Message 17 January 2012

Message—17 January 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

Our day yesterday was too long to get this message done last night, so I am doing it one day late on Tuesday night.   We spent most of last week at the mission office being trained more in what our responsibilities will be and how to do them when we change assignments at the end of February.  We are both making good progress in learning what we will need to know, but we have more to learn.  There have been some normal things happen that we will do often; and there have been some things happen that are a little unusual as well so we have had a chance to learn how to handle some things that are less common.  I think I have explained to what our assignment will change.  Sister Jensen will be the Referral Secretary and I will be the Vehicle Coordinator.  These two assignments mean we will be in the Mission Office every day from 9am to 5pm Monday through Friday.  Our P-Day will change to Saturday’s.  We are looking forward to having the privilege to live in the John Young Home in Mendon NY.  It is only about 15-20 minutes from the Mission Office.  The Mission Office Staff begins each day with a short 10 minute devotional.  We sing a hymn, have a prayer, and then one person shares a thought.  Since we are still living in Brockport, it takes us about 45 minutes to drive to the office in the morning.  This means we get up at 6am so we have time for getting ready, eating and reading our scriptures together before leaving soon after 8am.  It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get home at night in the 5pm commute traffic.  When we move at the end of February we will be assigned to help in a different ward; we do not yet know for sure which ward the President wants us to help.  Sometime around January 28^th, Elder and Sister Ellis from Texas will arrive in the mission; and President Christianson is going to have them take over our current assignment with coordinating apartment needs and issues.  They will be living in an apartment near Palmyra until we move; then they will move in our Brockport apartment and help with the Brockport ward.  We will spend the time needed to teach them what we know about apartments.  A week or so later Elder and Sister Wood from North Ogden will be arriving in the mission.  The Wood’s are best friends with my sister Ruth.  We are working on trying to find an apartment for them to live in.

Last Wednesday evening we attended the Site Meeting.  This is a weekly meeting the senior couples who serve at the historic sites attends to coordinate with each other and receive training and information needed to be more effective in the presentations given at the sites.  The young sister missionaries also attend this meeting.  Elder and Sister Lenker have been the Site Directors for the last 18 months, which means they are like a mini mission president and wife.  They supervise and coordinate with President Christianson and the senior missionaries and the younger sister missionaries who serve at the sites to give tours and answer questions from those who visit the sites.  Site meeting last Wednesday evening included some time to let Elder and Sister Lenker share their testimonies and appreciation for being able to serve here in this mission.  Some tributes to the Lenker’s were shared.  The Lenker’s have done a great job in their service.  The new Site Directors are Elder and Sister Searle.  He and his wife were the Mission President and wife in the New York City North mission from 2006 to 2009.  After being home for a little over one and one half years they were called to be the Site Directors, again living in NY.  Most of the Site Directors have previously served as mission presidents.  Elder Searle was a CEO for Citi Bank during his work life.  He and his wife lived in California during this time.  He flew to NY many, many times.  When Citi Bank asked him to move to NY he said no, so they gave him a nice retirement package and he told them goodbye.  Then President Monson asked him to be a mission president in the NY City North mission.  His first response was yes, then he added, last year I could have moved to NY and made a lot more money.  We sat by the Searle’s and President and Sister Christianson at a potluck dinner held last night (Monday) for the Site Couples to have a chance to meet the Searle’s; they just arrived on Saturday.  I asked Elder Searle if he was related to Don Searle who used to live in Provo in our home ward.  He said they are a distant relative but he cannot remember how.

Last Thursday evening we were invited, along with Elder Hulse and Elder Preisendorf, to have dinner with a member couple, the Arrington’s.  Lee is a first cousin to Leonard Arrington, a well-known church historian; I knew him at BYU.  He donated a very large collection of books from England and Europe published in the 1800’s; including some science books which I had the assignment to review and decide whether to add them to the BYU collection.  Lee is a wonderful person, and so is his wife.  He is very knowledgeable about many things, and also has good common sense, which is a rare combination.  He is very patient to help a person learn what he knows; if they want to learn.  He was kind enough to invite me to come and spend two hours on our Saturday P-Day, so he could help me learn how to operate a wood lathe.  He was very patient with me and helped me learn a number of skills and helpful information about the tools to use and how to use them and how to operate a lathe safely.  I am making a wooden bowl with a lid.  He has some health problems and is not always able to attend church, but he is the same type of personality as George Carter, Mac Carter, or John Finlayson.

Sunday was our Brockport Ward Conference.  The Stake Presidency was in attendance.  It was a great meeting with good messages from our recently sustained Bishop and the Stake President, Cary Jensen.  After the block of meetings I was able to visit with the second counselor in the Stake Presidency who is Bentley Hutchings who grew up in Springville.  He is a son of Jay and Loni’s friends.  He is a great person and we enjoyed our visit together.  After the meetings we held our missionary coordination meeting with the Ward Mission Leader.  We were given an assignment to prepare a 5-8 minute presentation to be given at a combined meeting on the last Sunday of January.  It will include the adults and also the young men and young women.  The purpose of the meeting is to help the members learn what they can do and how to do what is needed to invite more of their friends and acquaintances to let the missionaries come to their homes and teach them about the gospel and the church.  Anne told me in a recent email that the missionaries in Fremont CA do not go tracting, the members keep them busy teaching with referrals.  That is what we would love to see happen here in NY.

Monday, yesterday, we spent the day in the mission office.  We had staff meeting with President & Sister Christianson at 10 am; they had to leave about 11:30am.  Then at the end of the day we went to the Joseph Smith Welcome Center, which is next to the Sacred Grove, for the meeting and dinner to welcome and meet Elder and Sister Searle.  We left our apartment about 8:30 am and arrived back at the apartment at 10 pm.  This morning we went to help Sister Green and Sister Sultanian do some things at their apartment to help them get reorganized after having three missionaries in the apartment.  Elder Swanner and Elder Adair came to help do the lifting and moving for us.  We then spent the rest of the day at the mission office.  We arrived back at the apartment a little after 5:30pm.  That is the reason I did not get this blog message done until tonight.

President Christianson shared a little bit of an experience he had last week.  A young man in his upper 20’s has just returned from the Vatican Seminary where he learned all kinds of intellectual stuff which catholic clergy are taught.  He is here in our mission doing sort of an intern assignment, before he can be given his own Catholic Church assignment.  Our young missionaries had met him and they were not able to answer questions he had, so they offered to have President Christianson come and visit with him.  President said that for every scripture they discussed the young man had some philosophical or language explanation to change the meaning of what the scripture said.  President told the young man it appears that you have a lot of intellectual knowledge; do you have a spiritual understanding of what you have learned?  His answer was intellectual knowledge replaces spiritual knowledge.  President then said I would always choose knowledge from a living prophet over intellectual knowledge.  A week or so ago the younger Elders asked the Catholic Priest who is helping the young man with his intern training; do you have a spiritual conviction of the things you teach.  His answer was no.  It is sad that spiritual conviction is no longer important in some Christian churches.

We love you all so much.  We appreciate you and miss you and pray for you that Heavenly Father will continue to guide you, protect you, and bless and guide you in all you do.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine