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!