Shopping at Crater Lake. They were great models for what was available. You couldn't see out any of the windows because the snow was so high and it was cold!
Some breakout teaching at Zone Conference.
Always happy at lunch. 
Shopping with the Stewarts before a play at the Shakespeare Festival. We had such a wonderful time! 
Church in Merlin with two of our fantastic sister missionaries! This week we held our zone conferences in Medford, Corvallis, and Eugene. Since Elder Groskreutz is being released next week, we drove with him and Elder Newman by Crater Lake “on the way” to Medford. While it isn’t exactly on the way, it didn’t add too much time to the trip. The lake is such an Oregon landmark that we like to take our assistants there when the weather and time will permit it. They seemed to really enjoy seeing it for the first time. We have been there a few times before, but we had never been there this early in the year when there is still so much snow. It was beautiful. We arrived in Medford in the early evening, and we had a nice dinner with the Higginbothams and the Johnsons who are serving as senior couples in Brookings and Lakeview. We were blessed to have a great dinner that was hosted by the Hansons and the DeKortes who had served in the mission office with the Fugals. These two senior couples don’t have a lot of interaction with other missionaries because they serve so far away from others, so it was especially nice to have a less formal visit with them when they came in for zone conference.
At zone conference we started with three break-out session and had then missionaries teach about using time wisely. When we came together one of my counselors taught about avoiding the rebellious cycle seen so often in the Book of Mormon and to just stay faithful. Sister Macdonald gave a great talk about being the missionary your mother and your companion rightfully expects you to be. With the help of all the missionaries, I led a discussion about the difference between being trunky and preparing to go home. As we made a list of the attributes of these different feelings and actions, I committed that Sister Macdonald and I would not get trunky, but that we did need to prepare to go home. In like manner, when their time comes, they too will need to register for school, finalize things in their journal, etc. They can and should do those things without getting trunky. We also had a discussion on becoming high yield - low maintenance missionaries. Each of the missionaries committed to write home and tell their parents that they were going to be low maintenance missionaries. The assistants then taught how to be more effective with finding people to teach and to be happy doing it.
Sister Macdonald and I try to take Saturdays as our preparation day, but with stake conferences these last several weeks our Saturdays have been somewhat taken, so it was especially fun this week to take a couple of days and go to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland (although we didn’t see any of Shakespeare’s work.) Gary and Abbie Stewart were kind enough to get us tickets to see “The Imaginary Invalid” and “To Kill a Mocking Bird”. It was great to be with them and to enjoy some good meals, and great acting in a humorous and a serious play.
On the way back we stopped in Grants Pass and attended sacrament meeting in the Merlin Ward. After six stake conferences is was great to be able to partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants. President Lathen was visiting the ward and invited us to speak for 5 minutes each. Speaking was a small price to pay to be able to partake of the sacrament again.
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