WHAT MATTERS MOST

While New Year’s Day is a holiday, it also happens to be the first day after the end of a month. Starting a month ago, I (Russell) began preparing a spreadsheet for the prior month comparing miles driven to miles allocated/authorized for each car.  This information is then used by the Assistants to the President (APs) and Zone Leaders (ZLs) to allocate miles for the upcoming month and to rein in those going over their allotted miles from the prior month.  During September and October we had a number of what I might call “free range” elders that needed some attention.  That took most of my Monday this week.  Tuesday, the first workday of the new year and month, I began my most tedious of monthly tasks, that of checking/viewing receipts on all the gas purchases of the prior month for our 90+ vehicle’s credit cards.  When they average 7-8 transactions per month, and half the missionaries forget to provide a receipt or two, even though the process is automated it still takes several days.  With transfers on Thursday, I really needed to finish by Wednesday evening.  Once people move to different areas and cars, the odds of being able to successfully follow up on discrepancies diminishes greatly.

 

Tuesday evening we had the opportunity of attending the baptism of Nelda, a woman a few years older than us.  She had been taking the missionary lessons for 7-8 months.  Recently, we have been sitting near her in Sacrament meeting. The baptismal meeting was a wonderful spiritual experience for both Eileen and I.  It caused me to reflect a bit and recognize that I have not experienced a lot of that on this mission.

 

Perhaps it was in part because of my prior night’s experience, that I reacted the way I did the next afternoon when I got a call from a senior sister missionary to see if I would come to her apartment and help give her a priesthood blessing.  She fell a couple days prior and had just returned home from being in the hospital.  My first thought was, I need to finish this report today and I’m nowhere near done.  Fortunately, a quickly following second thought was, and is, this is a lot more important than the report you don’t like doing anyway.  As I drove back to the office after helping with the blessing, I thought, this may be the one truly important thing I will actually do today. That night it was after 8 pm before I left the office.

 

Today in sacrament meeting we were able to witness Nelda confirmed a member of the Church and receive the Holy Ghost.  Like at the baptism, her younger sister was with her.  Eileen sat next to her sister during sacrament meeting and Sunday School explaining what was going on.  Perhaps there will be an opportunity in the future for us to do some real missionary work with Nelda’s family members. 

 

During our weekly office staff meeting, we learned that there were 401 baptisms in our mission during 2023, a 20% increase from the prior year.  I guess Eileen and I get so caught up in the health and vehicle challenges of the mission, that we rarely see all the good that is taking place.  I’m grateful for the brief experiences I have had this week that have reminded me of what truly matters most.

L to R, Elder Louder is our new AP and previously taught Nelda, Elder Baxter, Nelda and Elder Gordon. 

Elder Gordon having some Chick-fil-A, just returning from a doctor's appt. where he heard good news.

New arrivals of missionaries, we had a smaller group this transfer.

Our first lunch with the missionaries. After lunch President Sommerfeldt interviews the new missionaries, while I do medical interviews. There were a lot of tender feelings with tears shed this month. 

                                                     New missionaries with trainers.