17-23 January 2021 MSLM Y2K Prediction

 Sunday, January 17^th was a reminder of what a small world it is.  Elder Williams, serving in our Pagedale Branch were we attend, gave the sacrament meeting talk.  He introduced himself as from Hooper, Utah, “like the Hatfields.”  The first counselor in the branch presidency, Luke Shafer, was attending virtually from home with his wife, Rachel, and their newborn daughter.  Hearing the introduction, Luke texted me and said, “you two are from Hooper?! my mom’s from Hooper.”  It turns out that Kim Widdison, Luke’s mom, is a childhood friend of Sis Hatfield.  They attended school together in Hooper.  In fact, they learned to sew together.  And they lost track of each other.  All these years later, Sis Hatfield befriended Rachel, the daughter of the first counselor in the St Louis stake presidency.  Knowing that she had a hard time keeping pregnancies, this past year’s conception and pregnancy was a tender time for the Shafer family.  As the pregnancy progressed, Sis Hatfield decided to dust off her quilting skills and make Baby Shafer a quilt, which we delivered several weeks ago along with one of our family favorite meals.  Frankly, I don’t know how RaDene found time to do it.  And it was quite an effort to find a quilter, but another new friend, Patti Hintze, her self a quilter, helped arrange that.  So now we realized, that Sis Hatfield had sewed a quilt for Kim Widdison Shafer’s granddaughter.

After church, the branch missionaries asked us to step into the relief society room.  They needed help with a section of a video they were making on the virtues of hard work.  Sis Hatfield certainly knows a thing or two about hard work—she may have learned them on a dairy farm, but she has applied them all her life, including in the Missouri St Louis Mission.  We ended the day reading stories to our grandchildren over Zoom (or was it FaceTime?).  It is a bit humorous for me to realize that the events I journaled about today all had their roots in a video event:  virtual sacrament meeting, video recording, and remote story time.

Monday, January 18^th, was my Mother’s birthday.  I love her!  I miss being in her presence, even though I can still hear her tender words from time to time.  I was delighted that she was given video birthday greetings from her great-grandchildren, great-grand daughters more accurately, even though her small great-grandsons stood obediently, if somewhat blankly in the screen, not knowing the words nor how to sing.  Precious. 

At the office, Sis Hatfield continued as chief travel administrator, helping Sis Jarman with her almost incomprehensible South Korea visa application, and helping Sis Rowe thread the needle with her Chilean travel requirements, where the list is long, and the margin of error is small.  Meanwhile, I helped Elder Everton ferry new cars from the Chevrolet dealership over the Missouri in St Charles to the mission office to replace some Toyotas that have reached their 40,000 mile limit.  The church has figured out how to buy cars at a great discount and auction them off at low miles to break even or better!

On Tuesday, January 19^th, Sis Hatfield was awakened by a strange scratching noise no more than about four feet from the floor in the wall of our apartment.  We had heard it a little over the weekend, but this morning, it was pronounced.  Over the months, we have heard pattering over our roof, and other interesting wildlife noises, but never deep into the walls of our apartment.  This morning, I was awakened by Sis Hatfield’s excited playing of her recording, which was quite distinct and so long she had to re-record it to be short enough for transmission to the apartment manager.  We’ll see what comes of this.  At the office, Sis Hatfield received an ominous letter:  AT&T was moving to an exclusively 4G and higher cell phone network.  Any phones with operating systems less than 4G will not work beginning February 18^th.  As a fix, the missionary department says it will be sending T-Mobile SIM cards for missionaries whose phones won’t support 4G.  Our immediate reaction is doubtful.  We have had limited experience with T-Mobile, but its service and responsiveness has been lacking, to put it charitably.  Porting phone numbers between network carriers is not easy, when it works at all, and changing missionary area phone numbers is not only an administrative nightmare, it depresses the work because members and investigators alike can’t “just use the number on the fridge.”  T-Mobile also slows data use for missionaries much more quickly than AT&T, limiting their online connectivity.  And as missionaries move around, there will be a constantly growing infestation of T-Mobile areas as missionaries without proper phones move from area to area.  Hopefully this Y2K deja vu has the same harmless outcome.  It doesn’t feel that way today.

Sis Hatfield did something today she rarely does:  she took some sister missionaries to lunch.  Sis Sampson and Sis Molina, the sister training leaders working in the Weldon Spring (St Charles) area, have long wanted to talk to her about life, and Sis Sampson is going home next transfer.  So while Sis Hatfield shared life hacks, I manned the office phone.  She has a difficult job.  Luckily she came back, so Elder Jacob and I could go through our tedious monthly ritual of loading the rent payments into the system for our 102 missionary apartments.  With that many units, there are some falling off, others being added, rent increases, credits, carried balances, and who knows what else to be managed every month.  Its my job to give Elder Jacob the right information.  It sounds like an Apollo mission control checkoff to launch.  That night we received a call from a young elder sheepishly warning us that Sis Hatfield would soon be getting a disgruntled message from his 2^nd cousin.  Sure enough, she did.  The man was very annoyed, despite the missionary’s apology, that he had sent a referral to the missionaries in the town of the cousin without asking his permission to do so.  The poor young man had engaged his mom’s cousin in some brief email exchanges over the fall, probably believing he had built a relationship of sorts, but he was mistaken about the cousin’s readiness.  He stated emphatically that the elder was deceitful, manipulative, and not fit to be a missionary.  Sis Hatfield and I called the missionary to acknowledge the message and affirm our support for him.  Personally, I took the message as a badge of honor.  We’ll figure out how to respond in the morning. 

Sis Jarman came in at 8 pm feeling good that her South Korea visa application was complete, asking Sis Hatfield to audit the responses.  Working through the details, Sis Hatfield realized that if the Korean consulate did not receive the application in San Francisco tomorrow, Sis Jarman’s negative COVID test would be untimely, and the testing expense and time would be wasted, to say nothing of the extra delays in the submission.  Being the shipper of the office, Sis Hatfield asked me how late the Fed Ex office was open.  I had to respond that it closed at 8 pm, but worse, acceptance of shipments for the day ended at 5 pm.  Reflecting for a moment, I though of all those times I raced to the Salt Lake Airport office of Fed Ex to get the last pickup time for the day, later than any other office.  Did the same thing exist in St Louis?  After some searching, I found an airport Fed Ex office for St Louis, and sure enough, they accepted deliveries for shipment until 9:30 pm.  We raced to finish a shipping label and sent the sisters out the door.  They made it, with 20 minutes to spare.  Whew. 

Wednesday, January 20^th took me to the Parkway 2^nd elders to deliver a birthday package that somehow had not made it to the missionary.  We were on our way south anyway.  Delivering mail is a meaningful part of what the housing team does.  Next we went to the Rockwood 2^nd sisters apartment to replace some reportedly missing blind slats.  Wow, talk about not prepared.  Not only were blind slats missing, but the head rail was broken and not repairable.  And the shower rod wouldn’t stay up, the shower curtain and tub were moldy, the floor lamp was broken, and the entry carpet was badly stained and dirty.  We came to fix one thing, failed, and added a fistful to our list.  Some days are like that.  On our way back, we stopped at the St Louis Hills apartment.  Elder Petrucka had called me rather sheepishly a couple of weeks ago and confessed that before his last transfer to Illinois, he had put a hole in an interior door in St Louis Hills.  I told him I’d take a look.  Today we were in the area.  We went in and the door had two holes in it, chest level.  Apparently, Elder Petrucka had lost his temper and put two fists through the veneered six-panel door.  I’ll try to fix it, but it won’t be easy, with lots of molding relief and grain texture.  We’ll see.  Otherwise, it’ll cost the missionary about $75-100, I estimate.  Late that night we remember that we haven’t made sure the President has the missionary mail to take to his out of town interviews in Cape Girardeau.  We go and office to get it, planning to run down to the mission home early in the morning. 

Thursday, January 21^st started different than we planned.  Instead of simply dropping of the mail at the mission home, Sis Hatfield is going to stay for a couple hours to see Zander off to school so Sis Bell can accompany Pres Bell to Cape Girardeau.  Sis Hatfield is an all purpose mission secretary.  Pres Bell has asked me to prepare an update on COVID regulations so he can provide some new guidance for the missionaries, consistent with Church policy and local regulation.  Last time I looked, both Illinois and Missouri had COVID restrictions that varied by county public health department.  Illinois has now divided its state into regions, ordering regions to implement state health department restrictions based on infection rates.  So my research is a matrix of mission zones, counties, and regions.  And make no mistake about it, many concepts in the restrictions are vague.  Coming up with understandable guidance for the missionaries from a patchwork of regulations will not be easy. 

On Friday, January 22^nd at staff meeting, Pres Bell announced that Bro Charlie Beach, newly baptized one week ago, is too weak to attend church and receive the priesthood.  His health has taken a sharp turn for the worse.  His wife is trying to nurse him back to strength—but it is clear to see that he made the choice to be baptized just in time.  Pres Bell also told us that the church has finally responded that it believes it will be too costly to refit a new office, so we won’t be moving as we thought.  This is a relief and a disappointment.  Our office is shabby, charitably speaking.  And we could’ve used new space with a layout that made better sense.  The designed use of our existing space is dysfunctional.  But moving would have been a major disruption to everyone, and my experience is that it takes months to get things working again.  Darn technology.  Even avoiding that, we still need to prepare for new carpet and paint, which is a daunting task, with all the built-in desks over top of the carpet, industrial shelves stuffed with supplies, and heavily cluttered walls.  Oh, well.  On the subject of phones, Pres Bell asked Sis Hatfield to communicate with missionaries and parents that many phones won’t work on the new 4G+ network.  The mission department’s temporary fix is to change carriers as needed to T-Mobile, but that is a clunky band aid at best.  Sis Hatfield worked until 10 pm preparing a survey for the missionaries to collect data on how many companionships will be in a pickle.  I shared my findings on the patchwork of COVID regulations around the mission.  At least we will be able to hold in person zone conferences in specifically selected stake centers.

After a run to Subway for sandwiches, I headed out with the moving assistants.  We retrieved a carpet cleaner in Shiloh, Illinois from one set of sisters to deliver to another.  Why is it that only sisters request use of the carpet cleaner?  We drove by a place a member is offering to rent to the mission, but it fronts on a very busy state highway and backs onto a corn field.  It doesn’t seem like a good idea, but it will be a bit awkward to tell the member no.  In Belleville, we patched scars in the wall caused by careless use of a recliner, repaired and rehung a laundry closet sliding door, reattached a TP holder, and last, cleaned out the completely overstuffed and hair bound vacuum.  Back in Missouri, we made up for last week’s failure in Rockwood 2^nd and installed a new patio door vertical blind, put up a shower rod and curtain, sprayed the mold, and delivered the carpet cleaner. Take that, you apartment.

Saturday, January 23^rd started with a run (RaDene) and walk (me).  Just as we were meeting back at the apartment, Sis Bell called and invited us to Ducky Donuts.  Somewhat tragically, one of our Assistants to the President has made a belated confession of a moral transgression and is heading home.  We are having a bit of an outing to make a good memory of an otherwise painful time.  This is a fine young man, we will miss him, and we admire that he is taken a difficult but crucial step.  Oh, and those donuts.  They small batch, fresh made, to your order, right in front of you, and to die for.  Another St Louis foodie find.  At the fabric store that afternoon, some people came and introduced themselves.  They were members from Illinois.  They had been eying us from a distance for a while, but finally made their way to us, and we introduced ourselves.  They were relieved.  They had suspected we were a sister missionary and an elder, alone, without our companions.  They were not sure what to do.  A close look at our nametags and my wrinkles cleared things up.  It’s been a long time since anyone worried about Sis Hatfield and I being alone together.   Back at the office, Sis Hatfield’s messages to the incoming and departing missionaries was interrupted by Pres Bell and the APs.  They had the bright idea of passing out 250 bookmarks at zone conferences next week, fashioned with 2021 mission goals.  Simple, right?  We shall see.  That night, it sounded like a giant African rain stick outside.  It was raining ice crystals.  We stared at it out our second story back deck door.  It was magical. 

10-16 January 2021 First Companion Exchange

Sunday, January 10^th.  Primary this morning yielded a special gift to Nana and Papa.  Sis Hatfield showed Abbi a close-up shot of her necklace.  It was a Tree of Life figure.  Nana showed her the tiny jewels it held, each representing a grandchild.  When asked what it represented, without hesitation, Abbi said, “It is the place where people hold onto the rope to get to the fruit.”  I was astonished.  If she has heard the story of the Tree of Life twice in her short life, I’d be surprised.  I’m so impressed how she comprehends and retains the literal and figurative meanings of complex scriptural text.  But it does remind us that the things we say to her sink in, whether that is obvious at the time we say them or not.

I couldn’t help but think about the quantity of video meetings we attended today, beginning at 8 am and ending at 8 pm, spread more or less evenly throughout the day:

Zoom ward council

Zoom primary

Zoom (and live) sacrament meeting

Zoom priesthood meeting (Relief Society meeting for Sis Hatfield)

Zoom JustServe training

Zoom worldwide fireside with Elder and Sister Gong

Monday, January 11^th started off normal enough.  But by midmorning, Pres Bell was asking for the address of the housing assistants.  He gave me some clues that things were not right with them, and specifically with the elder that had joined the companionship at the last transfer, making it a threesome, in order that he might have a positive final six weeks of his service.  Admittedly, it has been a bit awkward.  I chalked it up to the elder’s inward, insular personality and to the sometimes challenging position of having meaningful physical work for four men on a given project.  To try to help the situation, I’ve made it a practice to do less in the field, and frequently send out the three young missionaries by themselves.  But apparently things got to a breaking point.  I texted the President to say that I could take the troubled elder on a long drive to get some work done, just him and me, if that would help.  After a couple of hours, and shortly after noon, the President called and asked if I would come stay with the elder for a couple of hours.  I immediately made arrangements to go.  I have some history with this young elder before this housing assignment stretching back a year or so.  I’m happy to help him in any way I can.  When I reached the apartment, I could see the distress on the elder’s face.  I offered to take the elder shopping for groceries and to lunch.  But my simple offer was a bit too much for the elder, who needed some time to think about shopping and getting lunch.  I backed up, and we just chatted for a bit.  The President was relieved to get back to a dozen other pressing problems.  After the elder seemed a bit more calmed, I renewed my offer to take him shopping, and he agreed.  We made our way to Walmart, and he carefully selected four items:  canned tuna, eggs, corn-based cereal, and almond milk.  The store rejected his missionary support fund card, presumably for insufficient funds.  He got out a Walmart gift card from his wallet, his Christmas gift from family, I assume, and paid the bill.  It is hard to feed yourself on a missionary allowance when you wrestle with significant food sensitivities.  Back in my car, I took another step, and asked if I could take him to lunch at Chipolte.  I already knew he could find something he could eat there.  He agreed, and although I wasn’t particularly hungry, I ate with him.  He devoured his food like a growing young man that has a hard time getting enough calories that work for him. 

For the rest of the afternoon, there were a couple of projects he could help me with, so we went to the office to get some tools and then to the storage unit for supplies.  We worked together to replace a broken leg on a couch and to deliver a replacement study chair to the Wentzville area in Troy, Missouri.  I learned by text that the mission psychiatrist, who unbeknownst to me had seen the elder earlier that day, had prescribed some medication and that Sister Everton had the medicine back at the office.  So we went there, and although the elder remarked on the drive that the medication “would be good,” when we arrived, Sis Everton was faced with a now belligerent patient.  Things became a bit tense, but he was eventually able to take his first dose.  Sis Everton was able to deflect his ill temper and he let me watch him swallow.  It was well into the evening now, and President Bell asked the other housing assistants to stay somewhere else, and I would “go on exchanges” with the young missionary until tomorrow.  We went to my apartment so I could get some things, and while I gathered them up, Sis Hatfield had a conversation that helped the young man feel less alone and misunderstood, sharing her experience and knowledge of mental illness.  I said goodnight to Sis Hatfield.  Back at his apartment, he was emotionally exhausted, and by 9 pm he was heading for bed.  I couldn’t blame him.  It had been a difficult day.

The next morning, the young elder and I got up on time and I tried to follow mission routines with him.  He was a bit confused as to how to start, so I offered to share my 25 minute calisthenics circuit routine that gratefully, is an app on my phone received at the MTC.  Then we ate and started personal and companionship scripture study.  Before getting showered and dressed though, I had to find the cleaning supplies and clean the shower.  It is a truism that there are a few things about most young elders’ apartments that don’t suit my lifestyle, and the cleanliness of the bathroom is on that list.  I’ve cleaned enough missionary bathrooms by now that cleaning another one is not too off-putting.  Standing naked in a grimy, moldy shower is where I draw the line.  We had companion study and prayers, and headed out to the office so I could take care of some pressing office work.  The young elder could hardly hold his eyes open sitting in an office chair while he waited.  I attributed his sleepiness to his new medicine, but who knows for sure. 

When I could put my pencil down, we planned what we could do together the rest of the day.  We first went to do some shopping for the mission.  As we were driving away from the store, the psychiatrist called my phone, trying to reach the elder.  I spoke to both of them briefly, then pulled into a parking lot, handed my phone to the missionary, and sat on my tailgate so doctor and patient could have a private consultation.  By now it was time for lunch and I figured out there was a combination of things that could work at Chic-Fil-A.  As we were finishing our meal sitting in the truck, my phone rang again.  It was the mission psychologist this time.  I turned my phone over again and went for a walk while they had a consultation.  We headed downtown to the Lindell East apartment to repair and rehang some laundry closet doors that had been broken and were precariously leaning against a wall.  The elder was remarkably helpful with this task, and we left feeling pretty good about our efforts.  I headed back towards the office when President Bell called, along with our infield representative and church travel.  The decision was now final to send the young man home, on professional recommendations.  They were discussing flights, for tomorrow morning, and quite unexpectedly, I was being asked to accompany the elder to Salt Lake City pursuant to established protocol.  Of course I agreed, wanting to do whatever I could to help this young man get back to the love and care of his family, including his mom, who is a psychiatric nurse, as I learned.  The question I was asked was whether I would like to stay over and possibly take the opportunity to see my grandkids for one night.  I declined.  It was too hard to say goodbye, and I would feel much too guilty seeing them without Nana.  And so it was done.  We were on a 5:45 am flight tomorrow morning, getting into SLC about 12:15 pm, where I would catch a 1:15 return flight to STL.  Wow, that happened fast.

The young elder had remarked how he had enjoyed barbeque which he had had with his trainer almost two years ago now.  Sis Hatfield and I took him to Sugar Fire, the local barbeque restaurant, where we watched him devour ¾ pound of smoked pork and about a pint of sauce.  I was determined to not send this young man home underfed.  We met Pres Bell back in the office for the final interview and to pick up release papers for the elder and his stake president.  Almost unbelievably, we met another young man at the office who had attempted self harm and whose parents had driven through the night from Utah to pick up their son that very moment.  Let me just say that anyone who aspires to be a mission president has no idea of the magnitude of the difficulty of the call.  I then went with my charge back to the missionary apartment to start packing.  It proved not to be easy for the elder and we didn’t get to companionship prayers and bed until 11 pm.

Wednesday, January 13^th began with a 3:45 am wake up alarm.  We needed to be out the door by 4:45 in order to be at the airport by 5 am, what I figured would be the deadline for a 5:45 flight.  The young elder had difficulty waking and his thinking was not clear.  He fussed with his belongings, packing and repacking a few last things.  I’m afraid his new medication was making him groggy and foggy.  In spite of my urgings, I could not get him out the door until 5 am, and as we pulled away, he said he forgot his medicine in the bathroom.  That retrieved, I raced to the airport in what must have been record time.  But at 5:15 the ticket agent refused to check us in, saying we were too late for our flight.  I explained that we had to be in Salt Lake today and I asked what she could do to rebook our tickets.  It took some time, but she was helpful and found an alternative flight schedule leaving St Louis at 7 am, connecting through Dallas-Ft Worth, and then on to Salt Lake, arriving about 1:30 pm.  Not bad, actually, but I would not make my return flight in SLC to come home that afternoon.  I woke Sis Hatfield texting her about the excitement of the morning and asked her to call church travel to see if they could rebook my return flight, which she started working on immediately.  As we arrived in DFW, I saw that RaDene had a return flight for me already arranged for 6:15 pm, and she had asked Spencer if he would like to meet me at the airport and we could have lunch together.  I’d get home late, but seeing Spencer live would be worth it. 

In DFW, I bought us breakfast, and then we found our gate.  Missionaries returning home from all over the eastern and central US began to congregate.  My companion was feeling noticeably awkward, so I introduced him to a group and I went to another one so he did not need to explain my presence over and over again.  When asked, I simply said I was a housing coordinator on special assignment.  But I was getting mildly concerned that the elder had not been able to connect live with either his mother or his stake president, although he had left messages for both about his coming home and itinerary.  I started to wonder if I would need to ask Spencer to let me use his car to drive to Juab County, where the young man was from.  When we arrived in SLC, I stepped into the new airport for the first time, and was amazed at how much it felt like a modern airport, and how far we had to walk.  Along the way, I asked the elder if we should stop and try to call his mom again, but he said he didn’t think so, he had messaged her that we would be there at 2:30.  What?  We arrived at 1:30 pm.  Now I was worried this handoff would not be smooth, if it happened at all.  As we looked up at the flight information board, I noticed a woman also looking up at the board with an information hostess.  I didn’t pay any attention, and called for the elder to follow me.  At that instant, he recognized the woman was his mother, and the mother recognized her son.  I stood back and watched her give him a long, fierce hug, like only a concerned mother can give.  He melted in his mother’s embrace, no doubt feeling safe and unconditionally loved.  I introduced myself, snapped a picture or two, made sure they had a car, and pretty quickly excused myself, recognizing that the young man was in good hands and there was no need to emphasize his having an escort home.  This young man was a warrior, wounded in the battle for men’s and women’s souls.  He returned home a little early, but with full honor in the eyes of God.

I connected with Spencer, who told me that Elisabeth had loaded Abbi, Ezra, and Millie into the van and was on her way to a park in Sandy, thinking that if they met me part way, we would be able to see each other.  Now that was an unexpected blessing.  We met at the Café Rio in Sandy where I got the chance to get reacquainted with Abbi and Ezra, and really hold little Millie for the first time, coaxing her to look into my eyes.  She leaned away from me until I took off my mask, then she warmed quickly.  What a doll.  After lunch, we went back to the park and we played for an hour and a half.  It was an ideal setting, and the sun was bright and warm even on this January day.  Elisa recommended we go for ice cream at the local parlor.  I can still see Abbi holding a spoon staring nowhere in a food coma after eating her as much of her blue bubble gum ice cream as her small body would tolerate.  We had sweet cream everywhere.  I left a $10 tip on a $15 bill.  It was so worth it.  Spencer was feeling pressure from work, so Elisa agreed to take me back to the airport while Spencer went back to work.  I gave him a big hug goodbye.  After strapping the kids in the van, Millie and Ezra were unconscious almost immediately.  Abbi pouted that she could not bring the ice cream she could not finish.  It was so hard to say goodbye to my posterity again, almost like leaving the first time.  Abbi and Elisa lingered at the curb, waving until I was out of sight.  The stressful beginning of this day turned into such sweetness with the unexpected love of family.  I hugged and kissed them recklessly without a mask.  I couldn’t help myself.  My only regret was that RaDene wasn’t with me.

Thursday, January 14^th was back to work in the Missouri St Louis Mission.  The housing assistants and I headed out for the Champaign zone.  The first hour or so gave us a chance to reflect on what had happened with our departed companion and our respect and fondness for him.  No doubt, his illness had put the companionship at a breaking point for a few days, but we all recognized that the larger purposes of his mission and our associations had been well served.  In Effingham, Illinois we stopped to deliver mail and fix a broken light fixture.  Recognizing that this was a new missionary and his trainer, I mentioned as we were leaving that I would “see” them tomorrow on the new missionary Zoom training.  They looked a bit confused, so I asked if they knew about the training, and they did not.  I gave them some information and they said they would put it in their schedule for tomorrow.  Back in the truck, I told Sis Hatfield about the confusion.  Within minutes, two separate messages came out, one from the assistants to the president notifying all trainers and new missionaries of the meeting tomorrow, and the second from President Bell, transmitting Zoom codes.  Sis Hatfield cleared up any confusion with dispatch, as she so often does.  Then we are off to the City of Champaign to collect two beds, clearing a bedroom of the sisters’ apartment.  We are starting to trend down, albeit very slowly so far.  We have about 12 less missionaries than at our peak.  The bonus was we inadvertently timed our visit to coincide with a cooking baking day for the sisters.  They were delicious.  Then we were off to Danville, also in Illinois, but just barely.  In fact, the Danville Ward boundaries continue into Indiana.  Looking at the map, it looks like someone did some gerrymandering here, because the stake boundaries otherwise coincide with the Illinois-Indiana border.  We fix some blinds in Danville, exchange vacuums, and congratulate the sisters on a neat and clean apartment. 

Then we head the other direction, back towards St Louis.  It would take 3.5 hours of driving if we didn’t have any stops, but we do.  We stopped in Tuscola to take down a tri and secure a recently vacated apartment.  I’ll need to make a recommendation to the President about which apartment to keep and which to let go, because Tuscola won’t support two companionships going forward.  It will be difficult to know what to recommend.  One apartment has a much better layout, central HVAC, and all new appliances.  On the minus side of the ledger, it doesn’t have in-unit washer and dryer hookups, and it has a lingering smoke smell, notwithstanding the fresh paint and new carpet.  The alternative apartment has very small rooms that hardly fit two twin beds, and a single window AC unit in the front room that hardly cools the front room adequately.  As a result, the elders insist on having their beds in the front room.  That makes for a very awkward, small living space.  I’m still trying to weigh out the pros and cons.  Meanwhile, I’ve had the chance to throw away the substantial perishables left by the vacating elders, reducing the risk of a pandemic in that apartment complex.  The elders and I studied the Doctrine & Covenants section 1 on the balance of our trip home to St Louis.  We marveled at structure of the section, which Joseph dictated without preparation.  And had insights about the sometimes misunderstood and troubling “only true and living” passage, where true might mean aligned and moving in a correct course, rather than the opposite of false.

Friday, January 15^th took me back to the airport, but this time, just for a drop off.  Elder Elliott, who is headed back to Sierra Leon, Africa, after spending some COVID time with us here in the Missouri St Louis Mission.  After some difficulties with foreign travel recently, Sis Hatfield has insisted that I take Elder Elliott.  At least I could pay for something, if needed.  But, this departure is about as smooth as an international check-in goes.  The gate agent is competent, and Elder Elliott has his paperwork in order.  I rush back to the office, because New Missionary Training is already in progress, and I’m hoping to make it back in time to make my presentation.  When I walked in, Sis Hatfield had a chair next to her computer tablet ready for me. It was the shortest training meeting ever, at least for me, because about the time I finished, it was over.  Sis Bell brought in lunch, so we were all ready for the meeting to be over.  She has perfected the soft white bread recipe she has taken over from Sis Mahaffey of the mission presidency.  I don’t usually care for soft white bread, but when its fresh, this is pretty much irresistible. 

At the staff meeting in the afternoon, I took too much time retelling the story of the missionary I escorted home this week.  Everyone is interested in the welfare of the missionaries and were grateful to hear that he is safely home.  Sis Hatfield shared interesting statistics:

·       The MSLM welcomed 146 missionaries from foreign assignments, with 3 more coming

·       116 of those are still with us, while 23 have finished their missions and returned home, 7 have returned to their original assignments; 7 more are working on visas

To put the number of specially received missionaries in perspective, 149 missionaries is 88 percent of our pre-COVID total complement of missionaries.  Later that evening, Sis Miller and Sis Jarman came over to our apartment in answer to Sis Hatfield’s message to them.  Sis Jarman had a special package from church travel.  We opened it together to find the papers for her application for a visa to South Korea.  We rejoiced with her.  She has been here since July, having been called to Korea, but not having the opportunity to go.  Maybe that with change soon.  We carefully went over the instructions together, which were daunting.  With Sis Miller’s help, herself a Brazil hopeful, and Sis Hatfield’s oversight, we may finally say goodbye to Sis Jarman.

Saturday, January 16^th was marked by our participation in a video transmission of the baptism of Charles Beach.  It was Sis Hatfield’s first witness of a baptism during our mission.  I’ve seen a couple of others because of my close work with the housing elders.  Bro Beach’s story is remarkable.  He is an instructor at a prestigious Catholic school here in the area.  He has invited missionaries to his classes for years to share information about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his students.  In fact, it has been about 30 years.  And along the way, Bro Beach gained a testimony himself.  More missionaries and mission presidents have met with Bro Beach than any other investigator in the history of the mission, I’m sure.  I cannot say whether his conversion has been rooted in his observation of the fruits of living the gospel in so many young missionaries, presidents, and ultimately, the good members of the Frontenac Ward.  Certainly he has gained a knowledge of the almost irresistible truths of the Book of Mormon.  And he has become a learned student of the Restoration.  I do know that it has been a challenge like few people face, because he has put at risk his professional position, income, reputation, and the acceptance of his family.  In fact, his baptism has been quiet, so as not to engender more wrath than necessary.  On top of that, Bro Beach has become very ill.  A couple of months ago, he told Pres Bell to have him baptized by proxy when he passed on.  Pres Bell strongly counseled against that, and with a bit more invitation of the Spirit, Bro Beach invited Pres Bell to interview him for baptism and a today was set as the day.  Apparently, Bro Beach is eating very little nourishment, as his sickness progresses.  But we saw him enter the font where on Zoom, and in front of current and former missionaries, mission presidents, and ward members, Pres Bell performed that sacred ordinance where Bro Beach made the outward expression of an inner commitment to be a disciple of Christ.  Many prayers of faith have been answered today.

And now, I move from the sublime to the ridiculous.  At conferences of all kinds, I teach the missionaries to both have a house key on their persons whenever they leave their apartments.  It has saved untold numbers of late night trips with back up housing coordinator keys to let the missionaries back in, and worse, costly fees to managers or locksmiths.  Notwithstanding my preachings, I have made my share of those excursions to helped locked out missionaries.  Well, today, Sis Hatfield and I went on a walk to the office where I would pick up my truck I had left there last night and drive home.  She would run home, continuing her exercise.  When I got back to the apartment, I was juggling an armful of stuff to take inside, did not remove my car keys from the ignition, and somehow managed to push the lock.  And so I was locked out.  Rather embarrassed, I called the APs for a ride back to the office to get the spare housing coordinator’s key, this time, to the housing coordinator’s apartment.  And the APs were 20 minutes away, so I had to feel the shame waiting for them.  Oh well, I think it will be a good object lesson for next