Message 25 March 2012

Message—25 March 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

Monday six new missionaries arrived in the mission; four Elders and two Sisters.  Monday Sister Jensen and Sister Servoss helped Sister Christianson get the evening meal ready for the missionaries.  The new missionaries had to get out of bed about 2am at the MTC to get to the SLC airport to catch their plane at 4am.  By the time 6pm arrives it is very hard for them to stay awake for the orientation, but they did well.  Elder Servoss and I took care of the Office and then went to the President’s home about 5:30 and had some of the dinner left from the missionaries and President and Sister Christianson.  At 6pm we began the New Missionary Orientation meeting in the basement training room at the President’s house.  This was my first time on my own to give the required vehicle safety training to the new missionaries; I will get better at doing this.

Tuesday at 12pm we met at the Chapel on Kreag Rd.; which is about one mile from the mission office for the Transfer Meeting.  The President and his wife and he AP’s take the new missionaries to the church history sites in Palmyra Tuesday morning before the transfer meeting.  At this meeting, which is only about 30 minutes or so, the new missionaries were introduced to their first companion and trainer.  All the other missionaries affected by the transfer also were there.  The President gave some instruction, and one senior couple who are going home in a week shared their testimony for the last time.

Sister Jensen helped me with some of my vehicle projects during the week; she is very good at performing her job as well as helping me with mine.  I also worked on getting the rest of the 10 vehicles that need to be sold, ready to be sold.  Sister Jensen also helped Sister Servoss with preparing some food on Friday for the new missionaries and their trainers who came to receive some training from the President to help them be more effective at doing their missionary work.

Saturday we spent most of the day doing errands of various types.   We had to be at the Rochester Airport at 11:10 am to pick up Tim Ott and Joe Paul who came from the Church Vehicle Fleet Administration Office in Salt Lake to spend the weekend and they will meet with me and the President Monday morning at 8:30am.  We invited them to have a good home cooked meal with us Sunday evening, at 5:30pm.  They have been traveling for about two weeks to various missions in the Northeast USA area, including up to Halifax Nova Scotia.  Joe has been newly assigned to this area by Tim so Tim is training him.  They attended church this morning at the Palmyra Stake Center, across the road from the Palmyra Temple.  They then went to the three church history sites in the area, and also to the Peter Whitmer Farm in Fayette.  After dinner with us, and the Servoss’s, Elder Servoss and I took them to see the Brigham Young baptism site, the cemetery where Brigham Young’s first wife is buried, and also Heber C. Kimball’s father and President Spencer W. Kimball’s great grandfather; is buried there.  Then we took them to the Tomlinson Inn; then back to our house.  We feel so blessed to be able to spend time at some of the places where the events of the restoration took place.  We then let them see some DVD’s that Elder McVea made on several different topics.  Two of the video clips were about vehicle training.

This morning, Monday, at 8:30 am Tim and Joe will meet with President Christianson and I for an annual review of all of our vehicle needs and problems etc.  Tim is responsible for all the church vehicles in the world; and Joe is assigned the vehicles in the North America Northeast Area which includes Eastern Canada and up to Nova Scotia; this is the same area for which Elder Jay Jensen is the Area President.

We invite everyone to take time to watch the sessions of General Conference this next Saturday and Sunday.  President Monson is the prophet of the whole world, not just members of the church.  Our lives will be blessed by hearing his message, as well as the twelve apostles and other church leaders.  We will be taking time to watch the conference from our home, except that I get to go to a church to see the Priesthood session.

We very much appreciate those of you who are watching over our home, thank you so much for all you do.  We love each of you and are grateful for your prayers and thoughts in our behalf.  We hope and pray all is well with each of you and that you will be blessed in your trials and challenges.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine

Message 18 March 2012

Message—12 &19 March 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

We made it through our second week on our own in our new assignments in the Mission Office.  I had to call Elder McVea four out of the five days to get his help with some items he had dealt with that I did not know the background of enough to solve the problem.  The McVea’s made it home on Saturday March 3^rd.  They spoke in their home ward sacrament meeting yesterday, March 11^th.  Elder McVea said it was a good meeting; and I received word from Tim Ott, who is over the Fleet Administration Office in the Church Office Building, that the McVea’s gave very spiritual messages and shared some of their experiences here in the mission.  Tim attended the sacrament meeting.  Sister Jensen and I both look forward to visiting with the McVea’s when we get home next year; they are very special people to us and we love them.  Sister Jensen has taken over Sister Mcvea’s assignments and done very well with them.  She follows up with the missionaries to get reports on the progress they are making with referrals they have received.  She has also follows up on getting the baptism and confirmation information from the missionaries so the membership records can be made; and she also sees that the President gets the baptism and confirmation statistics each week.  She also takes care of the mail which includes making sure mail and packages sent to the missionaries gets to them one way or another.  She also helps Sister Servoss with some projects; and she helps me at the end of the month to see that the expenditures on the vehicle gas cards match what the Church’s Paymentnet accounting database shows.  She really is a great help to all of us and the missionaries.

We have been greatly blessed this month, in the mission, to see 10 baptisms and confirmations.  There are reports that we may have 10 more baptisms by the end of the month.  If that happens, it will be the first month there have been 20 baptisms in one month since President Christianson has been here.  Some of the baptisms this month have been in areas where there were no baptisms during all of 2011.  All of us missionaries are working towards a goal of 10, 3, 1.  Which means we try to talk with 10 new people each day whom we have never talked to before; teach at least three lessons each day, and work towards having one baptism per month per missionary companionship.  We have been doing this for the last month or so; and the blessings for our efforts are beginning to be given to us.  One of the AP’s, Elder Anderson, has had a goal to have a baptism at the end of his mission, which is March 21^st.  He and his companion, Elder Campbell, were blessed to find a person to teach and he is going to be baptized by the end of March, just a little after Elder Anderson goes home.  Baptisms are a gift from God according to His wisdom and timing and the agency of the person; not according to our own wishes.

Today, March 12^th, in our mission office staff meeting, President Christianson shared a quote from a leadership training given by Elder Packer in 1985.  It was given to stake presidents, mission presidents, and Regional Representatives.  Elder Packer told these leaders that in order to be blessed with success in missionary work at home; they needed to send missionaries, including couples, to other parts of the world.  As they do this the missionary success in the home wards and stakes will increase.  He said as other countries and areas of the world start sending more missionaries out to other parts of the world; they will begin having more missionary success in their home wards, stakes, and missions.  He also said this instruction is not something they can ignore; they must do it in order to move the work forward at the pace the Lord expects.  What President Packer said has come to pass; so to me that demonstrates he is a prophet seer and revelator.  Another quote the President shared today was from Elder Bednar.  He said in 2009 we must go beyond talking about “Preach My Gospel” and start BECOMING “Preach My Gospel” members and missionaries.  We must do the things in the checklists and bullet points in “Preach My Gospel”.  We must also do all we possibly can to invite others to come unto Christ; and expect nothing in return; then the instruction in Alma 26, especially verse 20, will begin to happen; success will be given to us as gift from God in His wisdom and timing; not ours.  One other quote came from Elder Holland, who said we must have divine companionships, meaning we must have the Holy Ghost, a divine member of the Godhead, as our companion; and we need to let him be the senior companion, not the junior companion or no companion.  We had some great instruction and spiritual messages and discussions today in our staff meeting.

In the last two months the Church Fleet Administration has purchased 18 new vehicles to replace our older vehicles which have about 50,000 miles on them.  When new vehicles come we counsel with the President and determine which vehicles to replace and where they should be placed to best help the work to progress.  After he decides, I do all the record keeping and see that the exchanges are made; and that the vehicles being replaced are cleaned by the missionaries, both outside and inside.  Then after the old vehicle gets to the mission office I coordinate with the Fleet Administration Office to see that the vehicles meet their requirements to be sold.  I then advertise the vehicles available to places where we might sell them; and follow through with the sale of the vehicles.  Elder McVea was able to sell 8 of the vehicles, so I have 10 left to sell.  That is what I spent most of the last week doing.

On Wednesday we had a mission conference the President was directed to have with Elder David Cook, our Area 70 presiding.  Elder Cook recently was informed he will be released as an Area 70 at General Conference.  He taught us from 9am to 11:30 am.  He is a very gifted leader and teacher and we were all spiritually blessed to learn from him.  He is a well-respected lawyer in this area.  President Christianson and his counselor, President Miner, in the mission presidency taught us the rest of the day until about 4:00pm; then the missionaries who are going home this Wednesday shared their testimonies; and we ended the meeting at 4:30.  Sister Jensen and Sister Servoss and Sister Christianson did the work to provide a nice dinner for the missionaries at about 12:30.  The President taught us about the teaching methods described in Alma 17; he wanted to also include others taught in Alma 18-19, but there was not enough time.  He only covered about twelve of 30 he wanted to teach us.  He taught these in connection with the 12 new teaching lessons the missionaries now learn in the MTC along with Preach My Gospel (PMG).  Friday two elders who live near the mission office came in and Elder Garcia shared an experience they had in teaching an investigator the previous night.  President & Sister Christianson were in the office at the time and heard Elder Garcia share their experience.  He and his companion, Elder Miller, followed the PMG and the new lessons just as they are written; and the Spirit was so strong and they invited the investigator to be baptized and he accepted.  Elder Garcia was so excited to see how effective it is to follow what the PMG and the teaching lessons instruct us to do.  The President was also very excited to see Elder Garcia so enthused and see that what he has been teaching the missionaries was actually followed and also see the success that follows when we are obedient.

This past week President & Sister Christianson have had a young man, Hamlet, from Provo stay with them,  Hamlet grew up in Provo in an older home on 900 West and 400 South, just north of the train tracks on 900 West.  Hamlet is a returned missionary who the President had taught in CES Institute; who has been struggling with some problems for a while.  Friday evening the Servoss’s invited us to go to the Palmyra Temple with them; which we did.  In the same session with us, President and Sister Christianson brought Hamlet, and also Elder & Sister Moses came, and also Elder and Sister Gardner were with us; who have been serving as a site couple and will be returning home this week.  It was a great experience for us to be in the temple with our missionary leaders and friends.  Sister Jensen and I have been blessed to get to know Hamlet while he has been here; he is great young man and has found his way back from his problems.  This was the first time he has been to the temple since his mission.  President and Sister Christianson have taken him to the church history sites and spent some time with him alone and he also attended our mission conference on Wednesday.  He has been blessed and helped by being here and is ready to go forward with his life with new faith and hope and motivation to be obedient; repentance really works.

This morning, Sunday the 18^th, after our sacrament meeting in the Geneseo ward; the Bishop invited me into his office and asked I and Sister Jensen to take over being Institute Instructors to replace the McVea’s.  Right after talking with him, President Hutchings who is the 2^nd Counselor in the Stake Presidency; who has the stewardship for Institute in the stake, invited me into the Bishops office and officially extended Sister Jensen and I the same calling.  We will be teaching this class once a week on Thursday evening at 7pm in the Geneseo Ward building.  At this point we have three youth; but we may also have a few others come from the Warsaw ward.  Elder and Sister Jones have been working diligently trying to find the YSA in the Warsaw ward and has had some success.  The CES Coordinator is a Brother Gammon who lives in the Palmyra Stake and he will be training and helping us do things right.  I will have to ask him about being related to my Gammon neighbors in Utah.

I apologize this is so long, but I am putting two weeks in one message.  Hopefully we can get back to being regular again so we will not need to do two weeks at a time.  Last Monday evening we went to a Family Home Evening with the Site Couples in the Joseph Smith Welcome Center which is at the Sacred Grove.  One of the Site Elders, Elder Young, gave some information about the history and the process of how the homes with rock facing were constructed.  The Martin Harris home is one of the homes with this type of rock facing.  We have seen hundreds of homes with this rock facing here in New York; the rocks come from the shore of Lake Ontario.  The church owns the Martin Harris Home; it is used for living quarters for senior couples who are serving a mission working for the Facilities Management Director for this area.  One of the couples is Elder and Sister Gammel from Duchesne.  They are good friends with Sister Jensen’s sister, Donna and her husband Steve who live in Talmage, just North of Duchesne.  Elder Young also had done some guess work calculations about the size and weight and related information about the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated.  His information was very interesting.

It is time to quit on this message, so I will.  We hope all of you are doing well and having good experiences to help bless your lives and bring the real happiness which comes from living the gospel and loving each other and helping each other.  We love you all and pray for your well-being and happiness every time we pray.

We are so blessed every day in countless ways; we are very thankful to be here and be a part of the Lord’s work in our small way.  The gospel is absolutely true; the Book of Mormon is indeed the words of Christ made available for us to feast upon to help us “…press forward with steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope…”, through the Savior.  President Monson is the prophet; and we look forward to hearing from him and those who will speak in the upcoming conferences.  How blessed we are to have prophets and apostles to lead us and teach us.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine

Message 5 March 2012

Message—5 March 2012

Dear Friends & Family,

For those who may have looked for a message last Monday, I did not do one, so you did not miss it.  During the week of February 21 to February 25 we had four zone conferences.  This same week was also the last week of Elder & Sister McVea’s mission, and the last week they were available to help us learn everything we need to know.  Every day was long and the nights short for us.  At each zone conference I was responsible to ensure that each of the mission vehicles was inspected.  Fortunately I had help from Elder McVea, and also Sister Jensen and Elder and Sister Ellis, and some of the days Elder and Sister Servoss.  Saturday the 25th was the last zone conference; Elder McVea was not there to help me that day, because he and his wife were packing up getting ready to leave for Utah Monday morning.  They also prepared the home for us to move into on Monday.  The weather was cooperative for the first 3 zone conferences on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday; but on Saturday it snowed a blizzard when we first left Brockport.  The snow subsided some but came back again while we were inspecting the vehicles.  Sister Jensen was more busy than I was, as she helped with some of the food preparations and distributing the mail for the missionaries, as well as helping me with the vehicles, she is awesome, and also tired.

Monday morning we put one load of our things from our apartment in to our car and went to the Mission Office staff meeting.  While we were doing this Elder & Sister McVea loaded up their car and left for Utah at about 9 am.  After the staff meeting we took our first load of things to our new home in Honeoye Falls (Mendon) in what was, many years ago, the John Young home.  This is Brigham Young’s father.  It took more trips to our Brockport apartment to get all but a few of our things moved to the John Young home.  Tuesday morning we went back to Brockport one more time to get the last few things; then we spent the rest of the day in the mission office.  Beginning on Monday Sister Jensen and I were both on our own to do our new office assignment.  The McVea’s were so kind to us while they were training us and helping us learn how to do what we are supposed to do.  They were also kind enough to answer their phone while they were traveling home and answer some of our questions.  We really miss the McVea’s.  We talked to them this morning and learned that on their first day back home in their home ward, they had been called to be ward missionaries.  That is what a good Bishop would do.  We look forward to visiting with them when we get home next year.

The rest of the week was very hectic for us so I did not get a blog message done.  I will try to be brief and share two weeks in one message.  We were able to hear some of the training given to the missionaries by the AP’s and Zone Leaders, as well as President and Sister Christianson.  President Christianson’s two counselors, President Brent Miner and President Terence Robinson; both are very good teachers and leaders; they also shared some instruction to the missionaries.  President Robinson is internationally recognized as one of the most knowledgeable experts on growing apples; but he is also a great spiritual leader.

Since in our new assignments we are not available to attend a district meeting with the young missionaries during the daytime; we now will be attending the Site Training meeting for the senior couples who serve at the historic sites.  It is held Wednesday evening at 7pm.  We have been to a few of these meetings in the past year, but we will go each week now.  Elder and Sister Searle are the new Site Directors for the church history sites in the mission; they are great leaders and teachers.  They served as Mission President and wife in the New York City North Mission a few years ago.  We were privileged to hear some good instruction from Sister Thomas and Sister Carver on making more use of the Book of Mormon in our conversations with people we meet and who come to the sites.  The Book of Mormon really and truly is the key to conversion to the gospel.  It is a powerful second witness of Jesus Christ and His atonement and gospel.  If we have any questions or problems in our lives we can benefit greatly by reading, pondering, and praying about what is in the Book of Mormon.  The Holy Ghost really will help us know the truth of ALL things.  Sometimes by the actual words we read in the Book of Mormon, and sometimes by the whisperings of the Spirit as a result of what we read.  We know and testify the Book of Mormon is the word of God and will bless our lives in countless ways as we live according to what it teaches.  This morning as we read together in Helaman 13 we were impressed by how closely it describes the world in which we now live.

We were both able to accomplish many of our assigned responsibilities in the office this week without a lot of help; but we did need some help to remember what to do in some circumstances.  We have access to wonderful people in the Church Office building who are very patient and helpful to us in learning more about what we should do in certain circumstances.  The church is very well organized to help members in their callings and assignments; and they are not used as much as they could be. 

Saturday evening and Sunday morning were our two sessions of Stake Conference.  Saturday evening there were several people who shared their conversion story.  The atonement of the Savior is real and powerful and far reaching.  These people have had very serious trials and challenges in their lives.  Through repentance and the atonement we can become clean and worthy to have the power of the Holy Ghost and the blessings of priesthood ordinances in our lives.  The Sunday session speakers also shared great lessons and messages and testimonies.  President Wozniak is the first counselor in the stake presidency.  He shared experiences he has had in the last year with his father dying and how his death helped to bring together the President and his 3 sisters.  The sisters are not members of the church; but they and the President have become much closer through the death of their father.

We are so greatly blessed to have the privilege to serve in this mission where the restoration of the gospel began.  The church history sites have great power to help people feel the Spirit of the Holy Ghost as they visit them.  Satan works so hard on people who visit the sites to keep them from accepting the feelings they receive and try to keep them from having the gospel in their lives.  Many people who fist meet the missionaries, have a spiritual witness of the truth of what the missionaries teach, but then they see or hear anti-church messages and allow those negative messages to keep them from the truth they felt.  It usually takes multiple exposures to the gospel before people will accept the invitation to come unto Christ and repent and be baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  The help and encouragement and support of church members with investigators is very important and influential in getting the people past the influence of anti-church messages.  Members have a great influence for good to help non-members accept the gospel and gain a testimony.  Members of the church are the sleeping giant of missionary work and success.

We extend birthday wishes to Carol Wilson on March 1^st, Travis on March 3^rd, Holden’s birthday is today March 5^th, and we hope it was a happy one.  Brock’s birthday is March 12^th, Jason’s is on March 24^th, and Todd’s birthday is on March 25^th.  We hope each of you had, or will have a wonderful day on your birthday this month.

We express our great love and appreciation for each of you.  You are special to us and we are so grateful for your good influence in our lives.  We thank you for your kindnesses, your service, and your support and prayers for us.  We are so greatly blessed by having each of you in our lives.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine