Over the past two weeks we have had interviews at the temple again with 8 of our 11 zones. It was interesting to talk with them at this point in the quarantine, as opposed to 3 or 4 weeks ago when we were last up there with them. 3 or 4 weeks in, they were like caged animals. They were struggling with figuring this whole thing out, and I believe we all went through a grieving process to some extent. We were all grieving missionary work as it used to be. As we used to be able to do it. This time around they have got it all figured out. At this point it is going to be a bit of an adjustment going back out and pounding the pavement again. Don't get me wrong, we ALL want that to happen sooner than later, but it proves to me how resilient we humans are. When there is a roadblock, we just find a way around it. Our missionaries have never taught more lessons than they are at this point. I heard miracle after miracle about lessons taught, people found, and mostly, miracles surrounding personal growth and testimony.
One of my favorite miracle stories combines all three of those components. We have an elder here who has an aunt living in Southern California. His father joined the church when he was a young adult but no one else from his family did. They didn't stay in close contact with extended family and so our Elder had only met this aunt one or two times in his life. He decided to contact her and see if she would listen to his message. She agreed and he and his companions taught her the lessons over video chat. As she progressed they contacted the missionaries in her area who took over the teaching. A few weeks ago he called and said his dad was driving from Utah to Southern California that day and he was baptizing the aunt (his sister) the next day. That is one of my favorite quarantine miracles. He would have never reached out to teach her had it not been for self isolation. What a blessing for all involved.
We had our Mission Leadership Seminar through zoom a few weeks ago. That is where we used to gather with our Area Presidency and all of the other Mission Presidents and wives for our training. We were so looking forward to that, as it will be our last one. We have made such good friends with the other couples, it broke my heart not to be able to get together with them one last time. But we have also learned to be adaptable and one thing we know is that the spirit is not constrained by technology, which you will see if you keep reading.
Anyway... In our zoom leadership meeting, in addition to our Area Presidency: Elder Pearson, Elder Whiting, Elder Klebingat and Elder Gimenez, Elder Kearon, Elder Cook, and President Ballard joined us and spoke. President Ballard spoke of this time as a blessing that will continue for years to come. He said they have been given an opportunity that they may never have again, and that no generation of missionaries has ever had. They have time to study more from the scriptures, to solidify the message, their testimonies, their witness in their own hearts. He said "whatever they face in the future will not shake them because they will be that firmly rooted. They should come out of this moment of reflection and quiet time with the message of the restoration internalized in their hearts, because they have been given the time, and paid the price to have it be so. They will be prepared to be better spouses, parents and future leaders because of this time."
I have thought over and over about this statement and I firmly believe it is true. Recently, in the church, we have lost too many Returned Missionaries. As we prepare for the second coming of our Savior, we can't afford to lose any more. (We can't afford to lose the ones we have lost either). But I believe Elder Ballard when he says this generation of missionaries is going to truly understand the message of the restoration. It will be written in their hearts, and they will be able to stand strong in the face of any storm because of this time we have had to prepare.
Ever since we got here we have told our missionaries our main goal is to help them become lifelong devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. They are our converts. To this end, we have been so blessed to be able to help strengthen them during this time. We have a Daily Devotional every Tuesday through Saturday where we meet at 10 a.m. over zoom. They used to say their 9:55 mission wide prayer and then be out the door at 10. Now, they say their 9:55 prayer and hop on zoom at 10 for a daily devotional. We have been able to have so many incredible speakers. As I talk to the missionaries they all tell me that their testimonies are growing so much, as they get taught every day. It is a bit of a job to arrange and set all of these speakers and zoom meetings up, but we have all been edified and blessed because of this time we have had to learn and grow together. We usually save Wednesdays for us, we have been focusing on miracles, good news and teaching simply. I have tried to take pictures of the speakers we have had so here is our list, in the order they spoke, since last time I blogged. (I apologize to our guests for some of these pictures, it's hard to get the best picture when they are talking)
Elder Kevin Pearson, our Area President talked about how This Is The Plan and how we learn and grow from it.
President Bruce Pitt, a friend from Centerville, former Stake and Mission President talked about the blessings of being in Deep Water
Jeni and Bruce Bitnoff, Scott's former Mission Presidency Counselor, now serving as a counselor and assistant Matron of the Sacramento Temple, talked about the temple
We had two former missionaries, Taryn Alexander above, and Sawyer Murphy, below talk about lessons they learned as they served in Sacramento that have served them well post mission.
President Spencer Weston, El Dorado Stake President and former Mission President talked about the gold nuggets we can gain from this experience
Matt Baggs, the counselor from Family Services who works with our missionaries and talked about some emotional coping skills to help us during isolation
Dave Cook, a friend from home who told some inspirational member missionary stories and how to work effectively with members
Conlon Bonner of the Bonner Family singers gave some inspirational messages and stories and showed some music videos from his family
Brother Stephen Clark, our institute teacher taught on the parable of the unmerciful servant and the prodigal son
Brother Anthony Sweat, BYU religion professor talked about the covenants of the temple and how we apply them in our missionary work
Danette Henrie, a friend from home taught us how to more effectively do Family History work as missionaries
Sheri Dew, I can't even summarize all she said, but in short, we are here on earth to be prepared for the Celestial Kingdom, nothing less, and that doesn't come easy.
We are so incredibly blessed that so many are willing to share their testimonies and their time with us and our missionaries. We have learned much and are so grateful. When Sheri Dew spoke she talked of something we have said and heard time and time again, but it really struck me this time around. She talked about how each of us have a divine orbit and that Heavenly Father knows exactly where we need to be at the exact time we need to be there. He knew every one of our missionaries, and he knew that we would be serving at just this particular time and place. We have been working so hard trying to make this the very best possible experience and time of growth for our missionaries that we possibly can, and it's been great. But I won't lie and say I haven't wished a time or two that things were different. That this isn't how I planned on finishing our mission. I wanted to take our missionaries on another downtown Sac P-Day, I wanted to do another Sister's P Day, I wanted to gather together for Zone Conferences, I wanted to do departing dinners and go to the temple, and speak in Stake Conferences and go to church, and say goodbye to people, and on and on. But after Sister Dew's talk I was overwhelmed with gratitude for how our mission is finishing up. I actually got quite emotional after her devotional as Scott and I talked about it. Is this hard? Yes! But have we grown? Yes! It hit me that we have been able to have all of those wonderful, normal, mission experiences, and now we get to finish with wonderful, not normal experiences, and how grateful we are for that. We get to gather with our entire mission 5 days a week to be incredibly spiritually fed. Even though it is electronically, I can't tell you how it warms my heart and how the spirit floods the room as we see all of those little boxes with missionary faces pop up on our computer screen each day. We are probably closer to them now than we have ever been because we see and talk to them every day. We have learned so much and we will work our fingers to the bone until the very last day. We will never forget the way our mission finished up and we will be forever grateful that this was our story, this is our divine orbit.
A few other miracles that have come out of this time are all the lessons our missionaries are teaching. I have mentioned this before, but they are teaching more lessons now than ever before. Most companionships are teaching at least 20 lessons a week, and a few have taught over 60 lessons. They are becoming master teachers and are sharpening their skills. We have taken some of our devotional time to help them teach simply. As part of this, I sent out a sign up genius sheet and we have missionaries sign up to teach us every night. This has been SO MUCH FUN! Our only regret is that we didn't utilize the technology we have to do this long before now. We have two to three companionships teach us every night. They are to teach us a lesson from Preach My Gospel and can decide if we are active members, less active members or non members. It has been fun to role play with them and to then give them feedback of what they do great and tips to help them become even better teachers. We have loved spending 45 minutes of quality time with each companionship. Every single time they teach us we feel the spirit. It is a perfect way to end our days. We hope to get everyone in the mission to teach us before the end of the transfer, but it may take a bit longer than that. Here are the pictures of those who have taught us so far.
Elder Fry and Elder Norton
Hermana Nelson and Hermana Christensen
Sister Ritchie and Sister Southam
Elder Keller and Elder Torbenson
Sister Smith and Sister Asay
Sister Brandley and Sister Ferrin
Elder Blood and Elder Fonua
Sister Abraham and Sister Taylor
Elder Ly and Elder Vave
Sister MacQueen and Sister Rew
Elder Denton and Elder Atkinson
Hermana Willden, Hermana Smith and Sister Kengike
Elder Hancock and Elder Underhill
Elder West and Elder Johnson
Hermana Valdespino and Hermana Ashcroft
Elder Clark, Elder Primero and Elder McLeod
Elder Rammell and Elder Johnson (they are the only ones who dared call us Scotty and Allie in the lesson) it made us laugh
Hermana Danneman, Hermana Osmond and Hermana Beck
Sister Henderson and Sister Stuart
Sister Buettenback and Sister Olsen
Elder Dowell and Elder Fuller
Elder Grover and Elder Johnson
Sister Finck and Sister Rawlings
Sister Lindsay and Sister Hutchins. They are the only ones who have done a member present lesson. Sister Lindsay's parents joined us but we didn't get a picture while they were on. They've also been the bravest as they chose to have us be a couple who weren't married and taught us the law of Chastity.
Elder Houghton and Elder Brown
Elder Quintana and Elder Prentice
I feel so bad, I missed taking a picture with Elder Wood and Elder Decker, we may call them back and take a picture and I'll insert it here.
So, basically our schedule for the past few weeks has been to have our Daily Devotional, head to the temple for interviews, then come home for our nightly missionary lessons. In between time we prepare or arrange for devotionals, and other meetings, and the big transfers that are coming our way. More on that...
We had transfers the week of April 20. It is the first time ever that we didn't get any new missionaries arriving. I didn't realize how much I would miss new missionaries coming in until we didn't get any. It was a weird day.
We did transfers trying to have as much social distancing as possible. We tried to keep as many in their areas without transferring, but we have 13 going home and none coming in and so we had to combine several areas and that creates a domino effect. We had everyone wear a mask and the non transferring companion was told to stay in the car. It worked fairly well, but the social distancing when missionaries see each other is hard to enforce. That's why we can't let them see each other during this time. It stinks. But it was fun to see so many missionaries in the same place after so long. Here are some pictures from transfers. It was crazy that we were all in masks. Something we will always remember.
At the time of transfers I didn't have a real mask so I improvised with a scarf. You can bet I was going to match my dress!
Aren't these just the best jackets that the Sacramento Zone had made!
That night we usually take our departing missionaries to the temple and have a departing dinner and testimony meeting at our home. Instead we had to settle for a departing testimony meeting over zoom. We still felt the spirit strongly but we certainly missed being in person.
We were trying to figure out flights right up until the day before they all left. Bless Sister Mair's heart for her work with missionary travel. Flights kept getting cancelled and rebooked and we finally got them all situated, but we had to leave to take two of them, Elder Mandisodza and Elder Barrows, to the airport at 3 a.m.
Elder Mandisodza and Elder Barrows
We got them off and then picked up Hermana Capillo-Montes at 6 a.m. and got her off.
Elder Nevitt's parents picked him up at the office before we left for the airport, so we said goodbye to him before we left. It was so touching to watch their reunion. Made me wish we were always on the receiving end!
Elder Nevitt
Elder Wells and Elder Everett
Elder Southam and Elder Passey
Hermana Quesenberry and Sister Burgener
Hermana Freeman and Hermana Lewis
Sister Decker
It was so sad we didn't get any hugging pictures, but I told them we are going to make up for that when we get home and hold a belated departing dinner for this group. We love them so much, it was, as always so hard to see them go. They were all remarkable missionaries.
Everything is just so different. This is how we held our new leader meeting
And this was just before we started our MLC. This room is usually packed full of missionaries for MLC. I couldn't help snapping this picture of President. It captures the isolation of the way we do things now.
Also during this time our two sons, Ethan and Preston graduated from BYU and our daughter in law Camee graduated from LDS Business college with a degree in Interior Design. Ethan graduated with his Master's in Accounting, and Preston with his Batchelor's in Supply Chain Management. Both graduated from BYU's Marriott School of Business. They have always done everything together so it was fitting that they graduated together. Even though they didn't get to walk across a stage at a graduation ceremony, (which broke my heart) we celebrated their accomplishments. We had a big? graduation party over zoom where we tried to honor them as best we could. It was a fun night and a graduation never to be forgotten. The graduation that wasn't!
One of the things I do feel bad about is that we will most likely leave without seeing so many of the people we have come to love out here. We were supposed to talk in our Silva Valley ward a few Sundays ago and we bore short testimonies at one of our ward Sunday Zoom Devotionals. We absolutely love our ward and it wasn't exactly how we wanted to show that love and say goodbye.
I got an email from a dear friend from Lodi, Cathy Leonard, who wanted to meet us since their Stake Conference got cancelled and the zone conference down there in May got cancelled. We were doing interviews at the temple and so she and her husband met us up there. She had made this beautiful afghan for us. It was so touching I could hardly believe how kind they were. She also brought us masks so I could bag my scarf. It was the hardest thing ever not to give her the biggest hug. We are so grateful for the friends we have made. We love the Leonards.
We are now preparing to make up for no new arrivals on transfers. We are blessed to be getting 21 new missionaries this Friday. Two of them were assigned to our mission and they didn't send them on transfer, and 19 of them have been reassigned here from missions around the world. We are so excited to get them here. Logistically it is a challenge, they come in on about 5 different flights at different times. We think we have it figured out how to get them all picked up, oriented, fed and out. Unless there is an unexpected wrench thrown our way it's going to work out great. Two weeks later we are receiving 35 new missionaries. We will work out the details on those as we get the first 21 settled, but we are equally thrilled to have those 35 join us as well. Our family is expanding and we couldn't be happier.
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