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.