1-9 January 2021 Healed and Sealed

Friday, January 1^st.  Like most holidays in the mission, New Years is a non-event.  We are at the office a bit early in fact, to participate in the mission leadership council, going over JustServe goals for 2021.  The young missionary that came to us from home untested but exposed to COVID has now come down with symptoms.  I worry that this might suggest his case is virulent enough that others he has exposed during travel and since his arrival might be infected.  I hope I’m wrong, and I hope he recovers quickly.  Unfortunately, Mom isn’t leaving the hospital today as she had hoped.  I guess there were too many emergencies taking up too many diagnostic tools, so she will stay the night waiting her turn.  It was good to talk to her though, because she sounds just ornery enough to lead me to believe she is alright.  That is, her sense of hospital discomfort is alive and well, generally a good sign, in my experience. 

Saturday, January 2^nd seemed like a day that was devoted to dealing with COVID concerns.  We had decided to make Sunday dinner for Pres Bell and for his assistants.  We settled on RaDene making her famous lasagna, and me contributing bread.  Lasagna is has plenty of ingredients as it is, Elder Harriman, one of the assistants, has food sensitivities.  So, we substituted turkey for ground beef and sausage, zucchini strips for noodles, find dairy free shredded cheese, and as a ricotta substitute, we are blending raw cashews, vegetable broth, parsley, and some seasonings.  And because it is some effort, we want to make Elder Harriman enough so that it can be more than one meal for him.  It takes me three stores to find what we need.  Meanwhile, I’m urging Pres Bell to let me get him a hotel room for next week.  His family returns from his daughter’s civil wedding in Utah at the Raw Ute Ranch on Monday, and the last thing we want is for him to infect his wife and kids, including the newlyweds, just before the sealing on Friday.  We are all very anxious about whether Pres Bell will turn out to be sick and end up not being able to attend his daughter’s sealing after all the arrangements to bring everyone here to St Louis so he can participate.  Late in the day, Pres Bell passes along a request from our Area Authority, Elder Jeremiah Morgan, whom we admire a great deal, to provide mission baptism statistics by stake for the past five years.  Knowing that Sunday will be full, and that Mondays never have enough time, we head into the office for the evening so Sis Hatfield can do some research and prepare a report.  We are not sure where to look for this information, but before the (long) night is over, Sis Hatfield has found what is wanted and sent it off.

Sunday, January 3^rd begins with some confusion.  We thought today was branch council by zoom meeting.  It turns out, it is next week.  But before we figure that out, we are up and dressed, and ready for the day, but now a good hour and a half before church.  RaDene texts Spencer and confirms that the grandkids are up for an impromptu primary class with Nana and Papa.  Within 30 minutes, Sis Hatfield has a lesson on D&C section 1 ready to go.  It was better than branch council would have been, I believe.  After church, we continue with the lesson we have practiced on the Grands and give it to Annie Stewart.  On our way home, we stopped at the Pagedale elder’s apartment and dropped off a care package.  They are on quarantine this week, the new missionary there having been exposed at transfers.  When we got home to our apartment, we turned our little galley kitchen into a catering center, crafting bread and lasagna for two quarantined households.  We really enjoy service in simple things.  That evening, we hesitated to join a last minute, mission-wide goal setting meeting.  Ten minutes after the meeting began, Sis Hatfield answered a phone call from Dee Marche, one of our ministering sisters.  She sounded awful.  She could hardly speak, she was short of breath, and was almost delirious.  We learned that she had a doctor’s appointment at 9:30 in the morning, but we recognized that in her condition, she would need help getting there.  She would be a danger to herself and others on the road.  Sis Hatfield and I were able to give her some comfort that one or both of us would take her to her appointment.  It was strange that not feeling quite right about joining a mission-wide turned into a chance to minister to the one.

Monday, January 4^th began with a bit of a flurry, because I didn’t realize Sis Marche’s doctor’s appointment was 20 minutes from her home, and I didn’t leave soon enough for a leisurely ride.  While I drove a little crazy myself, Sis Hatfield called Dee and told her she better ask for a little leeway from the doctor’s office.  When I arrived at Dee’s house, I apologized, and said she had adjusted the appointment to 9:45.  But somehow, I couldn’t get the adrenaline down, and continued to drive like James Bond to the medical center.  If Sis Marche wasn’t out of breath before, she was by the time I got her to her appointment.  We arrived by 9:34.  Masked, she took me by the arm and we walked slowly, and with some stops, into the doctor’s office.  The doctor’s office was soon packed, so I left, partly to give my chair up to someone who needed it, and partly to exit the well used air.  I felt as vulnerable to COVID in that doctor’s office as I had felt at anytime during the Pandemic.  Strange.  Later I learned that the phlebotomist poked Dee nine times trying to get a blood sample, without success.  The nurse found me in the building foyer at one point to let me know why the examination was taking so long.  Her heart was struggling, and her limbs were swollen, but after 2.5 hours of exam time, they released her to go home.  I felt sorry for her, with both hands and arms bandaged from the failed IVs.  At least she is now under a doctor’s care.

It was a late start at the office.  My intent for the afternoon is to pay utility bills.  They have been piling up, and with the unreliable mail, I don’t feel comfortable to wait until Elder Jacob gets back.  But I haven’t done this much, so I’m not very efficient.  But the Church mission software is intuitive enough, even if it is a bit clunky.  Elder Everton has been suffering from kidney stones diagnosed last Friday.  The doctor can’t get him on the schedule for a week to perform the procedure to get them out.  He bravely came to the office and asked for a blessing, which me and some young missionaries give to him.  Between Elder Everton, Elder Jacob, and me, we are three for three on senior office missionaries suffering from kidney stones within about 60 days of each other.  Maybe it’s the Mississippi river water.  I’ve heard from the Pres and we have agreed he will need a hotel room for a few nights to quarantine himself from his wife and family until he can be sure about his COVID status.  I booked a room at the local Fairfield Inn, and went over there to check him in.  Then I met him at the mission home to deliver some reports for Sis Hatfield and give him his room keys.  He has been sanitizing the mission home for his family.  I pick up Sis Bell’s car so I can meet her and her boys at the airport at 9 tonight and she can drive home. 

We learned by about 4 pm that Sis Bell’s flight was delayed.  That was okay, because Sis Hatfield and I would then be able to participate in the mission wide prayer to confirm our goal for bringing 328 souls to baptism in 2021.  Interestingly, the stakes in our mission have a a goal of 470 baptisms, and we will support them with all our might, but the mission leadership has felt impressed to set our own goal.  It was a beautiful meeting unitedly talking and praying together about our goal.  The delay kept extending, and I was worried the flight would be cancelled.  Finally, about 11:30 pm it arrived.  We broke the missionary 10:30 lights out deadline tonight.

Tuesday, January 5^th seemed like it would be an uneventful morning.  I answered the mission phone while Sis Hatfield was away from her desk for a moment and it was David Hanley.  We talked, or I should say, I listened, for the next hour and ½.  David is in the Alton, Illinois mental health institution.  He has had legal problems too, related to his condition, I am sure.  Sis Hatfield and I have taken turns trying to lend a sympathetic ear.  He sent us a Christmas card, which was touching.  It sounds as if he has worn out his welcome with many, and at this point has few friends.  It is hard to know what to do for him, but I can always listen.  I’m holding my breath that a $1285 check mailed from Salt Lake arrives to one of our landlords today.  It is getting old arranging to pay rent 10+ days in advance, and then waiting two weeks to see who has not received their check and going through a fire drill to get replacement funds.  Elder Jacob is expected back tomorrow, so I organize bills, receipts, reports, and other papers so he can have some sense of up and down when he gets here. 

Later, we head to O’Fallon, Missouri to pick up a donated couch from some members.  We chat for a bit, and talk about common roots in Utah.  Then it’s off to Lake St Louis to pick up some weight lifting equipment and pull up bars from some fastidious sisters who do not want to deal with the clutter.  We will find elders who want the equipment, for sure.  In exchange, we work on broken lights in their bathroom and hallway.  They should get some sort of prize for neat and clean.  Back in St Louis we put the member couch in the apartment of the Frontenac Traveling Technology Trainers, and dump their couch, which is more bare foam rubber than cloth, into the dumpster.  Back at the office for the evening shift, I reorganize my plans for tomorrow.  We will go to Decatur in the Springfield zone so we can pick up Elder Woodman who needs a ride to St Louis ahead of his return to Ghana, his original mission assignment. 

Wednesday, January 6^th starts with a Zoom workout with President Bell.  That isn’t so unusual.  What is unusual is RaDene joining me.  It can be pretty intense, and potentially a bit public, stretching and straining in front of a large audience of 20 year olds.  Then the housing assistants and I are off to Illinois.  We are going to Decatur, proudly known as the original home of the Chicago Bears.  We first drop off some things for the sisters there, and then head to a restaurant to pick up Elder Woodman, whose companions have brought him down from Rantoul so that we can take him the rest of the way to St Louis.  Elder Woodman is headed back to Ghana, and he could not be more excited.  But first we act like housing elders, going to the Decatur elders’ apartment.  We patch holes, hang doors, examine the kitchen faucet and leak undersink, and maybe most important, take out bags of garbage.  Honestly, with four missionaries in an apartment, I don’t know why reporting a broken sink faucet and drain, and even more simply, taking out the garbage, can elude them all.  Then we drive the 30 minutes to Springfield to patch another wall hole bravely reported by an elder some weeks ago that I have kept on my list for the opportunity to fix when in the area.  We hurry back to St Louis so that Sis Hatfield can help Elder Woodman take the restrictive software of his phone, so that in an emergency, he could connect with someone while traveling over oceans and continents all by himself.  With the similar goal of travel preparation, Sis Everton helps with COVID test reporting for entry into Ghana, and Elder Jacob helps with travel funds. 

But the big news of the day is that President Bell had determined to proactively take a COVID test, and today he learned that he is negative for the virus.  He will be able to return home to his family and best of all, attend his daughter’s temple sealing without reservation.  We are all relieved.  This good news tempers the notice of non-payment of rent from a landlord in the Parkway area.  I investigate, and determine that there are two electronic deposits made by the Church to the landlord’s account that do not show on the landlord’s ledger.  I report my findings to the landlord, trying to be completely polite, but feeling more than a little aggravated. 

Thursday, January 7^th begins with a trip to the airport to check Elder Woodman in for his flights to Ghana.  Things don’t go smoothly.  The ticket agent did not find things with respect to his COVID test to be sufficiently documented.  We reviewed the laboratory website and online reports.  We call Sis Hatfield for support from Church travel.  But with some youthful technical skill, Elder Woodman is able to find another report that proves satisfactory.  Then its back to the office where an online zone conference is already in progress.  Sis Hatfield and I are on the agenda for staff presentations.  She delivers a very effective demonstration on smart phone troubleshooting, narrating as some sisters step through screen displays for all to see.  Pres Melby, the new second counselor in the mission presidency and a thoracic surgeon, has his own presentation where surgery instruments were displayed, discussed, and likened to our being instruments in the Hands of the Lord.  His freshness and enthusiasm are impressive. 

That afternoon, my emails showed that the pay or vacate notice of yesterday was withdrawn, sorry for any inconvenience it may have caused.  The satisfaction was brief.  I was quickly on to another proof, this time of our valid renter’s liability insurance, demanded by another landlord who had somehow missed what I had previously provided.  Almost unbelievably, I received the third notice in two days of nonpayment of rent.  Fortunately, I was able again to quickly show evidence of payment.  This string of aggravations made it almost a pleasure to leave the office with Sis Hatfield and shop for quilting supplies. 

Friday, January 8^th yielded not a single pay or vacate notice.  I therefore retreated to the more mundane, helping my own housing assistants with a dishwasher fix.  That afternoon, RaDene and I were almost lost trying to find St Luke’s Hospital, but after being talked through some turns by the receptionist, we finally arrived.  It was another world class medical facility among scores of others around here.  After a little health care, we picked up the Jacobs at their home and had dinner out at Charra’s, their favorite local Mexican restaurant.  Yes, I wrote that correctly—dinner out at a restaurant with friends.  It has been months since we have done that, and we so enjoyed it.  And we thought about how much we missed it.  We mused that this is not a senior mission, it is a COVID mission.  We’ll need to serve again sometime to have a more expected, traditional senior mission.  Meanwhile, we will never forget our mission “for such a time as this.”  After dinner, we drove together to the mission home where the Bells had a drive by reception set up in the front yard.  That morning, Addison and her new husband were sealed in the St Louis Temple, surrounded by their parents.  COVID restrictions did not permit anyone else.  Honestly, I don’t think I have seen the Bells so joyful.  And to think that just two months ago, they were brokenhearted, almost bitter, hearing that Pres Bell would not be able to attend his daughter’s wedding in Utah.  We have witnessed a miracle of healed hearts.  Sis Hatfield in the front seat, and Elder Jacob in the back seat, held a congratulations sign out the window as we drove by.  I still marvel at the assistance RaDene and her sister Tana were able to offer at just the time it was sorely needed.  My only regret was burning my tongue on the hot chocolate handed to us through the car windows.

27-31 Dec 2020 A Missionary’s Poor Decision

Sunday, Dec 27^th began with an odd greeting at the church door.  A person that we had met last Sunday, thinking he was an investigator, is this week persona non grata at all church properties.  The man apparently believes he has been called of God to start a new church and is looking for a congregation.  He was exploring our branch last week, after being at a different ward the week before.  Our branch Elders quorum president said to be on the look-out, because the man had met with one of our missionaries a lot, and there was concern for the missionary.  When we alerted Pres Bell, he was already up to speed through the stake president.  I guess some crazy stuff really does happen sometimes.  After our sacrament meeting, Sis Hatfield and I made personal visits to our ministering sisters, including one we have lost track of during the COVID period.  We had an address for Kim Maxie that the ward directory lacked.  Unfortunately, Kim was not home, so we left our note and goodies with someone who answered her door.  We need to get back here again.

Monday, December 28^th seemed like our day to dig in on the work the Jacobs could not do while they are with their family in Hawaii.  Sis Hatfield worked on baptism reports, knowing that the year end report would be due soon for a month that is our baptisms high watermark for the year.  I worked on paying utility bills that have been stacking up.  With 101 apartments, and often several utilities providers for each apartment, there are a lot of bills each month, separate from the rent payments.  Later, we pay a visit to the mission home to coordinate with Sis Bell on the dinner tomorrow for the arriving missionaries.  She is leaving for Utah to prepare for her daughter’s New Year’s Day wedding at the Rawson Ranch.  Tana and RaDene have worked together to bless the Bells in that regard.  With Sis Bell out of town for a week, Sis Hatfield will oversee the arrival dinner tomorrow for the 15 or so new missionaries, and she has recruited me.  Three missionaries that were coming are now going directly to Chile which has apparently reopened to missionaries.  One other missionary isn’t coming because his parents are worried about him traveling in a big group in the COVID environment.  He will come in another 10 days or so.  And one missionary won’t be coming because his brother has COVID.  Arrangements are constantly being made and remade. 

Tuesday, December 29^th is the day before transfers.  The forecast is for cold temperatures and freezing rain and snow.  We conspire to ask Pres Bell to allow us to conduct some basic business of the transfer inside a tight semicircle in the building, entering in small groups at one church backdoor, going across the stage, and out the other backdoor.  Pres Bell is a little reluctant to deviate from the regular process, fearing it might make the process longer and less efficient.  But in the end, we are persuasive.  It was aggravating that a December rent check mailed well before Thanksgiving has finally showed up at a manager’s office.  We jumped through many hoops to get replacement funds to the landlord, and today I got a call to pick up the long lost check from Salt Lake.  The mail is not reliable right now, as also evidenced by the mountain of packages we will be taking to transfers tomorrow, many of which are Christmas gifts, no doubt.  One is curiously labeled two day rush delivery, posted December 21^st.  And it has just arrived, eight days later.  This family paid a premium, as the post mark displays, but they clearly did not get the service they paid for.  The housing assistants and I make a trip an hour and a half south to Farmington, Missouri to set up a third bed and desk for the sister that will be moving in tomorrow as a part of the transfers.  The small bedroom is one large bed, but the sisters don’t seem to mind a bit. 

The last large assignment for the day is to join Sis Hatfield and host the arrival dinner at the mission home.  The President and his assistants will take care of the mission business with the new missionaries, Sis Hatfield and I will cook and serve dinner, and then clean up.  It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, because with the 10 person gathering limit, we have split the missionaries so that the arriving sister will eat with the Frontenac sisters where she will spend the night, and a few arriving elders eating with two of the assistants at the APs’ apartment, where they will spend the night.  There are some surprises.  One of the missionaries, who we understood would not be coming because of exposure to COVID from his brother, is actually on the plane with the other missionaries from Salt Lake.  We only accidently learned this because Sis Hatfield called the family to find out when his arrival was being rescheduled to in the future.  The mother said that he was coming on the advice of the MTC and his stake president.  We panicked, and arranged for an elder that had already recovered from COVID to make a 2.5 hour drive into St Louis to be his emergency companion so as not to expose anyone else.  It was a race to get the companion here soon enough because they had only a moment’s notice to get ready and come.  It turned out to be a false alarm, because on his arrival, the new missionary advised he had taken a rapid test, and it was negative.  All was well, and he stayed with his incoming group for the night.  Dinner itself was a success, and we cleaned up the mission home kitchen and headed to the office to finish preparations for transfers. 

Sis Hatfield had promised to keep the parents of the exposed missionary updated, so she gave them a call to say how glad we all were that he had tested negative and that our emergency isolation plans would not be necessary.  Oddly, the mother who answered the phone, confirmed that she had tested negative, but said nothing to confirm her son’s test.  Then the bomb went off.  Ten minutes after Sis Hatfield hung up with the mother, the father called Sis Hatfield back and said, that to his knowledge, their son had not been tested at all.  We were stunned.  But we did get a text into the President who was at this very hour sitting around the table with his new missionaries, including the exposed elder.  Pres Bell took the missionary into his office and had a thorough interview and the young man confessed to his fabrication, saying that he had assumed it would make things simpler for all of us.  On learning the truth, we immediately implemented our emergency isolation plan, bringing in the elder that had come such a distance earlier that evening to pick the exposed elder up at the mission home and bring him to the mission office.  There, I had arranged for a hotel room for the night, and I drove in my own car to check in the isolated companionship.  Consulting with the mission nurse, we made a plan for the missionary to get a test in the morning as soon as possible.  We could hardly believe what had just happened.  We were up until 1 a.m. at the office preparing for the transfer tomorrow. 

On Wednesday, December 30^th we woke up pinching ourselves and holding our breath.  Surely the missionary would test negative—his mother had been negative, so why wouldn’t he?  Sis Hatfield was inspired to take action.  The missionary and the nurse were not making progress on a test, but Sis Hatfield pointed to the urgent need for action to take a test.  And helped make it happen.  We had to know the level of exposure before we sent missionaries out everywhere across the mission at transfers at noon today.  Satisfied we would soon know, we went to transfers in the bitter cold and rain turning to sleet.  We set things up with our modified process, fingers crossed that it would work well enough to justify sticking our necks out to ask President to permit the change.  I counseled the housing assistants and the APs to keep the missionaries distant, but moving so as not to prolong the process.  First, we had new missionary orientation, then the rest of the missionaries came from around the mission to pick up the new missionaries and to move around the mission as the President had assigned.  It continued very cold, but the precipitation turned light.  And the exposed missionary and his companion had checked out of their hotel and needed a place to wait, so I took them to a downstairs room in the Frontenac family history center—while of course maintaining social distance.  Otherwise, transfers went well.  Personally, I had a change.  Pres Bell assigned John Raynor, an missionary with just one transfer left before his release, to join the housing assistant companionship, making a trio.  Elder Raynor has significant food sensitivities, so we had to modify our usual post-transfer lunch from Five-Guys to Chipotles, which could accommodate our needs.  We changed out of our suits, stowed Elder Raynor’s bags at his new apartment, and headed for the office to unload from transfers and start our post-transfer housing work. 

Then, the unimaginable news.  The exposed elder had got his test results, and he was positive for COVID.  We immediately sent them to the Highlands, Columbia area where they will be under quarantine.  The rest of the day was spent by every mission leader developing further isolation plans or implementing them, including plans for everyone that spent the requisite time with the infected elder.  Sis Hatfield and I barely escaped being designated for quarantine, but 27 elders did not, including the assistants to the President and President Bell himself.  The housing assistants and I quickly moved beds around a complex where we had five apartments separating the exposed and unexposed so as to minimized the risk of additional spread.  Elders were called and told to stay away from their apartments until we were done.  We worked on the process until 8 pm.  It was inconvenient for many, and perhaps a bit risky to carry out because after all we had to go into apartments to move things, but it was deemed best to limit further exposure and spread of the virus.  Some unexposed elders barricaded themselves into their bedrooms until separations could be made.  I must confess I felt self-interestedness from those elders, but I could hardly blame them—we all have seen or experienced the personal cost of quarantine. 

Thursday, December 31^st was a continuation of the rearranging we do after a transfer.  We went across the river to Illinois to take down a tri in O’Fallon.  There is an elder over there that for the life of me, I can never tell whether he is telling being serious or pulling my leg.  He has a thick east Texas accent, and is almost always in a cowboy hat.  His family owns Atwood Hat Co., so it isn’t a surprise that he is a hat wearer.  We visited several other apartments, dropping off and picking up phones, mail, and a mis-sent COVID test kit.  Sis Hatfield has a responsibility with phones that is unbelievably difficult.  Missionaries bring phones from home that don’t work with the church’s software.  The missionary department sends phones, including brand new ones, that don’t work.  She recently received a box of 20, and after exasperating trying and trying again, she and the young missionary technology specialists have succeeded in getting 25 percent of them to work.  Why would the church send phones that don’t work?  And if they do “work” by someone’s definition, and our team of experienced users can’t get them to function, then they don’t really work.  While driving in Illinois this afternoon, I got a call from my sister Terri saying that our Mom appears to have had a small stroke.  This morning, she showed symptoms for a brief period, and between Terri and her doctor, they convinced her to go to the ER.  Thankfully, my niece Lilly and brother in law Lynne were in St George and able to facilitate Mom getting to the hospital and helping Dad get there and home.  It looks like Mom will be there for a day or two while doctors try to figure out a cause.  I was a bit worried, but talking to her tonight, I can tell she will be alright.  During the evening, Sis Hatfield and I video chatted with Spencer’s children and helped them review and conclude the Nativity story, a fitting end to the Christmas season.  We don’t know what has sunk in, but because of Sis Hatfield’s efforts, the grandkids have had reinforcement of precious truths from their grandparents.  We worked at the office for a couple more hours to reorganize teaching areas in the mission information systems as a consequence of transfers, prepared for mission leadership conference, and then weakly celebrated the beginning of the New Year.

Most people say good riddance to 2020.  For us, it has been a most amazing experience for us in the Missouri St Louis Mission.

20-26 Dec 2020 Second Christmas in the Mission

Sunday, Dec 20^th Our Christmas sacrament meeting was the Pagedale branch Primary program.  We have precious few Primary children, mostly two multi-children families plus a few single children families.  But the children and their parents did fine work recording talks and songs, and the segments were strung together nicely for the branch members to experience.  A Primary program with no interaction outside the family unit—happy and sad.  So 2020 goes.  Annie Stewart is looking much better today.  She has some of her vigor back after her battle with COVID.  That afternoon we join the Pres and Sis Bell and the office staff in a get to know you video meeting with the missionaries that will be coming next week after Christmas.  These missionaries have the blessing of being with their families for a few more days so as not to disrupt their Christmas.  Then its off to the mission home to gather groceries and to the St Louis stake center to set up for Christmas zone conferences.  Pres and Sis Bell have other commitments, so Sis Hatfield must take the lead.  We have recruited the Frontenac sisters and the housing elders and a few others to help.  We set up tables and chairs, decorate our new gleaming white table clothes with colorful bows and ribbons, set out mail and left over winter clothes for missionaries to claim, and interestingly, boxes of white shirts donated by the temple.  We carve four hams, fuss over the serving line flow, the audio system, tomorrow’s kitchen tasks, and other things.  I am amazed again at Sis Bell’s and Sis Hatfield’s skill at weaving color and beauty into an event, even a Spartan missionary gathering.  It is a lot of work, but it will be fun and rewarding.

Monday, December 21^st starts early to head to Christmas zone conference.  It will be painful this week eating too much and not exercising with our early departures to the stake center.  Nine zones will take turns attend three at a time over the next three days.  There are some great spiritual experiences to look forward to, but for the office staff, today we will stay at our stations behind the scenes while we learn what is working well and what is not, what we will do again, and what we can do better in rounds 2 and 3.  We will serve the same food and have the same list of activities each day.  The menu will be ham, cheesy potatoes, green salad, green beans, jello salad, rolls, and cake.  Oh, and Fitz’s bottled root beer, another delicious St Louis tradition.  Sis Bell has worked hard in the mission home kitchen putting together the potatoes and jello salad, as well as purchasing many of the other items.  Sis Everton and Sis Jacob lead the charge on chopping salad.  I oversee the ham carving, Sisters Mahaffey and Heinze have been recruited from the local ranks to bake rolls.  And Sis Hatfield orchestrates it all.  While she holds down the fort, I dash off to Costco for holiday sheet cakes, the one prepared menu item we allow ourselves.  We seniors, glove and masked, serve the 90 or so missionaries in the cultural hall after the morning’s teachings and presentations in the chapel.  After lunch is served, I dash off to the airport.  Ancsi and Gareth have generously come to spend Christmas week with us, even though we told them they needed to dress like missionaries and be prepared to serve along side us.  They have been working hard for the past two weeks to prepare themselves by staying away from crowds, including their beloved morning workouts.  It is so good to see them.  After cleaning up, resetting tables, various food preparations, including carving 4 more hams (my contribution), we head into the office.  Once there, we are sucked in and cannot leave before 10:30 pm, when we tear ourselves away so as to have some rest for tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 22^nd is Christmas conference, round 2.  Ancsi and Gareth take the morning office duty to receive packages and by afternoon bring them to the missionaries.  I’m afraid I’ve asked a bit to much of them.  Sorting mail for a list of 240+ missionaries into nine groups and bring the correct three sets is not so easy.  They take much longer than I expected, missing most of the afternoon skits.  That’s too bad.  The missionaries are masters at acting caricatures of the office staff and especially Pres Bell.  Workout Wednesday was demonstrated several times, complete with Pres Bell’s character with swollen arms.  One gains insight into the challenges of a missionary watching them make some fun of us, themselves, and their circumstances that would hardly seem rational to someone not of our traditions.  We laugh with gusto.  Then the missionaries divide into three circles and exchange white elephant gifts.  They seem reenergized by the spiritual outpouring and sociality.  They have a hard time saying goodbye and leaving each other for their teaching areas.

Last year, we very nearly had no Christmas dinner because we didn’t think to go shopping until late Christmas eve when the grocery stores were closed.  We made do with what we could find at Walgreens and what the other senior missionaries planned for our shared meal.  This year, we remembered our lesson learned and went shopping for Christmas two days early.  It has been difficult to plan, because our limited cooking capacities make it difficult to want to try to replicate poorly what we are accustomed to eat for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  So, we decide to not try to.  We buy some nontraditional ingredients and so we will not make ourselves homesick over food, or so we hope.

By Wednesday, December 23^rd, we have our Christmas conference lunch procedures sufficiently practiced that we will get things started in the morning and then take an hour or so to go in with the missionaries to soak in some of the spiritual blessings of the gathering.  Pres Bell has a beautiful presentation on the Atonement that is very touching.  One activity involves writing on a piece of paper the biggest sin you have committed, the largest hurt you have suffered, the most painful experience you have had, and the worst thing you have done to hurt someone else.  Then one by one, everyone in the room crumples up their paper and one by one we deposit the crumpled paper in a large vase.  The Pres Bell pours grape juice over the papers in the vase, and explains that the harm, injury, pain, and uncleanliness represented by all of these papers have been expunged, paid for, redeemed, and made whole and clean by our Savior, for each of us, and for everyone that has ever lived, now lives, and will yet live.  It was a powerful object lesson.  Ancsi and Gareth were there to be with us, and Ancsi remarked afterwards that the lesson was the best Christmas present ever.  When all was finally said and done, the Christmas zone conferences were a great success.  It is one of the best events we have been part of on our mission for a lot of reasons.  The Spirit was strong and we feel so much love for the missionaries and had a chance to serve them in our small way. 

And of course there was a big clean up of the church.  There were dishes to do, tables and chairs to put away, counters to disinfect, and floors to vacuum and mop.  Just as I thought we were done, Elder Buck, who was mopping in the bathroom, sheepishly came and found me to say that the bathroom toilet was “destroyed.”  By that he meant, clogged and completely unmentionable.  Bless his heart, he could not get the plunger to clear the problem.  On investigation, I concluded that the clog had been there at least since Monday, our first day, and maybe Sunday, before we came.  Regardless, I could not walk away from the problem and let the mission be blamed.  I put my mad plunger skills to work and busted the clog and scrubbed the porcelain spotless. I could not wash my hands long enough, and I felt like I needed a shower.  I think I just created an episode for “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel.  Yep, I’m the Housing Coordinator and Chief Plumber, Missouri St Louis Mission.

But the day ended better than that.  We had reservations at Garden Glow, the holiday light show at Missouri Botanical Gardens.  It was particularly cold this night, but we bundled up and made sure we knew where the hot chocolate would be served.  The lights were beautiful.  There was so much color and interesting design strung around the trees, shrubs, and garden structures.  The fading, rising, and blinking in time with music was amazing. But the light projection off the face of founder Henry Shaw’s 19^th Century mansion stole the show, in my opinion.  It reminded me of Disney’s almost forgotten Fantasia, except at four story scale. It might surprise you, but after warming up in the car for a while heading towards home, we voted unanimously voted to stop for ice cream at Andy’s.  It is just too good not to share it with St Louis visitors, regardless of the weather.

December 24-25^th.  We had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, spent mostly in the quiet of our apartment with Ancsi and Gareth.  We did a lot of cooking, especially Ancsi, who made Hungarian sour cream infused rolls and poppy seed sweet rolls, many of which we delivered around town to our fellow senior missionaries and the Bells.  We ate too much ourselves.  We exchanged gifts and had calls with our parents, kids, and grandkids, which might have served mostly to make us miss them all.  Yet mixed with the somber realities of being away from family, there is a simpleness and sweetness to Christmas in the mission field that is hard to find anywhere else.

On Saturday, December 26^th we decided to go to the Missouri Museum of History located in Forest Park, St Louis.  Surprisingly, tickets were available the weekend after Christmas.  The tickets are free, but they control the crowd by requiring reservations.  It is a stately, grand building in the Greco-Roman style.  We experienced great presentations on women’s suffrage, the rivers of the region, and of course, St Louis-region history.  Finally, we wended our way downtown to Fitz’s Bottling Company, another St Louis tradition, and had hamburgers and root beer floats.  We tried to sit on the patio, but we were just too cold, so we ate in the car as we took Ancsi and Gareth to the airport for a melancholy goodbye.  We love those kids, and are so grateful 

13-19 Dec 2020 Candy Cane Lane

 

Sunday, Dec 13^th we had a great video Primary with Abbi and Ezra.  Moroni’s lessons on Faith and Charity were planted in their fertile minds.  (The principle of Hope was one too many for our 20 minute lesson.)  It doesn’t always work too smoothly, but today was satisfying to Nana and Papa.  The sisters we visit in the branch were oh, so lucky this week.  Sis Hatfield has the best soft ginger cookie recipe ever, and she made some yesterday to share.  This is when we start putting on the holiday (waistline) spread.  We invited our beautiful missionary sisters from our neighborhood to dinner so that we could say goodbye to Sister Kyree Huffaker.  She was reassigned to Missouri St Louis in May from Korea Busan, and never left this teaching area.  As a consequence, we have come to know and love her well.  Tomorrow, she goes home to Montana.  Her companion, Sister Jarman, had a call to Korea also, but hasn’t made it there yet, arriving in MSLM this summer.  She shed many tears saying goodbye to her first and so far only infield companion, Sis Huffaker.  Like most things, there are a few advantages to our COVID environment.  This time, the entire mission has been invited to join a video fireside to hear the departing missionaries’ testimonies, something that was previously shared in a small group.  Pre-COVID, the senior missionaries were permitted to participate.  Since the pandemic, we have been excluded.  But today, 250 missionaries were strengthened by these stalwart missionary testimonies.

 Monday, December 14^th’s highlight was reading to the grandkids from the Christmas story book we sent to them.  The activity included sipping hot chocolate seated under the tree.  Simple delights are often the best.  Then its back to the office to work late on the mission newsletter.  Sis Hatfield is formatting pictures and I’m editing written testimonies for space and clarity.  It’s a lot of work pulling this together each time, and it is always done in the thick of transfer preparations.  This transfer the process is split, with the missionaries leaving flying out today, in time to be home for Christmas.  The incoming missionaries won’t come until the week after Christmas.  The practical effect is that many temporary arrangements are being made and the transfer will be incomplete for a couple of weeks. 

 Tuesday, December 15^th the housing assistants and I have a few chores.  We go to Fenton, Missouri in the South St Louis zone to set up a third bed, re-hang a bedroom door that has been torn off its hinges, and deliver a newly acquired kitchen table.  Then we are off to the O’Fallon, Illinois zone, where we deliver a bed to the O’Fallon YSA elders, make a spare key where an office copy has been lost, and deliver a few odd things to the Fairmont City Spanish elders.  Then its back to the office for the night shift.  There I learn that Sis Hatfield is very frustrated with missionary cell phones.  We have some very poor coverage in some areas and we have been trying to get help for months for these missionaries.  We are not supposed to make arrangements for WIFI, but have done so a couple of times where the missionaries are helpless to do any work without it.  Salt Lake wants to try some SIM cards from alternative cell signal carriers, but it has been a nightmare enabling and disabling SIM cards in an organized and timely fashion.  Our APs have been dead in the water with no phone connection for a day—an intolerable situation given their responsibilities.  And if that is not enough, I learn that Sis Hatfield’s work into the wee hours last night was all lost and she is has spent the day starting over again.  It is so easy to lose your work in the computer age.  Ugh.

 On Wednesday, December 16^th I am off to the discount department stores.  Yesterday I learned that my regular pillow supplier for newly arriving missionaries is out of stock and availability is uncertain for the foreseeable future.  Alternatives are expensive.  Because it sometimes takes a while to receive ordered pillows, I am on the case with energy because it won’t be that long before 16 new missionaries arrive and now I am worried about pillows.  It turns out my concerns were not justified.  Target had lots of pillows at a great price.  We load the truck up so Elder Buck, sitting in the back seat, can hardly see or move.  We stop at the Overland Park Hardware store to find some odd shelf pegs for some mission office bookshelves.  When I couldn’t find what I needed at the big box hardware stores, a manager at one finally took pity on me and suggested the local Overland Park Hardware store.  Wow, was that a find.  It is a tool hound’s dream, stuffed from floor to ceiling with all manner of gadgets, hardware, and gleaming tools.  And yep, they had a supply of the out of current design shelf pegs.  The mission bookshelf will be saved, and I have a new place to go for the often time strange supplies I need.  After that find, we head downtown to the Lindell East apartment to replace a balky smoke alarm.  While we are there, we find broken bifold doors on the laundry closet.  We take them off completely to examine them and see broken rollers and handles.  I know just the place I can find some replacements for these ancient doors.  For the evening, I join Sis Hatfield back at the office for—wait for it—yes, you guessed it—another late night working on the Harvester newsletter.  It is a night time and weekend project mostly because during the day, there are a hundred other missionary needs that Sis Hatfield must address during missionary waking hours, and often during Salt Lake business hours.  Nighttime is quiet time for working on the Harvester.

 Thursday, December 17^th.  The newsletter is complete.  Hooray!  But not so fast, with the split transfer, we won’t be able to complete it all until the missionaries come after Christmas and the baptisms are known for the month.  Yes, Sis Hatfield will be at it again in a couple of weeks for the second installment that this transfer will require.  We are in need of getting some vacuums fixed.  We brought one in from a sisters’ apartment a week or so ago, and I have been putting off getting it to the shop, mostly because I knew it would be a project for me before hand.  I don’t mind taking in broken vacs that are dirty, but this one was beyond the pale.  The beater bar looked like it had a long haired Persian cat wound around it.  And the dirt collection cup was past full, by two or three times.  I recruited the ever-willing housing elders and we did emergency first aid on this particular vacuum before taking it in.  I would be too embarrassed to take it in without some preliminary effort.  Without the Harvester to work on that night, Sis Hatfield and I take on the project of helping missionaries in Columbia, Missouri figure out where to get their phone repaired.  The screen is badly cracked.  They can’t do the research themselves because of internet site access restrictions, and they probably couldn’t do it anyway because they couldn’t see through the cracks in the screen.  I hope the Yelp reviews turn out to be trustworthy.

 Friday, December 18^th began with a notice that a new owner has purchased the apartment complex in Jacksonville, Illinois.  This is unfortunate timing, because we are scheduled to pay January rent on Monday, and it is a difficult process to get the centralized payables system of the church to approve a new vendor.  But by now I know the drill and draw up the necessary forms and immediately send them off to the buyer.  To my surprise, they have them back by the end of the day so we can submit them to the church.  We will keep our fingers crossed that the church approves the new buyer promptly next week so we can get payment to them on time.  The mail deliveries are enormous, and we spend a good deal of time sorting and organizing for deliveries.  The mailman is arriving later and later in the day lately.  He must be feeling the press of his increased load.  The Bells will be having family guests for Christmas and then for Addie’s wedding in early January.  Sis Bell like a room set up with a king size bed that has been stored for a while in a combination of places, the mission home, and our storage unit.  We loaded up the mattress from storage and set up the large wooden frame to get the room ready for the events of the season.  Afterwards, we head to the elders apartment in the Parkway 2^nd area.  We need to take down an extra bed because an elder has headed off to his original assignment in Africa, and to do something about bathroom mold.  I’ve been putting this off, but today is the day to don my rubber gloves.  My regret was that I didn’t have time to put on some cleaning clothes.  I’ve ruined at least two pair of pants with bleach cleaning missionary apartments, and I’m in danger of that again today.  After scrubbing and bleaching, it looks better, if not perfect.  Some errant maintenance efforts of the past calked over mold so that there is some deep in the shower cracks and crevices, but I left some disinfectant and instructions for additional applications.  We’ll see how it looks in a couple of weeks when I come back to work on blinds that I saw were badly damaged and bring some floor coverings to catch bike tire grime. 

 Later we get some gyros to take to Bells at the mission home so we can plan Christmas zone conferences next week.  There is much to do.  Then we are back to the office to check in a missionary with the airlines departing tomorrow morning, print his boarding pass, and make his treat bag.  The brave young man has an injury that requires surgery and serious rehabilitation, but he sounds determined to get better and return. 

 Saturday, December 19^th was mostly about shopping for Christmas conference food.  We store some at the mission home, and some we leave in the back of the car.  By tomorrow night we will be taking lots of it to the stake center kitchen.  It will be difficult to keep the office open to receive deliveries while we are at conferences Monday through Wednesday.  We recruited some help.  Sister Atkins, a delightful and dependable service missionary will take turns with the housing elders and Ancsi and Gareth to collect mail and then bring it to the St Louis stake center for handing out to the missionaries.

 We decide we needed some Christmas spirit so looked for some light displays we could see.  Some brief research yielded lists, but most seemed to be commercial sites, which wasn’t what I really had in mind.  Instead, I persuade Sis Hatfield to accompany me to Ted Drewes, a long St Louis tradition for frozen custard.  Sis Hatfield and Malory had made it there in July while I watched the grandkids, but the store had been closed shortly afterwards for a long time because of a COVID outbreak.  But now it is my turn.  The frozen custard counter remains popular indeed.  The night was cold, but the line was long.  I knew it would be good when I observed the teenagers with their parents.  It takes a good treat indeed to get a teenager to spend time with parents on a Saturday night.  RaDene had peppermint cream, and I had a turtle, the name for carmel, fudge, and pecans.  Both were delightful.  As we were leaving, we saw a long line of traffic being controlled by police.  We had an idea it might be a Christmas light destination.  We decided to get in line while we figured it out.  Sure enough, the queue was for Candy Cane Lane, rated number three on our must see lights list.  But the line of cars was a mile long and moving very slowly.  We decided to park and walk, which we probably needed to do after rich ice cream anyway.  Candy Cane Lane was a magical few blocks of intense lights on stately Eighteenth Century houses.  The residents have turned it into a street festival, with fire pits ringed with neighbors visiting one another, raising mugs of hot chocolate and beer (we are very near the Budweiser plant).  They raise money from the visiting line of cars for charity and have a great spirit about them.  We walk away thrilled with the luck of finding this gem very near the ice cream stand.