This week has been a busy one for us. Clark spent Wed. – Fri. at 3 zone conferences giving a safety speech and inspecting cars. It’s kind of a funny sight – the missionaries all pull in, open the hoods, the doors and the trunks of the cars and leave their keys in the car waiting for Clark and his helpers.

We had a nice interview with President Dunnigan Tuesday. He is a great leader and exactly obedient to the instructions he gets. Sister Dunnigan is so kind, sweet, and always smiling. It is a blessing for us to be able to serve with them.

Friday night we went with the missionaries to visit Sal, Alice, and Joy again. They were to be baptized today, but they ended up going to New Jersey to see their aunt before she goes home to Africa. We found out that the girls are from Sierra Leone.

They can’t go to school until they get the paperwork worked out with the government so they are pretty isolated. Hopefully soon…. They are amazing and really know the church is true.

We are making friends with a young man in our ward, so we took him to lunch yesterday and to church with us today. Christian is a member but he has a pretty mixed up life and suffers with depression.

One last story from Elder Sinclair at stake conference. He told of a young woman who was learning about the church. Her parents forbade her to have anything in the house related to religion. She couldn’t even have a Book of Mormon. She prayed long and hard that her parents hearts would soften, but they never did. She was so discouraged, but she continued studying with her friends and attending Seminary. After a few months she realized that Heavenly Father had answered her prayers, just not as she had expected. She had been blessed with the ability to memorize scriptures and the things she read. She didn’t have a Book of Mormon at home, but she had her mind filled with scriptures and quotes. I wonder how often I have missed an answer to a prayer because I don’t recognize the way the answer has come.

One answer I do recognize is how we have been blessed with a wonderful family and so many great friends and extended family who have influenced us and inspired us. We love you all!

The Nielsens left Tuesday, so we are officially the head honchos over finance and vehicles. The best part of our week was going with tElder Dansie and Elder Starr to 2 different lessons with 3 sisters (Joy, Alice, and Sal, ages 12-18) and their sister, Beatrice, who is already a member. They are from Liberia and hope to be baptized soon. On Thursday Elder Dansie asked us all to bear a one sentence testimony. It was amazing to hear them speak of their love for their Heavenly Father and what they have learned. Sometimes working in the office can feel like just another job. But then some missionaries will come by and we get to talk to them about what they are doing. They are always so enthusiastic and happy.

We had a fun day on Saturday. We took the train into the city and went to the Reading Terminal market. It is a giant, pretty cool old rail station that has become a farmers’ market with all sorts of places to buy food, as well. We stood in line at Beilers to watch them make donuts and buy some for us. They are Sooooo Good!

Then we went over to the Convention Center and discovered they were having an International Flower Show with people from all over the world competing with their designs. It was amazing! Even Clark liked it. I told him it was for me what an immense boat show would be for him.

We were there quite a while, then we looked around that part of the city a little. There is this impressive Masonic lodge that was pretty cool. We weren’t there at the right time for the tour of the building, but we plan to come back. Looks a lot like a castle…

Saturday night and Sunday we had Stake Conference. All of the speakers were so good, but we also had Elder Paul Sinclair of the Seventies there. He is a masterful storyteller and always had a purpose to the stories he told. One cute one was about James, a little boy in his ward that was examining his new suit while up on the stand during a Primary Program at church. He couldn’t figure out why the sleeves had buttons that didn’t do anything until he noticed the buttonhole on his lapel. When he put the two together, he couldn’t get it unbuttoned! It was time for him to go up to do his part when the little girl next to him noticed his predicament. She just reached up and got the sleeve unbuttoned from his lapel and went on up to do her part. The thing we learned from her was that we should always be slow to judge and quick to help!

It’s hard to believe that we already have a month gone!

Last Sunday we were invited to dinner at Sister Estella’s home with the Nielsens and Elder Miles and Elder Boden and Gabriel, a tenant. She is from Honduras and has lived in the US for 33 years. She is a fireball of energy and loves to talk, though she still has a pretty thick accent.

Elder Bonner and I have been taking over more and more of our responsibilities. The Nielsens were in and out some, so we got to try it on our own. I think we are going to be okay. We had an audit Tuesday that was 4 1/2 hours long, but we passed with flying colors, thanks to Sister Nielsen’s attention to detail. Clark and I made a run to the bank and to the grocery store on our own with my new mission credit card.

Friday was a Mission Leader Conference, so we prepared lunch for the missionaries – ChicK-fil-a, one of their favorites. That night we treated the Nielsens to dinner at Spassos, a really nice restaurant with great food. It is always good to be around the young missionaries. All the girls want hugs and are so happy to see us. Hopefully we can get more involved in helping them outside the office, too.

Saturday we went for a ride up into the Amish Country and did some window shopping at a fun town called Intercourse, PA. They had an area very much like Gardner Village back home.

Today was Fast Sunday. It was interesting – one older man gave a short testimony then sang “I Am a Child of God,” his wife’s favorite song. She is on hospice. A lady bore her testimony and her friends called out to her as she made her way back to her seat. It is very different here, but never dull.

This week was a whirlwind of activity! We were able to train Monday and most of Tuesday, but Tuesday afternoon we went over to the Mission Home to prepare dinner for the 15 missionaries going home. Tuesday was transfer day, so Clark was busy getting cars worked out and putting 6 new cars in service while taking out 6 old ones – Crazy day for him! Wednesday Clark was up at 4 a.m. to get the departing missionaries out to the airport to catch their planes home. He just got back when they called and said that the planes routed through Chicago weren’t able to fly because of all the snow there. So they went back out to bring the 6 of them back to the office. They were so disappointed!

In the meantime, Clark and Elder Nielson made another trip to the airport to pick up the 16 new ones, while Sister Nielson, Sister Mitchell and I fixed dinner for them at the church where our office is. It was a lot quieter than the one the night before. Afterwards, Clark and Elder Nielson made another trip to the airport for the 6 to fly out that night.

Thursday we had to be back to the office at 7 to get breakfast ready for all the new ones. We did some training (Clark in vehicles, Me in finances, along with some other things). Then we just had time to get lunch ready while they met their new companions. It was pretty cool to watch their faces and see the excitement they felt!

Friday was a little quieter, but Clark still had to switch the TIWIs (Teenage Independent Witness Units) in several more cars. They use the tiwi’s to keep track of how the missionaries are driving.

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Yesterday we headed to downtown Philadelphia to go to the temple. It was super busy with the Washington D.C. Temple being closed, but we were able to do a session. We also walked over to the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul – a huge pretty awesome Catholic church. The Franklin Institute surprised us; it’s more of a Children’s Museum, but it had awesome exhibits and a great IMAX movie on engineering,

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We left bright and early Saturday, February 9. Once we got out of Utah this was the scenery pretty much the first 2 days of travel. Pretty flat and boring!

We managed to find a church in Omaha, then the roads were starting to get pretty icy and slushy and we had to wait for over an hour while they cleaned up a wreck. We decided to leave I-80 and drop down to I-70, which proved to be a good thing. They were only having rain. On the 4th day we only had about 4 1/2 hours to go. We were in snow and on bad roads from Pittsburg all the way through the Blue Mountains until we got to the mission office in Philadelphia (Broomall). We were warmly greeted and a couple of elders took us to our apartment and helped us unload. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening unpacking everything.

We were back to the office by 8:30 a.m. the next day so we could participate in Zone Conference. Elder Hamilton from the Area Seventy was there and they had really good meetings. The other 2 office sisters had planned a meal for everyone. That night we went over to President Dunnigan’s home for a nice dinner with all the Senior Missionaries in the mission. Elder and Sister Hamilton were there as well. Again the 2 office sisters, one of whom I will be replacing, had taken care of the meal.

We had 2 days of pretty intense training – Amy on paying bills, etc., and Clark inspecting cars and learning how to keep track of them and the missionaries. (They’ve had 4 accidents in the last 4 weeks; none of them were serious.) Saturday we got the internet set up, did laundry, and went shopping for some curtains for the apartment, etc. Then we went out to dinner for a belated Valentine’s Day.

Today was church closer in to town, the Pennsylvania 1st Ward. It is mostly black families, a lot from Liberia, with a few white families scattered in that attend the University of PA. The missionaries there and all of the members were so friendly and really made us feel welcome. I think we like our ward a lot!

(Sorry about the mass of pictures! Michael set up our blog for us and decided to start with that.)

We survived the MTC! We spent the first week living at the MTC and learning how to be good missionaries from Preach My Gospel. It was challenging, especially when we had to give 3 discussions to others, but we made it through. We were blessed to be able to attend 2 Tuesday night Devotionals. The first one was with Elder Holland and the second one Sister Joy Jones, the general Primary President, spoke to us. Both were exceptional.

The second week we stayed in a hotel but went to the MTC during the day. They taught us a lot about how the office works and the church’s IMOS program (Internet Mission Office System). Amy even learned how to do Excel! We learned a lot that we hope will make it easier when we get to PA.

We came home and worked on our packing Friday then had dinner with the whole family except Julie (stayed home in Vegas while Cam brought the kids up on a quick trip). Wayne was the host and he smoked some awesome ribs and tri-tips. It was pretty hard to tell everyone goodbye. I know we will miss them so much.

We just got set apart.

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