The Worldwide Expansion of Missions!

We were just blown away with the Church's official announcement that 58 new missions were going to be created THIS YEAR!  Can you even believe it?  The number of missions is going from 347 to 405--all in one year!  The ramifications of that is just staggering--that many new mission presidents, office managers (like us)  the set up of the missions, etc.  There are 14 new missions in the United States, 8 in Mexico, 7 in Brazil, 5 in Africa, and on and on.  I can't believe what must be going on at Church Headquarters to organize all these new missions plus keep up with the existing ones.  It's so very exciting!  What an unbelievable  time to be on a mission!  But here's the ramifications  for us of so many  new missions being created--they are only going to have one full time couple in each mission  to work in the office!  The other senior missionaries are going to have to be local couples called to be service missionaries!  This will have a huge impact on who is going to replace us in July. 

   Elder David F. Evans of the Seventy, executive director of the Missionary Department said in the Church News that even though this is such a busy time,  " I'll tell you, this is going to be the most wonderful time," he exclaimed. "If you've ever had a missionary out, you know that there's nothing sweeter than a family gathering and praying for their son or daughter, or their brother or sister — or at times their parents or grandparents — for the Lord to please bless them while they serve their missions. Nothing, really, is more motivational for families than to have someone out serving and to have that be an opportunity to reflect upon our own commitment to helping others around us and bringing the blessings of the gospel into the lives of others."  We know that our children are praying for us and we feel it and it helps us so much.  

Then he also said, "I think the Spirit of the Lord is moving upon this generation in a way that we've never before seen happen as a result of a specific statement or announcement made by the President of the Church, at least not in my lifetime," he said.  What a miracle it is to see the youth respond to the call of a prophet!  It's incredible!  

And it's official--it was announced in yesterday's Church News who our new mission president is going to be:  his name is Michael B. Ahlander and he is from Orem. We were informed about it earlier in the week, and now we can't wait to see his picture and bio in the Church News.  

We had another busy week, as usual.  Here are some highlights:

On Sunday, our dear Relief Society president, Patricia Johnson, was released.  She had given her all in her calling, and everyone just loved her.  What a wonderful person she is.

We have been talking to the guard at our guardhouse about the Church for a few months.  We even gave him a Book of Mormon at Christmas and he seemed genuinely touched.  So we took the next step--we invited him over to our house to talk to the missionaries and then to have dinner with us.  He seemed to respond well to the missionaries and it was neat to be involved with the teaching.  His name is Sean and he's such a nice guy.  We've been praying for him a lot.

On Monday we took a load of furniture to Mesquite for a new area that will be opened up there.  It was quite an interesting place that the missionaries will be living in--it was an old dairy barn that has been remodeled.  I wish I would have taken a picture because it was quite the place!  But the funnest part of the day and the reason we went to Mesquite was to meet up with Vickie and Dell and Jeanette and Kevin.  It was so fun to see them and we had a great time together.

On Tuesday we were invited, along with the Blacks, to have dinner with Randy and Sharon Hale.  I graduated in the same class with Randy, and it's been fun here to renew contact with him.  They are the sweetest, most Christlike couple who go about doing so much good.  It was such a wonderful evening. 

Dear Sister Dillistone is going home on Tuesday.  What a marvelous missionary she is and I just grew to love her!  

Elder Lopez is also going home and we just loved him.  It's been so amazing since we've been here that we have gotten such huge numbers of missionaries coming in but very few leaving.  That's why we have to open up so many new apartments.

It happens pretty often that  missionaries will call Glen and tell him that their vacuum is broken and that they need a new one.  Glen will tell them to bring the vacuum in to the office to exchange it for a new one.  He does this so that he can look at it himself to see if it just needs to be repaired.  Nearly always, this is the case and it teaches the missionaries a good lesson!  This time Glen was out of the office when these elders came in, so Elder Dana and Elder Conder were trying to help them fix it.  The problem is usually that the vacuum is clogged, and it's awesome to have them try to unclog it, because they are so shocked at what's actually clogging it!  They tried for an hour to get the clog out and was finally successful, but Glen had to come to finish putting the final repairs on it to make it work again.

This is Glen's typical stack of bills that come to the office nearly every day.  He's getting so much faster at getting them paid!

Last week we went to Mesquite and spent the morning inspecting apartments with the awesome zone leaders, Elder Edwards and Elder Dowuona-Hammond, and then had lunch with them.  We had such a great time with them!  They sent us this awesome thank you card in the mail!  We just love them!  Elder Dowuona-Hammond is our missionary from Ghana, and he was just made our new assistant to the president!  He will do an awesome job, and I'm so excited for him--and it will be so fun to see him more often!

On Friday we had the craziest day. We were notified by the missionary department that two of our elders would not be coming on the transfer on Monday.  One was permanently not coming, and the other would be coming in two weeks.  That's really difficult after the housing assignments have already been made.  Then just two hours later we were notified that we were getting a new elder on this transfer!  I had to scramble to change the paperwork for the first two and then do all the paperwork for the next one--I was crazy busy all day long!  We just are amazed how things change in the mission nearly every hour.  We are always making adjustments.

On Saturday we went to dinner with our friends, the Wilhelmsens and the Joneses after stake conference.  It was so fun to be with them!  The Joneses will be running the Las Vegas Ragnar with us, and they are an awesome couple.

Tomorrow is transfers--ahhhhhhh!  We're praying that it will go well.  It's our 5 week transfer, so this is historic.