We usually have a staff meeting with president and sister Anderson on the second monday of each month. However they have been touring the mission interviewing missionaries and inspecting houses for most of last week and the first part of this one so it was cancelled. I thought I had told everyone but it seems I had a senior moment when it came to the Collins because they thought it was still on.

  

One of the senior missionary traditions that has become popular is that on the Monday when there is staff meeting all the couples who want to go to Scrufy’s BBQ and have lunch together. On Monday you get a full rack of tender baby-back ribs and all the fixings for $9.95. It is a great lunch and there is always lots of discussion going on. Elders Bare and Collins were busy discussing things at the end of the table. The Ellis’ were sharing thoughts as were sister Collins and Mary. Of course I was taking the pictures. The food is great and there is enough that I took home enough for a great lunch.

  

Tuesday is Fort Lauderdale District’s day for district meeting. Today was both a lot of fun but also very spiritual. Before the meeting sisters Bean and Fletcher were bookends for elder Thorne and Brimley who are seen actually studying before the meeting. As we were waiting for the ZLs and elder Jones to come and start the meeting I noticed elder Thorne had not one but two cameras and I had to take that picture.

  

This started a round of taking pictures of people talking pictures. Sister Bean and Fletcher are looking at pictures while elder Edwards takes one of me and it appears elder Smoot is sleeping. By now you know the cast and the pictures speak for themselves.

  

Elders SmootJones and Van Wagenen took a while to warm up to the idea but elder Jones did join in. I really like the shot of elder Edwards taking a picture of a picture on sister Fletcher’s camera. We are really easy to entertain.

  

Elder Smoot woke up and joined in the picture taking. Only elder Van Wagenen did not take any pictures. After the picture taking the meeting settled down the work of the district with a discussion of goals and how to achieve them. Elder Jones had prepared an excellent lesson on how we need to purify ourselves and have our eyes single to the glory of God if we are gong to be the kind of missionaries the Lord needs. If you have followed this blog for any time you will know that I often take pictures of a couple of cats that are often setting in windows near our apartment. This morning we found a new one carefully looking over it’s kingdom and the boring people who walk by. Sisters Bagley and Chavous came in and looked at the new Zones with Pictures board that I had finished yesterday. Elder Beer will have to find some place else to do his graffiti. The sisters are are going to be trainers for two of the three new sister missionaries that came in today.

  

Sister Stegelmeier is having a difficult time getting a duplicate driver’s license from Utah. She and sister Merrill came in to talk to elder Bare about what to do and the possibility of her getting a Florida license if she can not get one for Utah. She was a little upset when she found that I had put a picture of an African lizard over her picture. Sister Merrill is as usual laughing in the background. As she is also doing in the picture of her companion with Mary.  They are a powerful pair of missionaries who truly serve with all their heart, might, mind and strength to invite others to come unto Christ.

  

Yesterday I wrote about elephants, wildebeests, etc. Today’s animals are much smaller. I was very surprised and happy to see the first spring ducklings on the lake. 6 little ones made their way across the lake while being watched over by mother and then joined by dad. They keep them in line by pecking at them when they try to stray. Hopefully some of them will make it to maturity but the survival rate due to illness and predators is not very high.

  

Sisters Stegelmeier and Merrill came in to talk to elder Bare about medical miles. They have a very large area and for a while can not use bikes. Since they have a goal of 15 baptisms for the month…or is it 20…well one of the two and they really think they can achieve this, they need to be able to get to their appointments. Elder Bare will work it out. While they were here they asked if they could help and so sister Merrill ended up shredding old driver’s paperwork while sister Stegelmeier crossed out old names on some file folders so they could be reused. She is looking a little put out because one of those names she crossed out was Sister Makayla Dye who was her trainer and very good friend.

With all the new missionaries coming into the mission there is a need to have more space for missionary pictures and Zones with Pictures. Right now they are on the same board but it will soon be too small so I got a new board that will have just the Zone With Pictures and the other will have the transfer date pictures. Elder Bare basically put the new board up for me. I never thought about the fact that a brand new, pristine white board was just too much temptation for some elders. When I came back into the office I found it covered with elder Beer’s Graffiti. But as I looked at it, I had to approve because it is all about missionary work and goals…I especially agree with the 200 baptisms for March! That is the goal I would really like to see reached in this last full month we will be here. I will leave it up until next week when Zones with Pictures will be going up.

 Thanks to Facetime, 0n Wednesday night we got to watch one of our beautiful granddaughters open her mission call. McKay is going to Washington, Seattle mission and will preach the gospel in Spanish. She goes into the MTC on June 19th. We are excited that we will be home to go to the temple with her.

The last picture is of McKay and her sister Gentry and Gentry’s fiancee Devan. Gentry and Devan are planning a temple marriage for May 21 so McKay will get to be there to watch their sealing. We are going to have a pretty busy time for a while as we will also finally get to see one of our grandchildren graduate from college soon after we get home.

 Tembe Elephant Park has a great webcam location near a watering hole. In the morning we like to look at the website to see what animals might be there. Because morning in Florida pretty much matches the best time to see animals, we often see a good variety. Having elephants there is always a bonus. Today there were elephants, wildebeests, a couple of different kinds of antelope and even a couple of zebras. One strange animal that we have never seen at the watering hole arrived later in the morning. It was smaller than any of the other animals and walked on two legs.

  

  

Elders Brown and Rugg came into get supplies for their district. Because of Zone training meetings this week, district meetings got moved to later. We went to Fort Lauderdale’s. Elders Brimley and Andelin along with sisters Bean and Fletcher were among the first to arrive. Elder Van Wagenen seems to be talking to his fist.

 

This is not the greatest group of singers in the mission but we certainly try. Elders Thorne, Brimley, and Smoot  joined in but elder Edwards had to just be with us spirit because he was getting over a cold. Sister Bean – you can see her eyes above the piano – played while elder Jones led. But Sister Fletcher practiced her leading while she sang. Elder Shipley has a pretty good voice and elder Gust really sings with a smile on his face with great gusto.

 

President Anderson shared these first two pictures. The one on the right are the 14 great missionaries who had completed their missions last week and are now home with their families. The one on the right is from last Friday’s Zone Leader’s council.

  

Today a few companionships came into the office. Sister Dunford came in with her companion sister Johnson and happily told us that she had her last trip to the dentist. Elders Jones and Hunt came in from Coral Springs to bring some baptismal records. The same was true for sisters Merrill and Stegelmeier.

Here is an experience that happened last week right after transfers that show why the missionaries in the Fort Lauderdale mission are having such success in bringing souls unto Christ. They are completely dedicated to the work and have faith that the Lord will lead them to those who He has prepared to receive the gospel.

“On Wednesday right after transfers we role played harvesting and went out to put it to work. Because of our set appointments we knew that we would need to talk to everyone to reach our goal for harvest blessings that day. Throughout the day we were able to see some big success but we were short of our goal. Our last lesson of the night finished sooner than we had planned so we of course went back out to harvest! It was 8:40 and we knew we didn’t have a ton of time so we asked Heavenly Father to send us to one of his children who was ready. We got out of the car and met Danny. He was walking his dog and it was starting to rain. We testified of who we were and he told us that the other sisters had already talked to him, but that he was not sure if baptism was what he needed and that he was really nervous about it. As we continued to ask him questions and as we testified we saw his heart soften right before our eyes! It was great! We blessed him and as we identified the Spirit and asked how he thought that Spirit would bless his life he said, “I know this is what I need to stop stressing and to get over my anger.” We shared 3 Ne 9:13-15 with him “will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me. Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God.” We invited him to be baptized and act so that he could be healed through the Savior’s mercy. He said yes! He decided to act and came to church this week and is getting baptized next week! It was amazing to see that as we use all the tools even in harvesting and help people understand true doctrine that they can apply it in their lives and be healed through the Atonement! I love this work!!”

We have a grandson serving in the Spain Malaga Mission and of course like any proud grandparents we love to share pictures. This is a picture of the Granada Zone at a training meeting. Elder Webb is the handsome blonde at the far left on the back row.

During transfer meeting on Wednesday President Anderson shared a number of spiritual experiences from letters he received from missionaries. They were used as examples of concepts that he was teaching. This is something he does each week in his letter to the missionaries and are powerful tools to show what can be done when the missionaries ‘Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings.’ Here are the experiences that he shared this week.

“Sometimes we fail to counsel and plan with God, our companion, our Districts, our Zones, and even our members, (remember all of us is better than one of us, especially the Lord). We do it all on our own without God’s additional help, and without a backup. We must go to the Lord in prayer to be inspired with options, then going back to the Lord to know which one is best. I know that God will help us as we implement His inspired plan to baptize and not give up:

 

“On Sunday morning we were planning on having three simple baptisms. It was about an hour and a half before church started and we were setting everything up so it would be ready for after the third hour. Then, we received a call… It was Juana and Victor telling us that they were too busy to come to church and get baptized. They got an opportunity to move into a new home and they had to take care of it all that day. We tried testifying all we could but they kept saying they couldn’t make it. We could tell by their voices that they were nervous. We were devastated. A few minutes later we decided we needed to pray. So we found an empty room and knelt down and prayed for help and guidance. After the prayer we both felt positive and peaceful, we both knew that somehow they were going to get baptized. About a half hour later after talking about it we went into the room again and asked for guidance on what we needed to do to make it happen, we gave some options and ideas to the Lord and asked for which one was right. When the prayer was over we immediately got up and decided we needed to go and visit them. So we headed to their home with a member. Once we got there we found that they weren’t there; walking back to the car not losing faith yet, we ran into the sister that said they were at the new house. She didn’t know where it was exactly but she gave us a direction and the color of the house, we found it within a few minutes. They were there! We immediately ran in and testified and converted them to come with us and offered to help after the baptism. They accepted! And they were able to come with us to church and get baptized, later that day they were sooo happy that they came and felt soo blessed.”

 

In our “plan to baptize” make sure the members are an important part:

 

“While we were waiting for our member to park her car we met Lisa. Lisa is a single mom of 3 and before we could even ask to leave a blessing on her home she asked where our church was. As we told her and testified of the peace and strength it would bring to her family her eyes brightened. We asked to leave a blessing on her home. She gathered her 3 kids and we left the blessing. After the blessing  our member, who before this would not go harvesting with us, bore pure and simple testimony of Christ and the blessings of baptism. We invited Lisa to be baptized and she said “Yes! this is what I need!” Lisa and her 3 kids are coming to church this week and are preparing to be baptized on the 10th! I love harvesting so much our members are becoming more and more converted. Our member, on the way to go see the next appointment, said – ‘wow that is amazing, does it really work?’ We told her that just like the Liahona it works as we have faith and that everyone that we have found has been that way. Yeah! We have another harvesting lover here! It is the best!”

 

Elder and Sisters, I know we will have difficulties and sometimes it will be hard, but as Elder Holland say, “Salvation never was easy”:

 

“Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?… I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary… I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price…. For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy… I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul… If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way… The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign March 2001)”

 Saturday is p-day for most senior couples but this Saturday a number of us came into the office to catch up after transfers. The APs worked with elder Bare to try and get vehicles and gas cards straightened out. The mission received all new gas cards and they had to be distributed to the missionaries. They were just making sure that the right vehicles had the right gas card. Elder Shipley was not praying that things would work out, he actually found it the best way to work his list and his phone.

 

I took these two pictures of the lake and the sky about 15 minutes apart. The fountain comes on at about 8:00 each morning and turns the mirror like water into ripples. It was a perfect if somewhat cool morning in Fort Lauderdale.

  

We went out and helped eldes Jones and Van Wagenen round up a family of investigators. The two young men were baptized today. The cute 8 month old girl will need to wait about 7 1/3 years. Mary played for the baptism which went well. A young priest baptized one of the young men and afterwards said he had made a couple of mistakes but we told him that it happens to everyone – elder Van Wagenen knows from experience.

 Transfers always makes for a busy week but when it also comes on a week with the first Friday of the month, there is the added excitement of Zone Leader’s council. After the meeting almost all the ZLs come in to pick-up supplies, drop off baptism records, and to talk to elder Bare about vehicles or bikes.

 

  

Earlier in the day sister Stegelmeier came in with sister Merrill who she is training in the Davies area. Sister Merrill seems like a perfect match for sister Stegelmeier. I asked sister Merrill how she is adjusting to being in the mission field and how she was sleeping. She said she had no trouble sleeping last night – Thursday – and I told her I was not surprised because keeping up with sister Stegelmeier can wear anyone out. They have a family of 5 that should be baptized on Sunday – which is a great way to start a mission. I love the last shot because I managed to catch sister Stegelmeier stuffing some pastry into her mouth…as usual she called me rude. Which means she still loves me.

  

About 3:00 the ZLs came in and I took a few pictures. Of course the hallway with the mission board is always the most popular gathering place. But most also head down to the supply room where – like elders Plowman and Bowen who are the ZLs in the Hialeah Zone – they pick up supplies for themselves and the missionaries in their zone.

 

Elder Hunt looked sharp in his suit coat and was soon joined by his friend elder Smoot. I wonder if elder Hunt has managed to put away all the stuff he took with him on transfer day. If you wonder what I am talking about take a look at the picture of him and elder Smoot in the transfer day post.

We held our next to the last Last Lunch on Tuesday but I got so busy with posting other sets of pictures, these are a little out of order. Missionaries know that they are getting transfer by the time we meet but they have no idea where they are going. So one of the big topics of conversation is guessing where they will be serving and with who they will serve. Since we know where some of them will be serving they tend to press us for information and we are careful not to let anything slip. Those who will be trainers know that they will be getting brand new missionaries to train for the next 12 weeks.

  

Since we have internet and five computers in our apartment, some of the missionaries come over an hour early to do their mail. This week it was elders Thorne and Rondo with Burt and Andelin. Mary joined in on the fifth computer. Later elder Van Wagenen came to join the party.

  

The tradition is that on their first Last Lunch I take pictures of them individually and then as a companionship. I think elder Van Wagenen’s pink tie and elder Jones’ blue tie make a nice picture.

  

This was elder Andelin’s first LL but elder Burt had been here a number of times before. Elder Burt takes lots of pictures and I usually get one of him pursuing his hobby. I do not know if he took one of me taking a picture.

 

This was elder Hunts first and last Last Lunch as he was being transferred – he is now serving as a ZL with elder B. Jones in the Coral Springs zone. Elder Smoot of course has been to about as many of these as we have.

  

We had lasagna, garlic bread, green salad and of course brownies with ice cream. Sister Bean especially likes the brownies so we sent some extras home with her.

  

Towards the end of eating the APs – elders Gust and Shipley showed up and joined in. The missionaries love to get together and talk about who is being transferred, what has been going on, etc. Of course the APs know exactly what is going to happen the next day but are really good about keeping their lips sealed.

  

Elder Burt looked through our African photo book and the couch and chairs get a good work out as missionaries either wait for the start of the meal or to rest up afterwards. Sisters Bean and Lake join elders Thorne and Andelin before lunch. Mary is joined by elders Smoot and Hunt after lunch

  

Elders Rondo and Hunt were comfortable while they ate. We took a picture with those who will be transferring out of our district. Elder Hunt to Lauderhill North, elder Rondo will be close by in Plantation, and sister Lake will go to Miami Beach to be with sister Brown who is now known on the mission records as sister Montgomery-Brown. While elder Jones was here he wanted to down load some pictures so he could send them to his family. One of them was this last picture of the Fort Lauderdale district and the ZLs and he let me share it.

  

He also had this picture of what is a good portion of the Fort Lauderdale Zone who appear to be having a p-day activity playing dodge ball at the Stake Center. The last three pictures come from the first district meeting on Thursday. We had planned to go because we missed so many the last transfer. Elder Thorne is seen with his new companion elder Brimley. Elder Jones on the left of the last picture is still with elder Andelin on the right. The brother in the middle brought the Zone Leaders to the meeting and as usual I have forgotten his last name.

Elder Burt was playing the piano and I told him I did not know he played. He said he had been teaching himself since he came on his mission. I think he is doing quite well.

At this point we got a call from the office saying there was a problem with one of the missionaries traveling home. One of the flights had been cancelled and the airlines said that there was no other flight out until early the next morning. President Anderson said that was not acceptable so we apologized to the missionaries and hurried back to the office to try to solve the problem. To make a long story short, after 2 hours or so of phone calls to the missionary travel, airlines, the airport and the missionaries’ parents I found that American had got him on a plane that actually got in about 2 hours earlier than the scheduled one. When the parents called and told us that their missionary was safely home we all felt relieved. The Lord does take care of his missionaries.