Little Miracles

25 January 2015 Little Miracles

It has been 3 weeks of little miracles!  First of all, a new sister missionary from Utah, who is quite well known for a tragic accident she was in, nearly died, no hope for an independent life if she did survived was assigned to our mission.  Well miracle after miracle helped her to be quite the independent young lady as she was before.  She is just the sweet angel as described on her blog post and in all the newspaper articles about her.  A family who shares their house with missionaries, said when she read an article about her being sent to the Iowa Des Moines Mission, felt a strong impression that this sister would be living in her home.  That is right where the President Jensen felt impressed to send her.  This family really takes good care of their missionaries -- the mother and father are returned missionaries themselves.  Also, Iowa has so many LDS medical students and most of the wards in Des Moines and in Iowa City have med students as members.  So this Sister Missionary's parents can feel very comfortable with their daughter's first experience in the mission.  We already love this gentle, humble and courageous young lady. 

Second, it is always quite the ordeal getting all the departing missionaries home.  You worry about them, because you put them on the plane and they have no phone, just a little money for lunch and off they go.  You know they have family and friends waiting for them at some airport and you pray that all goes well, especially in the winter and during tornado season, and they all get home at their arrival time.  This last transfer one of our Elders was asked by the airlines to wait for a later flight because of the weight limit concerns on the plane.  I guess it was an extra full flight.  So now he has gone through security, has no phone, and he waits.  The missionary can call from the airlines desk to President Jensen and have his family members notified of the change.  A member of the church, he himself a former returned missionary, saw him and willingly offered to give up his seat to this sweet missionary.  He said he remembers the excitement of his family when he had returned.  The member calls the Mission Office to tell us so we can notify his parents  I call the parents, who had not heard a thing yet so they were thrilled.  The family asks for this members name and phone number, which I luckily thought to get.  In the end we find out that the missionary had been asked twice to give up his seat.  The second time, another member of the church, came to his rescue and also gave up his seat.  This missionary was from Wyoming and the closest airport for him was the Idaho Falls, Idaho airport.  So his family had to make quite a trek to the airport through some wintery weather and all ended well.

I feel very blessed medically to have been sent to Iowa.  I need regular checkups for my liver problems.  In December the doctors noticed rather big varices in my stomach.  If they are big enough they needed to do something about it before it ruptures and I bleed to death.  I was sent to the University of Iowa Digestive Diseases department where they did another endoscopy and decided to inject a foam-like substance which they call "super glue" and it hardens and clots the varices.  I went back a month later for a checkup where I was told I was doing great and didn't need more "super-glue".  I guess this procedure is not yet FDA approved and not practiced in many hospitals.   I felt great!  I got a day off work and because of the sedation I slept all day!  Got all caught up on my rest! 

Sometimes there are little disappointments.    Elder Stringham helped teach a sweet young man shortly after he got out of the hospital.  We helped give him a ride to see a baptism.  He loved it  He came out to church and was taught regularly by the missionaries.  They set a baptism date and when the day came he could not be found anywhere.  Even his family said they didn't know where he was.  A couple of weeks passed and they found him.  He had been "out of town".  He was taught again.  He was supposed to be baptized along with another person this past Saturday and he again was a no-show.  His  family said "he was out shopping" .    Hmmmmm....I'm thinking the baptism might never happen.  Sad for the missionaries!  They work so hard and are so sincere about their teaching.

We cannot believe the great weather we are having.  Mostly it is in the 40's and 50's during the day and 20's and 30's at night.  Today started out with a little snow, turned to rain and wind.  That means there are not as many accidents among the missionaries as last year.  My weather app said that this day last year it was 8 degrees with a RealFeel of -6.  Interesting though that we still have mounds of snow,  that had been plowed and pushed in to heaps, that have not melted from the last snow we had a month ago. 

A lot of the office work is just repetitive, but we feel blessed to be here.  We learned that we were not the original office couple assigned.  One of the other couples here said they were actually assigned as an office couple.  They expressed a lot of concern and I guess our applications must have arrived at the Missionary Department about the right time.  That may be why we were given only about 5 weeks from receiving our call to arrive at the MTC.  The other Senior Couple were reassigned to a ward that really needs them and they are doing great work!!

Rarely do we have a day off!   Missionary work  is 7 days a week!  Saturdays are our preparation day, but almost always we spend at least 4 hours at the office, and attend baptisms where lately I have been the pianist.  Another little miracle is that I find I can play better at the baptisms than I do when I am practicing.   Elder Stringham stayed quite late last night while I did some grocery shopping.  Here he is enjoying a rare afternoon nap on Sunday afternoon before he heads up to the office in a little while. 

We love you all!   Please be loving to the sweet missionaries!  I wish I had been more attentive to them before.  We had them over for dinner, but not as much as we should have.  I wish I'd been more friendly and a better member missionary!

Holidays, Parts of B of M Missing, Snow and Flu

5 January 2015  Holidays, Parts of B of M Missing, Snow and Flu

What a wonderful Christmas we had.  We felt so loved with all the cards and packages sent to us!  Christmas Eve is our family's traditional get-together and we got to participate via facetime.  I have so much love for all of them.  Then we got to facetime Jason's family in Pennsylvania and my heart was so full of love for being so blessed to have such wonderful children and grandchildren!!  On Christmas day I skyped with my mom and that is always a treat! 

 Christmas Day we went to the Mission Home with the President and his wife.  What a treat.  A lot of missionaries stopped by just to wish us Merry Christmas.  One of our APs, Elder Ellsworth,  plays the viola and so he played while we all sang Christmas Carols.  (Now I wish I had kept up with my viola playing)  The President had the missionaries share a special Missionary Moment....that was touching!  The President had a couple of his children and their families visiting so we met them and talked with their grandchildren.

We actually worked in the office the day before Christmas right up until it was time to facetime our kids, but took Christmas Day off.  I could hardly wait to get back to the office just because there is always so much to do!  

We had plans with the other Senior Couples for a rip-roaring New Years Eve, but the Shelleys who were hosting the party came down with the flu.  And Elder Shelley is still fighting it.  So we went out to dinner with the Crapos who live right next door to us in the apartment. 

It is heart-warming to see how the new converts are being blessed in their lives.  Remember the 95 year-old convert who had studied to be a minister?  He had to move to an Assisted-Living place which would put him outside our ward boundaries and he would be going to another ward.  They made arrangements for him to stay in our ward.  A couple, empty-nesters, have taken him under their wings and see that he gets to all the church meetings and activities.  They are also helping him with his genealogy.  He had never married nor had children.  It is very important to him that he find all his family who have passed on and have their temple work done.  He is even being a missionary where he now lives.  When the couple have come to pick him up for church, the staff comment on how he always asks them and others to which church they belong and do they know anything about the Mormons. 

Our sweet father, who was baptized 9 months ago with his daughter was able to gain full custody of his step-daughter and now has both her and his biological daughter living with him.  He hopes to be able to complete the adoption process soon.  The step-daughter is in the 8th grade and has always wanted to be with him and her sister.  She was in foster care for quite some time.  He says he is amazed how both his girls love coming to church.  They love their classes and the other children.  It was a lot of hard work for him going through the court system.  It was expensive and the foster parents fought him tooth and nail.  Interestingly, the biological father agreed to his having custody and the mother unfortunately went off the deep end and totally lost custody of her.  But, he felt he was guided by inspiration every little step of the way. He continues to be a ward missionary and actually asks the missionaries if he can go help teach and visit.  He marvels that a little over a year ago he contemplated suicide.

Missionary works continues to move forward!  We had a successful month in December.  I was busy submitting baptismal records to the headquarters in Salt Lake.  I am surprised when I learn some things.  It is not uncommon for people to not know much about their father.  Often the children take as their last name the maiden name of their mother, since so many have parents who never married.  They often can't give a date of birth for the father.  One young girl wasn't even sure where she herself was born.  She was pretty sure it was Arizona, and was trying to contact her sister whom she hadn't talked to in years to see if she knew.  In the end we just put Arizona, United States of America and that worked.  We had a couple of baptism from people who were born in Micronesia.  Okay, I learned there are thousands of Islands that make up Micronesia so getting a birthplace for the record was a little tricky.  I learned that there are 6 political sovereign subcultures, one of which is the Federated States of Micronesia which is made up for 607 islands.  I was given the name of an Island in the Federated States of Micronesia where he lived and thinks he was born, but no city.  But, that was enough.  I think I would love to study geography after my mission.  It is fascinating to learn about so much of the world....and their cultures.

One funny thing.....an Elder called the office, not too long ago and said he was teaching an investigator from the Book of Mormon and asked him to read from Mosiah.  To his surprise, the person couldn't find it....and neither could the Elders. The office had been shipped several boxes of Books of Mormon which had a big chunk of Mosiah missing.  OOPS! 

 I am home from the office sick today.  There has been a lot of flu - intestinal and respiratory - going around and it is hard not to catch it.  I decided that with a fever and cough, I shouldn't go in and give it to everyone else.  There is a lot of traffic in the office - missionaries love to come into the office on P-day. 

Well it has been very cold.  It is starting to snow as I write this.  Very pretty!  It has been cold and going to get colder.  It is forecast to get only up to -1 degree and the low at -16 degrees for Wednesday (not counting the windchill factor).  Brrrrrr!  Currently, it is 6 degrees, but with windchill the RealFeel is -4 degrees.  But, we've been through this before and I'm sure we will survive.

What you can't see in this picture is the wind swirling the snow around and around.  Pretty!

I wonder if we are the only Seahawk's fans in Iowa?

On a sad note, a very hard part of being on a mission is when friends and family depart this earth and go to the next life.  Even though it was expected and may be a blessing for her, I will never get to see her again in this life.  I remember well the last time I saw her in the Assisted Living home where she was staying.  She was sleeping and I shared with Rebecca how much I loved her stories of Scotland, her great sense of humor and her inviting our family to her home for swimming, picnics and 4th of July fireworks.  She and I would go to lunch together and laugh at how "forgetful" we both were.  For a long time she would ask me or Rebecca if I had retired from nursing or was still working.....long after I had retired. Her forgetfulness developed into Alzheimers and and she soon forgot who all her loved ones were.  I will miss you Jean Kidd, but am glad for the knowledge I have that we will all be together again someday!  I hope you enjoy your reunion with Neal and your family that you left many years ago when you came to American from Scotland.  Love you!

Well, we love you all!  It is hard to believe that we only have 10 months left on our mission.  It is going by way too fast!