COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT~: I post with Permission~

ONE MONTH AS MISSIONARIES FOR THE

CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

February 8, 2009

Hello from the “Mission Field”- we left our Arizona home one month ago today and it has been amazing. The Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah embedded within us more deeply all of the reasons we love the Lord and His church and why, therefore, we want to share it with others. The week was tender and fun and worthwhile and valuable. What a profoundly well-oiled machine His Church really is – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For 49 weeks a year, 200 young Elders and Sisters enter the MTC to begin training for their two year or eighteen month missions. These volunteers, paying 100% of their own way, cover the earth sharing the Lord’s promises and truths. Currently the Church has 62,000 missionaries around the world serving in 176 countries and territories. They carry in their hands the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon; it is another testament of Jesus Christ. There are 160 missionaries in our Colorado Springs Mission. By the end of 2009 there will be 200 total here. President and Sister Pfile are already winning our hearts. He is a strong leader and she is gentle and kind. My he is funny. We went to our first Zone Conference this week (a group of thirty missionaries – these are done every six weeks - day long training and some fun along the way) and he had us all in stitches. Since checking into the mission office on January 19th we have moved into our wonderful tiny apartment. It is right across from the office – so that if everyone else has “snow days”, we’ll be there. We thought perhaps you’d enjoy the things we’ve done since arriving:

· Learned about how the Elders/Sisters arrive to begin their missions and say their farewells. This is also accompanied by Transfers – these are handled every six weeks where the missionaries either keep, exchange or get an arriving new companion. The Mission President is very inspired with these changes. It is a monumental task.

· Attended a day-long Senior Missionary couples retreat – which included the Garden of the Gods park, an art gallery, breakfast at Denny’s, a Chinese luncheon then training and laughter and sing-alongs and talent sharing from 7:30am until 8pm at the mission home. These take place quarterly.

· We’ve fed the missionaries after they helped move in our new tv (the van was sooo loaded before we left our driveway that the tiny tv stayed behind.) We also bought another recumbent bicycle to use for daily exercise here. And we fed the missionaries who live nearby – along with Elder and Sister Fairhurst – his name is Fred and he TOO was born on the Ides of March – only 9 years later than the Fred you know. He is a retired AF colonel – just returned from Afghanistan, left the military and came on this mission. We’re doing a lot of military support with the two of them – they’re great!

· Attended the 17th Ward. Attended the 14th ward (the USAF academy ward.) Attended Institute at Ft Carson – religious classes for young couples and singles stationed there. We’ve been twice. And also attended the Fountain Ward – only the single adult 14th and Fountain Wards will be our Sunday assignments from now on.

· Taken the Sister missionaries out for lunch and gained instructions from them about what they’ll have us do to assist them. Delightful young women - one’s mother is a Russian Jew and father is Indonesian. The other is from Georgia – neither had ever been to Red Lobster before.

· Started a Family Home Evening group at our home for Army singles – most are shipping out to Afghanistan in May. One sister is very nervous about going – she said she doesn’t trust her unit and will learn how to give herself an I.V. before she leaves. That’s pretty sad.

· Learned how to submit baptism records to Salt Lake City church headquarters. We are a baptizing mission – we’re averaging sixty baptisms a month – 64 in January actually.

·Fred worked with Sister Beckwith to fill 125 3-ring binders. Nancy helped only a little bit - Each binder has 11 dividers which had to be hand labeled and then a different amount of papers went into each divider section. That cute Fred is much disciplined – if they’d had more warning, they would have gotten all previously labeled dividers from SLC. I’m as patient as a goose being chased with an axe; I found other assignments to do!

· Fred worked with Brother Grover because the mission switched from Sprint to Verizon – all 85 new cell phones had to be labeled and programmed. They’re being handed out at Zone Conferences this week and next.

·Fred is also the bicycle guru now. Each male missionary arrives at the mission with his own bicycle. Now, Fred is in charge of calling someone to repair the bikes – or replace – he himself has not been on a bike since he was 20! Elder Fairhurst is in charge of the fleet of cars the missionaries drive – you cannot imagine the phone calls they receive night and day with youth 19-22 years of age driving 60 cars. Fred is grateful he is the bike guy.

· When it was new missionary arrival day plus transfers, I picked up 105 sandwiches from Safeway, bagged them with chips, candy and water. I get to be in charge of that – each bag is packed with napkins and a smile, too. Others in the office quickly set up an assembly line to accomplish this, but I da boss man.

· We went to the airport to welcome new missionaries and then were asked to drive to Denver to pick up two who rode the bus to Denver from SLC and were stuck for 7 hours on I-70 on the bus due to closed roads.

· Before driving north to Denver we stopped for lunch at a Schlotsky’s. Three homeless people came up to us by the car asking for money. We said we’d take them inside and feed them lunch. One man said, “We won’t go inside – you’ll be embarrassed by us.” I said, “IT IS ELEVEN DEGREES OUTSIDE, COME IN! You’re our brothers and sister.” That was a wonderful luncheon – I worked with a shelter that evening because I’d gotten their location to make sure they were warm. “You’ll be embarrassed by us.” They don’t understand that we’re all sons and daughters of God.

· We have attended two baptisms and spoke at the second one. One was a young man from Puerto Rico – so smiley and so glad to know our Savior better. And the other a man from Nigeria who is in our Army – we’ve found out that this is a gateway to citizenship for qualified men and women from around the world.

· The second Sunday here the Bishop asked us to come to his ward planning meeting and then ward missionary meeting and then our usual meetings – we were there for 5 ½ hours among such amazing single adults from the community and the USAF academy. February 8th had us in church for 4 ½ hours. This work must be true or I would have napped instead!

· Our niece Alana and her three children came from Castle Rock where they live for a delightful evening – it felt so very good to be with family again. We’ll see them soon.

· Everyday but two moving in and getting settled days since we’ve arrived we have worked in the office for as little as three hours and as long as seven.

. The week ahead we’ll go to another Zone Conference and work in the office and have family home evening here and attend Institute again at Ft Carson and attend a huge social for the singles and get my hair done and go to Denver to the temple and finally buy shoes (I ordered replacements for the stolen ones and they sent the wrong size!) and going to Fountain Ward Relief Society Ice Cream Social to get better acquainted with the women there – so I’ll know better know how we might help them AND celebrate Valentine’s day somehow with my honey!

· The Lord’s work cannot be stopped – will not be stopped regardless of the falsehoods trying to block it. We are honored to be part of the energy of moving others forward to greater happiness and cannot wait to be able to teach those wanting to reach the pinnacle of happiness you can have here on earth…the truth of God will go forth.

· Sister Pfile calls each missionary a “walking miracle” – for they give two years of their lives to preach Christ to others. And accepted it is! This is amazing to watch.

We are blessed and privileged to be here – we have so much fun together besides! Our miniature refrigerator was replaced today – that’s exciting. We knew we would do a lot of cooking on this mission and therefore brought 9 different pans/skillets. What a hoot, we only brought one serving bowl. Now we have more - we love thrift stores! We went to one thrift shop and I bought a wonderfully long dresser scarf for $2 – as the front of our dresser is fine, but the top looks like it was a workbench. Fred said that they didn’t want my kind there as I was wearing my Gucci watch and Alpaca coat! But of course they wanted me there, I looked like a bag lady with my orthotic tennies on! There is actual flowing water in the rivers here. Phoenix’ dry rivers are so dopey. I LOVE water in rivers. In Colorado Springs, CO they don’t believe in more than one entry into a row of businesses from the street or highway. We’re staggered that we always have to go around a huge block to get back to any and all stores. Every single person in Colorado Springs knows someone in Phoenix or has lived there themselves. It was always glamorous to say we live in Washington, DC all of those years – it isn’t so fun to say we’re from Phoenix…although it is true when it was six degrees the other week that we really did miss our cactus! It has been in the 50’s and 60’s this whole week. No one wears a coat. Their babies don’t wear coats. I wear hat and gloves and coat. Isn’t that supposed to be a myth that your blood thins out in warmer climates? The first week here was in the single digits and teens and right now it is snowing. I’ll check for bare arms tomorrow. Every morning we say hello to the majesty of Pike’s Peak – in the center of town. Remember America the Beautiful was written up there and therefore, you just daily are tempted to break into song… And so ends our month – a joyful month. An educational month. A happy month. A healthy month. We’re both losing weight – our apartment is too small for largish type people. We’ve read scriptures galore and shared them together (a missionary companionship requirement,) we feel fortunate that our children sustain and support this decision and we feel humble for your prayers and kindnesses in our behalf and are deeply grateful that the Lord accepted our desire to go on this mission. Our faith is climbing higher – to match His Mountains.