Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Twas the morning before Christmas and all through the mission, all Elders and Sister missionaries were driving to Tucson. I know it doesn’t rhyme, but it was the best I could do. More than 300 of us gathered at the Tucson mission headquarters for a conference. It started at 10:00AM sharp. We heard testimonies from Elder and Sister Larsen, and Elder and Sister Raehl. They are the two counselors in the mission presidency. It was very inspiring as Sister Larsen shared a story about planning and preparing a trip to Italy, only to get off the airplane and find that she was in Norway. She compared her life to this story as she was recently diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. She said she was not planning on the trip to Norway, but was making the best of it. It was a very touching and inspiring testimony. Sister Raehl told us about how she and her husband were baptized 45 years ago on Christmas Eve. 

Feeding 300 missionaries

Following these inspiring testimonies, we all went into the cultural hall and were feed a wonderful breakfast. 

Senior Missionaries of the Arizona Tucson Mission

Following the breakfast, we all went outside and they lined everyone up by height, then directed everyone into a group and took a group picture of all 300 plus of us. Senior missionaries got the prime seats in the front as always. They are so good to senior missionaries. Following the photo session, we returned to the church for a 300 missionary white elephant exchange. 

Almost 300 young missionaries exchanging White Elephant Gifts

Senior Missionaries monitoring the gift exchange

That was interesting. They then did a version of the 12 days of Christmas with the 11 zones plus senior missionaries. It was called, “In the first month of my mission, the president gave to me” and so on. Each group had to come up with what the president gave them on their day. Some examples were, “A Spanish dictionary, three phones a ringing, 5 broken bikes” and so on. We then returned to the chapel for a devotional which was presented entirely by the missionaries, except some final comments by the President. I was wonderful as many of the missionaries shared their musical talents and others shared some miracles they had experience. It was a very spiritual meeting. 

Our Dear President and his Wife

At the end, President Killpack told us that he had a present for all of us. The present was that Elder Holland is coming to Phoenix on January 11 and he is going to speak to missionaries in the 5 Phoenix area missions. They have also invited the Tucson missionaries to come up. We will be busing up to Phoenix for this meeting. The missionaries were understandably excited.

Missionaries receiving gifts from home

At the end of the conference, the missionaries picked up their mail and gifts from home. Sadly, some of the missionaries did not receive any gifts from home. The mission home anticipated this and some of us had the opportunity to play Santa for some of these wonderful young missionaries.

Wrapping Gifts for missionaries

Following the conference, we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning with Lori’s family before returning home to Sierra Vista. As you can imagine, we had a wonderful Christmas.

Grandchildren enjoying Christmas

It is interesting how we constantly experience missionary moments. I was in a restaurant the other day and one of the hostesses threw up her hands and said, “I am a member of the church. Can you tell me where I should be going to church?” On Christmas Eve, I was in Walmart looking for a Christmas card, an elderly lady said, “Oh I see you are with the Latter Day Saints.” She went on to tell me about her neighbor who was a member and what wonderful people they were. We talked for about 10-15 minutes. She was a sweet 86 year old lady. She said that her neighbors had invited her to one of their Wednesday night meetings (missionary discussion) and how impressed she was with those young men. I got her name and the name of her neighbor. As it turns out, she lives in Dusty and Lori’s ward and the neighbor used to be the ward mission leader. She really loves those neighbors. We really can touch lives just by being visible and friendly.

The soldiers will be returning January 2. We have really missed them but hope that they all had a wonderful holiday break. They surely needed it. We are anxious to have them return.

Our love and thoughts are with each of you as we begin a new year. May you each have a joyous and prosperous Happy New Year!

Mexico......Ole'

Saturday, December 21, 2013

No, we did not make it to Mexico….but almost. This is as close as we got. We were in Douglas AZ, which is right on the border. We went down to inspect missionary vehicles, one of our new responsibilities. We stopped in Bisbee as well. It was really interesting. There is a long street right on the border with a bunch of fast food restaurants and a Penneys store. There were a number of people walking back and forth across the border to shop. We did not cross the border because RoLayne did not have her passport with her….and, it is against mission rules. It was a nice drive down and back this morning, but not real scenic, except for the large open pit mine in Bisbee. It was also the coldest day since we have been here. It only reached 45 degrees today and it was windy. RoLayne has been busy the past few days baking cookies to take to our neighbors. It is more baking than I remember her doing in a long time. I think she is done for the holidays at least.

All of the soldiers have left the base so things are a bit slow there. We did stop by the Base Chaplain’s office and were able to visit with the lady who is the secretary to the chief chaplain. She has been out sick due to surgery since we got here. We met her on her last day of work in Mid-October. The surgery was to remove a 40 lb tumor from her stomach area. It was cancerous, but was fully contained in a kind of sack. She showed us a picture of the tumor. It looked like a basketball. She is doing amazingly well. They had to remove one kidney, part of her liver, and part of her colon. Since it was all contained, she does not have to have chemotherapy. She is going back into the hospital on January 6 to have a hip replacement however. She is quite a lady.

We invited the couple that we work with on post over for dinner this week. It was really nice. We have become very good friends.

The bishop asked us to visit a sister in the ward whose husband is a civilian working in Afghanistan. He has been working there for 5 years. She deals with a lot of depression. I hope our visit helped to cheer her up. I cannot imagine being separated that long from family and loved ones. I think he comes home once or twice a year for a couple of weeks. We asked the bishop again if there was someone that might benefit from a visit from us. I am hopeful that we will get more opportunities now.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Today we attended the Huachuca ward for all meetings as the soldiers have left for the holidays. The missionary couple responsible for the LDS addiction program in this area came to our sacrament meeting. They actually came to see us and see how the addiction program is going on post. Unfortunately, there is not an active program on post. We talked about starting one. We are going to attend some training and meetings in Tucson to get better acquainted with the program so we will be better prepared to act as a group leader if needed. We had some training in the MTC, but it was very basic.

We have received Christmas and birthday wishes from many of you, for which we are most grateful. We do love and miss all of you and wish you a very Merry Christmas.

Listening to voices from the Past

Sunday, December 15, 2013

I have been listening to conference talks while I walk for the past few weeks. This week, I have been listening to talks from 1983 and 1984. It is so refreshing to listen to apostles and prophets who have passed from this life but whose messages are as powerful and timely as any we hear currently. I have particularly enjoyed October 1983 talks by Neal A. Maxwell, (Joseph the Seer), James E Faust (The Keystone of Our Religion), Von J. Featherstone (Called as if he heard a voice from Heaven), and Bruce R. McConkie (What think ye of the Book of Mormon?). These were wonderful thought provoking talks that testified to me of the divinity of the work we are involved in.

This week we received another new assignment. We will be inspecting vehicles in two zones. This will involve missionaries in Sierra Vista, Bisbee, Douglas, St. David, and Benson. We are working on the logistics of that. It will be fun to meet and get to know more of the missionaries, although I am not sure how excited they will be to see us. Yesterday, we got up early and drove to Tucson to see our grandson Zachary get to fly as a reward for some work he did in school. They have a program at the airport that supports some of the local schools. The pilots volunteer their time and they have some sponsors that support the program. It was really fun for him and it was fun for us to spend a couple of hours with Lori’s family.

Zack in the Copilot Seat

Zack and Classmate with their pilot

Our big excitement this week was that the water heater in the apartment behind us started leaking, came under the wall and soaked part of our carpet. Fortunately, we noticed it and reported it to the management office before it leaked too much as they may not have found it for a long time as the apartment is vacant.

Transfers were this week and we got 5 new missionaries in our zone of 20 missionaries. It always keeps things interesting and keeps the missionaries on their toes. We got a new Zone Leader who has been out for only 10 months. He seems like a sharp young missionary.

I had the opportunity to teach our combined Priesthood Relief Society this week with no notice, as 5 of our soldiers were not able to come to church as they were tasked with cleaning their weapons during church time. They did get done in time to come and enjoy the delicious ham dinner that Sister Kovacs and Sister Heninger prepared for the soldiers. This is the last Sunday we will meet with them this year as they are out of class from 19 Dec until 2 January and they will all be going home on leave. As you can imagine they are all really excited about that.

Twins.......Really?

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Well, those missionary blessings just keep coming to our family.  Recently, we were so pleased when our daughter Amy announced that she was engaged to be married. Blessing!  A couple of weeks ago, our daughter Kim was feeling ill, but that did not seem unusual because her kids were sick as well. Her illness seemed to linger beyond the short stomach flu that the children experienced so she eventually got checked out and to her amazement she discovered that she was pregnant with TWINS, yes TWINs. We are very excited. I think Kim may still be in shock, but the excitement will come. I guess she is due around the end of June next year. As I said, the missionary blessings just keep coming. I am not sure we were responsible for this, but we will take the credit.

This week we inspected the missionary apartments here in the zone. Sister Heninger gave them the “white glove” treatment. Other than the apartment that had raw sewage in the bathtub because of a recent clog, they were not terrible. Some were actually pretty good……the sisters. Most of the elders have a little work to do, but this was the first inspection for many of them so they now understand the expectations. This next week, a sister missionary is coming down from the mission office to train us on missionary car inspections. That will be our next task related to the missionaries.

We attended two baptisms yesterday. One was a lady about 70 who was baptized by her recently reactivated husband. I expect this was the first time he had exercised his priesthood in a while. It was very touching. She has had member friends for many years. Following her baptism, she bore a very sweet testimony. The ward support for her was incredible as well. The other person baptized was a 9 year old girl baptized by a very proud great grandfather. Her mother was recently reactivated as well.

Last night was the Christmas parade in Sierra Vista. It is really fun to be in a small town and see the town spirit here. The people are very friendly and seem to really like one another. The parade was an hour and 45 minutes long. I believe just about every organization and business in town was represented. After an hour and 15 minutes, RoLayne gave up because she was cold and went home

. The parade passes only about a block from our apartment, so it is an easy walk.

 

One of the unique parade floats

Today, we spent a wonderful day with our favorite soldiers. This is always a fun time and we enjoy talking with them and worshiping with them. They have their ups and downs as they proceed through the training. We have 5 or 6 new soldiers who really have brought a great spirit with them. One of the female soldiers brought a friend and afterwards, I heard her talking about the gospel. A couple of minutes later, she came and asked if I had a Book of Mormon, which she gave her. It was really neat to watch them interact and see the spirit touch her.

New soldiers, Two RMs surrounding our visitor 

More new soldiers, both RMs

Thanksgiving

Saturday, November 30, 2013

We hope that your Thanksgiving Holiday was rich and enjoyable and you were able to enjoy it with people you love. We had a very interesting Thanksgiving. The army is pretty strict with the soldiers in training and the past few years we were told that they were not allowed off the post during the Thanksgiving Holiday. We were given to understand  from the Chaplains that this year they would be allowed to visit a private home for dinner if they were not in Black Phase. Black Phase is the first phase when they come into the program and is extremely restrictive. With this in mind, we had invited and were planning on having eight soldiers at our apartment for dinner. Our daughter Lori came down to help with dinner and enjoy the day with us so she brought a folding table and some folding chairs. We bought food for 11 of us and figured out how we would fit everyone in. The day before Thanksgiving, three of the guys let us know that they had other plans and would not make it. That was fine as we were now down to a comfortable five soldiers and three of us. As we began preparations Thursday morning, about three hours prior to dinner, I received a call from one of the soldiers informing me that their sergeant had advised them that none of them would be allowed off post for the day. We were really disappointed for the soldiers. We had a very quiet Thanksgiving with just Lori, RoLayne, and I. We had plenty of left overs.

The rest of the week was fairly routine as it was a short week and we were preparing for our big Thanksgiving feast. After Thanksgiving dinner, Lori convinced RoLayne to go to Walmart with her for the early Black Friday specials that started at 6:00PM. They left at about 4:30 and came home about 9:00PM. I guess that was an interesting experience. Sorry I missed it.........not.

I am going to include a few pictures we have taken during the past couple of weeks. The first is a picture of all our zone missionaries taken at the recent mission conference with Elder Johnson and President Killpack. The couples on our row left to right are: Heningers, Elder and Sister Paul V. Johnson (Seventy), President and Sister Killpack (Mission President), President and Sister Raehl (Mission Presidency), and Elder and Sister Tanner (Senior Couple in Douglas)

The next picture was taken from a lookout point on Fort Huachuca, looking over part of the post in the foreground and town of Sierra Vista in the background. Sierra Vista is a fairly small city of about 45,000 residents.

Final picture is of some of the soldiers marching in the Veteran’s day parade. Veteran's day is really a big deal here as you might imagine. They love their soldiers.

Sunday, December 01, 2013

Today was a really good day. We had 4 new soldiers show up for meetings today. They added an energy that was really welcome. They are all return missionaries, 3 men and one woman. We are really excited to have them as a part of the group until about May of next year. The testimony meeting was really inspiring, they are such a wonderful group of young men and women. The army is really lucky to have them. RoLayne and Sister Kovacs fixed two large crock pots of soup and two large texas sheet cakes. Before you knew it, the soup and most of the cakes were GONE. They really seem to appreciate the meals and the time to socialize. 

We have a relatively busy week this week. We have been asked to inspect the missionary apartments, so that will be on our schedule this week. When we met with the mission president, he told us we would soon also be assigned to do vehicle inspections as well, so we look forward to that. I hope all of you have a busy and fruitful week. We miss you but would not want to be anywhere else.