#15 October How will I measure my mission?

Just finished month 15 of 18. These last months will rush past! How will I measure my mission? With joy? With regret? With satisfaction? With beauty?

With growth — spiritual & physical 😂?

Hmmm — I think I’ll measure my mission most with MISSIONARIES!

This familiar sight will be a memory— did I take enough pictures!!!😂😂😂

Oh my! How did this happen? It passed quickly. We will be released February 7, 2025 and make our way home to snow through the snow ❄️🌨️🏔️—Without missionaries, I might add. We came to serve our Savior by serving them. They have changed our lives for the better!❤️

Here in the mission field, missionary life will continue on in a 6 week cycle of valiant young men and women striving every day to awaken people to Christ and His gospel! HOO-RAH for IS-RA-EL! Hoorah for them!

All but a couple of these missionaries have finished their missions and are continuing their lifelong journey as disciples of Christ at home. We are happy for them, but you see, we love them— it makes our eyes leak and our hearts break a little when they leave.

Sooo we try to do a little more, a little better while we are with them. Our prayers continue for them wherever they are. They are the future of the Church, and it’s in good hands. So meanwhile— here is October:

Week 1

A car had broken down & and so we went to wait for the tow truck because we were doing apartment inspections in the same area. We waited 3 hours for a tow truck! We helped with apartment inspections—Elders King & Dougal; Elders Allen & Ritchie (on exchanges); Sisters Smith & Loosli; Sisters/Hermanas Crandall, Merrill, Grose & Miles; & dinner with the Lunds from our ward and Elder Mac & Sister Ambie Wilson.

We spent Friday with Sisters Smith & Loosli getting a windshield fixed. We had scheduled to leave the car— a mistake— we dropped them off with a sister companionship, and then went and made some deliveries. Then we picked them back up to take them to their interviews with president Quinn. From there we went back to pick up the car. The windshield had not even been started! So we went and got ice cream! When we finished our ice cream, we went back and it still wasn’t done at 5:30 so we still had to wait! A long day for them! But we enjoyed their company!

Sister Nate & I wore the same colors!😂 Eating ice cream; Sisters Dangerfield, Freeman, Utley & Nix we met for deliveries and then took them to lunch.

Elders Bass & Allen coming for interviews with President Quinn; Elders Hawkins, Gravatt, & Witt keeping the President’s interviews organized; & of course Pres Nelson— conference on Saturday!

Week 2

Sunday— conference— I loved the talk given by Brad Wilcox. Every day I see “The youth of the noble birthright.”

One of my favorite quotes.

Our mission office is in a beautiful area. I go for short walks. These are some of the sights from this week.

The church is where our mission office is located. My desk is on the bottom row.

We had our mission office meeting— getting ready for transfer week.

Week 3 transfers

Missionaries going home is a great time, yet also so teary—saying goodbye to these valiant young men and women that we grow to love and admire tears at your heart strings. Knowing how joyful their homecoming will be makes it easier.— but first transfers— an exciting time of renewing friendships.

Like clockwork— after transfers and leaving, comes new missionaries, an evening welcome dinner, breakfast the next day and training. We also got a car out of the repair shop.

A busy, wonderful week filled with emotions of every kind.

October— week 4

The highlight of this week was the visit from these RMs —returned missionaries. They have returned home and are working their way through life as lifelong disciples of Christ. We love and admire them!

Kaden Wiley, Jonathan Murphy, Elder Jensen, Matthew Fano, Elder Young & Matthew Hong.

October week 5– Zone Conferences

We drove to Eureka on Sunday— Sister Schneider rode with us. On Monday we shared 15 minutes of information. After we presented, we checked car tires, fluids and interiors. After lunch & the conference, we drove to Ukiah. We stopped at the Big Foot gift shop and at the Grandfather Tree on the way.

Tuesday was Ukiah Zone Conference

We drove home then on Wednesday we drove to the Napa/Fairfield conference. The agenda and teaching is basically the same for each zone: beautiful prelude music & video; welcome, purpose & mission theme, Called to Serve song, training by Sister Quinn, then we go out and inspect cars, we come in & teach about safe driving, (other training goes on while we are out with cars); lunch, when we celebrate birthdays & do the safety drawing ($15 if their name is pulled out of the hat); musical number; departing missionaries testimonies; President & Sister Quinn teach, then the missionaries share takeaways-something they learned. The techs, APs & leaders focus their teaching on something they see is needed in the mission.

Thursday we were at Woodland/Fairfield: this is a sampling of the joy we are blessed with by serving!

Friday we were in Petaluma for the Santa Rosa/San Rafael zones:

As I’m finishing up October’s ‘happenings’ , it is almost time to post November!- a month behind!

Time to cherish the moments while I can!