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.

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