It's Official

Well - It's official! The announcements have been made. I am the new Associate Administrator for the Urology Surgery Center of Colorado! What an awesome opportunity! I suppose all this really means is that I'm going to be attending a lot of meetings! (smile) I will be working with some incredible people that I so admire!

Holidays

So... I'm giving in and embracing the whole Christmas festivities - EARLY! I know we still have Thanksgiving next week... but... I'm thinkin' I'm ready to start the celebrations now!

Let me be one of the first to wish you a Very Merry Christmas!!!

From The Best Missionary Ever!

Chelsee's letters continue to amaze me. Wow! She is so on fire and such a great missionary!!! This week's letter just shines with enthusiasm for the work!

Um yeah, it is still in the 80’s in Kingman!!!! I’m loving my life!It has been a really great week!

I have been pretty busy since last week, a lot has happened! Last Friday we left Kingman at 8:10 and drove 2 hours to Henderson, Nevada for a Zone Conference. Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi from the first Quorum of the 70 came and spent the whole day teaching us. I was SO spiritually enlightened. The Zone conference went from 10 (Vegas time) till 5:30 then we drove home and with the time difference, we didn’t get back to our house until 9:47. Let’s just say it was a LONG DAY but it was so good! Elder Kikuchi taught us some better ways to do street contacts and he changed our morning schedule. It used to be as follows: 6:30 wake up, exercise 30 minutes, 7:00 eat, shower, get ready for the day, 8:00 personal study, 9:00 companion study. Now it is: 6:25 wake up, 6:30 begin exercise, 7:00 shower and get ready (that means 5 minute showers each), 7:30 Sacred Grove…. Let me explain this, Elder Kikuchi taught us that every day we can have our own sacred grove experience. We take the time to go into separate rooms and pray out loud. When we pray after exercise and showers we are way more alert and our prayers are much more sincere. It has been really cool so far….. ok back to the schedule…. 7:40 personal study, 30 minutes in the Book of Mormon and 30 minutes in PMG, 8:40 breakfast, 9:00 companionship study, 10:00 get to work!

I have loved the new morning schedule so far! I find that my mornings are much more productive and I have so much more energy throughout the day. Anyway, I don’t know why I just went into detail with all of that except that it has changed the work a lot. Elder Kikuchi promised that by following this schedule and the other things that he taught us, our baptisms would double, triple and even quadruple. We had 76 baptisms for the whole mission in the month of October. Our goal for December is over 100 and by January we hope to have double then triple that amount.

Well folks, we have a baptism on Saturday for Tanya, a 41 year old black woman who is very black! I LOVE HER! As you probably could have guessed, we get along really well! I love black people! She still has a lot of Baptist in her but she has a firm testimony of the gospel and the “Mormon Book.” I love it! Right now she is taking care of her 2 year old grandson, Peace, who is my FAVORITE!! I have officially adopted him as my little brother. I trained him to say, “I wov you Sista Waka.” I am so in love! Haha! I’ll for sure send you pictures of Peace!

Traci and Jarren still haven’t been baptized but we are going to set them again for the 29th. Hopefully things will work out this time. We finally got back into their home and we are on good terms once again. Sister Egan and I went and bought some Riesens and on 50 of them put reasons why we love the Cole Family (Traci, Jarren and Eddie) then put them in a bowl with a sign that said, “Here are 50 “Riesens” why we love you.” Then we delivered them. We were just going to leave them at the door since it was already 9:00 but we really felt like we needed to knock and try to get in. We did and it was so good to talk with them. Um… we didn’t get home until 9:45 but it was so worth it. Don’t worry, we told our Zone Leaders that we were late and they were fine with it!

On Saturday we re-set Aaron Hepner, the 9 year old whose apostate dad wants him to be baptized. Aaron actually re-set himself. Up until that point I think he was only doing it for his dad but now he is totally into it. He came to church on Sunday and will be coming the next couple of weeks as well. It is kinda difficult because he is at his mom’s house every other weekend but he was able to work things out to come to church. He will be getting baptized on December 6th.

Shannon is still getting baptized on the 6th and she is progressing at an unbelievable rate! Interesting situation with her kids though since her husband worships Satan. The kids can’t decide which way to go. We did start teaching 2 of them last week and hopefully they will choose the right side! :)

The work is CRAZY EXCITING! I am loving it so much! Hmmm… have I told you that before??? Haha! Even though I am not technically getting trained anymore, I am still receiving a ton of training from Sister Egan. I love that I get to have that opportunity for an extra 6 weeks. It will help me so much to be an even better missionary. I think everyone should be “trained” for 12 weeks! It has already proved to be so good for me!

I have decided to read the entire Book of Mormon this transfer… anyone want to join?? That means that we have 4 ½ weeks left! Ok, you can have an extra week since I did start last week! It’ll be fun… you should do it… you know you want to!

GO COUGARS!!!!

Awesome! Today was so fun as we went to the BYU vs. Air Force game. It's so fun to feel the energy and excitement of the croud. We were surrounded by Air Force fans but it didn't stop us from dancing and cheering. Well, Mom and Britnee did the dancing part. We were freezing until we all drank our hot chocolate. BYU won, as you can see from the score board. Go Cougars!!

Change

It's 6:00 Saturday morning - a beautiful Colorado sunrise by the way - and my brain is wide awake! Helllloooooo.... it's Saturday! I had every intention of sleeping in but my brain figures since I get up between 4:30 and 5:00 every morning that on Saturday it has to do the same thing. So I finally got up and came to the computer.

This week has produced several changes to my life... and... change is good. To me, change is an onward and upward movement of a great journey. I always learn from change. I always look back on change and see the hand of the Lord in my life as well.

When we moved to Colorado over five years ago, I didn't know what our lives would be like. It has been an incredible opportunity for each of us. I'm so glad we made that decision to jump at the opportunity of moving. As difficult as it was then, we have been blessed a hundredfold since. Colorado is very dear to me and most definitely feels like HOME! I also cannot believe the opportunities that have come into my life with this move.

I have been serving as the Stake Relief Society President for four and a half years. Our stake was created in March of 2004 and I've been in the Stake RS ever since. I have loved every minute and I can say that I have truly given the calling my all. I have learned so very much and I've been blessed with a myriad of blessings that are treasures to my heart.

Gyle was called as Bishop of our ward in August this year. I have known since then that I would be released from my stake calling. Our stake President told me that being a Bishop's Wife is a huge undertaking in itself. However, he asked that I continue in my calling until they could find a replacement.

Last week during Stake Conference the change was made. I have to be honest - I am saddened that I will lose the association I've had with so many sisters in our stake, but I am totally at peace with this change. It has not been hard or difficult to turn my things over to Cathy, (I love Cathy and she will continue to care for Relief Society in the best way!) ...nor has it been heartbreaking in any way. It just feel right!

Along with the change in Relief Society, I was also informed that my position at work will be changing. It will be announced to the staff this week that I will be the new Associate Administrator of our Surgery Center. Wow! Again, this is another growth experience that I consider part of the Lord's hand guiding me. I am working with one of the most successful medical contract management companies in the country - Med Exec. I am associating with incredible people who I admire and love. Sometimes it seems unreal to me - I'm just a simple "Mormon Mom" who dedicated the past 27 years to raising kids and doing PTA and community involvement - and now - I cannot believe where I'm at and what's happening in my life.

So... I begin a new chapter in my journey. I will miss Relief Society but I'm OK with it all and I'm looking forward to seeing what this new work opportunity brings my way.

New Chelsee Update

Here's some tidbits from Chelsee's most recent letter dated November 13th... It's so wonderful to hear that she is still loving every minute of missionary service. She's now experienced a type of sadness that she's never felt before - what a great opportunity for her to learn what true love and service are all about. She's such a GREAT missionary!!!!

Can you believe I have been on my mission for 2 months and 3 days now??? I can’t! Time is flying by far too fast! Well, I just thought I would let you know that I am still in Kingman! Phew! Transfers were this past Tuesday and luckily Sister Egan didn’t get transferred either! It is so good to know that I get to have her for another 6 weeks! Our next transfers are on Dec. 23rd. Sister Egan is for sure getting transferred then because she will have been in Kingman for 7 ½ months and that is the longest they will keep anyone in an area. Good news though… I will stay here! They won’t DT (double transfer) us out of Kingman because they just sent sisters to our area 6 months ago and they aren’t going to replace us with Elders for a while.

So, it is kinda funny though because next transfer, I will have been in Kingman the longest. They will be DTing the Elders and the other Sisters! So, my 3 months of experience here will be quite valued! Haha!

Oki Dokie Artichokies! So you know how Traci and Jarren had their baptism last week…. Well, we went to do her interview with the Elders and they found out that she had broken the Word of Wisdom that day and she would have to wait a week for her baptism. We haven’t been able to get a hold of her since. I just keep praying that everything will work out. She would be a great CTR 8 primary teacher one day! We were heart broken for Jarren because he is So ready but Traci wants him to get baptized with her. Let’s just say that Sister Egan and I had quite a few tears last Friday. It is interesting how much it hurts when things don’t work out. The hurt is something I haven’t really ever felt before though. It was like I could feel Traci and Jarren’s pain. I don’t know how to describe it but it confirmed to me the power of my calling. Wow! But, it will happen one day, I know it will.

On the bright side, we still have a lot of baptisms coming up! Woohoo! Um… Tomorrow we are spending the day in Vegas for Zone Conference! I am excited but I hate that it is a 4 hour round trip. That is 4 hours that we could be spending to teach and help people. Hopefully we can get a lot of administrative work done on the road.

Oh PS, I found out on Tuesday about Obama! I was just a few hours short of making it a week without knowing who the President was!

Chelsee Mission Update

Here's some excerpts from Chelsee's most recent letter. It's so wonderful to feel her spirit and to read her excitement! Way to be a super missionary Bones!!!

November 6, 2008
"First of all, I would like to state that I have successfully gone over 36 hours without knowing who our next President is! Sister Egan and I are in a race to see how long we can go without knowing. I know, that is pretty silly but you’ve got to come up with crazy things like that to make your days even more interesting (As if they weren’t interesting enough already!) haha! Shopping today might make it a little difficult with newspapers and magazines but we really want to get through today without knowing as well!
"Second of all, did you know that yellow sticky note pads and whites don’t mix to well in the washer??? We accidently washed a yellow stick note pad with our whites on Monday and it took 2 ½ boxes of dye removal to get the bright yellow blotches out. Now, you would never know that they were even stained. It was quite the experience. I thought I was going to have to ask for some new white shirts!
"Third of all, Holy cow, this week has been so good! We set 3 people this week for baptism. One is a woman who called us 2 weeks ago and wanted us to come and teach her. Her Brother is a member and she wants to learn about what he has. She has fully accepted everything we have taught her and is so excited and ready to get baptized on December 6th. We also set a 9 year old whose dad is less active but wants all of his family to be baptized. We are also working with his older brother who is 17 and hope to have him set for baptism on November 22 as well. The other one is a woman who the Elders had been teaching but she recently moved into our area. We have taken over the lessons and set her for November 15th. It will be a busy next few weeks! We also have 2 baptisms on Saturday, a mother and her 9 year old son. Lots and Lots and Lots of work going on.
"Hello, you would be so proud to see some of the "germy" situations I have gotten myself into. Yuck! I have touched things that I don't even want to know what they were. I have had dogs licking my face, kid’s snot rubbed all over my arms, and many many many other disgusting things. But, I just remind myself that I am doing the Lord’s work and I take a big deep breath and keep going! By the time I get home, I will be ready to be a sanitation worker!
"I can’t believe the environment some of these people live in. It really makes me grateful for a roof over my head, a heater (yes a heater, it is finally getting down to the high 50’s and it is cold), 3 meals to eat every day, shoes, a jacket, money to buy medication, and so much more. I had no idea that so many people lived this way in America. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to experience different cultures in our country and other countries and see so many different ways of living. I think that it has prepared me for what and who I am helping every day. There is a family that we are working with and every morning the mother tells her children to eat as much as they can at school lunch because it is the only meal that they will be getting for the day. That reminds me of my girls in Chicago who would eat as much as they could at camp because that was the only meal that they would be getting for that day. It breaks my heart to see people living that way but my sprits are lifted when I see their smiles and I am so happy when I get to help a family discover spiritual happiness verses temporal happiness in their lives.
"We had a cool experience with one of the families that we had extended a commitment to at a dinner appointment. In fact, I was the one that committed them so it makes me feel really happy! Anyway, I had committed this family to think of one person who they could pray for and ask that their heart would be softened so that Sister Egan and I could meet with them. Their whole family, even their 4 year old son included this person in their individual and family prayers, EVERY DAY! Yesterday while talking to the mom, she told us that the person who they had been praying for accepted their invitation to meet with us. She said that their family has “reaped the rewards of their labors.”
"Transfers are next week and I am praying so hard that I get to stay in Kingman. It sounds like I am going to stay from what the Zone Leaders have hinted. Hopefully Sister Egan is staying too. We both feel like we still have a lot of work to do here. I’ll let you know how it turns out! It is actually kind of funny that I started off here in Kingman because they never send “greenies” here. I have heard that everyone wants to serve in Kingman. Haha! I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to be here and I know that if I get transferred on Tuesday, I will be going where the Lord wants me to go!"