The Church Travel Office

As one of my office responsibilities, I maintain contact with the Church Travel Office. They're so good to work with, but I can't imagine doing what they do all day, every day. The office I specifically work with is responsible for the travel arrrangements for 136 missions (I think all in the US and Canada). If missions average 200 missionaries that's over 27,000! They book all the flights to the Provo and Mexico City MTC's, flight from the MTC's to fields of labor and flights home. That just gives me a headache thinking about it. 

About 2 weeks ago I received an email telling us that the travel office would be sending out a monthly newsletter and would like to include special events or miracles that have occurred in our missions. The first newsletter arrived today, and the following is a "mission miracle" from the California Long Beach Mission.

"Last week, one of our elders was out working with his companion riding their bicycles in Long Beach, California. Without warning, the elder’s front wheel struck a curb and he was catapulted onto the sidewalk. He landed face down and couldn’t do much to cushion the fall. At impact, his two front teeth were completely knocked out and he suffered deep abrasions of the face. Almost immediately, a member of the ward in which they served drove up! He asked the elders if they needed help and when he realized the degree of seriousness, he tossed their bikes into his pickup and took them to the nearest hospital. When they arrived at the emergency room, another member was there for them without being warned in the least. He is a doctor specializing in maxilla-facial repair and just happened to be on duty! When the doctor saw the elder he offered immediate treatment. The broken bones of the face were set and two temporary teeth were put into place. When asked how he was feeling a couple of days later by President Tew, he exclaimed that he felt just fine.

"When I heard about the elder’s accident, I actually felt sick. I instantly began praying for him and those who were attending him that he would be well cared for and eventually healed. I can’t begin to describe my joy and happiness when I got the news about his speedy and excellent help. Without the tiniest doubt, I know the Lord watches over and cares for the missionaries. What a blessing to be serving them. Sister Grossnickle – California Long Beach Mission"

The Road to New Iberia

We had a bit of a mix-up with a sister's bike, so Elder L and I took a little drive to New Iberia today to make a bike exchange. This is one of the areas in our mission that we've never been to before, so it was fun to do something completely different. New I is about 80 miles from Baton Rouge, but it's still in the BR Stake!

On our way down we passed through St. Martinville, a little 250 year old city that sits on the Bayou Teche. I thought we were going to take a driving town to see some of the most visited locations, like Evangeline Oak Park. The tree there is named for the heroine of the poem "Evangeline," written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1847. 

The only places we actually stopped were at the bakery for Marc and the cemetery for me. I'm still completely captivated by Louisiana cemeteries. But today I saw something I don't recall ever seeing in any cemetery--in Louisiana or elsewhere.

Every grave faces the same direction except the 2 on the right. I thought all graves  were positioned east to west, with the feet toward the east in anticipation of the Second Coming. Perhaps not. Anyway, that was a first.

Some very old graves in St. Martinville Cemetery

We made the bike exchange with the New Iberia Sisters, Sister Encizo from Texas and Sister Truchard, from Southern Calif.

Love these Sisters, but we sure don't get to see them very often. 

We passed the Atchafalaya Basin to get to New Iberia.  Looks like the spring melt was really early this year!

The water's higher than we've ever seen it--much higher than a month ago when the Blocker's were here. We've been on a swamp tour when the boat couldn't even go through this area because there was almost no water.

Maps for Referrals

After playing catch-up since the Internet returned, it became extremely quiet. We may have had 6 phone calls in 2 days, but I'm not complaining! It's so nice to actually be able to work on a few projects--uninterrupted. Today I decided to redo the maps for each zone. This makes is so much easier to get the referrals sent out. There have been so many changes since I made them a year ago, so I'm hoping it will be helpful for the Sister who'll be taking over for me.

Each sticky tab has a missionary companionship (blue for English and green for Spanish.) Once the referral's address has been mapped I'm able to tell exactly which missionaries live closest so I can text and email the information to them. I'm actually to the point where I don't need to look up most of the missionary addresses, but a year ago this job was an absolute nightmare! I'll keep my fingers crossed that this will be useful for future reference.

More on Pastor Dixon

Every once in awhile in his letters to all the missionaries, President Hansen will include some excerpts of experiences that have happened around the mission. These are just three that he sent recently. The first is a follow-up on a post on March 30 about Pastor Dixon.

"The other cool this this week was teaching Pastor Marilyn Dixon. We taught her the Restoration and committed her to read the Book of Mormon and come to church. She seemed skeptical but agreed. When we tried to see her again, she was in the hospital, so we had little hope of seeing her any time soon. But she'd asked if we knew anyone with a walker she could have, so we found one and left it at her house. And who walked in with it to church on Sunday? Pastor Dixon! She'd read 3 Nephi 11 like we'd asked and loved it. She enjoyed church. She said nobody ever asked how they could help her and the fact that we actually found her a walker meant to much. And she knew Sister M in our branch, and Sister M just started testifying that this is the true church. Pastor Dixon said she'd be coming back with some of her congregation! YES! We were pumped."

Here's part of one more letter:

"We struck up a conversation with the cashier...and he asked us who we were. As we started to explain, he said, 'Oh yeah, the missionaries used to come in and talk with me all the time. For the past few months, y'all have never come up and talked with me. I kept waiting for you, but you never did. I always thought, OK, maybe next time.' I guess this was the next time. That was a bit of a stab to the heart for me. I kid not, I've probably been in that same gas station 10 times since I got here last October and I've never talked with the man. Here he is waiting for us to come and contact him, literally expecting it. And it took this long to do it. It just proved to me that there really are people out there waiting for us to talk with them. Literally, sitting there hoping we go and strike up a conversation."

It appears that this is about a group of students who showed up at Church one Sunday.

Fifteen random people dressed in normal clothes walk in and sit down, so of course we go and talk with them. They were all college students from a college near Dallas Texas studying different cultures and religions. So after Sacrament meeting we brought them all in a room and then for 2 straight hours they just drilled us with questions and what we believe in, what our doctrine is. They had so many great questions! And the whole time they were all taking notes like crazy! But then 1 specific student asked us, "What makes your church so different from every other Christian church?" So I stand up and talk about Joseph Smith. It was so silent in this room, and then I recited the First Vision and, almost with tears in my eyes, I said that is what makes us different. We know that once again God has called a Prophet of God on earth today, and that through Joseph Smith, the fullness of the everlasting gospel was restored, and the priesthood is back on the earth. It was incredible!"

Office Recovery

Today was a seriously busy catch-up day! The Internet completely shut down last Friday after we left the office, but we didn't figure that out until Monday. At first we thought it was just the computers being weird, which they're prone to do. But after rebooting our 2 and checking the office elders' 2, we knew it was serious. Elder Lauper put in a call to AT&T, and after waiting and waiting and waiting, they finally told him they'd be out Tuesday between 8 am and 8 pm. That meant someone had to be in the office all day. I figured that the elders would at least be there in the late afternoon and evening, but they were busy all day with a Zone Conference then had to go an hour away to move elders out of an apartment that's being closed. Around 5 pm Marc called AT&T because no one had come yet, and they told him there'd been a mistake. Someone scheduled us as a residential account, but because we're a large business they'd have to reschedule for Wednesday. What a nightmare. Fortunately we must've been first on the schedule, and we were finally up and running by 10--and about 2 1/2 days behind on everything.

At least Sister Jewett and Sister Roberts stopped by for a few minutes. They were on their way home from a service project. Sister J was excited because she received a letter from Sister Astle, and Sister Roberts is letting me know that she's been sick but is doing better. They didn't even get to watch conference or go to their ZC, because Sister R has been in bed for 5 days.

General Conference Weekend

I must admit that blogging was not on my mind for the past 48 hours. With General Conference on Saturday and Sunday there were more important things to do--like grocery shop and fix food. Our 3 office elders were supposed to come both Sat. and Sun. mornings, but they never made it on Sat. The mission had been asked if we could send some missionaries to assist with the "Color Run" as a service project.

"The Color Run was founded in March 2011 as an event to promote healthiness and happiness by bringing the community together to participate in the "Happiest 5K on the Planet'." Because it was happening in Baton Rouge on Conference weekend, Pres. Hansen asked that the organizers please allow the elders (sisters already had plans) to leave early enough to attend the first session at 11 am. Supposedly that wouldn't be a problem, and the elders would have early assignments and could wear their "missionary attire" rather than P-Day clothes. Needless to say, it didn't quite work out that way, and the elders didn't finish until 1 pm. The event ended at 11. Hm! Something doesn't quite add up here, but that's all I'm going to say. Our 3 elders finally called us when they arrived home, so Marc took cold leftovers (hash brown casserole, fresh fruit and golden raisin buns) to their apartment.

They did join us this morning for conference cake (grandchildren don't let me call it coffee cake anymore), bacon and yogurt parfaits.

But the spiritual feast far surpassed the food! Ten hours of inspired and powerful words of inspiration and counsel gives me a lot to think about and do for the next 6 months.

The First Presidency--Pres. Eyring, Pres. Monson and Pres. Uchtdorf

Elder Bennett, Elder Drollinger and Elder Casillas

Free Speech Alley

For more than 40, Free Speech Alley has been an LSU tradition. With a title like that you can imagine that it's been grounds for controversy--whether it's political, religious view or students' rights. LSU has stood behind the rights of its students by allowing such a place to express all opinions--even though they may not be shared by the majority. They do have some "Rules of Conduct," which is a good thing. Keep it Clean. Don't Threaten or Abuse. Be Truthful. Be Nice. Be Proactive.

Today Sister Barclay, one of the LSU Sisters, and Sister King are covering Free Speech Alley at LSU. Lucky me--they stopped by to pick up a few extra proselyting pamphlets, etc. We actually have a new one that I gave out to all the districts in today's commissary orders called "An Introduction to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." It's a perfect handout with a few paragraphs on the history, basic beliefs and practices, humanitarian service, family life, temples and education.

I forgot to mention that Elder Ryan left yesterday, and we have a new elder in the office--Elder Drollinger. He's one of our Spanish elders and lives in Baton Rouge. but his companion also went home yesterday, so he's joining us for awhile. He actually trained Elder Casillas when he was new in the mission last March. The three of them were just getting ready to load up all the commissary and deliver it to the Denham Springs Stake Center for the missionaries to take home.

Elder Casillas, Elder Bennett and Elder Drollinger

Apparently, the lds.org maps are having some sort of problem lately. I haven't actually contacted anyone in Salt Lake about it, but if things continue like they've been, I may have to. Yesterday I put an address in for somewhere in our mission and it came up with their home ward in Japan! Today I entered a Baton Rouge address and this is what it spit out. Nice, huh?

The next issue is when I don't wait long enough, like more than 3 seconds, to click onto "Map Address" I get the Web site down for maintenance message. Fortunately I can close it, reopen, and it works.