In preparation for transfers, we always have a staff meeting the Friday before transfers, and if one of our office missionaries is going home we have a little lunch after the meeting. This time it was for our dear Sister Doig. Our proud Canadian secretary finished her mission the same day 11 other dear missionaries went home. We had to try to honor her the best we could. She has been terrific. She loves the missionaries with her whole heart and did all she could to make their lives better, including sending each and every missionary a birthday card on their birthday. She said The Dollar Store is going to see a drop in their revenue when she stops buying cards. And I know she'd be completely embarrassed by this, she'd rather stay in the background, but deserves to be celebrated.
That evening, December 13, was the first of three nights that the Folsom Stake did their Live Nativity at the temple. Each year it just gets bigger and better. We live in the Folsom Stake and the people here are incredible. This year it was advertised on the radio and also on some electronic bill boards and about 8000 people came. We encouraged all of our missionaries throughout the mission to invite people to come. If they had friends coming, they could come as well. We had the Folsom and some of the Carmichael Zone missionaries ready to give temple tours, to give out Books of Mormon and answer any questions they might have. It is wonderful to get that many people to the temple, to feel the spirit that is there, and to share a message of Jesus Christ.
I had invited a friend of mine who isn't of our faith. She was so excited to come and was going to bring her mom and 4 of her nephews. I got online while I was with her and reserved tickets for her (it's free, but they want to control the crowds, so they have you reserve a time). I was so happy she was going to come and was telling all of our missionaries that I was bringing some friends. About an hour before we were to meet up there, I texted to confirm, and she texted back that something had come up and she wasn't going to be able to make it. I was so sad. I suddenly had more empathy for our missionaries who invite friends to come to church or other things, and at the last minute they back out. It affected me more than I thought it would. I didn't fully realize how it affects them until it happened to me. This work is not for the faint of heart, because we invite people we love and have such hopes that they will feel the spirit and have a desire to learn more. I was hoping this was the perfect opportunity. I'll keep trying.
All day on Friday it was raining, and rain was forecast for all three days of the performances. I know our whole Stake, along with missionaries and others were praying for a break in the weather. The first show was at 6:00 and at 5:55 the rain at the temple stopped. It was a beautiful night and the spirit was strong and we knew it was a miracle. One of our friends came up around 7 and said "It's raining everywhere but here." And we realized it was an even bigger miracle. It was as if God just parted the clouds above the temple grounds, I believe to help us realize that it really was his doing, and not just a break in the weather. We left around 8 and later heard the rain started up again around 8:30 and they had to cancel the last showing at 8:30. I may be wrong, but I think that is the only show they had to cancel all three nights, and none of the nights had a good weather forecast. I am so grateful for the moments God allows us to see his hand and to partake of his tender mercies.
As we watched the first performance, the Christmas spirit hit me hard. We had been working so hard up to that point, that Christmas was kind of passing me by. I was able to sit there for the 10 or 15 minutes that it takes and really think about that holy baby, and all that the events of that sacred night have meant to me in my life. It means everything to me. He means everything to me and I was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for him during those sacred few minutes. I was also overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the dear friends who were part of the Nativity that weekend. We have been so blessed with eternal friendships with some of the best people we have come to know and love here. As the presentation was ending, I was in tears and leaned over to Scott and whispered "How are we going to leave this place and these people that we love so much?" I still don't have an answer to that question. We spent two wonderful nights up there and it was like a little taste of heaven.
With Sisters Hall and Stilwell Bishop Edmondson, Elders Wadley and Steel and Jared
Sisters MacQueen and Ball Sisters Deng and Bayless
Elder and Sister Mair
I was able to go to a baptism on Saturday while Scott was doing some baptismal interviews. It was the baptism of a 10 year old boy and the note he wrote on the chalkboard made me smile.
That weekend turned into our Christmas weekend, as we were also able to go to a Concert that Sunday night with all of our Senior missionaries at the Wissemann Building. There is a Sacramento Choral Society that does a concert every year at one of our church buildings. For the first half they perform selections from The Messiah, and the second half are other Christmas songs. This is the third year we have gone and it is incredible every year.
Monday, December 16 began our transfer week. We had gone to the office in the morning and got a call that the mother of one of our dear sweet sister missionaries had passed away that morning. Those are calls you hope to never get. We were completely heartbroken, and went to meet with her. We are so grateful for good companions, Sister Training Leaders, and members who were so kind and loving to her. We hope we did some good as well, even if she just felt of our great love for her and for her family. Arrangements were made for her to go home for the funeral later that week, and she made it clear she wanted to come back, which she did the day after Christmas. As we picked her up at the airport that day, I was again amazed at the power of the Spirit. She was completely comforted, happy and ready to go back to work. She testified of the help she was receiving from the spirit and also of her knowledge of the beautiful gospel plan. What a blessing the gospel is!
We headed to the airport to pick up 11 new missionaries. I love this day, they are so excited/nervous/full of faith. There is nothing like a new missionary.
We follow the same routine every transfer; back to the office, dinner, interviews, training, and then they are off working for the evening with the Carmichael Elders and Sisters. Back at the church the next morning for more training. It was a little crazy this time, we got word that morning that Brother Baggs, our counselor who usually does a training on adjusting to missionary life wasn't going to be able to make it because of illness, so I did my part with the new missionaries, left to do my part training the trainers, and then hurried and reviewed adjusting to missionary life in order to do that training as well. Thankfully I had done a Zone Conference a long time ago on that, but I had my notes and my power point and I think it went fine. We are nothing if we are not adaptable.
Lunch with the incoming missionaries, their trainers and the departing missionaries, then off to the temple.
This is an exceptionally good group of new elders and sisters. We can't wait to see what they will do here.
Sisters Christensen and Shu training Sister Langford . Hermana Christensen training Hermana Willden
Elder Foster training Elder Burke Elders Coleman and Balser training Elder Gibbs
Elder Fonua training Elder Motes Elder Winmill training Elder Brock
Elder Norton training Elder Brown Elders Thacker and Southam training Elder Fuller
Elder Johnson training Elder Vave Elder Lawrence training Elder Oti
Elder Ficklin training Elder Cody
The last picture with Elder Thacker and the other assistants before he headed off to Stockton
Our three Elder Browns
We sent the new ones off and stayed at the temple with our departing missionaries
A temple session and then back to our home for our departing dinner and testimony meeting. Speaking of being adaptable...our dear friend and helper Gail Ratajczak moved and so I was flying solo with the dinner that night. I have always had everything prepared and Gail would come and get things in the oven for me. Without her I had to change up my menu a bit so I could come home from the temple and have things ready to go. With a little planning, it worked out just fine, but we did miss her that night.
Elder Barr in his initiatory apron
I guess I was too busy serving to get a picture of the table with the elders and president.
Another sacred evening spent with consecrated and dedicated missionaries reflecting on their missions, their growth and their hopes for the future. How we love them.
It was an early morning at the airport for us as Elder Steel had an earlier flight than the others, they met us there a little later.
Saying goodbye never ever gets easier. I have a lot of favorites in the mission, and this definitely is NOT one of them. It always breaks my heart to send each group off, but our son Alex came home from his mission on December 20 and so I knew the joy and the anticipation of a wonderful Christmas that their parents were feeling, that's the only thing that softens the blow just a bit.
Elder Wadley Elder Bailey
Elder Dunyon Elder Moeller
Elder Naylor Elder Lybbert
Elder Brown Elder Dusbabek
Sister Hummel Sister Stilwell
Sister Stephens Sister Shaw
Final instructions and advice from President Hymas
There is a fun story to accompanies this picture. We found these bananas and this note from Sister Shaw in the office the day the departing missionaries were leaving. The back story is that when she was serving in our ward, she and Sister Weckesser one night left a trail of bananas on our sidewalk leading to our front door. At the front door they left a note that said they loved us and that they loved banana bread. I had happened to have some banana bread in the freezer and so President and I hurried and wrapped it up and took the bread with a note that said we loved them even more than we loved banana bread and left it on their doorstep. They were completely shocked that we could turn bananas into banana bread that quickly! It's been a running joke ever since. It made us smile when we got these bananas from her.
But, once again, we were not to be outdone. I made banana bread out of these bananas and Hermana Bowen left on Wednesday to go home a few weeks early so she could get into school. We knew Sister Shaw was going to be at the airport to greet her, and so we sent a loaf of banana bread and a note with Hermana Bowen on the airplane to give to Sister Shaw when she saw her. We got this picture and the sweetest text from her. Once again we completely surprised her and had the last laugh.
The next day we had our meeting with the missionaries departing next transfer (it's quite a cycle here) and our New Leaders meeting. Then it was home to prepare our MLC trainings for the next day.
Our newest Zone, District and Sister Training Leaders
We did get a chance to sneak away for a few hours that night to attend a Christmas party at the home of our friends Aaron (now Bishop) and Carlene Martin. It's always such a fun white elephant gift exchange party, and I had my first attempt at a charcuterie board, which was fun and so, so easy, since I didn't have a lot of time.
We usually have MLC a week after transfers, but because of Christmas, we had it the week of. It made life a little crazy, but it was good. We love MLC and for some reason this one was especially good. We love these dedicated mission leaders. They are remarkable in every way.
The selfies live on!
Once MLC was over and all of the missionaries were back to work, we were about to start our night job. We met Elder and Sister Mair for dinner (who eats dinner outside on December 20? I love this place) and then we headed to the office to reconcile all of the Christmas packages.
These pictures only show a portion of the packages that we had. We had two wonderful members come and sort them by zone after transfers and mark who got what. Then it was time for us to go to work and make sure everyone had something for Christmas. Between the generosity of missionary parents, and friends and family of the Mairs and us, we had just about everyone covered, we just had to do a small amount of shopping on Saturday. We are so grateful for the goodness of wonderful people. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who helped make it a Merry Christmas for each of our beloved missionaries.
We sorted, distributed and loaded the trailer in preparation for our gift delivery on Monday. We got home about 11:30 and dropped into bed. It was a big day!
This is a long enough blog post so I'll write about our Christmas Conferences and the rest of December in another blog. In between all of these things, we were able to fit in some visits with some of our wonderful former missionaries. Some planned, some not. We love them all so much!
We also got to visit with our dear Hermana Elizondo. And she made and brought us these darling sugar cookies.
We had an awesome surprise meeting with Em Clark, who was heading to the bay for Christmas and had a chance to come to the airport and surprise her mission baby, Sister Shaw, as she was going home.
We also got to have a wonderful visit on Christmas Sunday with sweet Hermana Julia Quizon, she came to visit with her whole family and it was so fun getting to know them and to get to catch up with her.
One final little mission miracle to end on. Our grandson Thomas is obsessed with football and he loves the Broncos. It was his birthday on the 18th and I was hoping to do something fun for him for his birthday. We have a sister here, Hermana Freeman, whose brother plays football for the Broncos. We had interviews with her a few weeks before his birthday and I had the thought to ask her if it was inappropriate to ask if her brother ever signed things for people. I didn't want to overstep or impose on our relationship, so I was a little hesitant at first. When I asked her, she was like "Oh my word, I think God wants him to have a great birthday." She was teaching a family with some little kids who also loved the Broncos and so she had asked her mom to send her some signed pictures from him. The night before our interviews they took the pictures to the kids. There were three kids, but her mom had sent four pictures. They decided to just give all four of them to the kids, but when they went in, they only had three of them. They didn't know where the fourth picture went. That morning when they were driving to interviews they saw the fourth picture laying on the seat of their car. They were surprised to see it there, but kind of shrugged it off. Then they came in to interviews and I asked her about getting something signed for Thomas for his birthday. Amazingly enough, she had something in her car that very day for me. She called it a 'God Wink', which she said is when God just gives you a little wink to let you know he knows you and what you want and need. It was a little mission miracle for a little 6 year old birthday boy. I got the picture, put it in a frame and sent it off to him for his birthday. I wish I had been able to record his reaction when he opened the picture while we Face Timed on our way to the airport. It was the cutest thing ever. He absolutely loved it. He said it was the best gift he has ever gotten and that now Garrett Bolles is his all time favorite football player. And this might be one of my all time favorite mission miracles. I am grateful to worship a God of miracles.
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