Homecoming Talk Second Try plus link

Well, the waking up in the middle of the night for writing continues!

Here is the second try at preparing a homecoming talk.  At the bottom of the page is a link where you can hear both of our homecoming talks.  Dear One has a soft voice so you may have to fiddle with your volume, but it is worth the effort.  He gave a wonderful inspiring talk.  My talk comes through loud and clear after the hymn. I am sorry I don't know how to cut the mp3 into discreet parts so you could choose what part to hear but there you have it.  A non-professional doing her best.  Maybe my best will improve over time and experience...

We were presented with our missionary plaque at the beginning of Sacrament Meeting.  I am so happy to have this in our home.  It brings glorious memories.

This is the talk I wrote.  Below it is the link to the talk I actually gave.  There is a vast difference as you will see if you want to listen.  The total length of the MP3 is about 45 minutes.

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Talk-

On 1 July 2017, 50 years and one week after I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bob and I received the letter we had been anticipating for our 44 years together.  We were called to serve full-time as missionaries and assigned to the Oregon Portland Mission as office specialists.  We did not really know what that meant but were confident the Heavenly Father would not ask us to do something at which we would fail.

Nineteen days after that letter arrived, we left our home in Thetford with our car filled to the gunwales with the things we thought we would need for the next 18 months. We drove to Concord, NH and were set apart by our stake president then continued on to our first stop in Connecticut.  We drove cross country then spent time with our Utah children, including attending the baptism of one of our granddaughters before arriving at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah where we learned and studied for about two weeks.  There were three other office specialist couples in our group of 60-some senior couples who were training that week.  During the second week at the MTC we received word that Bob was to be Housing Coordinator and I was to be Mission Secretary…whatever those assignments meant!

We soon learned.

As housing coordinator Bob handled everything to do with more than 80 apartments, including such things as moving beds and furniture in and out of second and third floor apartments, signing leases, finding new apartments in specific areas requested by the mission president.  He even opened a vacuum cleaner repair shop in the mission office. At least it seemed that way sometimes.  He had as many as four or five vacuums in the office at one time.  Most of the time the missionary sisters’ long hair had clogged up the roller or filled the hose.  Sometimes the bags were full and the missionaries did not know how empty them.  These are things every young person should learn how to deal with—real life skills!

For myself, the words I said most often every day were:  “Oregon Portland Mission, this is Sister Crossett.”  With those words a myriad of issues came to my attention.  Often these calls were messages for the Housing Coordinator, for the Vehicle Coordinator, or for the Finance Secretary or the Technology Missionary.  Those were easily passed along if those senior missionaries were in the office.  Sometimes I could handle the concern without passing along the message…such as when missionaries wanted to change the designated driver of the mission car.  I just had to write up the change and put it on the Vehicle Coordinator’s desk. A missionary might call to ask if he or she could use a loaner phone or tablet since their phone or tablet had been smashed when “something” had happened to it.  Sometimes the missionary calling was a visa waiter whose monthly money had not come in.  Sometimes there were calls about upcoming baptisms, or needs to change interview schedules.  In our mission, the mission president interviewed every single missionary every single month.  A huge undertaking but one that helped him better help the missionary rise to his or her highest potential as a missionary.

Other frequent calls came from community members who were looking for financial help in one way or another.  They did not know who they were calling, just that the word “mission” was in the phone book.  Since we were unequipped to give out rent money or pay utility bills or other such things, I tried to locate a bishop in geographical area from which the persons were calling as the bishops could possibly help.

Phone calls also came in requesting missionaries to go to local hospitals to give blessings to injured or ill persons, both members of this church and others.  I had to find out which missionary elders were serving in the area where the particular hospital was located.  Sometimes these hospitals were in a different mission.  As mission secretary I always carried my cell phone with me and had it on and charged day and night for emergency calls.  One night there was a call from a person whose relative was stuck in the Mexico City airport because they had been mugged and lost all their money and their ticket home to Oregon.  I had to find the correct mission president in Mexico City to assist this family.  I was able to look up mission presidents in the Church Directory then called the one who sounded the most like an English speaker.  He was not the correct one, but he told me which mission to call.  That new mission president’s name was Alvarez, or something like that.  How much English do you suppose he spoke?!  About as much as I spoke Spanish!  Not so great, but then, miracle of miracles, he asked his wife to get on the telephone.  She spoke perfect English and instantly grasped the problem and promised to take care of it.  And she did.  Often I did not learn the rest of the story with the calls I needed to make, but in this case, she let me know the family had been housed and fed, and were back at the airport waiting for their plane to Oregon.

Other tasks I performed regularly were to create files for incoming missionaries, to send out packets of information about the mission, and welcome letters from the president. I also created a Devotional Calendar to assign office missionaries to prepare a thought for our daily office devotional.  Those devotionals were precious times sharing together.  I also wrote The Oregon Trail, the monthly newsletter of mission doings that all the missionaries received.  One more thing I did every Transfer (every six weeks) was help prepare for the dinner at the mission home for the departing missionaries, and prepare for the incoming missionaries by ordering a bag supper and bedding for them, plus creating a checklist for the other senior missionaries who helped at Transfers so we would not miss an essential task.  May I say that all these things were not done to perfection, for example, for the Devotional Calendar, I often scheduled seniors to give the thoughts on days they were not going to be in the office.  Those days we just had a prayer, or we skipped the devotional.  Not the best days…

Some of the best days in the mission were days when the mission office had visits from the missionaries.  We particularly loved the monthly Mission Leadership Council days because all the zone leaders would come into the office to pick up the supplies their zone needed for the next month.  We got to know them on a more personal level.  So sweet.  Of course not all missionary visits were were fun and games.  Once President handed me paper with a list of questions on it, asked me to duplicate it, and to give it to a companionship that was going to be arriving in the office shortly.  These questions were about they were doing with some of the more basic mission rules.  When I saw it, I got a funny feeling.  When the first missionary came out of the office I could see that the interview had not been a happy one.  After a bit I had the impression I should bring the missionary a glass of water.  Which I did. And then felt I should ask one or two questions.  Which I also did.  By the time the companion returned the first missionary seemed to be on an even keel again.  I have no idea of any specifics of the missionary problem, but do know that the Holy Ghost helped me help that missionary.

Not all phone interactions were happy ones.  The first time a call came in from a very angry man, very angry, I did not know how to handle that man’s problem. I actually did the wrong thing, which I won’t tell you about, but I did learn that it is important to just listen, let the person vent, then assure them that we would do our best not to have the same thing happen again.  Another time, actually two times, a person called about a Little Free Library where missionaries were placing missionary tracts and Books of Mormon.  It turns out that NO religious literature of any denomination is allowed in the Little Free Library.  Once we got the word out to the missionaries to stop doing it, I am confident they did stop.  At least we had not more phone calls about that particular pecadillo.  Our missionaries are so enthusiastic and anxious to serve that sometimes…

I learned many things while serving with Bob as a full time missionary. 

First and foremost, I learned that God, our loving Heavenly Father, is totally aware of each one of us and helps us according to our needs every single day.  We could not have done the work without His strengthening enlightening care.  For example, our first apartment was an upstairs apartment with seventeen stairs, uncovered, with only one railing.  The first winter was a little rugged in that the stairs were sometimes icy and scary.  I never did fall down them, but it was a concern.  Just before our second winter another missionary couple in our apartment complex had to go home for surgery.  We got to move into their ground floor apartment.  What a blessing that was.  Another experience where He blessed me was when I needed to take the train to a store in central Portland to pick up some flags.  I was quite nervous about this trip…when would I get off the train, how would I get to the store, would it be too far to walk, what would the train ride be like?  As it happens, I was prompted to put an app on my phone with Portland street maps, the train schedules and routes,  etc on it.  I had no problems at all on that trip, even though it took me nearly three hours start to finish.  Fortunately there were other missionaries in the office who handled the phones in my absence…and had very few calls to distract them from their own work!

Another thing I learned is that personal goals are such a great idea.  They are even better ideas if we create a plan on how to achieve each of these goals.  I left Vermont with several personal goals.  I worked hard hard hard every day, (we both did) and came home to Vermont with all of these goals in exactly the same place as when we left .  Of course, they were rather selfish goals:  I planned to lose a lot of weight (instead I gained 30 pounds—though by the time we left I had lost twenty of that when I did have a plan!).  I wanted to complete the writing of my culinary memoir and give it to my editor here in the ward so I could send it to a publisher by the end of the mission.  Not done.  Another selfish goal was to learn to do really good watercolor paintings. I did paint a few rather hokey paintings, but not having a plan, and quite frankly, arriving back at the apartment at the end of each day, I was so completely wiped out that I mostly just sat in a chair building up energy to get into bed.

One goal I had that I did accomplish because I had a plan was that every day I read at least one chapter in the holy scriptures.  Often much more.  That made me happy.  Now in the Gospel Library app on our phones there is a Study Plans module where we can create a plan to accomplish our particular scripture study goals.  Such a help.

Part of the planning to succeed in personal goals is to plan to work hard every day, every single moment to accomplish the goals.  No slacking off. No breaks.  I did very well on the eating goals, for a few days but not consistently.  Consistency would have brought a totally different result.  Fast food is a curse.

Another important thing that I learned more completely is that the Holy Ghost helps us will all our needs.  So often I had impressions that I should do something or even say particular words.  When I acted immediately, good things resulted.

For an example, one  Saturday we were at home and I received a call requesting help in giving a blessing.  I discovered that the missionary elders assigned to that hospital were all away at a meeting at that time. I called someone in the local ward but no one was home.  I had the impression that I should keep trying and finally multiple calls later I was able to text back the brother with the number of someone who could assist. A week later I received a text message telling me of the outcome.  This little six-week old boy had had one lung collapsed and only about 1/3 of the other lung functioning.  He had been on a CPAP machine to keep him breathing.  When his uncle texted me, the little baby was alert and laughing and had a healthy pink skin color.  So sweet to hear that.  It made me realize how important it is to listen to the Spirit and act on His promptings even if it is inconvenient. Also how important to report back to people who make requests.

Several times in scripture we read of someone, usually a father or grandfather, giving counsel or blessings to his children and grandchildren before parting.  Because this talk is both a homecoming as well as a farewell talk, I would like to share a few words with you.  Words that I have been trying to live by, my whole life but more specifically this past two years.  Please accept them as words of love, from someone who cares for you very much. When our mission president asked us to share our testimonies in the final zone conference we were in Portland I gave some pretty similar messages to our wonderful missionaries.

1. Be kind always.
2. Work hard every day. Every single day.
3. Keep the commandments of our Father in Heaven. Every one of those commandments is important. He gave them to bless your life.
4. Immerse yourself in the scriptures daily. Not only will you learn scriptures stories and be strengthened by them, you will receive personal revelation on how to run your own lives. 
5. Counsel with the Lord in all your doings (just another way to say, pray often) and He will direct you.
6. Don't eat the "king's food". (Remember Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego). I did eat the king's food. It was a really big mistake. Instead, eat the wonderful foods our Father in Heaven has given us as delineated in Doctrine and Covenants 89, the Word of Wisdom.
7. Don't take another sip of those sugary, and fake sugary, beverages that you love so much. They are poison and will wreck your bodies. Instead, drink clean pure water, also a gift from Heavenly Father.
8. Serve others continually. In every way you can.  And remember, in the ways you can, not how your sister or brother or neighbor serves, but how you can serve.
9. Share your testimony of God’s goodness to others often.
10. Be consistent in doing these things and you will be happy and lifted up at the last day.

I have come to know more certainly that God is our  Heavenly Father, who loves us, and guides us always.

I know that Jesus Christ, His only begotten son, is our savior and redeemer, who gave his life as a ransom for us, that we might become perfected in Him and return to live with them one day.  Abiding by His example will bless our lives and the lives of those around us.

I know that the Holy Ghost will guide us in all things we need.  As we listen to that still small voice and act on the impressions that come to us, we can make a difference for good.

I know that Joseph Smith, the young farm boy, did actually see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in vision, and through him the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth as it had been in the days when Jesus walked the earth himself.

I know that Russel M. Nelson leads and guides the Church today through the direction of Jesus Christ.

I know that one day we can sit down together in their presence in heaven.  I hope we all live on the same street there.

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Homecoming Talk link.  Just click on it and it should take you right to the beginning of our part of the program. I did have sense enough not to record the full program...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sndj2vpc99t2obm/homecoming%20talk%20first%20try.mp3?dl=0