Message—8 April 2012
Dear Family and Friends,
Last week and the week before went by so quickly that I did not get a message posted on the blog. So I will put two weeks of message in this message.
March 26th Tim and Joe spent the morning with me going over records and related information on how I am doing at keeping track of all the vehicles in the mission. We have 53 vehicles at the moment; only 43 are in service; the other 10 are in the process of being sold. Tim and Joe were kind enough to take Sister Jensen and I to dinner before they left to meet with the FM Office in Palmyra to review how they are doing with their vehicles. Tuesday afternoon I took Joe and Tim to the Rochester airport to catch their plane back to Salt Lake. Before they left. Joe said he was working on an agreement with a car dealer to sell our vehicles for us so the vehicle coordinators do not have to worry about selling the vehicles which are replaced. Wednesday I received a call from a guy named Ricky in Mississippi telling me he would have a car transport driver coming to pick up 7 of the 10 vehicles I had for sale. I called Joe to find out if this was all arranged for. Joe said no, but he would check and see what was going on. He called me back later in the afternoon and said that Ricky would have his transport driver come and pick up seven of the vehicles on Thursday and gave me the VIN #’s of the ones he would take. The driver did not actually come until Friday morning about 9:30am. I watched and helped some with getting the vehicles all loaded on the transport trailer. George was the driver; he has been doing this for about 13 years. There is an art to getting the vehicles loaded so they are balanced in weight and also so the height of the vehicles will be under 14 feet so they will clear freeway overpasses. It took until about 1:30pm to get them all loaded and chained down and get the needed paperwork signed and copies made. It was quite a learning experience for me. After he left the mission office he drove to Pittsburg and picked up two more vehicles from the mission office there. It was after 10pm before he left Pittsburg. A cousin of the Servoss’s is the vehicle coordinator for the Pittsburg Mission.
Joe also had me work on getting information from some mobile scratch and dent repair businesses concerning prices and what they do to make the cars look better to help in selling them. The church wants us to be careful to insure we have the cars be in good condition both inside and outside before we sell them. The church does not want bad feelings or publicity for selling the cars. I gave the information to Joe and he told me to try these businesses out and see how good a job they do. The business we selected will be coming this Thursday, the 12th to work on two of the cars. We hope this will work out well for us without a lot of cost. I received a call Thursday the 5th telling me one or two new cars will be delivered to the mission office this next week They will be used to replace ones that have over 50,000 miles on them. This means I will have more cars to get ready to sell again. “One eternal round” in the missionary vehicle assignment.
Sister Jensen has been very busy following up on old referrals that the missionaries have not reported on. Some good investigators have been found by having the missionaries finally contact the referral. Sister Crook and Clark had a referral come to them from a gentleman who called and said he was rude to them when they came to his home, and he would like them to come back again. We are waiting to hear from the sister’s if he was really interested in the church or just wanted to apologize for being rude.
On Monday evening, March 26th, we attended the 182nd anniversary of the Book of Mormon first being available. This was held at the Grandin Press Building in Palmyra. It was an open house which had been well publicized. Some of us senior couples had dressed in 1830 period clothing; and the site couples provided information and tours to those who came. President and Sister Christianson were dressed as Joseph and Emma Smith with name tags to match. Some of the young missionaries sang hymns of the restoration in some of the locations in the building. They were awesome; especially Elder Elrey and Elder Adair, and Sister Willis and Sister Barrus. Sister Willis is from England and has a beautiful strong voice.
We were blessed to hear all of the General Conference sessions and messages from the Lord’s servants. Every talk had great messages for us to apply in our lives; we will work on making those applications to bless our lives and help us in our service as missionaries. On March 30th Elder and Sister Servoss had invited two new senior couples to come to their home for dinner, and also invited us to come since we are across the road. Sister Jensen fixed some dessert for us all. Elder Servoss and I took the two couples, the Smellie’s and the Fullmer’s , to see the Tomlinson Inn and the Tomlinson Corners cemetery.
Elder Servoss invited me to go with him to the Saturday evening Priesthood General Conference session at the Pittsford chapel on Kreag Rd in Fairport, which is much closer than the Geneseo ward chapel. The wards usually have some kind of food treats for the priesthood session prior to the meeting. The Pittsford ward has a tradition of having a chili making contest to see who can make the best chili. Those who come try each of the kinds of chili and then vote on which is the best. There are a lot of varieties of chili, many of them being very spicy hot; I avoided those, but did choose to eat some of the chili which was selected as number one. It was made in a dutch oven so it had an advantage over the others. The priesthood session was very spiritually strengthening.
Tuesday evening, April 3rd, we had dinner at the Servoss’s with the Elders assigned to our area, Elder Cox from Idaho and Elder Richardson from Weiser Idaho, a new missionary.
Wednesday evening we attended the meeting held each week for the Site missionaries for training and coordination. Sister Carver and Sister Chatterton are the site training young sister missionaries; and they provided some instruction on using Preach My Gospel lessons and principles in giving tours to those who come to the sites. The training was very inspiring. President and Sister Christianson provided some instruction and testimonies also; they are always inspiring.
Thursday evening we did our first lesson as Institute instructors in the Geneseo ward. Caitlyn and Jill both came as well as Elder Davis and Elder Pratt. I had spent some time at the office Thursday afternoon highlighting and making notes in the margins of my lesson manual and also finding a talk by elder Christopherson that had a quote which was very relevant to the lesson. The lesson was on Alma chapters 43-63, the war chapters in Alma. When we arrived at the church I discovered we had left my manual with all of my notes at the office, so we only had Sister Jensen’s copy of the manual. So we ended up doing the lesson totally by the Spirit and teaching what the Spirit said instead of what I had prepared. As is usually the case, when we go by the Spirit the lesson is always better; and it was. We discussed the Spiritual lessons that we can learn from the war chapters, which are many and powerful.
Friday morning, April 6th, we got up early and left our home at 6:30am and rode with Elder & Sister Servoss to the Peter Whitmer Farm to attend a baptism service for a young man. Elder Ingram and Elder Peck had taught him most of the lessons before Elder Peck returned home at the end of his mission the week before. The young man is the student body president at a local college. He had requested and permission was given for him to be baptised in the chapel on the Peter Whitmer Farm on April 6th which is exactly 182 years after the church was organized at the same site. It was a great baptism service and a great experience. President Christianson shared some thoughts and testimony about the restoration and living faithful lives as did the early saints and the Prophet Joseph.
Friday evening we attended a fireside for the senior couples that was held at the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center in the large theater. This was held in commemoration of the 182nd anniversary of the organization of the church. The speakers were Elder David Cook and his wife Katherine. Elder Cook was released at General Conference as an Area Authority for our mission and the Utica Mission and the stakes in these two missions. He is a very well respected lawyer in New York. Elder Cook has read and studied everything he has been able to find about Joseph Smith. He shared some of what he has learned and his testimony of the prophet Joseph. This was a very informative and spiritual witness of the Prophet Joseph.
Saturday morning we attended our Geneseo ward Easter activity. The ward mission leader had organized an event about Easter and had invited community members as well as ward members. Instead of doing Easter eggs; he had organized some activities in some of the rooms in the church which were oriented toward focusing on the resurrection. The ward was very positive about it and it went well.
Saturday evening we went with the Servoss’s and met Elder and Sister Jones in Stafford at a nice restaurant and had dinner together. Sister Jensen had made this suggestion and then organized this with the Jones’s The Jones’s are a great couple and have been a very positive influence in the Warsaw branch. They do not get to be around other senior couples very often so they were very appreciative of us coming to be with them.
We hope those with birthdays this month have a wonderful day; we love and appreciate each of you. Justin’s birthday was April 2nd, Austin’s was on the 3rd, Bailee’s is on the 29th, and April’s is on the 30th. In addition Sister Jensen’s birthday is on the 21st; and that is also our 46th anniversary. One other event is my mother will be 100 on April 12th, even though she is in the spirit world and can celebrate with my dad and Alma, Neil, and Lou. My brother Dave’s birthday is on the same day as my mother, except he will be 59, if my math is correct.
We know the work we are doing is part of the Lord’s work to be accomplished before he returns to the earth. The gospel is perfectly true, Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration, the Book of Mormon is the key to obtaining a testimony of the gospel, and President Monson is the Lord’s prophet in our day. Most important of all, Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world, He lives and guides the prophet and will guide us in living the way he taught us by His example and through scriptures and modern prophets and apostles. We know these things are perfectly true.
Love,
Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine
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