On the Move

There are now significant changes occurring in the mission and they affect us.  The senior missionary place we looked for in Auberry is a reality and will be ready for occupancy in a couple more weeks.  The Rusches, who hoped to be Member and Leader Support missionaries but were reassigned to the office to replace the Bradshaws, will be Auberry MLS missionaries by month’s end.  Today (August 14^th ) they will begin training their successors who will be young missionary elders!  That is a common model church-wide and President Mackay is ready to implement that in this mission.  Our sons Ryan and Scott and our son-in-law Nick all spent time as office missionaries when they served.   Like us, I think all of them worked in the office during a change of mission presidents, which happens about the first of July every third summer. They continued to find and teach people in the evenings in addition to their office responsibilities during the day. 

We have begun training the Marcoms to temporarily take our places.  They are MLS missionaries who live near the office.  They will be the bridge between us and the Tardiffs, who plan to be here about the end of September.  They were originally set to be here within two weeks of our departure but then back surgery was needed so the convalescence is going well but has slowed them down.  The Marcoms training is moving along well and we appreciate the willing help they provide while learning.  They really go the extra mile.  The picture is of our big shopping trip to restock our shelves for zone conference and beyond.  We spent just over one thousand dollars and the young man with us helped get the six carts to our cars.

So our next door neighbors will move to Auberry and the Tardiffs will move into that apartment the end of September.  The furnishings from our apartment will go to Auberry on Saturday the 26^th and we will move furnishings for four elders into this apartment.  It will be the home of the office elders and then the ones they train to take their place will share it whenever training is going on.  We will see what it’s like to live like they do for our last few days here!  Crazy!

President Mackay asked to have missionary choirs sing a song he loves for last week's Zone Conferences. Len asked the Sister missionaries to sing since they have not had as many opportunities as the Elders.  Since the song was written in unison, Len made up a simple harmony which Kit added to the music.  It all went well in each of the three conferences.  A number of the Elders were bummed that they didn’t get to sing with Elder Gunderson one more time.  They really loved singing in the men’s choirs.  That was true in our ward, too.  They sang today.  They could actually perform other numbers quite easily with the talent in that group, so hopefully they will.

Love from Len and Kit