Week Ending July 11, 2010 Week # 5

Elder Christensen introducing Elder Shumway--explaining his love for cars.

Sister Idiart enjoying the R.S. Pres. new baby while we have lunch. This is the grandchild of Elder and Sister Rosenthal who used to be in the office.

Sisters Glasgow and Abbott in their homemade T-shirts: "I'd take a bite for a baptism". This idea came from a near dog bite while tracting.

The Paynes were here for their last zone conference. They are headed home. I cried off and on all day. I always hate good-byes. We will truly miss them.

Elder Lunt brought part of his family to see the mission. It was good to meet them and to see him. We had a great visit.

This was the week of zone conferences and we followed our regular schedule of being in Medford, Corvallis and Eugene on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This was also a week filled with news about changes on “how to run a mission”. Those changes will be discussed below. We felt like zone conferences went very good and we were able to feel the spirit at each one of them. We really enjoyed interacting, teaching and role playing with these missionaries of ours. We were blessed to have the two new stake presidents in our mission speak as well as some other local leaders. I asked them to speak on not becoming an “ALARM,” my acronym for A Less Active Returned Missionary. Each speaker approached it very differently, and each did a great job! Sister Macdonald and I would be heartbroken if any of these missionaries we have grown to love became less than they should be when they go home. There was a spirit of love and cohesiveness at all of the conferences that was heartfelt and left us feeling like this was one of the best zone conferences we have held.

We were also authorized to announce that our mission will be having an apostle come and that we will hold a mission wide conference with him in September. The apostle will be doing this conference in connection with some training for the local leadership. Of course the announcement was met with fond anticipation and questions about who it was going to be. Although I know who has been assigned, I have not yet been authorized to share that information with the missionaries because of possible schedule changes that can occur.

After zone conferences we made two to three changes to the transfer board based on inspiration I had felt after visiting with a few missionaries at zone conferences. I also made leadership calls for next week. It felt good and I am very hopeful about this next transfer.

This week I was speaking to the Watsons after they had finished their two weeks in the MTC. They are coming to work in the office to take the place of the Giles who are almost done with their year here. After correlating their arrival time here, etc., they told me they had heard that the schedule of meetings within the mission for mission presidents was changing. They told me the schedule would now be to interview missionaries every other transfer (except for “as needed” visits in between) and to hold zone conferences every other transfer as well. I had heard nothing about this and was surprised to have heard it through the “back door.” I called the missionary department and found out that my Fed-Ex package had not been delivered because the delivery man could not find the office (it is downstairs and a bit difficult to find.) They e-mailed much of it to me and I will get the package next week. The basic plan is to free up some of my time so that I can spend more time teaching in smaller groups. I have always understood my job was to teach and I have done that, so I am excited to move this plan forward.

In addition to the normal running of the mission we have enjoyed phone calls and or Skype calls with our children and are so glad they are so supportive of our service here and don’t cause us any concerns or problems. We love them and think they are all great – that includes their spouses who we count as our own, and of course our adorable grandchildren. We also enjoyed receiving several phone calls from some of our returned missionaries and having one drop by with his family this week. Another good week for the Macdonalds and the OEM.

Week Ending July 4, 2010 Week # 4

President and Sister Dyches are such good friends. They always lift our spirits and help us want to be better. We love them.

Taking a break from working on the transfer board, Elder Christensen is working on President's back (too many pull-ups?).

Elder Leet and his wife came by. We had a wonderful visit, just too short.

Happy 4th of July. I realize that it may be well past Independence Day when you read this, but we just returned from church and enjoyed singing various patriotic songs and are grateful for the many freedoms we enjoy in this great land. Perhaps the freedom we are most grateful for and focused on right now is the freedom of religion and all that means in helping people find their way back to our Heavenly Father. What a great land this is. I am thankful to our Heavenly Father who has given us such a great land to live in, and that we can live here the way we choose.

For a couple of days I worked with my assistants on transfers, zone conferences, and zone leader’s council. As always we had a calming feeling come over us and we received some specific direction to guide our thoughts and make the changes we felt the Lord would have us make. On the day when we had almost all of the transfer decisions made for next week, there was still one elder whose next area hadn’t been decided upon. I felt a need to keep him on the side lines until clear direction was given later. (As a side note we planned on having several missionaries serve in three-some companionships because next transfer we send home six more missionaries than we have coming in, and it didn’t make sense to open an area for six weeks and then close it when we lost those six. I thought we could just decide later to place him in another three-some.) That next day an elder needed to go home unexpectedly and this elder was able to transfer there a couple of weeks earlier than normal transfers. He was already in a threesome and it was very easy to move him right away. For me it was another sign that the Lord continues to direct this work.

This week we had the former Elder Leet and his wife come to our ward and then come by our home afterwards for lunch and a nice visit. They have been on a whirl wind tour through the area and we were grateful to see them for a few hours. It is great to see these young people grow, mature and make good decisions in their life. We know of one or more of our former missionaries coming through here over each of the next three weeks. We look forward to seeing all of them.

On Saturday Sister Macdonald and I were able to go to Portland and see the play, Lion King along with the mission president and his wife from the Oregon Portland Mission. We have grown to love those two so much and we enjoy any chance to be with them. Getting to know them is just one more of the many blessings we have received in coming to the Oregon Eugene Mission.

Week Ending June 27, 2010 Week # 3

Heceta Head Lighthouse with Jim and Venice Michaelis, one of the many sites we took in.

Sister Hinton stopped in to say hello with her family. It was so good to see her and to meet them. Some how I only ended up with a picture of her though. Not good planning on my part.

Elder Furniss stopped in to say hello!
He still reminds me of my brother.

Summer is here and it is Beautiful!! I remember when we arrived (two years ago this week) thinking how beautiful it was in Oregon and how green. It seemed like the Garden of Eden. Then comes the winter rains and you find out how is stays so green. ;>) Now after an unseasonably wet and cold spring it is great to have the days warm up and dry out. This is a beautiful area.

In addition to summer time bringing with it nicer weather, it has also brought more dear friends back to Oregon. This week we have seen and/or heard from several returned missionaries who were passing through town for summer visits either alone or with their families and one who came back to go through the temple with someone he had taught and baptized just over a year ago. We were also fortunate enough to have Jim and Venice Michaelis, friends from our stake at home, fly out and stay with us for a few days. It was great to see them and be able to take a couple of our “saved up” p-days and show them some of the scenic areas within a short drive of our home. Jim had served with me in the stake presidency. We have known them a long time and have vacationed together with families too. They did remind us that we would see them next year back home, and that really doesn’t seem possible. We still have a lot to do.

This week we also completed interviewing the missionaries in the Corvallis and Capital Zones to the north and met with three of the stake presidents in those areas as well. On Thursday evening Sister Macdonald spoke to the relief society sisters in the Santa Clara Stake. It has been fun to occasionally switch roles that we have had for many years and for me to be home while she was off speaking to a church group. She has developed into a great speaker who teaches very powerfully and with the Spirit.

The rest of the week there has been more than the normal amount of phone calls from missionaries with allergy problems for Sister Macdonald to deal with, and about the normal amount of calls from missionaries and some of their parents or priesthood leaders from home for me to deal with as well. We also were lucky enough to have a missionary transferred here from another mission that we are happy to have and look forward to the good he can do in this area. All in all we find ourselves happily engaged in this good work and ready for another week.

Two Weeks Ending June 20, 2010 Weeks # 1 & 2

Our beloved zone leaders looking their best.

...and then something happens to them.





The facial hair matches the hair on their heads. They don't do anything halfway!

Elder Calica is back to lead us in the Oregon Eugene Mission Song! What a treat.

I think it is the only time he really truly enjoyed doing it.

Elders Calica, Brown, Buchanan, Larrabee and Goldhardt enjoying some breakfast.

Our visit with the Kirkhams at their going away party. We sure will miss them.

It was so good to see Elder Burt. He is playing the tuba in the band. No surprise to any of us that he is pursuing his music.

We have been busier than usual the last two weeks which is why the blog got one week behind. The first week of transfers is typically run at a slightly slower pace but the last two weeks has kept us on the road more and busier than usual.

The first part of the week we held our Zone Leaders Council and we had several new zone leaders there for the first time (which is always the case) who were obviously excited to be learning and growing as men and as missionary leaders. One of the things we discussed was the need to emphasize both the growth of these good missionaries and continued growth in all aspects of missionary work – teaching, fellowshipping, baptizing, and total conversion of those we teach and of the teachers. There had been some discussion among a few of the missionaries about whether we should emphasize results or growth of the individuals, and what type of people they would be 30 years down the road. Stealing some examples and quotes from the great basketball coach who recently passed--John Wooden--I suggested that we could do both. Clearly he was able to develop his players and still win championships. I feel that we can both work to develop great people and at the same time have success at the things we are given to do as missionaries. This seemed to resonate with each of them and they left committed to do the same.

We had a visit from former Elders Buchanan, Larrabee, Calica, Brown and Goldhardt. They showed up during zone leader council in time to sing (and of course, for Elder Calica to lead) the Oregon Eugene Mission Song. They were around for a few days. It was a lot of fun to see them and spend some time with them, a reminder of how much we have missed them.

Most of the time when we are asked to speak to groups outside of our specific missionary duties, we are not given any specific topic so we are able to draw from teachings and experiences we have with our missionaries. This helps keep preparation time fairly limited. The last two weeks we were given topics that we were asked to address at a stake conference in Coos Bay as well as a youth conference in southern Oregon. So we were grateful that after our zone leaders’ council we had a couple of days to work on these talks. I also caught up on reading the weekly letters from the missionaries and some office duties. During this time we also had a visit from our former Elder Burt and his parents. We were wishing he had been here for zone leader council too, to play the piano. That would have really been great. We had a good time getting to know his parents and catching up with what is going on in his life. Another reminder of how much we miss our returning missionaries.

On Friday, June 11, we were invited to a going away dinner for the Kirkhams, a senior couple who have served for the last 18 months in Lincoln City. It was fun to watch them interact with the people they had grown to love and who so obviously love them. We were invited to stay the night with the Hansen’s and enjoyed our association with them too. The next morning we drove to Coos Bay to interview missionaries that day. This was out of the normal rotation of interviews, but since we were going to be there for a stake conference we decided to make just one trip out of it. We enjoyed the beautiful drive along the coast and stopped in to see the missionaries in Newport in route and picked up the elders in Florence who are in the Coos Bay stake. We enjoyed our one-on-one time with them in the car. We enjoyed our weekend with the good members of that stake. The two of us spoke at both the adult session on Saturday evening and the general session on Sunday morning. The spirit was strong at both of those meetings and we were grateful for the opportunity to attend.

Over the weekend and into the Monday we had a missionary with some health concerns that occupied much of our thoughts, phone time, prayers and concerns. A good stake president in an outlying area did a great job of working with him and had him see a doctor on Sunday. He was also good enough to drive him halfway to Eugene on Sunday where I intercepted him. On Monday his mother flew into Portland to fly home with him and we hope he can get the help he needs at home to make a full recovery.

Tuesday we interviewed the missionaries in the Eugene Zone and then made the road trip to interview the missionaries in the Cascade, Klamath Falls, Temple, and Grants Pass & Roseburg Zones on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday respectively. We also had a meeting with one or more stake presidents and their wives on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings and spoke at the youth conference on Friday night. After interviews on Saturday we were grateful to be home, but also somewhat recharged as we had been able to see so many of our great missionaries. This time we had a couple of issues to deal with regarding a companionship not getting along as well as they should. There was also a bit of homesickness and/or discouragement with a few other missionaries. We are really amazed at how seldom these issues come up, but when they do they are very real and require immediate attention and divine help.

Week Ending June 6, 2010 Week # 6

Can you see everyone? With so many it was a really big challenge to get every face in the picture. It never ceases to amaze me that so many good young people keep coming. There are so many of them out there!

What a rainy, but beautiful day at the Portland Temple. To be surrounded by so many we have come to love in the temple is an amazing experience. We try not to think about tomorrow and the good byes.




Sister Harrington and her parents. All the missionaries were looking out the window watching with excitement. You would have thought it was Christmas morning. "It's a mom!"

A fierce and exciting game of Jenga the night before going home. What talent and nerves of steel!

We had a fairly large number of missionaries coming and going this week. We welcomed in 18 new missionaries and sent home 17. With that many coming and going we had a large number of companionships affected by this transfer. We needed to rent a 15 person van, in addition to the 12 person van we own, to keep up with the number of people we needed to transport up and down the I-5. In addition to using these vans, we again received a lot of help from various members in transporting missionaries to and from transfer spots. We are always so grateful for the large number of people willing to help missionaries in anything and everything they need help with.

When we were at the airport seeing off this set of missionaries, one of the security people was watching us and walked up to Sister Macdonald and said, “Are you like the den mother for all of these missionaries?” She said that she was, and I am guessing that is a pretty good way to describe to someone unfamiliar with the church and its missionary program what it is she does here. And if that is a title the world can give to her that they will understand, I hope I could be called a coach, as that is what I am trying to do on my end. With the passing of the great coach John Wooden this week, I realize to try and give myself the title of coach is a bit of a stretch. I will try and live up to that.

These groups of outgoing and incoming missionaries were, and are, excellent. We love to welcome in new missionaries, but it is always hard to send any of them home. It was extra hard this time as it was such a large, strong group. Yet, it was obvious when we were visiting with this new group that they will become every bit as great!

This weekend we were invited by Elder Larry Gibbons to attend and speak at the Eugene Stake Conference. He was here on assignment accompanied by Elder Paul Christensen an area 70, to reorganized the Eugene Oregon Stake. The Medford Stake was also reorganized this weekend. We were grateful to have been invited to the local conference so we didn’t have to travel this week for speaking assignments. This is the first change in any of the 15 stakes in the mission since we arrived. We have really been blessed to get to know these good stake presidents and look forward to getting to know these two new presidents better. I have already spoken with both of them and exchanged e-mails. We have a dinner set up with them to get to know them and see what we can do to help them in their responsibilities. The process of changing authority/ leadership in the church is smooth and divine. It is another testament of the truthfulness of this gospel and that the priesthood is restored to the earth.