Baptism, investigators, and primary...

Things have slowed down compared to last week, but they are not slow. We still get home usually after 7 pm, and we could stay longer.

We have really interesting weather here it rains some part of everyday so there is no need to water anything, and everything just grows and grows and grows. Papa is really glad he is not taking care of the yard, that would be all you would have time to do.  All the green makes everything lush and really neat.  I am getting a little tired of always having to go out the door and down the stairs on wet porches and stairs, they don’t get green – just wet.

Last Saturday we did our laundry and vacuuming and then were going into the office for just a few minutes.  Papa needed to find a new car that had not shown up yet and he was going to the dealers to find it, so I was just going to do a few things in the office to wait for him.  4 hours later we finally left. We drove home so we could changed and go to a baptism.  There is always something more we need to do.

Kenneth Ray Moore was baptized. He is 41 and really a very nice guy.  There were a couple of investigators at the baptism, Michael Ellis is going to be baptized in a couple of weeks and then Kenneth’s brother.  It was really interesting to see how intently the investigators listened to the talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost and how they watched the baptism. We got to the baptism and were in such a hurry we had both forgotten our missionary badges – we felt like we were not quit dressed!
Michael was thrilled, threw his arms around Kenneth and said "I will be with you in a couple of weeks brother"!

 Michael is African American and straight out of Woodstock – still has the dreadlocks and is a musician.  But he is golden!!! Sister Preston & Sister Malloy found him,  he lives like almost in a ghetto area.  He says “this whole area needs rehab” – then holds up the Book of Mormon and says “this Book is rehab”.  He has been coming to church and we sit with him so there is a priesthood holder with him.  He is a hoot and so ready to be a member.  These sisters are so good at finding people and committing them to baptism.  They are amazing!  We know that there is a really good chance one or both will be transferred the end of August and we can hardly stand it!!  We hate the thought of losing them.

It is fun to see Laws , Elder Laws Casper , when he is in the office, he calls us papa and grandma.  I try to remember to call him Elder Casper, but Lawsie comes out a lot more often than it should.  He is working hard, and we see him almost every day. This week they spent Wednesday, Thursday & Friday in Chattanooga so we only saw him for a few minutes on Wednesday.

Papa & I were asked to substitute in Primary last week.  The Primary President talked to us after Sacrament meeting.  We thought we would just be siting with them during sharing time so we said yes – after Sunday School we found the Primary room and they handed us a manual and said it is lesson #whatever. We had 5 7/8 year olds – PJ, just baptized last month, Murphy, and David waiting to be baptized when they turn 8, and Drake and Rain or River (I can’t remember which name it was) she is the only girl.  Drake’s dad & Rain/rivers mom are dating and investigating the church – so it was an interesting class.  I do a lot better with a little more notice, but they are all cute kids

Papa has spent his time this week dealing with bikes/bike locks/and new tires on automobiles.  I have been getting things ready for next transfer day – hoping to be just a step ahead or at least where I should be this time.

Today papa is going to a ward Priesthood breakfast and then Elders Lutu and Hunter have asked him to go with them to some investigators. I will clean the house and get the washing done.  This afternoon we are going out to see one of our sisters and take her a copy of the ensign magazine and visit for a few minutes.  We don’t get in her house, we just visit on the porch, and that is a good start.

Volunteer Stadium from across the river.

Presidents and kings...

It has been a huge week—very, very busy for both of us.

 On Monday at staff meeting I shared Addie Loraine Casper’s picture (William and his wife Nakya had a baby girl. making Elder and Sister Casper Great Grandparents) Everyone was duly impressed.

Every 6 weeks every mission has transfers, new missionaries come in and new leadership is called. New companions and sometimes new areas or districts or zones created so it is a LOT of work.

Tuesday afternoon we received 16 new sisters and Elders to serve as missionaries in the Great Tennessee Knoxville mission and 1 Sister and 3 Elders who are visa waiters, they are going to Brazil.

 We have two Elders and one couple who have finished their mission and are leaving.
Plus we had 23 missionaries from the North Carolina mission join us on the first of July. It has been an interesting experience.  You have to have some place for these missionaries to stay and to serve and that takes time and effort.

Wednesday was transfer day .  Last Saturday, every missionary who was going to be involved in transfer changes in anyway received a notice to be on a conference call. They were told to be at the stake center for the 11:00am meeting on Wednesday with their bags and bikes and happy faces No one was told where they were going or who their companions would be, but you know how speculations begins as soon as you know you are getting a new Bishop?  Well this is the same.
Both Elder Casper & I have some pretty hefty responsibilities. We both have presentation’s to make to the new missionaries. Elder Casper gathers up the keys to the cars, the cars stay in the area, they do not move with the missionary and then has to get the right keys/car to the right companionship (he is dealing with 80 cars).  I do a small snack for the ward members who drive the missionaries to the meetings and then take the new missionaries back to their new areas.  We have missionaries as much as 3 hours away from the mission office.  That is a huge commitment on the part of the members to help out but they do and love it.

Elder Casper and I got bagels sliced and ready to serve with flavored cream cheese, an apple/orange juice drink, and some trail mix that we just put into snack size storage bags – just kind of laid it out for the members to take as they liked.
 
THERE IS AN 8:00AM FOR THE NEW MISSIONARIES. They all stay at the Presidents house the night before which is a block away and walk to the 8:00am meeting. It is so incredible to see the coming down the street, led by President Irion. I handle it like I do everything, lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. (It runs in the family)

 At 8:00am we did our presentations – Elder Casper does a little quiz on the history of Tennessee – Tennessee has produced 3 presidents and 2 kings – no one ever knows – do you?

PRESIDENTS –Andrew Jackson, John K. Pike, & Andrew Johnson (Lincoln’s VP)
KINGS – Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier and Elvis Presley, King of Rock & Roll. 
If anyone ever guesses – they guess Elvis.

Then he talks about safety in driving and riding their bikes and show a video with Elder Holland about safety.    I talk about mail and supplies and baptism reports and getting the forms into me so we can get people on the records.  In June we had 27 baptisms and so far in July we are up to 17.  We are going to one tonight, the sisters who live here have a baptism this week and next and have asked us to come.

We went back to the office after the 8:00 meeting – got the mail and then back to the stake center with mail so the kids can pick it up and it doesn’t get lost in the transfers. 

For the 11:00am meeting, we meet in the chapel. All the missionaries are sitting on the sides with the center section totally empty. Ward members who have driven are along the back, those missionaries  who are going home are seated on the stand.  We are on one side on the front row as office staff.

At 11:00 one of the AP’s conducts the meeting, announces we will sing CALLED TO SERVE and who will give the opening prayer. We all stand and sing CALLED TO SERVE and the other AP brings the new missionaries in and has them sit in the center section. Really big lump in the throat and I only get about 3 words out and then I am totally in tears.

This time was a REALLY, REALLY big lump and lots of tears as Elder Laws Casper, new AP in the Tennessee Knoxville mission led the missionaries into the meeting. That was one of the really big speculations – Elder Robinson will be going home and so everyone knew we would get a new AP. Elder Casper looks and acts the part.  It is amazing!

Of course now we have two Elder Casper’s and we are having fun. Papa called Elder Hales, a Missionary Elder Laws Casper had trained, about a car issue and said “this is Elder Casper”.
Elder Hales said “no its not – I know Elder Casper and you are not him”. Papa said this is Elder Casper the Car guy and Elder Hales started to laugh. They laughed all through the telephone conversation,don’t know how much they were able to get done.

One more thing about the transfer meeting. The mission theme is Hope of Israel and so we always stand and sing that as a closing song. President has a sword the he raises overhead and swings every time we sing sword of truth and might, it is kind of cool.

We have been assigned 5 sisters to find, we have to see if they are still in the ward area. We have found another one! She has moved but the note I sent to her was forwarded on and I had our phone numbers in it and she called! This is going to be a long process but we are working on it.  Now we just need to start with the young adults – all 34 of them.

Now onto laundry and the rest of our Pday.

Happy Birthday President... Irion that is!

We had the missionaries over for dinner on Sunday – we had Hawaiian Haystacks & seemed to have enough food for all.  We had Elders Garbringer, Davis, Hunter & Lutu and Sisters Preston & Malloy. 

sister missionaries with Sister and Elder Casper

 

We had a great gospel discussion on the temple. It was fun to be with these kids, they helped clean up and then left for appointments with investigators. 

We will do it next fast Sunday,

We had 3 zone conferences this week – papa has had 80 cars to inspect over the last two weeks.  The have put 15 ½ gallons of washer fluid in cars along with oil (when needed), transmission fluid, and anything else they could help with.  He has also filled out forms letting these kids know what needs to be repaired on the cars and then followed up on Friday – some have great follow through, ours not so much. (I'm thinking Elder Casper should be use to this... he did raise 5 teenagers).

He also has to match up gas receipts and mileage and all kinds of things to be able to keep the cars in the mission.  He is busy.

I ended up not taking a turn at the Zone Conferences – we have 16 new missionaries coming this week that I was pretty much on top of things for – then got the information that we have 4 visa waiters ( missionaries assigned to Brazil who can’t get a visa yet) who will be coming so had to get their materials ready .  We also have leadership changes on Wednesday, transfer day, and so I have had paperwork up to my eyeballs – just trying to get ready.

This will be our second transfer day since we have been in the field – we had been here one week last time.  This time we should be a little more prepared but don’t hold your breath.  Papa has to do a presentation on cars and safety and I have one on mail, Ordering Supplies, and Baptism.  Really messed it up last time – hope to do better this time.

We are still having rain everyday – not the torrential down pour, but still rain.  Then the sun comes out and shines on all the green and it is amazing.

Still looking for our wandering sheep – not much luck yet but haven’t had a lot of time either.  I met the Young Single Adult Branch President last week and we will work with him to get some things also.  Seems like a really nice man.

Dad taught Sunday School last week and will teach again this week.  Our Sunday School teacher is taking his mom back to Georgia and so needed help – Ron is a really good teacher and I think everyone enjoyed his class.

President Irion’s birthday is on Thursday and Sister Irion has asked me to help put together a book of birthday wishes from the missionaries – so in addition to transfer – I get birthday,  that is ok.  That is the fun stuff to do.

4th of July and Elder Casper arrives...

We hope everyone had a grand 4^th of July and that you all celebrated in style.  We took the AP’s (Assistants to the President ) to breakfast at IHOP and then went into the office – later than usual but we still were there doing the mission thing.  It was kind of neat.  The missionaries don’t get the day off – and neither did we.  We may do things a little differently, but we are still doing what we were sent here to do.

 

 

This week we got to see Elder Laws Casper on Monday and Tuesday,  Monday afternoon was Leadership Council and Elder Casper is the Asheville Zone, Zone Leader so he was in Knoxville for Leadership Council.  President Irion is so neat!!!!  He invited Elder Casper & me over to the end of the meeting so we could see him. Laws also came into the mission office on Tuesday to pick up supplies- have a tour of the office – meet with President Irion and with the AP’s.  He and Elder Ary, his companion spent Monday night at President Irion’s home.  HE LOOKS GOOD.  He is about 3 inches taller than papa now.  Has a really rich, deep voice and has really grown into an outstanding young man with great leadership and potential.

We also been Zone Conferences.  We did the Knoxville Conference on Tuesday – Papa has to inspect all the mission cars and he does a presentation on vehicle safety at lunch.  I have a presentation on some housing and baptisms and referrals and things like that, but Sister Roner and I share that presentation. She did Knoxville and Asheville and will do Cumberlund.  I will do Chattanooga and Kingsport.  Papa gets to do all of them.

 The bain of Papa’s life since we got here are mission vehicles that are no longer in service that need to be sold.  When we got here there were 3 that should have been sold a couple of months earlier and just hadn’t been.  So every week on the agenda for staff meeting that is an item and papa hates it.  He has been working hard to get them sold – got that done and has spent 3 weeks trying to get them picked up.  They were picked up yesterday and he is thrilled.  I left it on the agenda just to tease him a bit.

 Friday was Zone Conference in Asheville so EVERYONE went to Asheville but me.  I was the lone missionary at the office.  Boy it is amazing how much you can accomplish when you don’t have interruptions and can just do your work.  It was nice to be interrupted and get the cars gone and I was glad when everyone came back.  Papa says Asheville is beautiful!!!  We think Tennessee is too, but he says North Carolina is even more so.  So Papa got to see Elder Casper 3 times this week.  We are trying to be low key and not embarrass him, but it is fun to see him.

 Papa and I have a new calling in the ward – we have been called as the Young Single Adult Representatives.  We have a YSA ward in the stake and our bishop has asked us to find these young adults and see what they want to do – stay in our ward – we will teach a Sunday School lesson and do activities or go to the YSA ward.  The big thing is we have to find them first.  We are going to go meet with the institute director and see what is going on there before we get started.  We want to coordinate not compete.  I keep thinking someone needs to explain to our Bishops what Young is – somehow we don’t seem to fit into the description of young.

It has rained every day this week --  sometimes just a sprinkle and then the sun shines, but a couple of days it has been monsoons all day long.  Coming from St. George where we have so little rain – to this is really a change.

For some reason I have lost my mind... we are now going to be feeding the missionaries in our ward – only on fast Sunday – but still you know how I love to cook.  Tomorrow we are doing Hawaiian Haystacks.  I think I can handle that.  My one concern is Elder Lutu – a Polynesian missionary.  Ken he is from Boise and he does like to eat.  So we are making extra and hope it will work.  We have 2 sets of Elders and a set of Sisters assigned to our ward so we will have 8 for dinner tomorrow.