A TRANSFER WE WILL NEVER FORGET!

Two days after Christmas was transfers and 12 new missionaries joined us. This is a transfer that we will never forget! We started at 10:00 am going to the airport to pick up 9 missionaries coming from the Mexico MTC. We got there and only 7 came out...say what? 2 of our missionaries got booted off the flight as they were overbooked and didn't have a seat assignment so they are now coming in at 4:30pm. Then 1 Elder was arriving at 1:30pm from Peru. We had a member picking him up since we were in the middle of transfers with the earlier missionaries. At 3:30pm we get a call saying the member cannot find our Elder. At this point President and I were on our way back to the airport to pick up our 2 Elders arriving at 3:30 from the Provo MTC so we will now take over and try to locate our Elder arriving from Peru. On the way to the airport we find out that one of our Elders has lost his greencard! What do we do? We also found out on the way to the airport that our Elders from Utah actually arrived at 2:30 not 3:30pm...WHAT!!!...OH NO...hopefully they will stay where we pick them up and all will be well.  We get to the airport and yes we find our Utah Elders right away.  We then go to a different terminal to pick up our 2 Elders arriving for the Mexico MTC and well all I can say is the Lord's hand was in all of this because as I was walking up to the area where we wait for the missionaries to come out, there was our Elder from Peru. WE FOUND HIM! We were so happy to find him, called Salt Lake and said all was well! Well the story continues...His luggage was arriving on a different flight and would arrive at 4:30, so if the member had found him they would have left the airport without his luggage and we would have not had the paperwork needed to get his luggage so all ended well.  Its now 5:30pm and yes our 2 Elders from the Mexico MTC arrived without a hitch. As we were walking to the car President gets a phone call and the greencard has been found and its at the airport! After a few hassles of getting the greencard without the Elder present we finally got it. We have 5 Elders, 16 pieces of luggage along with President and I in the Minivan and now on our way back to the Mission Office. President interviews the Elders and we do our training, they meet their trainers and are now in their area ready to start working. It has been a long and exhausting 12 hour day but we are so grateful for this amazing opportunity to serve the Lord!  

Welcome Elders and Hermanas to the beginning of a beautiful experience! We love you!

During these past few weeks we were also blessed to have our daughter Kirsten and Ben and Sadie come for a visit! It is always so wonderful to have family visit and get a taste of what we do everyday and to meet the missionaries whom we love and talk about all the time!