Ten Minutes Later

or it just seemed that long.  Maybe two hours after we dropped off our missionaries returning home we were back at the airport waiting for our new missionaries arriving from the MTC.  It was exciting but everything was happening so fast.

Usually you greet one person or one family at the airport not 20.

We had just learned names and now we had 20 more to learn.

Our new missionaries were paired with their new companions by that afternoon.

Sister Kenney and Sister Willes

Sister Lopez and Sister Loynd

Sister Marcos and Sister Crookston

Sister Lopez and Sister McGee

Sister Mendez and Sister Weight

We met at the Temple a week later for a group photo although we were still missing one.

They seem happy to be here and we were happy to have them.

Elder Anderson and Elder Williams

Elder Berger and Elder Despain

Elder Bischoff and Elder Burdick

Elder Child and Elder Gattud

Elder Crockett and Elder Myers

Elder Evans and Elder Campbell

Elder Fitisemanu and Elder Hogenson

Elder Gunter and Elder Green

Elder Harris and Elder Karren

Elder Peoples and Elder Parsons

Sister Breck and Sister Clark

Sister Gonzelez and Sister Diaz

Sister Godfrey and Sister Devuyst

Sister Park and Sister Harkleroad

Sister Mecham and Sister Jepsen

Sister Kennedy and Sister Hernandez

The First Farewell

was much worse than we thought it would be.  We are all smiles here, well except Elder Welch who may or may not be pictured.

There he is.

We still felt attached to these missionaries as if they belonged to us even though we were only together for three weeks.  We wish we could have kept them longer.

Sister Casey

Elder Hoggan

Sister Gonzalez

Elder Jackson

Elder Weber

Elder Neville

Elder Smith

Elder Stowell

Elder Speth

Elder Ulrich

Elder Welch

Elder Beus

Elder Svedberg

Elder Parrella

Sister Hershey

We had seen Elder Stowell play at the Visitors Center.  He is really good but after our dinner he played whatever we asked him to play.  Then it was sad to think we would not only miss him but his musical abilities.

The MTC

We entered the MTC on a Wednesday afternoon.  I am not sure how to describe the experience.  It was a youth conference without the youth or the dances but the most amazing speakers imagined.  The entire Quorum of the Twelve minus Elder Hales attended the full seminar.  Elder Hales attended Saturday afternoon and stood tall bearing testimony at the Apostle Testimony Meeting.

We saw members of the Quorum of the Seventy that we had met in Peru or through Lonny serving in the stake presidency.  There were 171 future mission presidents and their wives, too many to meet them all but we met many wonderful people going all over the world. The first day of the first morning we sat by the couple going to Honolulu, and people who know me knew that was my first choice of destinations.  When we were all introduced and they stood, Elder Allen said somebody had to go there.  That's what I said.  We had dinner with Elder Rasband and his wife one night.  She insisted we take a picture after giving us their great mission president advice.  The other couples here are going to the Marshall Islands (no, they don't speak Marshallese) and Scottsdale, AZ.  There are five missions in the Phoenix area and 4 have new mission presidents this year.  We have to stick together.

The MTC flower arrangements reminded us we were headed to AZ.

They have a wall with all 400+ mission presidents and wives so the missionaries can see what they're getting themselves into.  

 Carol and I intended to eat every meal with each other but we had meetings (or they did) so we managed to get together for three or four.  It was so fun and such a blessing to have familiar faces there, well at least familiar faces of people we actually know.  There were so many familiar faces.

This is the new mission president going to our Everett, WA mission.  They were also in our study group before the seminar.  We had a missionary farewell last week in our AZ ward for a young man going to this mission so I was glad I still had this photo on my phone to show him.

 This is Robert and Ruth Haynie from Seattle.  We met them many lifetimes (and twenty-five years ago) when his parents were in our West Seattle ward.  They were also in our mission president study group and they are going to the CA Los Angeles mission.

 All of these future mission presidents and one General Authority graduated from law school together.  It was so fun having lunch with them and reminiscing about the good old days.  The Haws are going to Mexico, the Bushs to Honduras and Elder Hamula was there just because he is a member of the Quorum of the Seventy.  Two of their other classmates just completed their 3 years as mission president and another,  Allen Haynie is also a Seventy.  The Haws and Bushs could not believe they were going to Spanish speaking countries and we were not.  Everybody has to have their turn :)

We loved that Sister Ballard and her husband stopped to ask us which mission was ours or that Elder Anderson mentioned Mesa as the place to go or riding the elevator with the Bednars at the hotel (who suggested we should go out street contacting together) or Elder Lawrence who said we had drawn the long straw with Mesa or Elder and Sister Cook who said they may see us when they visit their daughter or Elder Oaks who greeted us at the MTC entrance.  The Mission President Seminar earned an entry in the journal.

Called to Serve

I am having awesome experience overload and need to process some.  Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).

Last summer, we had been home from Peru about 6 weeks when the phone rang and Lonny answered it in the kitchen.  He turned to me and said Elder Oaks' secretary would like to know if we could Skype with him some time?  We knew enough current and former mission president families to understand what he probably wanted to talk about.  Emily fell on the couch laughing.

We Skyped later that week on August 17th.  Elder Dallin H. Oaks confirmed they were exploring the possibility of us being called as mission president and wife.  He asked us some questions and said they might get back to us.

Two weeks later as we were just driving home from UT, President Dieter F. Utchdorf's secretary called and asked if we could Skype with him.  We had just left Emily at BYU so this time she wouldn't know about the phone call.  On September 2nd, President Utchdorf called Lonny to be a Mission President of a Spanish speaking mission and I to be his companion.  Later we were sent a list of 60 Spanish speaking missions that would need new mission president's in July 2016.  Seven of those missions were in the United States.  The church had asked as part of the information gathering process where our children lived.  One of the missions was AZ Mesa which we eliminated as a possibility because Geoff and Alayna lived in Mesa.

We were told not to share our mission call until we received a letter from the First Presidency.  Although the letter arrived that first week in September we were uncomfortable telling even our families until General Conference weekend in October.  When it was announced at Lonny's 30 year BYU law school reunion we knew we had to at least tell our moms.

In December we received a FedEx letter with our official call to our mission.  It sat unopened in the living room for a while when Lonny gave up waiting for the right moment.  I know my first words were "are you kidding me?"  We had expected to return to a Spanish speaking country.  Mesa for me was a blessing I never anticipated.

This past year has been a whirlwind of moving back to the USA , trying to unwind all while preparing to leave our home again for three years and learning the boatload of responsibilities required of mission president and wife.  The church's instruction for their new mission presidents has been rigorous and intense.

Jenny and Jonathan hosted a party for us the night before we entered the MTC.  Jonathan arranged for the ice sculpture, of course.

We invited our friends in UT and had a wonderful time catching up with family and friends from OK, WA, and UT.

Alayna made the delicious Arizona cake

and the cactus cookies.

Wednesday morning we went to the Church Office Building to be set apart by Elder Quinton L. Cook and Elder Lynn G. Robbins.  We loved having all of our children there as well as our parents.  Elder Cook has impeccable timing when telling a joke and the photo captures our reaction.  I will never forget this special occasion.

We were at the church office building at the same time as the Dalai Lama and his police motorcade.  Eric and my parents saw him and Elder D. Todd Christofferson in the parking garage as he left.

We took one last photo with the grandchildren before leaving for the MTC.  We won't be able to visit their homes but we are closer now than from our WA home.

The View from Mount Erie

When we are home, we live in the Mount Erie ward.  Here is the view of our neck of the woods from the top of Mount Erie.

Just try to find a more beautiful spot.

Day or night  

it never gets old.

You can't see it from up there but we nearly finished the bunk room.

This before photo misses half the story. Fortunately the urinal across the room has been eliminated.

We added the "Bait Shop" with a door
to the attached bathroom's new shower.

The raised "pier" holds the three bunks

with the boat beds tied up below.

The view down the middle.  There are now nine beds in this room!

The other side of the bait shop door in the new shower area.

That bathroom needed a shower and so will some bunkmates.

We also painted our green furniture

white, take my word for it,

and the clock blue.

It was a ton of work so we hired someone else to do it.

 We are going to miss this place but we will be back!
And we are taking reservations for when we return.