Message—28 January 2013

Dear Family & Friends,

This message is a day late, but we are not a dollar short.  We have been blessed by the Lord with all the resources we have needed to serve this mission; both in a physical sense and especially in a spiritual sense.  Heavenly Father has been so good and kind and patient and helpful in what we have been blessed to accomplish.

Last Monday we enjoyed a good office staff meeting with President and Sister Christianson and five senior couples currently serving in the mission office.  Since we are training our replacements; there were four additional missionaries besides the Ellis’s and Servoss’s.  Elder and Sister Willyerd are replacing us, and Sister Allred and Sister Harris are replacing the Servoss’s.  The two sisters and the Willyerd's are learning quickly and will be just fine carrying on in helping the President with all that needs to be done to keep the missionary work moving forward.  Monday evening we enjoyed a family home evening alone; it was great.  Tuesday we spent the day in the office training; and were able to work on some things at home in the evening.

Wednesday we started for the office with sunshine and dry roads; but after we arrived at the office I needed to go north to Webster to pick up Elder Servoss from a transmission repair shop.  The closer I got to Lake Ontario the snow started falling; by the time I reached Highway 104, which parallel’s the lake, there was 5-6 inches of snow and a number of vehicles off the road and a multiple car accident.  When I first reached the snow I had to stop for a traffic light but the road was icy and I partially slid into the intersection, but some angels kept me from hitting another car coming from my left.  I safely made it back to the office with Elder Servoss.   We left the office at about 3:30pm to go to an office complex on Winton Road South to pick up Eric Levie who had been at this office building doing some work for the company for which he works.  Some of you will remember Eric was a neighbor to us in Provo for several years when our older sons were teenagers.  Eric and our sons all worked for Mac Carter.  Eric and his family currently live in Mesa Arizona.  His oldest son Jeff is serving a mission in the New Hampshire Mission which is just to the North and East of our mission.  Jeff will finish his mission next month and return home to Mesa.  We took Eric with us to the Site Meeting which was at the Peter Whitmer Farm in Fayette.  The Site Directors for our Historic Sites are the Searle’s; and their son Scott is good friends with Eric; so Eric was able to meet the Searle’s and become acquainted with them.  Eric was able to experience the Whitmer Farm Visitor’s Center and also to be in the restored log home of the Whitmer’s and have Elder Searle tell him of the events that took place in the log home.  We drove Eric back to his hotel in Henrietta so he would be able to attend some meetings on Thursday and Friday morning.

Thursday we left the office at 4:30pm so we would have time to drive to Geneseo and have some dinner before teaching Institute at 7pm.  Jon Sykes was the only YSA who came to Institute; but we had a good lesson; Jon is a great young man.  He is going to move to Utah in June and marry a young lady in the temple and live in Utah.  The Geneseo Elder’s came to the church near the end of the lesson.  They were on exchanges with the Warsaw Elders because Elder Maisey’s driver’s license had expired on Monday and his companion could not drive.  So the two Elder’s from Warsaw could both drive, and had permission from President to drive; this made it so neither companionship had to walk to their appointments.  One of the driver’s was Elder Pratt, it was good to see him.  We had received Elder Maisey’s driver’s license Thursday so we had it with us to give to Elder Maisey so he could drive again.

Friday at about noon we left the office and picked up Eric Levie again from where he was working and then drove to Palmyra and took Eric to see the Martin Harris homestead, the grave of Alvin Smith, and the Book of Mormon Publication site at the Grandin Building.  Sister Hausauer and Sister Aiello provided most of the tour for Eric; they are awesome missionaries.  Elder Fuller finished the tour because the Sister’s had a teaching appointment.  Elder Fuller also gave us tour of Shortsville; this a name made up by the missionaries for the area under the floor of the Grandin Building.  When the building was restored it required considerable work under the building to stabilize the rest of it.  Under the floor are some of the old wood and other furniture and items that were in the building when the restoration began in the 1990’s; some of these things were in the original building in the 1820’s.  Hardly anyone gets to see this area; it was awesome.  We then went to the Hill Cumorah Visitor’s Center so Eric could see all that was there.  We returned to our home and Eric spent the night with us.

Saturday morning we got up and had a nice breakfast fixed by Sister Jensen.  Eric remembered why he spent so much time at our place when he lived there, Sister Jensen makes good food.  I think between Nancy Carter and Maxine, they provided most of Eric’s meals when he lived by us.  I took Eric to see the historic sites here in Mendon where we live and told him of the historic events that occurred here.  We then went to the Hill Cumorah and drove up to the top where I told Eric of some of the additional things that are special to this place and he took pictures.  We then went to the Joseph Smith Farm and the Sacred Grove.  We stopped at the Palmyra Temple for Eric to take some pictures.  Sister Jones and Sister Gillespie gave us the tour of the log home and the frame home and the barn and cooper shop.  These two sisters are also awesome missionaries.  Eric and I then walked through the sacred grove and I shared a number of things about the grove that I have learned from others.  We had a special day at the historic sites.  We then left the farm and drove down Stafford Rd. and stopped at the home where Porter Rockwell lived and grew up with Joseph Smith.  We also stopped at the lake rock school house where Oliver Cowdery taught school before becoming the scribe for the Prophet Joseph Smith.  We also drove by where the saw mill was from which the Smith’s obtained the lumber to build the buildings on the Smith Farm.  This place is still a saw mill but now has all the modern equipment that saw mills have and is much bigger.  We then drove Eric to the Rochester Airport to catch his plane to return to Mesa.

Sunday we had made arrangements to go to Brockport to church, instead of to the  Geneseo.  We sent Elder and Sister Willyerd to attend church in Geneseo and stop and pick up Dan to take him to church with them.  It was good to see the good people in the Brockport ward where we lived and attended the first year of our mission.  They all remembered us and seemed pleased to see us again.  After the block of meetings we stayed for a baptism service for Joanne Mayo.  Elder Ellis baptized her; she will be confirmed next Sunday.  Going to Brockport allowed us to express our appreciation for their kindnesses to us while we were with them.  After the baptism we went to the Ellis’s apartment and she provided a good dinner for them, us and the Arrington’s.  We had a very close association with the Arrington’s and it was great to spend more time with them.  As we were finishing our dinner Sister Lucero brought her niece Joanne (who had been baptized that day) and Joanne’s son and they had some dessert with us and visited.  After we said goodbye to everyone we drove to Casey’s home and visited with her for a little while and then said our goodbye’s and drove home.  By the time we arrived home my brain was not sharp enough to do the blog message, so I waited until tonight to do the message.

This morning we had office staff meeting where President invited the Servoss’s to share their testimonies before they go home on Thursday.  This evening we went to the Site Couples Family Home Evening at the Hill Cumorah.  Norman White had been invited to share his life’s story, conversion, and finding his wife; and the experience he had in being blessed to provide some of the logs that were used to reconstruct the Peter Whitmer log home.  Norman was given the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordained an Elder in the Peter Whitmer log home.  Norman and his wife were privileged to be the first live sealing in the newly dedicated Palmyra Temple.  A good brother and friend of Norman’s had taken care of having the temple work done for Norman’s birth parents, earlier in the day.  So after Norman and his wife were sealed Norman was sealed to his birth parents.  The rest of Norman’s story is in a blog message from last year when we also heard him give his presentation.  What Norman shared is another witness that there are no coincidences, everything is intertwined by divine design; as Elder Maxwell said some years ago.

In the month of February there are only three birthday’s in our immediate family.  We hope Madison has a wonderful birthday on February 18^th, and Landon on February 20^th, and Colby on February 24^th.  We also recognize the birthday of Jay on February 5^th.  I also remember that both my Dad and Mom graduated from mortality in February.  We hope everyone has a special Valentine day in February.

We will be released next week on February 7^th; and we will begin our journey home on that day.  We will arrive home on February 16^th.  Bishop Kemp has invited us to speak in Sacrament Meeting on February 17^th at 11am in our church which is at 1560 South 1100 West Provo Utah 84601.

We love all of you and look forward to seeing you any time it is convenient for you  to come and see us; since we are officially retired we think maybe we will be at home a little more.  Since we do not know what being retired means, being at home more may just be wishful thinking.

Love to all of you,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Maxine and Richard