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.

Week Ending September 12, 2010 Week # 2

While waiting for Elder Bednar to arrive, our missionaries waited in their positions for pictures and sang hymns together.

This is the first time we have had our entire mission together. When they sang our "Oregon Mission Song", it was amazing!

Elder Bednar was entering the building as they were singing "Called to Serve". What a thrilling and proud moment. We couldn't have planned it any better. (They didn't know he was there.)

We quickly moved into position for each of five group pictures. Our photographers were so patient.

This was not a normal week two for the Oregon Eugene Mission! We started the week on Monday by welcoming three missionaries into our mission on a temporary basis. Two of them are trying to get to Brazil (to two different missions) and one to Portugal, but they have been delayed for an indeterminate amount of time due to problems getting their visas. We had the normal welcome lunch with them and a very abbreviated introduction into the mission and then assigned them to three different companionships in the Eugene area. They were, of course, surprised to be coming to Eugene instead of to their assigned mission. However, when they heard that Elder Bednar was going to be speaking to the missionaries in this mission on Saturday, any potential disappointment seemed to fade away, and at least for now they are excited to be here. This is the first time we have been asked to host missionaries on a temporary basis in our mission. If they are all as good as these three, we would be happy to do it any time.

The next three days were normal enough for week two, and we enjoyed holding interviews in our three largest zones – Corvallis, Capital and Eugene on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday respectively. As I mentioned last week, we are studying articles written by Elder Bednar as we visit with our missionaries prior to holding interviews with them. We were impressed by how well the missionaries had studied these articles and understood the principles of faith captured in the articles. We believe that their faith has increased as they have focused on these subjects, and that their ability to teach and testify on the doctrine of faith has also improved.

On Friday I spent a bit of time on the phone with Sister Idiart who has been a god-send in handling so many of the details with the conference on Saturday with Elders Bednar, Ringwood, Malm and Area 70 Brinkerhoff. She has been coordinating rides with members for missionaries coming in from the far off places of the mission, as well as arranging with photographers to take pictures, and she and her family volunteered to make sack lunches for all who were coming – about 225! Yes you did read that she was released from her mission last week, but she was kind enough to take this assignment to completion rather than trying to hand it off to someone else.

Friday evening I spoke to Tim Dyches, the Portland mission president, and found out how things went there. They had the same type of conference on Friday night with the same leaders in attendance with their missionaries. He was, as always, a big help in letting me know some of the things that worked well logistically in Portland, and I make no apology for regularly copying many of the good things he does.

On Saturday all the preparation paid off and things went off without a hitch. The missionaries all arrived before the cut-off time of 8:00 a.m. Since none of them stayed over in Eugene the night before, many of them had very early departure times. The two photographers also arrived early and took some test photos so when Elder Bednar arrived all went smoothly. We were even able to start our meetings a few minutes early. Elder Bauer, one of my assistants, conducted the meeting and it was a good experience for him. Elders Ringwood and Malm took a few minutes to bare their testimonies and then Elder Bednar spoke and asked and answered questions (He sometimes had Elder Ringwood or Malm answer a question). I was so proud that our missionaries didn’t ask any foolish questions and in fact, asked inspired questions. The three hours seemed to go by very quickly. At the end of the meeting each of the visiting brethren bore a brief testimony and Elder Bednar offered an apostolic blessing.

During the meeting when one of the others were answering a question, I leaned over to Elder Bednar and asked him if he would have time to greet one of our missionaries, Elder Lopez, since he already told me he would not have time to shake hands with all of them. I explained that this young elder’s mother had passed away a few months ago, and that his father had met Elder Bednar recently at a stake conference in Texas. He said he would be happy to. When Elder Lopez came into the room where we were visiting, Elder Bednar told him “You can do this.” After visiting with him he gave him a big hug and Elder Lopez wept. As he was leaving Elder Ringwood also told Elder Lopez that he could do it. This was a great lift to him. We were so happy to see this ministering to the one that the Savior did so well.

The rest of Saturday we were privileged to enjoy lunch and dinner with the visitors as well as attend a young single adult fireside that evening. I also attended a meeting in the afternoon with all of the stake presidencies and bishops from the 15 stakes in our mission. These meetings followed a similar format as our missionary meeting with a large portion being Q&A. Elder Bednar did well with all of the questions even though some of the questions asked by the young single adults were clearly not as inspired as the questions our missionaries asked. Again I was impressed with the local leadership who are so willing to travel great distances to listen to an apostle. Saturday night we were pleased to have President and Sister Wright from the Central Point Stake stay at our home so they wouldn’t have to travel home late. We enjoyed visiting with them and are grateful for their friendship.

On Sunday the three visitors each went to a different stake and held a two hour meeting in the morning. Elder Bednar went to Roseburg with Elder Brinkerhoff, we went with Elder Ringwood to Monmouth, and Elder Malm went to Corvallis. We enjoyed our time with Elder Ringwood and that good stake. Afterwards we met back in Salem with Elder Bednar and Brinkerhoff so that they could take Elder Ringwood with them to the airport in Portland. They arrived at the designated chapel meeting place a few minutes before us, and since the timing was right Elder Bednar went into the sacrament meeting and bore a brief testimony. I am sure that will be a pleasant memory for those members.

In our personal journals, and many others I am sure, are recorded many thoughts and feelings related to all of these meetings we attended. Most important, I am assured that there are modern day apostles and that this church is led by inspiration. I pray that I will lead this mission through inspiration and that Sister Macdonald and I will both lead our lives the way the Lord would have us.

Week Ending September 5, 2010 Week # 1

This week we are all shorter and wider than usual. Don't know why. Some kind of unfavorable trick photography going on. Our zone leaders are handsome just the same.

I'm not sure how many more of these I can do. Dart guns, mustaches, hats, signs, etc. a lot of planning goes into this picture. It boggles my mind just how much planning they put into it.

As is typical for a week one, we held our zone leaders council this week. We are now reviewing the mission goals and past performance with the zone leaders on a monthly basis rather than on a transfer basis, so when our week one doesn’t line up near the beginning of a month, we will hold a telephonic zone leaders council at the beginning of the month, and hold our in person council on week one. This week we were again impressed with these young leaders and all they want to do to build the kingdom. Some of the zones leaders, whose zones had the most success in the past month, seemed the most interested in learning how they could do more to improve. This hunger to learn more and do better, is likely a key reason why they are doing so much better than some of the other zones right now. It was a good time to teach these young men. We pray they will all go back to their zones and lift those they have stewardship over.

This next week we will have the opportunity to have our missionaries meet with, and be instructed by, Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as well as two members of the 70 who will be traveling with him. Some of this week was spent making sure we have the physical details of the meeting arranged, (gratefully most of this is being handled very well by others) and also ensuring the spiritual preparations are being done. All of us have been invited to read two articles written by Elder Bednar, “Ask in Faith” and “Seek Learning by Faith.” These articles have been read individually, in our companionship studies, and have been discussed as we travel around the mission for interviews. We started this week with interviews in Coos Bay and we were impressed with how well these missionaries had read and understood the principles of faith taught in these two articles.

Sister Macdonald and I are often impressed by how others see our missionaries. People will stop us to tell us how impressed they were by one missionary or another. Of course we get some of the other feelings expressed as well, but any negative remarks we may hear are by far in the minority. Anyway, last week as our missionaries were leaving, one of the airport security personnel came over to us. He handed us two pocket knives and told us, “One of your elders forgot to pack these in his checked luggage and wondered if you would mail them home to him. His name is Elder Buck.” Now there was not anything particularly unique about that, except their travel documents do not refer to them as elder, but rather by their first and last name, and yet this security man had developed enough respect for our representatives over the years that he referred to him by his missionary title of “Elder.” Our thanks go out to all the missionaries who have passed through that area acting as they should, so that they and other missionaries would be treated with respect.

This week we said goodbye to the Idiarts who have served as an office couple for the last year. They have done a great job and will be sorely missed. We also spent our P-Day on Saturday with the Campbells and Watsons who now serve in the office. We went to the coast and showed them around. I think we all had a good time and they got to see how really beautiful the coast area is.

This week is fast Sunday and on that day I have the privilege of attending two of the local stake presidency meetings to discuss missionary work. It is great to see their excitement for this great work. Although I won’t always be invited into leadership meetings, I can always go to church, as I did today, praying and fasting for a spiritual lift and receive it. Because I had made a conscious effort to prepare myself to be willing and able to hear, I was blessed time and time again with the blessing of having the Spirit confirm the truth of what was being taught to me.