17 February 2014 Mission Letter
Well transfers are over!
17 new missionaries arrived and we have quite a diverse group. We feed them at the Mission Home, the
President interviews them, we train them and then they have a testimony
meeting. Remember these sweet
missionaries have been up since the wee hours of the morning to get to the SLC
airport by 6:00 am. THEY ARE
TIRED!!! Barely keeping their eyes open
and we train them. Ha…doubt they
remember much. But, they get to know us
and learn who they call with certain problems.
The testimony meeting is very telling. My heart goes out to them. They have to have a lot of faith to come here
away from their families and devote 18-24 months preaching the gospel, living
with companions they don’t know and living on their own. We have some who come from solid backgrounds;
devoted and loving parents. But we have
a few who are converts, come from abusive backgrounds and one young man who was
abandoned by his mother after being abused by her. We worry about those! Sometimes they have had a lot of support from
their home ward and Bishop and all goes well.
Others struggle and our President and the President’s wife become mother
and father figures for them just to help them fulfill this basic need of
belonging to someone.
We have a new senior couple, the Shelleys, who will be
working in the office replacing the Simmons who mission is almost done. They were on a previous mission in a mission
office and know a lot.
I am still extremely busy.
But that is good because the time goes by so fast. We stay late quite often just to stay caught
up. The Bishop of our ward learned that
they have had a lot of baptisms over the years that were not correctly recorded
so we have been helping him find all the information.
One sweet story! A
sister from our ward whose family was converted in Guatemala gave the sweetest
lesson in Relief Society. Her father
became the Branch President there. A
sweet lady in his branch faithfully brought her tithing to him regularly. She could not read or write so he helped her
fill out the tithing forms. She was a
widow and had very little money, but she always saved her tithing. She always brought it to him in a wadded,
dirty, and moist bill, One time she
asked her Branch President how could she make her offering better to the
Lord. The Branch President was touched
and knew she did not need to give more.
It came to his mind to tell her to bring the bill to the Lord, smoothed
out and clean. She “lighted up like a
light bulb” and was thrilled. After that
she always brought an “almost brand new” bill to him. The Branch President said she must have
walked to a bank each time and asked for the best bill they had. This sweet lady will receive blessings
untold….that I am sure of. We let our
missionaries know that the money they or their parents send to the Church for
their mission does not cover it all. It
is the tithing funds of the church that makes up the difference. We remind them that as they use their money
they think of the sweet little ladies like this one who give of their meager
means to help the church spread the gospel.
Weather-wise….what can I say. This is one of the coldest, snowiest winters
on record for Iowa. Yesterday it looked
like a winter wonderland with so much snow coming down. We still have days where we shut down the
mission (missionaries can’t drive and/or can go outside because of the snow or
the frigid temperatures.) They are
allowed to go if members of the ward take them in their cars. The members here seem to look out for them a
lot and go get them and take them to their previous appointments or invite them
over for a warm dinner.
Well, need to get to the office!
Miss you all!
P.S. It is true that
missionaries love, love, love letters from home….even us Senior Couples!
Love,
Elder and Sister Stringham
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