I thought I would give an update of what our life is like serving a full-time mission from home for the Salt Lake City Church Headquarters Mission--
First off, if you are ever assigned to this mission--you want it to be the year that the Church is studying the Doctrine & Covenants. After all, the teacher and many of the students are scholars of this book and the Church History related to the sections of scripture. I can already tell that I am going to be learning so much. One of the members of our class is a descendant of one of the young girls who rescued some of the pages of the Book of Commandments in Far West (I think it was there). His great great grandmother was later given a copy of the original printing of the Book of Commandments which were assembled from the pages she and others had saved. He shared the history of that particular copy of the book which is one of 29 known to still be in existence. It is located in a Methodist Museum in the south as part of a collection that was donated to that museum.
Gary is usually up around 6:00 am and starts reading emails from the mission, the Church History Library and from our zone. Jena and I get up around 7:15 and get ready for the day and we shoot to have breakfast together around 7:45.
One Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays, one of us takes Jena to the Clearfield High School Seminary building at 8:45 and pick her up at 11:50. It is about 10 minutes one way. On Wednesday and Friday, we take her to the Centerville Distribution Center at 8:45 until 11:00 or 12:00. It is a 25 minute drive one way.
Once a week, there is a mission wide devotional of some kind. They happen at different times of the day and week. This week it was on Monday morning from 9:00-10:00. All of them are done over Zoom and they have all been great.
Being zone leaders has added a significant amount of phone calls and emails with zone members. We are responsible to train new missionaries and we got a new full time missionary from Alberta, Canada, last week, so we (mostly Gary) have been helping her get up to speed on a variety of the computer skills needed.
Monday we also had a mission wide zone leader training in the afternoon along with our weekly meeting with our direct boss in the Church History Library, Liz Heath. She is great.
We usually stop around 5-6 for dinner, but then Gary will head back to his office to continue to work on the endless emails and phone calls. We did complete our goal to talk to all of our missionaries by phone which was so great to complete.
Tuesday, we had a busy morning, but that afternoon we had an oral history which is one of the highlights of our service. We were able to interview over zoom a mission president and his wife who served in the Texas Houston East mission during the Hurricane Harvey and Covid plus many other challenging times. It was an amazing experience and I personally shed many tears as they discussed the great miracles and faith promoting experiences they had while serving. When I came upstairs late that afternoon, I remember looking outside and thinking--oh, everyone else hasn't been sitting in their basement listening to these awesome stories. I can't think of many better things to do during a pandemic.
After that, we headed up to Ogden to visit one of our missionaries and her husband to help them figure out how to do zoom on their devices. Since the pandemic had started, they could only watch and hear, but not talk. We got that fix for them on their tablets, computer, and phones and had a sweet visit with them---social distancing as much as possible when helping on a computer and wearing masks. Let me just say that Gary is amazing with people who don't understand the ins and outs of computers.
Wednesday we had our devotional meeting which I conducted this time and then we had a Lunch, Listen, and Learn with our mission president, his wife, and several people in our zone. It is his way to have some personal time with all of the 800 missionaries under him. It is also a good way for us to get to know our zone better.
Then we headed down to Salt Lake to meet with another missionary in her home to help her learn a couple of processes on her computer so that she can do work from home again. As she answered the door, she said, "Oh, so great to welcome real people into our home again." We, of course, social distanced and wore masks. But it pointed out what everyone is saying--we do need people in person as soon as it is possible.
We also headed to the Church History Library to turn in an old laptop that wasn't working from another one of our missionaries and then ran an errand over at the mission home in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We just got out of the parking lot in time for me to make a phone call (while Gary drove) to another mission president and his companion in preparation for their zoom interview which was scheduled for the following day.
Thursday we had some quieter time and got to work on preparing the interviews we have done to be upload to the Church History Library. That involves a process of writing about the interview--my part--and putting it onto the appropriate platforms with the right documentations--Gary's part. We kept busy with that until it was time for our next oral history with a mission president and wife who had served in Las Vegas, Nevada--another afternoon feast of the spirit. Then back to more writing for submitting...
Friday was a different day. Gary took Jena down to the Distribution Center and stayed there for the two hours she served and worked on emails. I actually ran a few errands--some for our mission and some personal.
That afternoon, we headed back to the Church History Library for a meeting and tour with our new second counselor in the mission president--Pres. Michael Parker and his wife. We also set up for a "surprise" goodbye party for our division's intern, Brian Adkins, and for our former zone leaders, Elder and Sister Higginson. We invited the small amount of staff and our zone missionaries in the building for cupcakes and goodbyes--masks and social distancing of course.
Liz, on the screen, is the archivist who works with us and was over Brian. She had asked us to bring him cupcakes as a surprise and things morphed from there. President and Sister Parker (you see them with their backs to me in this photo) got treated to more than they expected with Brian and the Higginsons sharing some of the joys of Church History service. It was very touching time together.
Elder and Sister Higginson--who told us that we were taller than they thought!
This is Elder and Sister Twelmeyer who are in our zone and serve as full-time missionaries from Ohio. They are now our assistant zone leaders.
No photos of Gary or I, but be assured that we were dressed in the appropriate missionary clothing as well. The rest of the week---well, it is much more casual. If we are attending zone or mission meetings on zoom, we will be wearing our badge on a very nice shirt for me and a white shirt and tie for Gary. Our bottoms are most often jeans or yogi pants for me with warm fuzzy sox. If we are just doing emails, writing, or phone calls, we are casual from top to bottom. It will be a big change to dressing up for the whole day when we move to Salt Lake.
 |
| Brian's sign said: You might not miss the books, the paper, and the boxes, but we will miss you!" |
 |
| Sister and Elder Higginson's: Aloha With all of the names of the elders and sisters in our zone. Before Covid, missionaries completing their mission were honored at an Aloha dinner. |
Liz, on the screen, is the archivist who works with us and was over Brian. She had asked us to bring him cupcakes as a surprise and things morphed from there. President and Sister Parker (you see them with their backs to me in this photo) got treated to more than they expected with Brian and the Higginsons sharing some of the joys of Church History service. It was very touching time together.
Elder and Sister Higginson with their sign
Saturday is our P-day and that usually means that I am busy with house cleaning and laundry while Gary organizes stuff for the mission and zone, learns new skills that we need to know, and catches up on more emails.
Yesterday, we took some time in the afternoon to go down and help Jessica get a table and two benches for their kitchen which they had gotten for free. It was good to see her, but since two of the kids woke up with runny noses, we didn't see the kids. We sent fruit snacks and oranges instead.
Sunday is filled with Church. Our branch has Sunday School on Zoom at 10:00 and then Sacrament Meeting at 2:30. Last Sunday we attended in person but today we will watch from home. We also often watch Sacrament Meeting for our home ward at 11:00. I blog on Sunday and also am trying to do some family history projects as well.
In our free time, we watch BYU sports--Go Cougars!, some football games, read, and do puzzles. I just completed one of the goals I set for myself when our mission started (before we were called to be zone leaders and I thought I would have so much extra time!) which was to read the two Saints volumes.
This week will be more of the same, although we will be getting busy tracking down mission presidents and their spouses who served in the Alaska Mission.
I said to Gary a few days ago. "I am glad that I am on a mission now because I get to enjoy these amazing interactions with the mission presidents and their wives while everyone else is stuck at home." He said: "And I love ending the day knowing that I have done something good in the day."
That sums it up!
PS Set a goal to serve a mission. It is amazing!
No comments:
Post a Comment