Getting Started on our mission

We want to share our mission time with you, our special family and friends, so you can feel the 'spirit of our mission' along with us. I'm imagining that I will do the writing here on the blog, though Elder Hansen is keeping an excellent daily diary so I will use his writing, too.

The St. George Visitors' Center and Historic Sites was a local service mission for quite awhile. The Church felt it was time to make it a full-time mission and reduce the number of couples serving here. So by the end of January 2008 the final three senior couples will leave--- bringing us down to 13 full-time senior couples (instead of around 34). We will keep 24 full-time young sister missionaries who serve with us and also do proselyting. We also have in this area 18 full-time young elder missionaries---they do not work with us.

So, we are now in the Utah Provo Mission to labor in the St. George Visitors' Center and Historic Sites. This required us to attend the Provo MTC for eight days training.

After we were set apart by our Stake President, Daren Barney, we traveled in the stormy weather (1 December) to visit Alisyn and Eric and Anna. They treated us so well---especially Eric who took us for a ride in the splendid winter-wonderland of the mountains--I loved it!

The MTC 'welcome meeting' on Monday morning was indeed a welcome for Elder Hansen and I. The MTC Mission President, Joseph Boone, is a long-time friend from the Air Force Chapaincy. ( His wife, Alisyn, is who our Alisyn was named after). His counselors, Mark Breinholt--an Army Chaplain (Susan), and David Madsen--Air Force Lawyer (Kathy) are also very good friends. They came into the room and came down to where we were sitting and gave us hugs and greetings in front of everybody--before the meeting and after, too.

I'm sure our MTC experience was typical of all missionaries--inspiring! Our teachers were very focused and knowledgeable. We used the 'Preach My Gospel' manual for our daily studies. We had read it before we went to the MTC and will continue to study it---probably forever! If any of you do not have this manual, I suggest you get one and study with it, too. I know that it is inspired and will increase your testimony and ability to share your testimony with others. It just makes you feel happy to use it to study and know that you as an individual can be guided by the Holy Ghost to do and say those things that He can confirm it's truth in someones heart and mind. We are encouraged to 'follow the spirit' and learn about others so we can know how the Lord can help us meet their needs and bring them to Him.

We observed Philip's Birthday at the MTC. His passing is still a great loss to us. But, we have decided to dedicate this mission to him and we hope he is enjoying it with us. We are using his Book of Mormon. We gave it to him on his 7th birthday--so the family could help him read it before he was baptized. I carry it with me every day and study from it--and mark it and enjoy the scriptures he had marked. He had studied it and made notes in the margins---it is a treasure to me.

One day three young sisters stopped us in the hallway and asked if they could practice their Spanish. They took turns bearing their testimonies to us---they had only been there for about three days. One sister's husband had recently been killed in an accident--so she decided to serve a mission. They were all going to the Tucson, Arizona Spanish speaking mission---same as Philip. I decided meeting them was another 'tender mercy' from the Lord.

We had the privilege to go the the Provo Temple and Anna was the First Follower for our session. She is so 'at home' working in the Temple! She spent several hours with us on our Preparation day--helping us study and taking pictures. Alisyn and Eric also joined us for lunch at Cafe Rio to celebrate.

Anna had to remind us to check our mailbox--we hadn't expected any mail. We got mail! Anna and Alisyn sent us packages. Mike and his family and David and family sent letters. We were surprised because we hadn't given anyone our address---they found it anyway.

All too soon it was time to leave the MTC. It had snowed every day we were in Provo. I thought it was SOOOO beautiful!! But, it's not great for traveling. Some of our new missionary friends had to drive across country--with RVs in the bad weather--we felt sorry for them. Our trip back to St. George was wonderful--dry roads all the way--another tender mercy.

And, when we got home we discovered someone had been in our house! There were newly scrubbed and vacuumed floors and bathrooms, guests beds made up and beautiful decorations on the table. There were even packages under the tree! But, it didn't take too long to figure out that Anna and Alisyn had come down while we were in the MTC to prepare this wonderous surprise for us. Who but these beautiful daughters would have thought of such a nice gift and then taken time to do it?!

13th December, as we opened the door of the Visitor's Center to begin our training, the cameras began flashing---we learned quickly that these senior missionaries are relentless in taking pictures! We found out that they give a scrapbook to the leaving senior missionaries with pages from all the missionaries---so everyone wants to have pictures to make pages. We're not sure how (or if) we want to get caught up in all this--I guess time will tell.

Our trainers were the Lamberts. They were good trainers and great people. We spent a day with them at each site and the Visitor Center. Since it was December and the missionaries sponsor concerts every night in December at the Tabernacle, we attended almost all of them and each of us even got to conduct a program. I think it was really fun for us to have these programs to go to---we haven't ever had that many nights out together---all within nineteen days.

Erik's neighbor, Bob Shell gave us a flag his father had received for his service to charity and to the community in Topeka, Kansas. It had been presented to him by Bob Dole who had flown it over the U.S. White House in honor of Mr. Shell. Elder Hansen presented it to our mission and it is now flying at the Jacob Hamblin Home in Santa Clara. It has been a nice addition to this site.

Senior missionaries are encouraged to continue to nurture their families. So, we encouraged and enjoyed Mike, Wendy and the girls coming to our home to visit on Christmas. It was a relaxing day to just be together to visit, read, play games and enjoy eating good food. We loved their visit.

Now, our regular schedule for missionary service is: Brigham Young's Winter Home, Jacob Hamblin's Home and the Tabernacle once each week for a 4 hour shift. Then, we have three shifts of 6 hours at the Visitor's Center each week. We also have a preparation day (p-day) where we do our 'own thing'. We have training every week at 7:30 a.m. and Zone Conference every 6 weeks. We also have other duties. We have just been assigned to distribute Tabernacle Events Bulletins to 66 sites each month. I frequently lead the music for our meetings. I will give a Sacrament Meeting talk this week.