Message—9
December 2012
Dear
Family & Friends,
This
was a very interesting week with more to do than we had time in which to do what
was needed. Sister Jensen had a few
missionary related meals to help prepare and also helped in planning for the
upcoming Christmas Missionary meetings on December 18th and 19th. The Christmas mail and packages for the
missionaries are beginning to arrive so there was plenty of mail to get
forwarded or arrange to have delivered where it was supposed to go. Following up on what happened as missionaries
called on referrals is a continual effort.
I had a variety of vehicle issues to take care of. I had to get six vehicles ready to be sold;
three of them still had some repair work to get done, and also these same three
had to have an interior detail cleaning done on them. I was also coordinating with a college
student who is an LDS member who wants to buy one of the vehicles we have for
sale. I also had to arrange to have a vehicle
that will not be needed until the next transfer, to be made available to trade
for another vehicle that needed to be ready to be sold and taken to the
Cleveland Mission to be traded for a new vehicle that was delivered there by
mistake. These things only took a
paragraph to summarize but it took all the time we had and more to get it all
done.
Monday
at noon after our office staff meeting with President and Sister Christianson,
Sister Jensen had helped prepare some food for a lunch we all had
together. We had also invited some of
the people who had been in our old office building at Perinton Hills, whom we
had not seen since we moved out at the end of August. Only one of the people came but we enjoyed visiting
with him. Later in the week on Friday,
Frank came to see us; he had been our next door office friend at Perinton
Hills. Monday evening we attended the
Senior Site Couples Family Home Evening.
Elder Smellie shared with us a video of an address given by the wife of
Brother Eldred G. Smith in 2007 at a similar gathering of the missionary
couples who were serving at the Cove Fort Utah visitor’s site. The video included also the address given by
Brother Smith; but our site missionaries had seen this part at a previous
family home evening which we were notable to attend. Sister Smith shared some family history
information from the Hyrum Smith family organization about Hyrum and his life. The Smith’s had brought with them the actual
clothes worn by Hyrum, including the holes from the bullets and evidence of the
blood stains, at the time of the martyrdom and also his watch which had been
hit by a bullet at the time of the martyrdom.
It was very interesting to hear from her. Eldred G. Smith is still alive; he had his
105th birthday this year. For
those who do not know who he is, Brother Smith was the Patriarch to the Church
from about 1947 until 1976. During those
years Brother Smith gave over 15,000 patriarchal blessings, mostly to people in
countries outside of North America where there were no patriarchs. At one of the general conferences in 1976
this calling was eliminated. Up until that
time he had always been sustained as a prophet, seer, and revelator along with
the first presidency and the quorum of 12 apostles. Since that time Brother Smith has been a true
and faithful member of the church. He is
a great grand-son of Hyrum Smith through his son John.
Tuesday
evening we were blessed to be able to stay home for the evening. Wednesday afternoon I had Sister Thomas and Sister
Klepinger bring their car to the office.
Sister Thomas came to meet up with President and Sister Christianson so
she could spend the evening with them before going to the airport Thursday
morning to catch a plane to meet up with her brother who was also returning
home from his mission in Italy. They
then returned to their home together. Sister
Klepinger then joined another Sister Companionship to make a threesome until
the next transfer in January. Sister
Thomas has been an awesome missionary here.
Wednesday evening we took the car Sister Thomas brought to the office,
with us to the Hill Cumorah for the Site Training meeting. After the meeting we exchanged the car, a
Toyota Corolla, for the Dodge Caravan that Sister Earl and Sister Adams had
been driving in Seneca Falls. We then
drove the van home so I could take it on Thursday to get an interior detail
cleaning done so it would be ready to drive to Ohio to meet the Vehicle
Coordinator, Elder Jacklin, from the Cleveland Mission to exchange for a new
2013 Dodge Caravan that had been delivered to his mission by mistake. I had called and made arrangements to meet Elder
Jacklin at the Kirtland Church Visitors Center at 11am on Saturday.
Sister
Jensen and I and a few others were fairly busy during the week taking 3 cars to
have repairs done and new tires put on them, and also getting an interior detail
cleaning done on them. I also had the
President’s old 2011 Chev Traverse to get an interior detail cleaning done for
it so it would be ready to be sold.
Finally by Friday about noon I had all 4 vehicles cleaned and ready to
be sold, and the Caravan ready to be taken to Kirtland. Elder Bringhurst, Elder Rawe, and Elder
Garcia went with me to get the Caravan from the Detail Shop on Friday at
11am. By the time we returned it was
time for lunch, so I bought lunch for all four of us, and then took the Elders
back to get their pickup so they could be to a 1pm appointment. Elder Garcia is completing his mission next
week and will return home on December 12th.
Thursday
evening we went to Geneseo to teach the Institute lesson. We had only one person come, Alex, who was
sustained today in Sacrament meeting as the new Ward Mission Leader, replacing
Chris Elliott who has been a great Ward Mission Leader. Alex is a fine young man and he will be
blessed to do well as the Mission Leader.
Friday
morning Sister Jensen helped prepare the food for feeding those who were coming
to attend the all-day Zone Leader Council.
Then at about 10 am Sister Jensen went with Sister Servoss to go prepare
and serve the meal to those who came to the Zone Leader Council, which is about
16 people. They also stayed and cleaned
up after the dinner. We left the Mission
Office shortly after 4pm to take our car home and get the things we needed to
take with us to Kirtland. On the way
home we received a call that the Zone Leaders from Buffalo had come to the
Mission Office to pick up a car that was supposed to be there for them to drive
back to Buffalo. They had ridden back
from Buffalo on Thursday evening with President Christianson and spent the
night at the mission home so they would be ready for Zone Leader Council on Friday
morning at 9am. They had me very confused
because I knew nothing about having the car from Henrietta available for them
to take with them. When I got home I
called President Christianson to find out what was supposed to be done. He was busy in an interview so I talked with
Sister Christianson and one of the AP’s to find out what they knew about this situation. It turned out that they were really expecting
to get the car from Webster, which is the same one I had been told by President
to give to the Seneca Falls Sisters to drive while I was getting their van
replaced by the new one I was going to get from Kirtland on Saturday. So I called Elder Olsson and Elder Teichert,
the zone leaders, and explained that there was not a car for them to take back
to Buffalo. After I got this explained
to them I told them to stay at the Mission Office and we would come and get
them and take them to Buffalo with us since that is the direction we would be
going to get the van from Kirtland. We
had previously arranged with President Christianson to take Elder and Sister
Ellis with us to Kirtland. So we picked
up Elder Olsson and Elder Teichert at the Mission Office and then drove to
Brockport, to the same apartment we lived in for the first year of our mission. There we picked up Elder and Sister Ellis and
set off for Buffalo. We stopped the
Elders off at their apartment in Williamsville, a suburb in Eastern Buffalo. We then drove to Erie Pennsylvania where we
had reserved motel rooms for both us and the Ellis’s. We got up early and headed for Kirtland Ohio,
arriving about 9:30am. We then spent the
time until 11am looking at a special nativity display in the Main Visitors Center
and the old School House next to it.
There were some awesome nativity sets on display; some of them from
various parts of the world. One in
particular took up an entire corner of the main lobby of the Visitor’s
Center. The entire set was made of Olive
Wood from Jerusalem, including the platform it was on, and the shelter and all
of the figures, which were each about 18 inches to 2 feet tall; it was very
beautiful. The International Nativity
sets were in the old School House. While
we were looking at these, Elder and Sister Jacklin walked in. I did not know who Elder Jacklin was since I
had never met him. But he walked up to
me and told me who he was and I shook his hand.
His wife then walked up to me and put her arms around me and gave me a
big hug. I was rather surprised at this
until I looked in to her face; and there standing in front of me was Eileen
Cloward Jacklin. The same Eileen Cloward
I had grown up with in Mapleton; Arlen Cloward’s daughter; and a grand-daughter
of Charles and Olive Whiting. Marv and
Jay and I think Neil worked in the timber business that Arlen Cloward had at
the time we were growing up. Eileen is
one year younger than I am; she recognized me right off, but it took me a few
seconds longer. When I recognized her we
gave each other another hug, with her husband’s permission and even though
hugging ladies is not permitted by mission rules, this time as reunited long
lost friends. It was a great reunion for
us, we visited for 5 or 10 minutes then we finally introduced everyone in our
group to each other. Elder Jacklin and I
then took care of exchanging keys and information about the vans. The
Jacklin’s stayed for a while and went through the first part of the Visitors
Center tour with us, which the Ellis’s had never seen. Elder Edmund was the Kirtland Site Director whom
we had met last Spring when we went to Kirtland to get a Chev Colorado from the
Cleveland FM Office; and we met him again on Saturday. He had asked Elder and Sister Polis to give
us a more detailed site tour than most people get. After seeing the introductory film the
Jacklin’s had to leave to go take care of some other assignments. Eileen said she and her husband were
currently the only senior couple in the mission office, so they were doing the
work of 3 couples, how I do not know, but the Lord was blessing them. They did have 2 Sister Missionaries helping
them with some of the things in the office.
They will get another senior couple to help in February. They will be receiving 60 new missionaries by
February; Eileen will need to find new apartments for many of them. After
saying a teary eyed farewell to the Jacklin’s, they left. Elder and Sister Polis then spent the next
two hours with us and shared some additional spiritually touching facts and
information about the Kirtland area. We
were very blessed to see and hear all we did experience. Elder & Sister Polis were so kind and
informative; it was really a special visit.
It was too late to make a trip to the John Johnson Home; so the Ellis’s
chose to spend some time seeing the Kirtland Temple and Visitor’s Center
operated by the Community of Christ Church.
We were blessed to have Dave Cool as our tour guide. As a young boy he had grown up in Kirtland
and had lived in the home North of the Kirtland Temple where Joseph and Emma
Smith had lived at one time. He has been
living in Kirtland for quite a few years with his family. He told us he and his wife were the second to
last couple to be married in the Kirtland Temple before marriages were no
longer done in the temple. He knew a lot
of the history of the Kirtland area and he was very kind and shared many
details with us and answered all of our questions about the history of the
temple and the Kirtland area. We also
stopped at the Isaac Morley home and took some pictures. We then tried to find a place to eat before
starting home, but our GPS’s were not too helpful; so we started for home on
I-90, hoping we would see a place to eat along the I-90. When we reached Geneva Ohio we found a very
nice restaurant and did not have to wait for a table, so we went in and had a
fine dinner. We then headed for home and
took the Ellis’s back to their apartment in Brockport and then we made it home
about 10:30 pm. The distance traveled
altogether was about 650 miles; but by going two thirds of the way Friday night
it was not such a long trip. We were
greatly blessed with safety and with a good spiritual experience as well as a
reunion with Eileen Cloward.
Our
church meetings today were also very good with spiritual messages and good
associations with members; and particularly being blessed to take the
sacrament. This next week is also going
to be filled with many assignments, but we look forward to the blessings that
await us. We love each of you more than
you know.
Love,
Mom
& Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Maxine & Richard
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