stake president to allow us to watch the baptism via Skype. We didn’t hear the talks or see the confirmation, but we were able to see Camrie become a member of the church. We felt so blessed to be able to have this opportunity. Later that day we attended a convert baptism in the Medford area and then drove back to Eugene.
On Sunday (which was Halloween) we encouraged our missionaries to be in by 7:00 pm and do their studying that they missed on Sunday morning as they are at leadership meetings at the church. Since we were home and available that evening, we invited the missionaries serving in the Eugene and Santa Clara districts to come by for some impromptu studying from the scriptures. We ended up having 13 missionaries come over and we enjoyed our time with them.
All in all, we had a great week and since we were very tired at the end of it all, we think we might have come close to doing all that we were supposed to.
On Wednesday afternoon, after we finished the training in the Capital Zone, we traveled back to Eugene and made final preparations for the mission tour with Elder & Sister Kikuchi. Sister Macdonald made a lovely dinner for the Kikuchis and the Dyches from the Portland mission as they were bringing the Kikuchis to Eugene after they finished touring their mission. They were originally scheduled to arrive at 6:00, then 7:00, and finally arrived at 8:00. By then they did not want a large meal and only had a bowl soup. They all said the soup was good. We have untouched leftovers for a future meal. ;> Elder Kikuchi and I visited that evening about things our mission needed and reviewed how the mission has done over the last couple of years.
On Thursday we held a zone conference in Eugene for all the missionaries north of Roseburg. We would normally hold this in two sessions of zone conference, but it worked out great this way. Elder Kikuchi is fairly direct and he taught the missionaries powerfully that although this mission has already been blessed with more baptisms in a single year than the mission has ever seen since it was organized, the windows of heaven would only fully open after ALL the missionaries were being completely obedient to the morning schedule. While most of the missionaries are already obedient in this area, the principle he taught is the power of us all being united and doing all that we should. After we finished our conference in Eugene, we drove to Medford to be ready for our conference there on Friday.
On Friday Elder Kikuchi taught basically the same things he taught in the North. He did so with a lot of energy. I am sure he has taught this same principle in many other missions this year, but he still maintained a very high level of energy and enthusiasm and the missionaries received it well in both locations. That evening we enjoyed a meal at President Wright’s home in Jacksonville and we were joined by the stake presidents and their wives from the Medford and Grants Pass Stakes. I think these stake presidents enjoyed the opportunity to have an informal meeting with a member of the seventy.
Saturday morning, while Elder Kikuchi visited with and released the Medford temple president, we had a wonderful family experience. Our oldest grandchild was baptized in Utah. Since we were serving here, our son-in-law received special permission from their stake president to allow us to watch the baptism via Skype. We didn’t hear the talks or see the confirmation, but we were able to see Camrie become a member of the church. We felt so blessed to be able to have this opportunity. Later that day we attended a convert baptism in the Medford area and then drove back to Eugene.
On Sunday (which was Halloween) we encouraged our missionaries to be in by 7:00 pm and do their studying that they missed on Sunday morning as they are at leadership meetings at the church. Since we were home and available that evening, we invited the missionaries serving in the Eugene and Santa Clara districts to come by for some impromptu studying from the scriptures. We ended up having 13 missionaries come over and we enjoyed our time with them.
All in all, we had a great week and since we were very tired at the end of it all, we think we might have come close to doing all that we were supposed to.
0 comments:
Post a Comment