Halfway Through February Already!!!

January 2014

We started off the new year with new arrivals and a transfer on the 7 & 8 of the month.  We have two Mandarin speaking sisters from Temple Square here in the mission for three transfers.  What an incredible experience OUR sisters are having with these sisters.  The one set is working in Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University.  They started with a "Get to Know You" evening and had about 9 Chinese students come.  Their next activity there were 25 people who came to learn about the Church.  It has been an incredible experience for the missionaries.  The Chinese students were so excited to know that there is a God -- these students, if baptized, will bring the gospel into China.  The two missionaries from our mission have Chinese name tags and one is trying to learn Mandarin.  Along with transfers, we have our farewell dinner for the departing missionaries, which is always somewhat difficult.  We do love the missionaries and don't like to see them leave.

Favorite is the shrimp cocktail!!

Elders Tollofson & Houston. 

    We are now in the middle of winter.  The weather has been unbelievably cold -- -25' with wind chill for a few days/nights.  That is cold.  I had to go out and get some tights to wear, as the cold just went right through me.  Scarves, gloves, turtle neck sweaters and my wool coat were not enough to stay outside longer than go from car to office, and then I had to have the heater on most of the morning to get warm.  One of the days we had to get the mail, and the car never did get warm going down to the post office and then back up to the office.  I have never been in such cold.....

The end of January was zone conferences, and the other office couple had presentations to make at the five conferences.  We did the mail those days, and all went fine.  I kind of like doing the mail anyway -- a change in routine is always welcome.  When the Utica Zone Conference was held I really wanted to go to the meetings this time.  So often there are office duties that need to be done, but this time I was able to go to almost all of the meetings.  Our assistants gave such wonderful talks, and I am amazed as to what they are able to do as they are so young.  I know that the spirit qualifies those who have been called, and their reliance on that same spirit was so inspiring.  I can't even write down all that I learned -- I would be accused of being SO preachy, but I just want to remember a few things.  I know that faith in Jesus Christ is the sure foundation for a lasting testimony.  We know that there is opposition in all things, but our faith in Christ will help us overcome the problems of a fallen world.  Christ has suffered all for us, and we need to come unto him. (Ether 12:27...)

The other assistant gave a simple idea.  "Instruction flees.  But experiences will stay with us."  He spoke about what we have to do to become converted?  What sacrifices will I make to be truly converted and become a representative of Jesus Christ?  (Sacrifice, experiences, lasting change).  Is it MY will or GOD's will?  we need to do righteous things and then become righteous.  (D&C 18:15)  Elder Holland said that if we bring only one soul unto Him, let's make sure that we are the one.  Others great, but we must be converted ourselves.

That, in a nutshell, is what the AP's spoke about, and President Wirthlin spoke about The Doctrine of Christ and Real Growth.  He said that we need to have absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly Father.  Faith is not so much something we believe -- it is something we live.  A couple of missionaries sang -- p. 112, "Savior Redeemer of My Soul" -- beautiful melody and awesome message.

On Friday morning Dad woke up with vertigo -- he was totally tipsy and could not walk in a straight line.  He was in bed all day Friday, Saturday and also Sunday.  I fell on a patch of black ice on Friday morning and gave myself a good surprise landing.  I landed on my knees and bruised and scraped both, plus gave my neck and shoulders a jolt.  Old people are not supposed to fall!  It has taken a while to get over the aches and pains, which is very frustrating.

The last Friday in January was Mission Leadership Council.  I was so impressed with the missionaries.  One of the Zone leaders shared an experience he had with an exchange.  He was working with a new missionary from another part of the zone.  They were going to an appointment and noticed a gentleman trying to move a TV and having difficulty with the job.  They called out to him several times and he did not respond.  In frustration they went over to the man and found out that he was deaf.  This new missionary started signing with him and the gentleman was so amazed and then started asking them questions about what they were doing and why they were in New York.  He wanted to know more about it all.  The missionaries were blown away -- what are the chances that an exchange would bring an elder to the right place at the right time to be able to communicate with this deaf man.  The missionaries were so touched by this experience, and stated that they knew it was no coincidence -- the Lord is in charge of His work.

February 2014

On Dad's birthday it was fun talking to many of our family and friends.  We had a relaxing day at home cleaning, doing laundry and resting.  We enjoy our Saturdays.  We had dinner at the Wirthlin's with the AP's, other office couple, President & Sister Wirthlin, and Elder Perkins of the Seventy.  We had a wonderful evening.  It is not often that one gets to have dinner with a General Authority and speak about what he is doing, what he has done, etc.

Valentines Day brought lots of mail again -- treats, cards, packages -- fun time for the missionaries to get their mail.  We have fun watching the missionaries open their packages.

We have had another round of snow and cold, and the only way I can describe it is COLD!!!  I continue to be so very grateful for the boots that were found somewhere in the office that I was able to inherit.  They have saved me!!!  I am not complaining, as we never have to go out very far in the cold, but this week the snow was over my boots, and my shoes would just not have worked for me.

The next picture shows how beautiful the icicles can be -- go all the way to the ground. 

This week is Transfer Week, so we have been getting office materials ready for the new missionaries and the trainers.  We have three VISA Waiters coming and one Temple Square Sister plus twelve other missionaries coming.  It is going to be difficult saying goodbye to some of the departing missionaries, that is for sure.   We do get attached.

I continue to marvel at how the work moves forward and the tender mercies that we experience.  We do know that the Lord does want this work to be done, and He makes ways possible for His will to be done.  We have to have faith, and He does open the way.  We have loved this experience of being missionaries, and as I have said before -- we see miracles with our work in the office, and we are glad to be part of the Lord's army.  We love our friends and family -- we miss you and think of you often and remember you in our prayers. 

Much love,

Grammy and Papa, Mom and Dad, Herb & Sharon, Friend -- however you fit into our circle of love!

Beginning 2014

It's hard to believe that Christmas/New Years has come and gone since our last post. But when you're busy, that's what happens. December was a blur for us because we can hardly remember what happened.  Sometime we have to go back and see our Instragram posts or photos to jog the memory.
Fortunately, we didn't have new missionaries or departing missionaries during December.

One fun day our Assistants invited us to join them with a pizza party in the office.  At all of the meetings, everyone is given bottled water.  The assistants collect the water bottles, and when they have a couple of huge garbage bags, they turn in the bottles at a recycling center and provide pizza for the office.  It is really fun.  The one missionary in the yellow shirt was gagging on anchovies in his pizza, and the other missionary was sticking out his stomach to show how full he was.  It has been such fun having them in the office. 

While everyone was buying gifts, wrapping, stressing out, making Merry, we, of course, we being deligent missionaries, working in the office and spreading good cheer.  We were worried about what we were going to do with all the anticipated Christmas mail, but as long as we stayed on top of picking it up at the PO, having a system of putting new addresses on the letters and packages and then taking it back to the PO early, we survived.  Some days, there was so much mail that we could hardly get it into our car.  We did have some mail that didn't arrive in time, but most missionaries got at least one package.

 
We were pleasantly surprised when Pres. Wirthlin said we didn't have to be in the office on Christmas day.  We did prepare a Christmas Eve dinner for the other office couple, two sister missionaries and Pres. & Sis Writhlin.  Our small apartment was decorated as best we could.  The meal and evening was a success.  Christmas morning and early afternoon was spent talking with all the family and even spending a few moments saying Hi to Sister Trammell, who is serving in Fiji. And of course, we woke up to new snow.  New Year's eve was a blast....in bed by 9:30 pm and sleeping in until 9:00 am absolutely wonderful way to start the new year.  We caught up on our laundry, cleaned the apartment, and just relaxed.  We oldsters need those days once in a while.

January 2014 started out with extremely cold weather.  On the 2nd of January, we had a Mission Leader Council for all the mission leaders.  Elder Barlow and Elder Cutler had to clear the sidewalks as best we could, but it was soooo cold....wind chill of -26 degrees...even with gloves on fingers were almost frozen.  During the training session, one of the most humble missionaries led a discussion about discovering the promptings of the Holy Ghost...he said "most of the time the Spirit only comes when requested, but living close to the Spirit through righteous living puts you so close to the Spirit that you can almost feel the presence of the Holy Ghost right next to you" and then he gave several examples of this principle from his own mission experiences.  He was talking to all the mission leaders including the mission president.  You could have heard a pin drop during his presentation.  After the meeting, Elder Cutler put his arm around this wonderful missionary and said to him.."I will now call you our mission "Ammon".  What a great experience we are having.  We will miss having him close by, as he was transferred to the Syracuse Zone this last Wednesday.

Another group of new missionaries arrived on the 7th and some wonderful missionaries departed.  We so hate to see them leave, but know that they have served well and are now headed for another part of their life's journey.  We had two missionaries who had lost luggage, so when the luggage was found, we were assigned to deliver it to them.  We had to travel to the Watertown area.  The day before all the roads were shut down because of the heavy amount of snow that fell.  It was clear weather when we arrived, but what a storm as you can see by the pictures (4-5 feet of snow).

The weather has been one of the coldest years according to long-time residents.  The wife of one of the mission presidency has lived here her whole life...but now she can't wait to move to a warmer climate.  This week, however, the temperature is around 35-40 degrees, so we will be  having a heat wave.

The next two weeks will be zone conferences, so Elder Cutler and I will be holding down the fort at the office as everyone else is participating at the zone conferences.  We will be doing the mail on the days that our office friends are gone, but that will be kind of fun for a change -- at least it should not be like it was before Christmas!

We had the privilege of having President and Sister Wirthlin attend the Branch today.  Last time they made a surprise visit we were speaking -- today I was just leading the singing in Sacrament Meeting.  The funny thing, though, is that the person who chose the hymns chose songs that no one knew.  By the closing song, I could only handle one verse and we stopped the song.  Kind of too bad, one of the few times we have someone who plays the organ was in attendance today and we just could not match his talent on the organ. 

Happy New Year to all!!!  We love you and are continuing to love our service here.  We have learned so much and our testimonies of the restoration continue to grow.  Our appreciation of the Savior and of the atonement is very dear to us.

Grammy & Papa, Elder & Sister Cutler, Mom & Dad, Friend

Thanksgiving & Christmas Update

We know we say this every time, but time is flying by at the speed of light.  We were amazed at the date of our last post.  Sorry, Sorry, Sorry! 

The weekend after Halloween we went to a Farmer's Market in a little town called Ilion.  We didn't think much of the merchandise there, but the barns were beautiful and dated back into the 1700's.  I did buy a handmade basket made by some Amish people, and of course the snickerdoodles could not be ignored.

 The president has a saying, when he is displeased with a missionary, that he will have to take him/her behind the woodshed to take care of the problem.  It is a standing joke in the mission that one does not want to go with the president "behind the woodshed! The AP's made this "woodshed" for President Wirthlin.  We get a kick out of President Wirthlin's sense of humor about the woodshed and wonder if he had experiences there when a child!!!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving being at Scott's house in Conneticut where Lizzy and her family were also visiting.  It was fun being with members of the family again.  We couldn't leave for Scott's until Thanksgiving morning because of missionary transfers and new missionaries arriving, so we made it just in time for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.

Scott, Jack and Dad actually went pheasant hunting where Jack shot the most beautiful and largest bird and Dad shot the smallest,  but Dad did hit it on his first shot.  His aim was so good that he shot its head right off!!

Can't leave Thanksgiving weekend without posting some family pictures.....  We love getting pictures from everyone, so feel free to send us pictures and we will post them.  (Instagram pictures are not as good as one sent by email or text message.)

Our work in the mission office feels like groundhog day many times.  However, the last week has been very busy picking up hundreds of boxes, re-addressing both letters and boxes and then taking the mail back to the post office.  One day we had two cars full of mail.

Finding, inspecting and leasing apartment continues to be a big job.  We have had missionaries calling about empty fuel tanks for heat when the temperature was near zero.  It took 4 days to have fuel delivered. One apartment having so much condensation from the heater that the walls and ceiling were dripping like an underground cave. So we are moving to another apartment. We were having another difficult time finding an apartment for a new senior couple assigned to a small branch in the southeast corner of the mission.  Every apartment we wanted fell through.  Finally, we were told about an apartment just as were were leaving Scott's house, so we stopped at the place on our way back to our apartment.  We were pleased with the apartment and signed the lease as quick as we could.  The next morning in our staff meeting with the mission president, the president asked in his prayer for help in finding a place.  So when he finished praying, we told him his prayer was answered because we signed the lease the day before.  He was overwhelmed with the news.

On December 14th our branch Christmas party was a live nativity.  The temperature that day was -5' wind chill, and I have never been so cold.  We have been asked why it wasn't moved indoors -- well, it would not do to have a donkey and goats indoors.

Because it was snowing and so cold, these pictures do not do justice as to how sweet this live nativity really was.  The children were shivering and so cold, but they would not stop until everything was all said and done.  Precious time.

We do have fun times in the office, and we decided to take a picture of the office couples in Santa's hats and calling ourselves the NYUtica Mission Office Elves.  We had fun setting it up, and we sent it to all of the missionaries along with a short Christmas message.

We can't believe that in two weeks we will have served for one year.  So we expect the next six months will go fast.  This picture of our backyard reminds us that it is possible to have cold, cold weather at home as well as in New York!

Mission work continues to be hastening along.  Julie sent us an article about the adopted brother of a missionary who was just released from our mission.  We didn't know anything about this adopted brother but the story was very touching (http://ldsmag.com/article/1/13678). It shows that the Lord is totally in charge and is aware of all.  We hope you can read the article.

Want to include some recent pictures taken of Sister Trammell with our college friends.  (These are different pictures than the ones we posted before!)  She enjoys seeing the Collins', and they are enjoying seeing her and giving her missionary hugs!!

We want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas.  We love each and every one, and we pray for you all.  Remember the words of Elder Nelson spoken at the Christmas devotional: "...As we follow Jesus Christ, He will lead us to live with Him and our Heavenly Father, with our families. Through our many challenges of mortality, if we remain faithful to covenants made, if we endure to the end, we will qualify for that greatest of all the gifts of God, Eternal Life. In His holy presence, our families can be together forever."

We testify that no truer words were spoken.  We love you all, miss you all and know we will be together again in this life and in the life to come.

Love to each one -- we think of friends and family often!!!

Mom & Dad, Grammy & Papa, Herb & Sharon, Elder & Sister Cutler, Friend

October is gone -- Halloween flew by!

OCTOBER 2013

It has been over a month since we have posted in our blog.  That time has gone by so fast!  We thoroughly enjoyed Conference, and then the next weekend was our stake conference.  "Hastening the Work" seemed to be the theme for both, and I am so grateful to be part of the missionary force that is throughout the world.  The time is moving so fast now, and I hope that when the last day of our mission arrives that I will have no regrets in not doing enough. 

On the 12th of October -- Saturday -- we took off about noon and went to Cooperstown.  We went to the Baseball Hall of Fame and had fun going down Memory Lane as far as baseball is concerned.  It was a beautiful fall day, and the ride to Cooperstown was beautiful, with the fall colors so beautiful and in their glory.  Cooperstown is a charming small town, and there is a lot to be found about baseball.

 

Fall colors in their glory!!!

 

Babe Ruth and a fan

 

Edgar Martinez, a Mariner favorite

 

San Francisco Giants Memorabilia

 

 

This is one of the Assistants, Elder Tanner, with the famous frog.  At transfers the Assistants do a role-play demo on the Fable of the Frog -- If you put a frog into boiling water he will jump out, but if the frog is in the water and it gradually heats up it will just cook.  Well, the assistants do this training to let the missionaries know how to handle difficult "relationship" issues, whether it be their companion, a member of the ward, etc.  If there are feelings developing and all, either the companion or the missionary just has to call the president and say he/she has a frog problem, and the president goes right to the missionary, and handles a rapid transfer to another part of the mission.  This is the quick fix of a possible problem, and if there are more issues they are taken care of quickly.  The skits have been hilarious, with the assistants knowing of missionaries having girlfriends at home and using their names in the skit -- all in good fun -- lots of laughs and yet getting the point across quickly.

 

We were able to go to the Palmyra Temple on the 19th of October and spent the day at the temple doing a session and then sealings.  We were gone for 11 hours, so we were very tired.  We did not see any of the historical sites this time.  On the 20th we taught Primary, I conducted R.S., and then we went to a rest home in Herkimer with the Primary to sing some songs and hand out homemade cards.  One of our girls wanted to see the sister from our branch who lives there.  For some reason she was not brought out when the children were singing.  She is a very frail lady (three years younger than I!), used to be outspoken and spicy.  She has had several strokes and is in a wheelchair and cannot talk.  We took Azizza into her room along with the missionaries and sang I Am A Child of God.  The sister had tears running down her cheeks and mouthed the words to the song.  It was such a precious experience.  She is brought to church every Sunday in a wheelchair.

 

We spoke in church the 27th of October.  The branch president called us on Wednesday night in need of speakers for Sunday, and so we willingly(?) said we would do it.  I spoke on service and Papa spoke on obedience. 

 

We were very saddened at the sudden and tragic death of the father of our assistant (Elder Tanner) to President Wirthlin.  His dad was in a horrible airplane crash taking off from the Fairbanks, Alaska airport.  The plane lost all power and they crashed right after the ending of the runway.  Elder Tanner's younger brother was also in the accident and had both legs broken in a couple of places.  Elder Tanner went home for a week to help his mother get through the nightmare.  So many unanswered questions.

 

We had mini-zone conferences the last week of October with a General Authority doing a mission tour.  They covered about 1,300 miles in 2 1/2 days!.  Usually the zone conferences are between 9 and 3, but this time there were half-day conferences with a lot of traveling in between and after.  Elder Bruce R. Porter of the First Council of the Seventy was the visiting authority.  His message was entirely on the Plan of Salvation, the role of the Savior and the atonement.  His talks were outstanding.

 

Just have to add a couple of pictures that made my week -- so fun to have pictures of everyone!!!

 

 

Kara with our friends, Elder Ed and Sister Joyce Collins -- friends from our newly married days at BYU 50 years ago!!!!!  They are CES missionaries in the same mission as our Sister Trammell. 

 

Kara and her companion

 

 

Lizzy and Lyla

 

Maisie Lou making a scary face.....

 

 

On Halloween our office partners, the Barlows, always have liver, bacon and onions for dinner.  They had their children eat this dinner before going out on Halloween night.  We went to a diner with the Wirthlins and Barlows on Halloween night so we could witness the dinner.  I took the picture of them and they emailed it to their six children asking if they had had their liver and onions that night  -- they had six responses to their email within one minute!!!  That was the quite a record, and NO -- no one had liver and onions.  

 

So much for the month of October.  Our days go by quickly and we continue to love the associations and work with the missionaries.  We are blessed to work in the branch, and we are learning so much from the humility and willingness to serve that we see there.  It is not easy to run a branch with such long distances, people with no cars and no money to buy gas to drive 40 miles.  We have learned a lot from this experience with them.  We love the Lord, are grateful for His atoning sacrifice, and we feel it a blessing in our lives to be here.  Bye for now!

 

Grammy & Papa, Mom & Dad, Herb & Sharon, Friend