Conferences

Sunday, November 24, 2013

This was conference week. We had the opportunity to travel to Benson, AZ on Friday to attend what is affectionately called a “Half Mission Conference”. It is called that because it involved approximately half of the missionaries in the mission. There were about 120 missionaries as best as I could count which included 3 senior couples. There was one senior couple who are in New Mexico that could not make the conference. There are about 265 young missionaries total and I think about 15 senior couples in the mission. In addition to having our mission president and his wife, we were especially honored to have Elder and Sister Paul V. Johnson, of the seventy participate in our mission conference. Elder Killpack, our mission president, talked about how important it is for the missionaries and the ward to work together to be successful in missionary work. He also discussed how missionary work is not just convert baptisms, but involves member activation and helping members receive the saving ordinances. 

Elder Johnson talked about what it means to be a successful missionary. He talked about how Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Lehi were all prophets in the same era. He talked about the “missions” they were called to serve and how different they all were but that they were all successful in their own callings. He reviewed the bullet points in Preach My Gospel, page 10 under A Successful Missionary. He then asked which of the bullet points on success depend on what area of the mission you served in? He asked which bullet points depend on your position or on someone else? Oh course the answer was none of the success factors depend on anyone but you and none depend your on location or position. That is really the way it is in the Lord’s kingdom. He does not measure us by where we are, what calling we have, or what anyone else does or does not do or say to us. All the success factors outlined in PMG are under our control. I think if we work on these same success factors in our personal lives, we would experience success in whatever it is we pursue, that is right.

This was a great lesson for all of us to learn. We should not measure ourselves against others but simply against our ability to live the Lord’s standard. He made an interesting observation, he said; “Imagine if all of the General Authorities measured themselves against the other General Authorities." He then mentioned how he received an assignment to speak in General Conference and that he was to follow President Uchtdorf. He said imagine that feeling.

This weekend was also our stake conference here in the Sierra Vista Stake. Elder Johnson and Elder George M. Keele, an area authority seventy reorganized the stake presidency. It was a very good conference. 

I will include a few pictures from our missionary conference. Unfortunately, the missionary I had snap a picture of our zone with my camera, jiggled the camera and the picture is blurry. I will include one later when I find a good copy.

We hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. May the Lord bless you.

Elder and Sister Paul V. Johnson and the Heningers

Feeding the missionaries, President and Sister Killpack standing in center

Sister Heninger working at the Giving Tree

Graduation Week

Saturday, November 16, 2013

This has been a good week by any measure. We have had activities every day which is good. In addition, RoLayne and I have both been able to continue the indexing effort for our ward in Vancouver. Bishop May sent an email out advising all that the ward has completed more than 200,000 names so far in the month of November and that we have only about a 100,000 remaining to reach our goal of 1 million names for the year. We are blessed to come from such a faithful ward. We love them and miss them, but would not choose to be anywhere else at this time of our lives.

This was graduation week. Six of our soldiers completed their training here and are now moving on to the next phase of their career. All six of these soldiers are headed to the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California to learn a language. They are learning different languages from Chinese Mandarin, to Arabic. They will be there up to 15 months and then on into the operational world of the army. I will include a couple of pictures of the soldiers during the graduation ceremony

Graduating Soldiers

Preparing to receive diplomas

In addition to our normal shifts at the Turn Around Point and the Giving Tree, we attended the weekly District meeting. I had an interesting observation this week. I was aware that one of the missionaries is dealing with some personal problems. I am not sure if they include homesickness or if his family are having some problems, but I am pretty sure that the District Leader who was conducting the training, was not aware of this Elder’s problems. As he covered the material in his training I sensed the spirit guiding him to say things that I believe were of comfort to the ailing missionary. What I concluded was that missionaries, by virtue of their calling and ordination carry the spirit and teach as directed by the spirit and sometimes are not even aware that they have touched someone in a special way.

I believe that we can all exercise this gift by magnifying our calling, whatever it is and then not be discouraged because we think we have not been successful. We do not always know when we have touched someone. We may never know in this life. I recall a young man, who was part of a priest quorum I was teaching, who came to me about 10 years later and told me that if it had not been for my influence, he would have never served a mission. I had no idea that I had influenced him in this way. He was an active young man from a good family and everyone assumed he would serve a mission. You do not always know who you are touching and how.

Friday night the Chaplain’s group sponsored a night of relaxation and games for the soldiers in training. They do  this once a month. We are pleased to be a part of this. They call it the Coffee House. Interesting name since hardly anyone that I saw was drinking coffee. It was a fun relaxing night for the soldiers. We helped serve food and just talked with and interacted with the soldiers. It was a good opportunity to meet some of the other chaplains as well. I will include some pictures of this activity as well.

Sister Kovacs and RoLayne serving food

88 year old volunteer who makes cookies

Soldiers enjoying some food at the Coffee House

Thorn among the roses/ Volunteer Ladies at Coffee House

RoLayne and I are speaking tomorrow in the home ward where we attend sacrament meeting. I then get to teach our combined Priesthood/Relief Society lesson at the Group Meeting.

The excitement for the week was that we had a power outage on a clear sunny day. It lasted about 3 hours. (Where is Rick Dyer when I need him?) I guess that our life is not too exciting. At our age, I guess that is a good thing.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

We just returned from church. We had a good day with good attendance on the part of the soldiers. We had three young soldiers who came in looking for the Catholics. We told them we were not the Catholics. They stayed to Sacrament meeting anyway. Not sure what they thought, but it was good to have them there. We also had our favorite investigator from Hawaii. We found out that his mom just joined the church in Hawaii a few weeks ago.  He is a great young man. We had nachos and cheese for the soldiers after meeting. Boy can they eat! I think that our talks went ok today. We leave right after Sacrament meeting so it is hard to get much feedback.

Temple Trip

Friday, November 08, 2013

It is hard to beat last week’s great news about Amy, but this week has had some high points as well. Wednesday, we attended our first Zone meeting. It was run completely by the young missionaries, the Zone Leaders and District Leaders. We have two districts in our zone. There are about 20 young elders, 4 young sisters, and two senior couples in our zone. They include Sierra Vista, Bisbee, and Douglas. Interestingly, there are 2 companionships of young elders and one senior couple in Douglas which has only one ward. We had lunch with the senior couple  the other day. They are from Payson Utah. They know RoLayne's brother and his wife.



Senior Missionaries from Douglas

 Apparently, there are lots of less active members in Douglas to search out. I never cease to be amazed at the talent of these young missionaries and their ability to teach. The sisters are really amazing and add so much to the group. The overall quality of the missionaries is very good in this zone, far superior to anything we had when I was a young missionary. We had some very good missionaries in my time, but we had a few goof balls too. There do not seem to be any goofballs in this group.

Zone missionaries at pizza lunch

 

We worked Tuesday at the Turn Around Point, (Picture included below), and then Thursday we worked in front of the PX at a table with a giving tree. They started with 400 gift cards on the tree and are already down to fewer than a hundred. The military folks are very generous.

Where we work on Tuesdays

Tomorrow morning at 6:00AM, we are meeting at the post chapel annex to take our soldiers to the Mesa Temple. We are really looking forward to this experience. It will be interesting to see how many are able to go. We have a 15 passenger van from the chaplain’s office and a soldier from the ward to drive us. 

 In our free time, RoLayne and I have again begun helping our home ward in Vancouver with the indexing effort. The bishop committed the ward to do 1 million names before the end of the year. I am not sure how the ward is progressing, but I am sure they will accept our help. I didn’t realize all these years how competitive RoLayne is. She is determined to do more names than me this month. She has been leading me so far, but, we shall see.

Saturday, November 09, 2013

 

Some of the soldiers at the Mesa Temple

We just returned from the temple in Mesa, Arizona. Our mission president gave us permission to take the soldiers from Ft Huachuca with us to the temple, which is outside of our mission boundaries. Although our numbers were small, it was a very spiritual and enjoyable experience. One of the young men that went with us is not a member. During the three hour ride each direction, much of the time was spent with a returned missionary on either side of him in the van telling him about their missions and what a great experience it was. The more I get to know this young man, the more curious I am that he is not a member. Above is a picture of part of our group. Our driver was a brother from the ward who is an instructor at the school and gave up his Saturday to drive the military van to and from the temple.

NEWS FLASH, NEWS FLASH!!!!

Sunday, November 03, 2013

News Flash!!!

Yesterday, we received notice that our daughter Amy is engaged to a great young man named Christian Lawrence. We are so excited and pleased. Amy is a wonderful woman and we are so proud that she waited for the right man. It took a long time and lots of prayer but we are confident that she made a great choice. They are planning to be married February 22, 2014 in the Salt Lake Temple. Below is the photo that they sent out yesterday.

 

Congratulations on your engagement Amy and Christian

Other than the great news above, it has been a relatively quiet week here in Sierra Vista. We met with the soldiers today for a fast and testimony meeting. This is really the highlight of our week. I realized that I have not included a picture of the couple that we work with in the service member group. Brother and Sister Kovacs are wonderful folks. Brother Kovacs is the Group Leader. We have gotten to know them in the few weeks we have been here and have already grown to love and appreciate what they do for the servicemen.

Tony and Genevieve Kovacs

It is hard to believe that it has been just over one month since we entered the Missionary Training Center. Reflecting on the last 34 days, it has truly been an incredible experience. We have met so many wonderful people and had many extremely spiritual experiences. It seems so much has happened in such a short time. We are really grateful for this calling and the experiences that we are having.

Occasionally in life, we get in a bit of a rut and start thinking why can’t my life be more rewarding or fulfilling? Sometimes we compare ourselves to the way we perceive others to be. We may think, why isn't my life as good as his? 

We are each born into a special set of circumstances and are given the counsel to “endure it well.” I was recently reading the history of one of my ancestors and came across a story that really inspired me. This is the story of my 6^th or 7^th great grandmother, as best as I can determine. It has taught me one more time a number of lessons that we all should learn. One lesson is the importance of enduring to the end. Another is to be grateful for my own life and experiences. Still another lesson is to take what I have been given and make the best of it. I am sure there are many other lessons that could be learned from her life. Below I would like to share a brief synopsis of her life:

“One ancestor of Benjamin’s reached mythical status. This was the mother of Sarah Pike, known to history as Penelope Van Princin. Penelope was born in Amsterdam about 1622…… She married a young man in Holland, perhaps after the death of her father. In 1640, Penelope and her husband sailed to New Amsterdam. The vessel was stranded off the New Jersey coast at Sandy Hook. Penelope’s husband was ill, either injured in the wreck of the ship or sick after weeks at sea. Penelope refused to leave him, and she and her husband were left behind as the other passengers, fearing attacks by Native Americans, fled to shore and then overland to the safety of the Dutch colony, a trek that would have taken several days at least. The young couple was indeed brutally attacked by the natives, being stripped of their clothing and left for dead. Penelope’s skull was fractured, likely as she was scalped, and her left shoulder was hacked by a knife which prevented full use of that arm for the rest of her life. She was cut across her abdomen, leaving her bowels protruding. Regaining consciousness in this condition, she realized her husband was dead. Penelope held her bowels in place with her right hand and crawled to nearby shelter she found in the hollow of a Buttonwood tree.

After several days, she saw a deer pass nearby with arrows sticking from it. Following were two natives, one much older than the other. The young man intended to kill Penelope, but the elderly native prevented this action. He wrapped Penelope in his match coat and carried her to his home where he dressed the numerous wounds, healing her. Once she was well, this man took her to New Amsterdam, expecting a reward and receiving one in the form of food and supplies. At this time, forty-year-old Richard Stout was a British settler on Long Island. He was born into an excellent Nottingham family. According to the marriage record which still exists, Richard married Penelope in 1644 when she was twenty-two. Several of their children were born in Gravesend, but they eventually settled across the bay near Sandy Hook, living among the early Dutch settlers in the new settlement of Middletown and maintaining friendly relations with the old Indian who saved Penelope. Richard Stout was highly respected and instrumental in the settling of Monmouth County. Penelope bore ten children, all of whom survived to adulthood. She always wore a knit cap to cover the tufts of hair on her head remaining from her injuries. She outlived her husband by twenty-five years, dying at the age of 110. Penelope had five hundred and two descendants at the time of her death in 1732. Within a few generations, thousands of New Jersey residents counted her as their ancestor, as do millions today.”

Is this not an incredible story of not just enduring, but of thriving? What a magnificent woman she was. I cannot read this story without feeling tender feelings of love and appreciation for all she went through and a sense of guilt for any complaining I might be inclined to do. We are such a blessed people and we live in a special time. How will history record how we lived our lives?

Have a great week.