Today I was reminded why we are here. Recently, our attendance at both church and institute class has dropped off. Today, two of our soldiers spoke in Sacrament meeting and another one taught the priesthood lesson. As I was listening to one of the young soldiers, who is preparing to serve a mission at the completion of his military training, I reflected back to our MTC experience and a young man that we met there. He had served in the army for 4 years and was now serving a mission. I reflected on the dedication, patriotism, and loyalty of these young men and women and how fortunate we are as a nation to have righteous men and women who are willing to give their all if called upon in the service of our nation. It is an honor to serve and minister to these folks and we are so blessed to have been called to do so.
We got notice Friday of two new soldiers who have just arrived from Fort Jackson. They are both new converts of less than a month. I called and talked with them both on Saturday. They were not able to attend today, but we hope to see them next week. We are excited to get to know and to work with them.
Two of our 2nd Lieutenant graduated this week and two more of the officers that we have been meeting with decided to attend the regular ward. We had a total of 5 soldiers in attendance at our meetings this week. It is disappointing, that we are missing several that we know about, but the army is not cooperating either. They make it really hard for these soldiers to worship. I think I am heading back to the Chaplain office and perhaps to meet with commanders to try to find a solution.
Friday, we drove up to Tucson and visited with Jo, the Chaplain secretary who is recovering from cancer surgery in a rehab hospital. She looked really good and seems to be recovering. She has a long way to go as her incision has not been closed and has to heal from the inside out. I expect it will be months before she is able to return to normal activity. I think she is also going to face further treatment. We are trying to help keep things going at the TAP where we work on Tuesdays. I am not sure about the rest of the projects that she works with. While we were in Tucson, we stopped and visited with Lori's family and took the cover off of the trailer. We popped the slides and loaded up some of our stuff that we will not be bringing home this fall. We will stay a Lori's for a couple of days on our way home. The big excitement there was that we found a dead mouse in the trailer next to the mouse bait. We searched the rest of the trailer with no other traces. Not sure how the little rodent got in, but he did not get out. We put more mouse bait all around so hopefully no more visitors.
We have a half mission conference tomorrow in Benson. We will meet with President Passey and Elder Malm of the Seventy. We are excited and looking forward to that.
I know that you will all be disappointed as the photos are the most popular part of the blog, but I did not take any relevant photos this week. Perhaps I can find a few that you have not seen that are of interest. I hope everyone has a great week, only three more weeks to go. I think we are actually beginning to be ready to go home.
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| Turn Around Point or (TAP) where we work on Tuesdays. Sister Heninger in the back |
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| TAP, We sort donations and rotate clothing between winter and summer |
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| We usually have about 10 customers in a 3 hour shift. Lots of books, videos, and other stuff. Kids love to play with the toys |
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