So, before I begin, I'd like to explain the structure of this blog, especially for our veteran followers. We have decided to not do a separate blog for this mission. Instead, we will start each blog with our mission activities for the week, then follow it with our recreational activities, and nods to the family at home and what they are doing.
Happy Monday morning. We headed to the MTC where we picked up our paperwork around 9:30, then we had a bit more than an hour to introduce ourselves to others, eat lunch at the cafeteria, then we met together with the other incoming senior missionaries.
This is the first couple we met and chatted with. They are Julie and Rex Burnett who are headed to Australia. I asked if they were related to Pat Burnett who I work with, and they said probably but did not know how. Then they asked about earlier missions, and when Scott said he had gone to Finland, she started to speak to him in Finnish. It turns out she had a little Finnish because she served her mission in Sweden. She said she had a Finnish connection because a sister she worked with who was baptized had several daughters, and the youngest of them married a Finn. She said that Finn was the new Stake President in Helsinki. Holly Heck! That meant Jussi and Pini Kemppainen's son Ami's wife, Emilia, who we went to English Sunday School with until Covid hit on our second mission is the daughter of the woman Julie taught and prepared for baptism. Whoa. Then when Dad added them to his facebook friends, he found out she is the sister of Jan Vanderhooft's wife. Lots of history with Jan and Louise, but we'll spare you.
We met the presidency of the MTC, then we met the Branch Presidency. This gal is one of the workers at the MTC, you can tell, because she is wearing a white nametag. The missionary name tags are black. I choose to take her picture because I loved the 'memory necklace' she was wearing. It made me think of the 'memory wall' we are working on now. Her necklace, among other things, had a Young Womanhood medallion and the state of Texas. We were told that the number in the MTC this week was higher than it had ever been, with over 3,000 missionaries. After the introduction to the program in general, we were divided into districts with four couples in each. Out of 60 missionaries we were the last to be announced and led from the room.
Our district was made up of four couples who were called to their area offices. Two were doctors, one going to Australia, the other to Spain. The fourth couple had been called as Communications Specialists, who serve alternately for six months at a time in Mongolia and Guam.
These two were our morning teachers. Sister Rogers and Brother Jones.
She is married, and showed me the picture of her and her husband and a group of children that represent what AI thinks their children will look like. I thought that was kind of fun.
These are our afternoon teachers, Brother Devore and Sister Gefrom. He is the one who is married in this teacher pairing. Its interesting that every week they work with a different co teacher. I thought that was a good way for them to never get into a rut, as they have to adapt every week to a new teacher.
To mix things up (and keep us awake) we also had break out sessions, and we had these two young men. The Elder on the left, Elder Cavalcante, is from Brazil, and the Elder on the right is Elder Morrison and he is from Ghana. both have fathers who are General Authority Seventies.
This sister was a joyful ball of energy and reminded me of Reagan, in personality as well as looks. She is from Santaquin and remembered coming to Fleaology with her Mom as a little girl. She said it was one of her favorite memories. How fun is that. (For those who don't know I started running a small flea market twice a summer with other antique dealers at my home in Payson in 2006)
On Tuesday we met our 'friends' who we would practice lessons on. They are Mike and Sherry Anderson. They lived much of their lives in the Holliday area but spent about ten years up in Island Park before preparing to go on a Senior Mission to the Palmyra area Church History sites. It was kind of fun, because we had met them on Monday and introduced ourselves and visited, then when our teachers mentioned that we would be paired with another couple outside of our district, her face flashed into my mind.
When we got together that afternoon, she said that when she heard, she had hoped it would be us ... how crazy is that. Given there are 60 couples, that being a coincidence was pretty small. I asked our teachers how they choose these partnerships, and one said they pray about it. That made sense, because they are awesome, and they have already invited us to their house in St. George after their mission, as well as us hoping they can make it to London after their 12-month mission.
The crazy part is that there are many tender mercy connections (not to be confused with coincidences.)
1. He grew up in my sister-in-law Jolyn's neighborhood, and as a teen helped to build the copper roofed pagoda looking church on 45th south.
2. He attended Skyline high, just like our daughter Brittany.
3. She worked for Richard Smith, our Covid Quarantine buddy, along with Eliisa. She is a direct descendent of Hyrum Smith, like he is, and I asked if she knew him as a cousin, so was surprised when she knew him from her employment.
4. She worked for the same Medical Brokerage as our Darby has worked for them the last four years. Darby joined the staff months after Sherry retired.
5. They were also long time shoppers at The Store where Scott worked initially.
Sherry and Mike
At the map, we met with these Elders, 2 from Japan and one from Bolivia. They were all impressed when we told them our daughter served in Japan, and our son in Bolivia and that we had picked them up and had seen their countries. We ran into them other times on campus and got to visit shortly. I think the MTC leadership encourages the young missionaries to be nice to the senior missionaries. It was delightful.
One day we were sent out to talk to everyone. This missionary had a cool story. He is Elder Crisman. He is headed to Germany where his ancestors are from, under the family name of Christman. He said that the name in his line of the family was changed when his several greats grandfather joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after the family immigrated to the USA and was disowned by his parents. The new convert's father said he could not use the family name, at which time it was changed to Crisman. What a great example for this missionary.
That night we joined the choir practice to ensure ourselves seats in the main auditorium for the devotional. I sat next to these four sisters who were all headed to Japan,
as well as these three sisters who were behind me who were also headed there. It was fun to meet them, and hear their excitement. The gal in the middle here is from Pleasant Grove and knows our Eva. Though she did not know Eva was on a mission.
Dad sat by this young man who was living in Japan with his family when he was called to serve in Brazil.
When they announced that the missionary who would be saying the closing prayer was a Eld Hale from Mapleton, we both thought. This could be Andrew's Brother (Andrew is the brainiac AP, who repeatedly saved my bacon on the computer during my correspondence missionary days in Finland) When he gave the prayer his voice was a giveaway. The sweetest thing is that when we told him how much we loved his big brother, and how fun he is, Michael actually teared up. It was sooo sweet.
er
Here he is with the Choir director who is also from Mapleton.
This is also where we ran into Bob Arnold for the first time. He and his wife are missionaries at the MTC, but Scott knows him because he sings in the Saltairs chorus with him. That was fun.
Dad also wanted a picture, because this couple lives in Desmone where Zach Jones from our first mission lives. They did know the family, so that was also fun.
At lunch there were a lot of missionaries for Dad to meet and connect with if he could. These two are from Finland, the one of his left, is the grandson of Alpo Motilainen, who we got to know in the Haaga ward on our first mission.
Of course,
he mainly had his eye out for Finnish Missionary tags, and found these four.
Here we are with the main group. The elder to the far left looks a lot like a Finn, he said he has been told that before.
It was in the lunchroom that I over heard these two exclaiming over each other. The senior sister is the grandmother of the young missionary, it was their second time to run into each other, how fun is that. Sister Salmon is Canadian. Everyone in this group was American other than two Canadian couples and a couple who were expats from the Netherlands. Of course there are also MTCs in Europe, Mexico, South American and Africa. Though missionaries coming to serve in the USA from all over the world come to the MTC here for the English language training. I met a young man with two weeks of language training from South America who was headed to serve in Las Vegas. He told me he had not ever known any English and that when he came in two weeks before no one could understand him. His language was pretty amazing, and he was pretty fluent, in two more weeks at the end of his training his English will be better than mine. Definitely an example of the Gift of Tongues.
This gal is Kjerstin Cope, she is a former Finnish Missionary who works at the MTC, She actually recognized Scott because he is friends with her on Facebook. She works in the senior couple classroom building.
Here we are at lunch on Friday, with the Andersons and the Salmons.
For an activity our district went to another building to see this wall size art done by artist who manipulates a photo with AI and then has it printed on Canvas then adds some dimension with paints, before having it installed on the wall. There are several of these huge pieces of art. It is an illustration from Moses in the Pearl of Great Price when Moses is taken to the top of a mountain to gaze into the promised land.
This is the picture we took together.
On Thursday we headed back to the same building for an activity, and loved this quote.
This is another picture of our missionary district with our afternoon teachers.
I ran into sister Anderson first thing on Friday, and had to get a picture as we're color coordinated.
At the end of our last meeting on Friday, which was a Safety Zone training for three hours, (Which BTW was very well done) We ran into the Reeves who are going to the Dallas North mission, where the parents of another of our favorite missionaries, Michael Fitpartick, are serving as the Mission Leaders. Members of our family will also recognize that this is a newly formed mission and is the one that our daughter Emily lives in. She has already fed 2 different missionaries from our stake, including President Phillip's nephew. (Scott was President Phillip's Executive Secretary until we decided to be part of the first Senior Missionary couple to serve away from home from our one-year-old Arrowhead Stake in Payson) I know that Emily will do her best to track them down and get to know them too. BTW, Scott reminds me that the Reeves have two granddaughters who married former Finnish Missionaries that we served with, namely Niko Gammet and Chris Long.
And this one is sort of fun when we sat with this couple for lunch one day earlier in the week. They are from the San Diego area and are headed to Hawaii. They first caught my eye, because the wife looks like my friend Barb, then I noticed that her husband looks like Barb's brothers.
They are the Jewels and she was serving in her stake when the new Unit History Program was released by the church several years ago. They had someone from the Church History Department train her, and she had such a great program going that they asked her to take over administrating the program for the church, which did not work out. But in the end she shared the program she had developed, and it is now the program that I was using during the 6 months that I had the calling. I was told by people at the church history department that this is one area where those in the USA fall behind in submissions to those outside of the USA. I know I struggled to get people interested. We do have a couple of folks in the stake that do a great job, and I had a chance to submit a couple of unit history events myself. She has sent us the Unit History Directions page she used, that I plan to pass on to whoever it is that is replacing me in our stake.
So as for the likenesses, this is Barb on left and Sister Jewel on the right.
Brother Jewel is on the left here and Barb's brother Don is on the right
Here we are doing the pose.
Our last act at the MTC was to go the class of 18 Finnish Missionaries to share black licorice and stories of Finland.
These sisters came in after I'd taken the picture. I told them that Elder Perkins administers the Missionary Mom's Site for Finland, and that he would be posting their happy faces. We really enjoyed sharing our deep love of Finland and telling them to expect to meet the most amazing people in the world.
We had a missionary reunion that evening, because one of our three Mission Presidents we worked with is in Town, Brother Ilkka Aura and his wife Paula. There were actually half a dozen events, and we thought of taking a two-hour lunch from the MTC the day before to meet up, but coming for the last 45 minutes of this event at the Jamsa's, with whom we served our second mission, and who live in Salem, seemed preferable. So, to start with is Elder Andrew Hale, whose red headed brother we met earlier, with his wife, Liesel and her twin sister Gweneth. Gweneth served with us in Finland, while Liesel served in Denmark. Gweneth's husband, Will Hall, who was Andrew's companion when they were APs, was hunting. Really Will?
This is Oliver and Jennifer Harlow and their baby, he served in Finland.
Here are Denise Jamsa, me and Ralph Jamsa. They have a beautiful, roomy home and often host these reunions, for which we are grateful, because they are just 7 minutes from our house. We served with them on our second mission. They are both half Finnish and met serving a mission to Finland. How perfect is that.
This is Bryat Stoker and his wife, Rose.
This is Ammon Gatrell with Kayla and their baby, as well as the Auras.
This is Morgan and Charles Johnson, with the Auras, he was with us on our first mission.
Here the Auras are with the Shurtz, Jane and Steven who trained us for our office duties.
So here are the Paulas and their husbands
And what a way to celebrate our 52nd Meetaversary. Scott posted this that day, and I thought about the day we met off and on all day. What a blessing he has been in my life.
Then for the last mission related event of the week, we met up with the Auras, and other missionaries for a last supper on Saturday night. Sister Aura had mentioned the night before that Laurie Kehr would be there, so I changed some plans around so we could join them. Of course, Scott never says no to any kind of a Finnish reunion, so he was in!
Laurie Kehr, Ilkka, Paula, Sam Aims and Brianna Clayton Aims, who was also a Finnish Missionary, then, Andrew, Eliza Middleton, (whose Aunt married my nephew Jack) Alex Martin, Scott and me. I had a great time catching up with Laurie.
Another lovely Finnish friend, Stina came by to borrow a book I'd finished that I thought she'd love. It had an interesting Finnish subplot. It's called My Loving Vigil Keeping by Carla Kelly in case you're interested. Its historical fiction.
There is nothing like serving missions to make for the most amazing friendships. My theory is that even though distance and other restraints keeps me from deeper friendships, we've got all of the eternities to grow these relationships, its comforting for me to know that, as we have come to love so many amazing people.
We managed to listen to conference while working on the memory wall, and then again on Sunday. It was inspiring as always, and we are so grateful to be able to watch it from home. We hope you all enjoyed your conference experience as well.
On Monday we received the wonderful news that Kim got engaged to her boyfriend Chase. We are also excited that it's a two fer deal and we'll be getting a great granddaughter into the bargain. Her name Lydia and she is 8! Looks like she already loves her upcoming step-mom, but what's not to love about our Kimmy.
Monday morning in Texas started off with Emily as she goes 'back to school'. As it happens, she is subbing in a preschool class ....
and as it also happens Johnny is in the same class ... lucky boy.
After our first day at the MTC we joined ward member friends in an empty nester's family home evening. Here we see my friend Ginny Taylor and Dad. Ginny and I were walking partners for years before her health slowed down, and then we were divided into separate wards. That night she mentioned to me that she has cancer. We've been back in the same ward for a year, and I felt so bad that I had not known she had gone through Chemo and all the rest. And until Monday, I had no idea.
Also, there were Michelle Madson, Clair Christenson, Heidi Madson, Rebbecca and Hal Perry
Raydon Madson, Doug Lamb and Raylene Christenson.
Close up of Heidi, Rebecca and Hal.
Heidi, Hal, Becca, Marie Hatch, Ginny and Greg Madson, our former bishop.
Greg and Heidi host and Greg gives the message. We love meeting with them but haven't been able to go very often because Dad does Barbershop Chorus on Mondays. It was so good to be with these wonderful friends on the eve of our mission.
Once, when Greg was our bishop, he challenged us to pray and ask Heavenly Father how we are doing in our personal progression. I was so surprised that one could actually do that. I think we all feel so flawed and think of ourselves in terms of our short comings. Greg's challenge really made a difference in my relationship with my Heavenly Father, because my answer was so kind and generous, it helped me to realize just how much my Heavenly Father loves me and wants me to come back to him.
And here are we three, all color coordinated. How I love and admire these two great women.
But we were not the only one's who were having dinner. In the Roseville California mission, Eva and a friend of her father's, Sang Kim and his wife enjoyed dinner with her companion and another companionship. You can read how Trevor and Sang became friends in last week's blog post.
Also, out to dinner this week were my nephew Scott and my brothers, with a couple of their wives. Here you see Ross, Scott, Doug, Shirley and Bruce. Clark and Jo had been there but left before the picture event. We didn't get to go, of course, because we were in the MTC and they were in Bountiful.
Scott, my nephew, was here to go to the open house at the Utah Developmental Center, where Alysa lives, to pick up his brother Todd's ashes to take home and to be interred at "What Joy Farm". He had also planned to meet with Todd's girl friend Janeil and try to figure out a place for her to live, since he's been paying for a hotel for her since Todd Died a couple of months ago.
You may know by now that when he went to meet with her at the hotel, she had passed away. It will be a while until it is known why, and the State Medical Examiner may not see fit to tell Scott since, she was not technically related to him. Such a sad affair, but I know her health has not been very good the last few years, so perhaps it was to be expected.
We got Scott all to ourselves the next day, had dinner and enjoyed a nice long visit. It is incredible that with Janeil's death he has lost his Mother, his wife, his father, his only brother and that brother's significant other in the space of 18 months. I'm not sure how he does it, but with all he's dealing with, with his father's estate and Alysa, he seems to be holding up very well. We all love you Scott and loved your time with us this past week.
We're so glad he had time to share with us. He even says he may come and visit us in England which would be wonderful. I am still looking forward to sailing away on his sailboat in some future summer back in Virginia.
On Thursday night the Perrys invited us for dinner. We have been friends for several years, and our friendship has even survived being divided out of their ward last year. We had a nice long visit, with this wonderful girl who also grew up in Bountiful, and if I recall correctly knew my little brother Ross at Woods Cross. Her name is Heidi Perry now, but I don't know her maiden name, Ross, so you can correct me if I'm wrong.
The fun thing is that she is related to me on my father's side, which very rarely happens. She is also 2 or 3 generations closer to me than most people I am related to, who happen to be 9th at the closest, but usually 10th or 11th cousins. The funny thing is that she did not even know she had any Norwegian ancestry.
On Friday there were fancier plans for Titan, which required a corsage.
Yep, he went to prom!!
Of course, Saturday for us meant listening to conference, and putting up rocks, then listing to conference, and putting up rocks.
Rock 1 was on the property when we bought it. Jim Hill collected interesting rocks, 2. is a stone given us when we were in Spring City for the house tour. A former ward member of Dad's lives there and had a barn fall down. The stones came out of the same quarry as the Manti temple. 3. is block of sandstone the same color and size as the blocks of our house, we surmise it is the block they chiseled out to make a tiny bathroom window when the house was made into apartments in the 1930s. 4. is a piece of corral I bought at a garage sale, 5. is a round rock with a round circle on it that I got from a neighbor's estate sale down main street. The man had collected rocks from down around Fish Lake for years. Many of the unnumbered rocks are from his yard. 6. is directly above 5 and is a smaller piece of sandstone. It was a window seal at the Peteetneet school, a neighbor of the school salvaged it and others when the worn window seals were replaced. The blocks marked 7 are pieces from the church that was torn down kitty corner from the house a few years ago, and number 8 is some manufactured stone pavers that they were replacing at the Payson Temple on a day we were there planting tulips. Above the stone shown here, we have done at least a row of river rock that came from the side ditch on Dad's folk's property that conducted the irrigation water back in the day. Also, since this picture Dad has placed three rocks from the original Nauvoo temple. We hope to finish the wall on Monday. We got some more rock from Heidi and Mike Perry, including some cool 4 hole bricks. I can hardly wait.
And speaking of rocks, these look pretty good, just not as good as three of my granddaughters standing in front of them, Charley, Reagan and Adi.
Brittany and Charley came down to Lagoon because Charley's a fan. Becca drove up with Reagan and Adi to join the fun. Here they are in the traditional old west picture.
That same afternoon Dad and I got together with Davin and Bailey for some sushi and lots of getting to know you. We loved it.
Here they are, such a cute couple. Bailey seems great, and we hope to get to know her better.
Right now, as I write this, Emily and Sam et al, are headed here. Here are some of the kids at Buc-ee's Bekie, Johnny and Abbie. We're grateful we got to see them last spring.
They're finding some adventures along the way.
Johnny's impressed. I had fun earlier today texting with Benny ... we can hardly wait.
And now for my new hobby ... you all know I love decorating, and I've found a painless, and free way to get my sense of satisfaction. You find a picture you sort of like of an interior, then take it to AI and ask it to make changes. It took me two free sessions to build this one, but I think it's very calming and was satisfying to make.
and now, just so you know, this is just how I feel. The painting is by Colby Sanford, who has done portraits for Trevor and Nell. Of course, Hollyhocks always get my vote.
We love you all and hope you have an amazing week with lots of tenderness, beauty and the arm of our Lord Jesus Christ to support you in the hard times.
