A Year of Service - Tuesday, March 2, 2010

It was a year ago today that we entered the MTC to fulfill our goal of serving a mission as a senior couple. We remember the day vividly as we loaded our suitcases on top of our Tahoe, and filled the back seats with our most prized possessions, our daughters and grandsons. Prized possession #5 was not with us - our son-in-law.

The patient brother at the MTC waited as we took parting pictures and hugged and hugged our daughters and grandsons. We were then whisked away to go through the check in process as we were the tail end of the arriving group. We couldn't believe it was finally happening. How exciting!

And here we are one year later serving in a mission over 6000 miles from home. It has been an enriching and fulfilling experience that will change our lives forever. We have learned so much, felt more deeply, and understand more clearly the power the gospel has in changing lives. Sweet is this work for sure! We are so grateful for this experience to be missionaries.

The President came to the office this morning and was a bit anxious at the news he received yesterday that two missionaries scheduled to come next week might be delayed. Will it be a day or two? Maybe a week? A whole transfer? He wanted us to all Salt Lake and find out the status of these two elders. This is a crucial time for a president as he is moving missionaries around and finding places for new ones. He needs to know who and how many are coming. The answer from Salt Lake was uncertain. So he will leave these two out of the count, and if and when they come he will add them to a companionship making a trio. Settled!

I entered baptisms this morning and handled some medical calls. Dr. Petersen is leaving next week and I am sick about it. I will be ordering that there are no sick missionaries for the next six months of our mission. Fat chance!

We had to laugh at Elder Hales today. Since the elders have to cook their own meals on the days that food is not provided by members, he was suggesting that they needed to plan more to have better meals. Some of the things they throw together have been pretty bland and tasteless. So today he brought some pre-made pizza shells with cheese and toppings to go on them. Great idea, but there is one problem -- we have no oven in the kitchen. We only have a cook top. Embarrassed, he said it didn't even dawn on him. Elder Kroff and I couldn't let them starve, so we told them to order a couple pizzas to be delivered -- our treat. They did so and were grateful.

Our district meeting was this afternoon over in the church, and before our elders left the office, we gathered them together for a picture with us to remember who we served with at this milestone in our mission.

Elders Hales, Peterson, and Coria are fun to work with and always accommodate us taking their pictures. We have a few of them in our archives, I'd say.

Since we serve with Sisters Sandoval, Rivera, and Collinwood in the Tigre branch, we wanted a picture with them too. This weekend they have six baptisms planned. Go Hermanas!

Elders Pugmire and Henderson, and Sister Collinwood are the three from our district going home next week. They ham it up in this picture. Sister Collinwood brought homemake cookies and brownies with a bag of milk for a little farewell party after the meeting.

The doors to the baptismal font were opened as a setting for this group shot -- not sure why. This is a fun group of good missionaries.

We left the office at 5:00 with just enough time to come home for a quick dinner (another BBQ beef sandwich) before Rich had to leave to go back to the church at 6:30 for his English class. There were about twelve in attendance tonight and the class is becoming more comfortable in learning the language, so are having more fun.

Tomorrow starts the last third of our mission. How could that be?