Feeding Missionaries and Saying Goodbye

Last Sunday we had the Sister Missionaries for dinner.  They are, left to right, Sisters Whitaker, Dobson, and Foote.  They are sweet sisters.  We enjoyed our time together.   

 Sister Dobson returned to her home in Cheyenne, WY on Tuesday to continue her service as a missionary in a different way.  She will be serving a Church Service mission possibly working in the local Family History library.  She is really good with computers.  She is a very sweet sister and Elder Jones has grown to love her very much as he has watched her grow while serving for the past 6 months in this mission.  We will miss her.

These 2 Elders serve in our ward as well as the sisters.  They are, left to right, Elders Nieman and Brown.  They are 2 of Elder Jones' service missionaries, which means that they give 1 day a week to serving other missionaries by helping them move, obtain items that they need, etc.  They are a most valuable force as we try to manage all of the apartments we open and close.  Lately we have many leases that have expired and our housing director has taken the opportunity to upgrade the housing.  In the last 2 months we have closed 21 apartments and opened 16 new ones.  That means that Elder Jones has to either clear out an apartment or move things from one to another.  So the past couple of weeks he has had to use his service elders more than usual.  Also, they help him at zone conferences to inspect all of the vehicles (100 total).  Anyway, Friday was Elder Brown's birthday and he spent most of the day moving the Broomall sisters into a new apartment.  When we were about to leave for the day we asked where they were headed to dinner (our ward feeds these missionaries almost daily).  They said that they had no invitation to dinner that day, so they would figure it out.  It made us sad, so we ended up at Freddy's with our neighbors and co-workers in the office, the Ballards, and these Elders for Elder Brown's 19th birthday.

Today has been fast Sunday and we are feeding the AP's.  They wanted homemade burritos, so I will be making tortillas.  We have a busy week ahead as we have been preparing for zone conferences this week.  We will be gone to Nazareth, PA, Dover, DE, Broomall at the mission office and then Cherry Hill, NJ from Wednesday through Saturday.  It is a busy time, but we love the opportunity to see all of the elders and sisters.  We have an opportunity to instruct them for a break-out session (Elder Jones on car and safety and me on finances), hear spiritual messages and instruction from the President, Sister Anderson, and the AP's and also enjoy a lovely lunch provided by one of the local Relief Societies.

Today was Fast Sunday.  In our ward we have a couple of members who are from either Sierra Leone or Liberia Africa.  They urged us today to keep their people in our prayers as they battle the terrible ebola virus.  We know that the missionaries have been evacuated for the present time.  Working in a mission office I can only imagine a portion of the stress that would be involved in accomplishing this evacuation.  I do pray for them--missionaries, doctors, patients, scientists, etc.  How blessed we are to live in a place and a time where we are free from most serious disease!