Mission Backup

We have our first assignment! While we await our visas to travel to Taiwan, our mission president has asked us to administer the "EnglishConnect for Missionaries" in the Taiwan Taichung mission. This program exists to help non-English speaking missionaries to learn English, which will bless their lives by "significantly expanding opportunities for education, employment, and service." We'll be continuing the work of Elder Steven and Sister Heidi Hilton of Heber, the current administrators, who finish their mission later this year. We don't actually do any teaching of English as a second language, though. Rather, our role will be to encourage missionaries in their learning, track their progress, and participate in a weekly conversation exercise to help them practice speaking English. We "side-saddled" a practice session with the Hiltons last week, to see how they were doing things. It was fun to meet these young Elders and Sisters and feel their spir...

Our MTC training was held virtually, via Zoom from Sept. 6 - Sept. 18. The first week was "Preach My Gospel" training, with Sister Abernathy and Sister Bashford as our teachers. They did an excellent job, and we were inspired! Our wonderful classmates were Elder Lance and Sister Rosalyn Riddle (New Jersey Morristown), Elder Monte and Sister Jeri Moore and "Oldunger" Todd and "Systir" Rosa Thornley (Iceland Reykjavik ). The Thornleys were already in  Iceland  while we were trained. The second week was specialized training for our specific assignments- Debbie will be the Mission Secretary and I will be the Mission Vehicle Coordinator and Mission Housing Coordinator. About 10 senior couples joined us in receiving this training from a number of teachers including Sister Kemp, Sister Winward, Sister Killian, Brother Reed Brown, and Brother Justin Brown. Elder Lynn and Sister Cindy Turner will be serving with us in Taichung, and Elder Turner and I were tutore...

After receiving our mission calls on April 14, 2020, we were set apart on September 6 by our stake president, Jim Nelson. We will be serving in the Taiwan Taichung Mission. Brand-Spanking New Missionaries Some of our family members joined us for the setting apart. President Nelson is on the left.