The month of June 2020 was a blurr. It was a combination of lots of meetings, preparations to leave the mission in good working order, lots of teaching, lots of preparations to head home, lots of goodbyes, lots of lasts, and lots and lots of emotions.
Ever since the lock down in March I had been worrying that we wouldn't be able to gather with our missionaries in person before we went home. We longed to be with them in person and teach them one last time. Our prayers were answered in that the restrictions were lifted a bit and we could meet for small gatherings. That meant that we couldn't gather 4 zones at a time for our final zone conferences, but we could gather in small groups, one zone at a time. At first we thought we could only meet with one district at a time, and with 11 zones and 25 districts we wondered how that could be done, just with all of the time it was going to take. It ended up that we were able to meet with each zone together and that was the greatest blessing. I kind of longed for our big zone conference gatherings, and I really longed to hug each of our missionaries, but if Covid taught me anything, it was to be grateful for each opportunity we had to gather in any way. We had quite a schedule to keep, but we had a wonderful, full, 5 days of zone conferences.
Since we also couldn't do any food, we planned a very condensed version of zone conferences. We planned for two zones each day for 5 days. The first zone would come from 9-12 and the second zone would come from 1:30-4:30. We just had a training by the assistants and then Scott and I taught. It was wonderful to be together, but it was also kind of exhausting doing each training twice in one day, for 5 days. But so so worth it to be able to gather.
It was also emotionally draining saying goodbye to so many of our beloved missionaries. We knew that for many of them, it would be the final time we would be together on the mission. After each conference, we went into the cultural hall to take pictures. We would take a picture of each district together, and then we took an individual picture of each missionary with Scott and me. (I am just putting the district pictures in this blog, way too many individual pictures to include here). After the pictures I gave them all cookies I had made and individually bagged, we gave them all one of our birthday key chains, for any who hadn't already gotten one, and we had them sign our mission banner. At the first of our mission I had two mission banners made. One that hung in our mission home and departing missionaries would sign it, and one to keep for our last zone conferences where the currently serving missionaries could sign before we went home. Then we had them sing our version of Called to Serve and As I Have Loved You, as we did at every zone conference lunch. I cried every. single. time. It was beautifully hard. We love our missionaries, we love the church buildings we meet in, we love Sacramento, and we love this work. It is going to be VERY hard to leave.
This was our schedule:
Tuesday June 16: Deseret Building
Carmichael Zone 9-12
North Sac Zone 1:30-4:30
Wednesday June 17: Temple Hill
El Dorado Zone 9-12
Folsom and East Sac Zones 1:30-4:30
Thursday June 18: Wissemann Building
Cordova Zone 9-12
Sacramento Zone 1:30-4:30
Tuesday June 23: Vintage Park Building
Elk Grove Zone 9-12
Lodi Zone 1:30-4:30
Wednesday June 24: Brookside Building
Stockton Zone 9-12
Manteca Zone 1:30-4:30
Day 1
Carmichael Zone, Fair Oaks District
Elder Brown, Elder Paul, Elder Burnette, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Langford, Sister Sorensen, Sister Olsen, Sister Pace, Sister Lindsay, Sister Nicoll
Carmichael Zone, Carmichael District
Elder Radford, Elder Foster, Elder Wood, Elder Pitt, Elder Swainston, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Hermana Bretzing, Hermana Rowland
North Sacramento Zone, North Sac 1st District
Elder Torbenson, Elder Keller, Elder Figueroa, Elder Burke, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Kengike, Sister Va'enuku, Elder Rawson, Elder Hawkins, Elder Moulton
North Sacramento Zone, North Sac 2nd District
Elder Xiong Elder Ly, Elder Oti, Elder Capron, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Hermana Smith, Hermana Willden, Elder Farnworth, Elder Young
The assistants teaching a Companionship Unity lesson
Day 2
East Sacramento Zone
Elder Wilkes, Elder West, Elder Johnson, Elder Gibbs, Elder Maw, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Elder Prentice, Elder Peterson, Elder Kleinhenz, Elder Christensen, Elder Blood
Folsom Zone
Elder Decker, Elder Atkinson, Elder Jones, Elder James, Elder Fuller, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Taylor, Sister Abraham, Sister Ballantine, Hermana Christensen, Sister Fink, Sister Fonoimoana
El Dorado Zone, El Dorado 1st District
Elder McLeod, Elder Primero, Elder Clark, Elder Staheli, Elder Thompson, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Elder Vest, Elder Naegle, Hermana Fullmer, Hermana Perez
El Dorado Zone, El Dorado 2nd District
Elder Anderson, Elder Underhill, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Hutchins, Sister MacQueen, Elder Vave, Elder Taylor, Elder Grover, Elder Watson
Day 3
Elder John, Elder Ficklin, Elder Simmons, Elder Jensen, Elder Bickmore, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Golightly, Sister Ferrin, Sister Ball, Sister Durfey
Cordova Zone, Cordova 2nd District
Elder Robbins, Elder Scholl, Elder Schoenman, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Hermana Nelson, Hermana de Alemeida, Sister Romney, Sister Buettgenback
Cordova Zone singing to us
Sacramento Zone, Sacramento 1st District
Elder Rammell, Elder Quintana, Elder Geng, Elder Jergensen, President Hymas, Sister Hymas,
Sister Hunt, Sister Rew, Hermana Valdespino, Hermana Ashcroft, Sister Kassinger, Sister Slade
Sacramento Zone, Sacramento 2nd District
Elder Jones, Elder Dowell, Elder Wilson, Elder Blake, Elder Cooper, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Smith, Sister Asay, Sister Lee, Sister Rawlings, Sister Saole, Sister Peapealalo
Sister Kassinger knew one of my favorite candies are Reisens and she gave me this bowl of reisens with a note on each one of why I make her smile. It was so sweet, and of course, it made me cry.
The following week, we had two more days of conferences, but on Monday I had a virtual Sister's Conference. It was planned to be in person, but there were just too many of us to gather so I had to be creative and do it over zoom. I was planning on having another sister's clothing exchange and I had bags of my clothes that I had gone through and was planning to leave behind. I was going to let them all take what they wanted at the Sister's P Day but since we weren't meeting there I just took them to the office and set them out on tables and told all of the sisters they could come to the office and take what they wanted. Apparently, that was a lot of fun for them. Sister Mair said so many sisters came and they were trying things on and remembering where they had seen me in this or that. She said even sisters who didn't fit into anything still took something of mine to remember me by. That made my heart happy.
Just look at those beautiful smiles, and all of that love!
We finished up our conferences that Tuesday and Wednesday.
Day 4
Elder Haynie, Elder Jex, Elder Smith, Sister Lewis, Sister Ritchie, Sister Hymas, President Hymas, Elder Luke, Elder Klimes
Elk Grove Zone, Elk Grove 1st District
Elder Baker, Elder Denton, Elder Palmer, Elder Duron, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Henderson, Sister Stuart, Elder Walkenhorst, Elder Franz
Lodi Zone, Lodi 1st District
Assistant's companionship unity activity
Elder Johnson, Elder Feldman, Elder Miller, Elder Manger, Elder Houghton, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Southam, Sister Bingham, Hermana Beck, Hermana Danneman, Sister Bodily, Sister Brandley
Lodi Zone, Lodi 2nd District
Elder Lawrence, Elder Carman, Elder Motes, Elder Christensen, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Elder Brock, Elder Fry, Elder Bartlett
Day 5
Elder Warnock, Elder Lee, Elder Lawrence, Elder Farmer, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Prettyman Sister Smith, Elder Biggs, Elder Hancock
Stockton Zone, Stockton 1st District
Elder Erb, Elder Luque, Elder Ashcroft, Elder Betancourt, Elder Ammons, Elder Fuller, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Hermana Hall, Hermana Rose, Hermana Clark
Manteca Zone, Manteca 1st District
Elder Ruiz, Elder Ferrin, Elder Dawe, Elder Buckley, Elder Rowland, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Styers, Sister Smith, Elder Johnson, Elder Seely
Manteca Zone, Manteca 2nd District
Elder Belnap, Elder Fonua, Elder Bott, Elder Norton, President Hymas, Sister Hymas, Sister Hamilton, Sister Bonnett, Sister Jones, Sister Davis
After we took pictures with the Manteca Zone, our very last ever zone conference, they sang the normal songs and then, to our surprise, finished with God Be With You Til We Meet Again. I was a mess, but will never forget the spirit and the love we felt. And the gratitude that we were given the opportunity to love and care for so many wonderful missionaries with whom we will have an eternal bond.
Once our Zone Conference meetings were over, the next day, Thursday, we were on to the next item facing us and that was the next month's transfers. We told President and Sister Zimmerman that we would do the transfer board for their first transfer since it would be just two weeks after they arrived in the mission. That was the same transfer schedule we had and it was really overwhelming to do a transfer board for the first time ever, not knowing anyone, or even any of the zones. And we had 135 missionaries when we arrived, they would have close to 235. We knew it was going to be a big job, we normally would meet at our home on transfer day, but the house was all packed up, and we had to be at the office that day anyway, so we did it at the office. We had never had a transfer board that wouldn't fit on one page.
We knew it was going to be brutal, we had talked with our assistants about how we needed to come prepared to battle, and they were ready with their 'helmets' on. We had a good laugh about that one!
Leaving the Wissemann Building in Cordova for the last time. This was my favorite tree when it was in bloom, and we spent SO many hours at this building. It was a home away from home for us, and we had so many special and sacred meetings at this building. It's even hard to say goodbye to buildings we have grown to love.
Our last Saturday in the mission we were able to have one final 10:00 devotional. We had stopped doing them for the last few weeks of the mission because we didn't want the Zimmerman's to come in and either think they had to start doing them, or the missionaries to be bugged that they stopped right at they arrived. But we did one final one thanks to Elder Foster Johnson. He called me about a week before and asked if we could do one more with a man named Dusty Smith. He was someone he had heard about and reached out to him on Facebook and asked him if he would do a devotional for our mission. He had left the church and been very anti for many years and then had a miraculous re-conversion story. We were a bit skeptical at first, but we checked him out and he was really legit. Scott called him and had a great conversation, so we were able to have him come, and had one last devotional right before we left. He was incredible.
One very special baptism we were able to attend in June was the baptism of Bill Burns and his wife. We had taught Bill earlier in the year with some sweet sisters. There were a lot of things that had to happen before he could get baptized and Scott was the one who had to make those things happen. It was complicated, but he kept in touch with him and visited him and interviewed him numerous times. When the approval for him to be baptized came through he asked Scott if he would be the one to baptize him. Bill was the only person he physically baptized on our mission and it was so special that he was able to do it before we went home. We had prayed hard that he could get baptized before we went home, but didn't think Scott would be the one to baptize him. It was a special experience for us.
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