Mission Homecoming

Our mission officially ended on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.  We left Laie in the afternoon for a red-eye flight back to Utah, arriving on Wednesday morning 7:30 am.  We were welcomed by our family and drove from the airport to Mimi's for breakfast.  Nice to be home surrounded by our wonderful children, grandchildren and even a couple of great grandchildren!

While on our mission at the Laie Temple Visitors' Center a total of 161,480 guests visited the Center, nearly 9,000 per month.  Of these, 3,737 asked to have missionaries visit them and share the gospel, a little over 200 per month.  These numbers do not do justice to the overall mission of the VC and the thousands who come and leave with increased respect and attitudes towards the Church.

We were blessed to serve with 48 of the most wonderful sister missionaries you'd ever want to know, plus the District and Zone elders who served in the Laie Zone.  A special privilege was to serve with Elder and Sister Mark Eubank (Bountiful) and with the other Senior Couples: Elder & Sister Jay England from Draper, Elder & Sister Jay Peterson from Logan, Elder & Sister Stephen Tripp from Draper, Elder & Sister Wayne Nysetvold from Salt Lake City, Texas and Canada, and Elder & Sister Keith Crouch from Payson.  Elder Eubank is the Director of the VC and we enjoyed our association with he and Sister Eubank.

On our first Sunday home we were asked to speak in Church and all of our children were there, with spouses and children, except Steve and Karen who were in Escondido for the funeral of Jan Marler, Karen's mom who had died the week before.  We were so happy to see six former sister missionaries from the VC: Sisters Babcock, Bridge, Han, Larsen, Stringer and Smith; also  Elder and Sister Tripp.

We were honored to see President and Sister Stephen Peterson (who live in South Jordan) our former mission president who was released in July.  He now works as an IFR in the Missionary Department.

One of our favorite missionaries at the VC is Sister Graves who struggled with migraine headaches but has a great attitude and winning smile.  Her parents and a brother and sister came and it was nice to get acquainted.





Many have asked us if we are going on another mission, the latest being Dr. David Jack, our physician we saw a few days after returning home.  Donna's answer has been "Asking if we are going on another mission is like asking me if I will have another baby right after giving birth."  We don't honestly know the answer.  What we do know is that we have three grandchildren (out of 25) who are ten years old and we have been away from them five of those ten years, serving in the Church.  We also know that we love serving in the Kingdom, we love the feeling of being a full-time missionary, we love the Spirit we feel when we testify of the gospel and we love seeing lives change.  We also know that there are many opportunities to serve here at home and we hope that our health will allow us to be faithful and active servants for several more years.

Mission & VC Farewell

As is the VC tradition, we were asked to bear our testimonies at Monday morning's Training Meeting.  Afterwards they sang Aloha Oe to us (always a heart-tugging experience).

Don's mini-vacation at Castle Medical Center

Sunday night after we fixed dinner and fed four missionaries who had no dinner appointments, I began to have severe chest pains and had a difficult time breathing.  Elders Nysetvold and Eubank came over and gave me a blessing.  Elder Nysetvold also provided some aspirin and nitroglycerin pills (for later, just in case), and encouraged me to call 911 for a ride to the hospital. I also used one of Donna's asthma inhalers and decided to wait and allow the pills, inhaler and blessing to take effect.  By 10 pm I felt a little better and weathered the night, mostly in our recliner chair.  Here I am at the hospital the next day being tested for a heart attack.  The good news: it wasn't my heart.  Must have been Donna's spaghetti.  By Tuesday I felt 100% better.  I am so thankful for priesthood blessings!

Donna's Referral on her last shift

During my last hour of my last shift Yien Lee came up to the desk and asked me, What place is this?  He had a great big smile and was very interested.  I answered his question and asked if he would like to know more.  He did.  Even before he watched the Laie history video he wanted to know how our church started.  I told him to first watch how it began in Laie then I would tell him more.  We then went to the temple corner and talked about temples thru the ages and a new prophet named Joseph Smith and that we have had 16 prophets and Thomas S. Monson is our prophet now.  Next we went to the Book of Mormona table and he signed up for the missionaries to come and give him a Book of Mormon for free!!!  He was very excited then.  Also showed him God's Plan for His Family and he listened to President Monson in the Prophets area.  He was very interested and I really hope that when he finally gets home to Dallas in April the missionaries will meet with him.  He even had his camera and we took a picture together in front of the Christus.

Donna's Birthday celebrated surrounded by Missionaries

Today began at 4:45 a.m. taking Sister Kaufusi to the airport.  She is on her way home to Tonga by way of Fiji.  Then we stopped for breakfast before driving to the Honolulu Tabernacle for a Mission meeting with Elder Clayton, of the Presidency of the Seventy.

When we arrived for the meeting we were so happy to see four of the VC sisters who are now serving "full pros."  Left to right: Sister Muller, Sister Magno, Sister Watanabe and Sister Graves.

This next picture was taken during the break.  There were about 120 missionaries in attendance.

Twenty of the VC missionaries rode to the meeting in a PCC tram.  The rest drove in our cars. 

On the way home we stopped at McDonald's in Kaneohe for lunch.

By the time we got home later in the afternoon, both of us were worn out and finished Donna' birthday by hanging out with Pizza, root beer and popcorn watching a movie.

Language Class Graduation

Today we held our final English language class for our three Japanese students, Sister Imoto, Sister Wada and Sister Kamada.  Our first language class included Sisters Watanabe (2) and Nishigaki.  We have loved teaching these sisters.  Classes were held on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:00 a.m. in our home.  They were accompanied by their companions: Sisters Largent, Sandoval and Bacani.

Senior Couples have Going-Away Dinner

Tonight we had a delightful and delicious dinner prepared by the other Senior Couples in honor of our completing our mission and returning home.  They are, left to right: Elder Crouch, Don, Elder Eubank, Sister and Elder Nysetvold, Sister Eubank, Donna, and Sister Crouch.