About Being a MLS Missionary

I was reading yesterday that about 50% of all senior couples are called as Member Leader Support missionaries.  That allows a mission president to use a couple any way that he may wish. The problem that we have discovered it that because it is SO undefined there really isn't training, guidance or even a list of ideas given.  If I were in a position to suggest something to the MTC I would suggest that they gather all of the MLS missionaries in that week's group and at least share for one hour some of the successful things that MLS missionaries have tried and done.  We have a Ward with lots of inactives but strong people in the leadership positions.  We have a set of full-time Elders assigned to our ward. 

Our Mission President just came in August and he mentioned a few things like movie nights that some couples were doing but really just gave us the key to our apartment and told us what ward we would be assigned to.

Our Bishop has never had a missionary couple and although he has suggested some people for us to go and visit we have little to go on from him.  

One thing that MLS missionaries often do is go to the home of all of the inactive people, visit with them and invite them to come back or see if there is any service that they can provide for them. 
Our Stake announced last week that they are going to begin a six-month program where priesthood will go to visit EVERY prospective elder in the ward and ask three questions.  1) Do they have a testimony.  2) Would they like missionary lessons and I think it included something about home and/or visiting teachers 3) Would they like an interview with the Stake President.  This was done in another Stake in Oregon with great success.

The difficulty I am seeing is just exactly where we fit into this picture.  If the priesthood are expected to visit these people and report their findings then should the missionaries also be visiting these same people?  Overkill is not a happy thing for most people.

As you all know, I am not a sitter-arounder.  It is miles from one member to another and often in the rain.  If I am supposed to be there and knock on their door I am willing to do so but I do not feel like we are at all productive just dropping in on people. 

Here are the positive things that we have tried to do-

1) I printed up a little flyer with our phone numbers, our picture, a short story of Monson Cookies and the recipe.  We have taken a plate of the cookies and the flyer to visit a few inactive and part-member families.

2) I typed up a ticket on yellow cardstock good for one Family Home Evening with the Ellingtons.  They are required to provide the place and a non-member or an inactive member and we will bring a short lesson and the treat.  We have a Christmas lesson ready with a short video if we get some takers.

3) I prepared a colored cardstock card labeled "Member Missionary Tips" for each family.  We bought a box of labels and we will provide one tip for being a member missionary each week.  We handed out the cards and the first label today but future labels will inserted in the Ward Bulletin for the next 20 weeks that we are here.  They should be able to put about 10 labels on each side of the card.  Today's tip was, "While talking with your friends be sure to include the Church in your conversations.  When you say something liek, "I was working with scouts at our LDS Church" or "When I was a Mormon missionary in Korea" it is a natural door opener for gospel conversations.

If you have other ideas of things that we can do or great member missionary tips will you please share them.  "I WILL GO, I WILL DO" but I need to have a better idea what. 

P-Day November 17

Mike and I split up the cleaning of the apartment and we kept laundry going all day.  We only did four loads but the dryer wasn't working well so it took 13 hours.  The maintenance man came on Wednesday so hopefully that is fixed. We shopped for a few things in the morning and then in the afternoon we drove up to see Camp Alpine which is about 40 minutes NW of here.  There are two full time missionary couples that live there and operate the camp.  There is a home on the property where one couple lives and the other couple are in a trailer, more like what we did at Heber Valley Camp.  It was a beautiful setting and had many of the things the had at HVC but in minature.  The lake was a pond (which was drained), the zip line went over the pond so that they could jump in, the bathrooms were outhouses and the cabins didn't exist.  It is tent camping.  

We had no jackets with us because it was sunny in Eugene.  We were surprised when we saw the frost on the ground and had to borrow coats to drive around the property.

 Amphitheater

 

 Front Lawn of Office 

            Outhouse, woodshed and frost

   

The empty pond and zipline across it.

When we left the camp they drove up past an area that had just been logged before the camping started last summer.  The logging company has one year, I believe, to clear the area off and replant. They had carefully let this area grow to the appropriate size of logs and then will cut another area that has reached that point in the next year or two.  It is a very carefully planned rotation.

So much of this whole area of Oregon is covered with grape crops and wineries and Christmas tree farms.  This picture does not do justice to the view as the trees seemed to go on for miles.

Our Present Drive to Church

Although I put pictures of what the lake WILL be like when it has water, here are a few pictures of our normal drive to Veneta.  It does take about 20 minutes but it certainly is beautiful. I prefer the drive and the enjoyment of a lovely apartment and the best of shopping

Crazy Post

I have no idea what kept happening to this post.  I had to remove some of the pictures to even get it to publish and then some of them appeared on the top.  I'll not try any longer.  Good luck trying to make sense of it.  

We Are On A Mission

The beginning of this mission was rather rocky.  After only two days in the MTC I got very very sick and had to miss the rest of the week of classes.  We were able in to get in to visit Dr Frantz (my niece's husband who is a gastrointestinologist who was very helpful.  We felt that although it was not convenient it was a "tender mercy".  He scheduled a colonoscopy the next day although I wasn't due to have one for another year and a half and found four polyps and one was very large.  He said that he would have been very concerned had that one been able to grow for that length of time.  Had I become sick at home the family doctor would just have treated a flu and the polyps would never have been found. 

We were sent back home and kind of camped out since things were basically turned off, the fridge and freezer were empty and things were loaded and ready to go.  Finally, after six days after we had planned to leave we were on our way to Oregon.  

The first day we drove only to Ely, NV and spent the night in a hotel there.  We went to our very favorite Chinese restaurant there, the Hapy Garden, and had a meal worth waiting for.  There is no better WonTon soup anywhere.  We were supposed to have dinner that night with Sydne Maycock, an old friend from GA, but she fell while walking her dog and had to go to the emergency room rather than meeting us.  

The next morning we headed off to spend some time with Laurel's family in Washoe Valley.  We went to a big fabric store that I would have died for a few years back, went to a bookstore and then met Russell and the school kids and had pizza together.  It was a fun stop along the way.  

We were up early the next morning and headed up to Oregon.  We had an amazing breakfast at Lumberjack Restaurant in Susanville, CA.  I have never been served a bigger or thicker slice of ham.  I gave half to Mike and left some and I love ham.


We arrived safely on Saturday afternoon.  We went directly to the Mission Office where the President and wife and another couple met us and gave us the key to our apartment.  When we got here the elders from our Ward were waiting to help unload the car.

   We had Stake Conference that night where the Mission President and his wife were two of the speakers.  They have only been here since August so it was the first time for them to speak in that Stake.  After we went to Walmart and WinCo for Sunday dinner stuff.  

   We attended the Sunday Stake Conference at our chapel in Veneta (about 15 min west of Eugene).  We met so many friendly people who seemed excited to have us there.  The Bishop invited us to dinner that night and another couple for Tuesday night.  The meeting was great with President Monson, Elder Neal Anderson, Kent F Richards and Sister Jean Steven as speakers.  

   We spent Monday spending money.  I had lists for things from the Dollar Tree, Walmart, Costco and WinCo and we were both totally exhausted by the end of the day.  We think of little thing now but we are pretty well set up for living comfortably for the next six months.  

  Tuesday was mostly spent setting things up, waiting and visiting.  Our housing coordinator came to see how things were, then the Comcast guy came and set us up and then our District Leader and companion came to visit us.  We went to dinner with them to the member's home last night.  

  We spent a lot of Wednesday  mapping out the ward which has many small towns in about a 30 mile radius.  We went to visit an inactive couple and a part member couple later in the day.  They were delightful people that would add such a strenght to any ward.  

   We love our apartment.  It is large, clean, and has a washer, dryer, dishwasher, microwave and very nice furniture that the mission moved in.  The location couldn't be better.  Veneta is a town of about 5,000 and the only apartment  they could fin there was a dump.  The 15 minute drive is out into a beautiful countryside.  If we were working in the office the drive would be at least the same amount of time but through the city.  

    Several people have asked us why we are not living in Veneta or said that it is too bad that we are not there but there is no question that this is a bigger and nicer place than we could have gotten there for the same money.  It is really rather nice to drive through the countryside for 15 minutes to get over there.  I'm going to post some picturesfrom Google of Fern Ridge Lake which is a large manmade lake that we pass.  Right now much of it has been drained because it is mostly used for sailing but you can see why, even as a swampy scene right now it is a pleasant drive.  

 On Thursday the Elders who are assigned to the Ward called us to meet with them and the Ward Mission Leader for splits.  We went over at 7:00 and it was dark and a very heavy rainstorm.  When we got there we found that only the Elders were there and they went to one place and we went to visit some members. The Ward Mission Leader was out of town.  

  We have been rearranging the Ward List in a more workable order for missionaries.  It is LOTS of typing but there are several small towns assigned to this 30 mile radius.  When you don't know the area you could really waste time.  We drove just one street from the top address of a Ward member to the bottom address and it took about an hour with a few stops and turns.  I got the idea to make up a little flyer with our names and phone numbers, our picture, a little story of the gingersnaps and President Monson and the recipe and we are baking cookies and delivering a little plate of them with the flyer to introduce ourselves.  We are hoping to help them sort through their Ward list and get rid of probably names who probably don't even live there any more.  They have something like 120 prospective Elders on their list so perhaps we can help to sort this out and even help some to become active.

   Last Sunday the Bisop gave us four families to visit and we were able to get to three of them.  We couldn't find the house for the fourth.  Other than that we had not guidelines for what to do with our week.  One suggestion I will make, if asked for them, would be to send MLS missionaries out with suggestions of things that you can do and send Wards things that they can get help from from MLS missionaries.  I think that things could be much more productive with a bit or training and organization.  

  On Friday we went to our District Meeting and we were extremely impressed with the quality of our Elders, their knowledge and leadership abilities.  There is no question that this program is in the Lord's hands.  No normal 18 & 19 year old group of boys would perform like that.  

   Saturday night we got together with 5 other couples who are serving in the area.  Three couples are assigned to the office.  One sister is the Secretary, one the nurse, one helps her husband with housing and other things, one brother is over finance, one over apartments and one over cars.  We had none of this when I went on my mission years ago.  The other two couples are at a girls camp very near here.  One lives in a 5th wheel and the other in a home that is on the property.  It is near Monroe, Oregon.  Here is the picture from their website.

They told us that their positions have already been filled for when they go home and that is not for over a year.  I checked the Church website for camps to find this and there are pages of them with missionary opportunities for most of them.  

It was fun to spend some time with the 10 of them and we invited them to our apartment for a December dinner. 

Today things seemed to begin to fall into place for us being a bit more useful.  On the 1st and 3rd Tuesday evenings the missionaries will have exchanges with the elders.  On the 2nd Tuesday we will have exchanges with the High Priests.  On Thursday evenings all of the Ward missionaries and regualar missionaries are to go out.  They are looking at offering some type of Institute class on Wednesday evenings for parents who drop kids off and others who are interested.  I'd like to teach those classes if they call me.  They are also looking at offering the 12 step program for addiction in Veneta because it is hard to get people into Eugene.  I offered to look into us teaching that.  

We have a set of Chinese elders in our zone who work mostly with students at OU.  We offered to teach an oral language class for them when we talked to the zone leader and he seemed excited about it.  We could get the materials from the China Teachers program because they are all on line now.  That would be fun and exciting for us.  It would be about the same driving time but in the opposite direction from our Ward building.  

I offered that we would be happy to deliver flyers for the Ward Christmas party while we were in Ward Council so we were put on the committee and will probably publish them on Mike's magic printer.  

Life is good.  We love you.  

We Are On A Mission