Some favorite quotes

The best thing about MLC and transfers is having some time to visit with the missionaries, either during lunchtime or after the meetings when many of them stop by the office. Sister Olsen has a huge candy jar which we keep filled with some good stuff--the kind you confiscate from your kids' trick or treat bags when they aren't looking!

Prior to Sister Olsen's presentation, Pres Wall spoke for a few minutes. He was asking the missionaries if they'd agree to a "no car" day once or twice a month. When he was asked why he said, "You always give 3 reasons as to why.  So his 3 reasons were: 1 - It will help with the monthly mileage allotment. 2 - It will give you the opportunity to find more people to teach because you'll be out among them. 3 - It'll help our waistlines!" Pretty good reasons I think!

In preparing for the presentation, Sister Olsen and I both called Salt Lake for answers to questions we had about filling out the B & C form. Again, I learned something new.  The Church considers the Head of Household as the senior member of the household who is a member. So, if a 15 year old gets baptized and neither parent is a member, the 15 year old is the head of household for membership purposes.  Also, you can enter a preferred name in addition to the legal given name. I just learned about the preferred name and was all over that.  It means that "Mimi" will come up on my records and be used instead of my given name. It actually has to do with being able to find people.  If someone has gone by one name all his/her life but only the given name is on the records, a search (for example, for family history) may not give you what you're looking for because you only know the preferred name.  Did that make sense to anyone but me?

After feeding lunch to the masses we gathered Sister Wall's things together to return to the Mission Home. The Wall's were leaving after the meetings to travel to several more distant locations in the mission to do interviews, attend the Alexandria Stake Conference and to meet a new senior couple who'll be working at Fort Polk.  We took some of the things in the house and coming through the back door was this sign.

I keep forgettting to write this but want to be sure it's included somewhere. Seems like today is as good a time as any. At my sister-in-law's church the blessing for the week that we entered into the MTC was "May you feel the love of God in your heart each day, and may you share that love joyfully with the people in your life."  Jone wrote that she thought it was designed for us. I totally agree! She's been so encouraging about our whole mission experience. It's wonderful to have that kind of support.