Lots to tell

As you can tell from the date, I haven't been able to blog for awhile so I have much to tell. First off, a week ago Wed., I had surgery again, will it never end, on my right wrist. It seems the screws they put in had worked themselves through the bone and were basically shredding the tendon for my thumb and index finger. This necessitated having surgery to take out the plate and all the screws. Now I can say that I don't have any more loose screws. The stitches should come out Monday morning and hopefully I should be good to go.

That same day of surgery, Mike brought his teachers quorum up to the mission office to work with our missionaries, Elder M, Elder N, Elder B, and Elder S. What an incredible experience it was. These missionary men are so incredibly spiritual. They began the meeting with them by singing a song. The song the teachers chose was "Praise to the Man" afterwhich they had a kneeling prayer. The missionaries then shared their own testimonies and experiences. After that, they had the boys get in small groups of four and practice sharing their testimonies with each other about the Holy Ghost. The spirit was so strongly felt. Several of the leaders, as well as Mike, had said it had been a wonderful experience for them.

The next day, our ward came to the mission office to have a "missionary experience". Dick and I were in charge. We had five activities with them. The first was "The Making of a missionary" where we talked about how a missionary is so much more than just what he looks like. Our across the street neighbor, Bronson, was the missionary. Then we had an activity where we once again used the missionaries and they had them role play teaching the restored gospel to each other. Again we were in small groups. Elder M. went with the teachers group. In that group was a non-member that we did not know about. The boys started talking about the gospel. In the midst, everyone could feel the spirit strongly and it was then that Elder M. realized that the group was actually teaching a non member. The non member boy shared that this was the first time he had ever felt the spirit. The boys who were teaching realized just how the spirit works to testify and they ended up having a real live teaching experience of a non member with the spirit. May I just say the group were all in tears and a wonderful took place. The missionary said he couldn't believe the group was working with a golden contact. By the time the "missionary experience" with our youth conference was over, it turned out to be an incredible experience.

Yesterday was mission conference and missionaries from all over the area came together. Our speaker was Elder L. Todd Christofferson of the quorum of the 12. It was so incredible to see all our good missionaries in one location, to feel of their spirit and realize that I know almost all of them by name. They are such incredibly strong missionaries. I just about cried looking at them. When they boomed out the opening song, "High on a mountain top" the spirit was uncontrolled and I had to bite back tears of the spirit. Elder Christofferson took the missionaries questions and it was amazing how he could answer them by saying, Let's look in 2 Nephi 21:15-16, or whatever verse applied to the specific question. He had such a command of the scriptures he could just "flip over" to the correct answer wherever it was located in the scriptures. Incredible to me. At the conclusion of the talk he gave an apostolic blessing to us. One of the parts of the blessing was that we and our families would be blessed specifically because of our faithfulness to serve. That's when I started crying. He also talked about "the seniors serving now in our mission" that we have been through incredible experiences when all we had was faith to carry us through, and that the young missionaries would do well to associate with us and learn from us and our examples. I was humbled as he talked. All in all, it was an incredibly uplifting experience and i couldn't help but wonder what I had done to be so lucky to be serving where I am right now. I feel so blessed. The missionaries are so incredibly wonderful and I truly love them and love to be serving with them.

We are keeping busy, regularly, and constantly. This next week is transfer week again. I am anxious to welcome the new missionaries, but I am finding it harder to say goodbye to our departing missionaries. Brother and Sister Christensen will also be leaving the end of this month.