November: Nice 'n Nippy

Week 10  (Nov. 17 - 23)

The main activity for this week has been putting up Christmas decorations at the Visitors Center and the Johnson's Residence.  We have still had a few tours each day during our shift and Elder Ogden has done most of them.  He is an amazing missionary.

The tourists have definitely slowed down with the colder weather.  I don't think we have had as much snow as Utah and everyone comments on the nice Fall weather this year.  However, the morning temperatures and the North wind are positively COLD!


The weeks seem to zoom by with our routine schedule and a few variations.  Here is a run-down of this past week:
     Monday - Family Home Evening group
     Tuesday - Decorated Visitors Center
     Wednesday - Decorated Johnson's house
     Thursday - Took a road trip with Sister Shefchick. 

This is Mac Niel's account:
Thursday morning we were up early as we were asked to accompany Sister (Judy) Shefchick as she did inspections for missionary apartments.  Rhonda went into the apartments with her and said that some of them were pretty bad.  She didn’t think missionaries should be living in such bad places.  I guess I was just along for the ride.  We went to apartments in West Rutland and Rutland VT (plus supplies to the Chapel), Crown Point New York, and Middlebury VT.  Also made a little backtrack to a WalMart to buy a few supplies (mops, garbage cans, blinds, etc) for missionaries along the way.  I was really impressed with the Liberal Arts College in Middlebury.  They really had some fancy buildings and quite a few of them.   Finally got back to the apartment about 5:30 (well after dark).  Judy tried to show us a new Joseph Smith Memorial Sign she was responsible for getting erected along  Interstate 89 but it was too dark to really see it good.  
 

Sister Shefchick has worked over a year for this sign

 

Elder Simpkin brought investigators to see JSBM

It was nice to have the sun shinning

I still love to see the glowing reflection on the Monument

November: Busy & Bright

Week 9 (Nov. 10-16)

The sun was bright enough to get the brilliant reflection

The sun has been shinning again this week which seems to brighten up each day substantially.  The high temperature at the first of the week was in the forties but reached into the fifties by the week-end!

After Church on Sunday, we hurried to the Memorial as we were the only ones to work today.  We had several visitors.  One of them noticed my name tag and said she was related to some Ogdens.  She said they were from Delta.  I said they must be some of Marvin’s family.  She said, do you know Uncle Marvin?  We then had a little take about our relatives.    -  I had one couple with a “Kanosh Fire” sweatshirt.  I ask where they were from?  He ask me to guess where they were from so I said Kanosh is about 15 miles from Fillmore and he was really amazed.   He was a non-member but had been to all the Church History spots except Nauvoo and they were planning to go there soon.  We talked about why he wasn’t a member but didn’t really have a good answer.      -  Some groups are hard to talk too.  Two young member families with 9 kids between them came at closing but with all the kids running around, about all they could do besides chase kids was to look at the Monument.  I felt bad I didn’t have a chance to tell them the history behind the Monument.
 

Elder Gifford Nielsen, Sis. Nielsen, Sis. Ogden, Elder Ogden

This isn't a prayer, just caught Elder Nielsen looking down

With Presiden & Sister Stoker

We had the late shift Tuesday so just stayed at the apartment until time to go.  Not a lot of visitors but had several cars drive through.  Finally, I walked out to meet one of the cars and the man hollered and ask if we were open?  I told him sure and he said the sign by the building said “closed”.  When checking it out, I was told it was too frozen for Elder Osborne to change from closed to Open.   No one said anything so I just assumed it was changed.  We soon took care of that problem. Even with the lack of many visitors, we were pretty much busy as we were getting ready for a Senior Missionary Couples dinner prior to Zone Conference tomorrow.  Osborne’s had arranged for a guy in their ward to come cook an Italian dinner for the group.  I think there were 14 couples including the mission office staff, Mission President Stoker and Elder Gifford Nielsen of the 70.  It was a nice dinner and Rhonda and I ended up setting at the table with Elder Nielsen and his wife.  We enjoyed our time visiting with them.  He could remember seeing me from doing BYU basketball games so we had a good discussion about BYU athletics.  It was a very enjoyable evening!     
  

Elder Dyches & Elder Ogden

Nielsens & Pettingills (Mission office couple)

Elder Skidmore, Chef & wife, Sis. Skidmore

The chef and his wife did bring in a superb Italian dinner!

Nielsens & Johnsons

With Elder Simpkins

Wednesday was the Mission Zone conference at the South Royalton Chapel (our regular Church building).  We went before the meeting and saw some of the missionaries.  We finally got to meet Elder Simkins, Alena’s cousin.  He goes home this next transfer in December so we were looking for him in particular.  We felt bad we couldn’t stay for the meeting but we were on the schedule to open the Memorial so we had to leave.  We talked to Pres. Stoker on our way out so I guess we did the best we could.  Pres. Stoker said he would get us a copy of the material they were discussing so we felt better about it.  We also went back after our morning shift so we caught all of the afternoon Zone Conference.  Elder Nielsen was so dynamic; his talks were very powerful, inspiring, and up-lifting!

On our day off (Thursday), we made an appointment in Norwich, VT to get our car serviced--oil changed.  We also did our usual grocery shopping for the week.

November: Cool and Cloudy

Week 8  (Nov. 3-9)

It has been a slower week at the Visitors Center but the FM workers have been busy putting up Christmas lights--rain or shine.

Wednesday afternoon was actually a beautiful day.  We worked in the morning and then decided to drive to Rutland to see if we could get our car serviced and do a few other errands.  The Subaru place was behind schedule and so they told us they couldn't get to our car today.  We also struck out on some of the other errands, so the trip was more-or-less a wild goose chase.  But it was a beautiful day for a drive!  We drove into one golf course to see if they allowed 9-hole play but they had a sign on the door that said:  "See you next season"!  I guess they knew what they were doing because Thursday it rained and Friday it snowed.

 Saturday morning we were back in the groove with visitors galore.  We had a group of Spanish-speaking missionaries from Lawrence, MA bring a crowd of people with a number of investigators.  We were already giving a tour with 12 people when they came and while they were here we had two more groups of 8.  

 

One of the young Elders had to translate the things we said for the Spanish-speaking tour.

 Saturday evening we had a ward talent night and dinner.  It was a nice experience.  I especially enjoyed Elder & Sister Shefchicks number:  "There's a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza"
It absolutely fits their personalities!