Cuties

Elder Stafford

I hope things are going well in post-graduaton life.

I had a great birthday. Sisters A and E (Sister missionaries in Morganton) called me in the morning to wish me a happy birthday. Sister Craven (President Craven's wife) also called me to wish me a happy birthday. My birthday was filled with miracles. We've met with an investigator for the first time in two months, we've found a new person to teach at chick fila; we are teaching him through Facebook. The Brletich family organized an ice cream social that evening. I really didn't think about myself at all on my birthday and just focused on helping other people come closer to Christ. The Penningtons (Brother Pennington is the ward mission leader, and he is a fantastic mission leader) also gave me a chocolate cake.

Yesterday, I went to the best testimony meeting I've ever been to. I went up to bear my testimony and challenge members to do missionary work. We have teams with members every Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the bishop felt that the members can do better at helping us.

On Saturday, we've met with a couple who are investigators by the name of R. W. and R. T. They both love us and appreciate the visits. They have a desire to come to church, but they both have health problems. He has severe arthritis, but he continues to serve people by serving in resting homes. He owns two resting homes in Morganton. She is bed ridden. She has seizures; it's not epilepsy seizures, it's a seizure that locks up her whole body and she describes it as a full body cramp, and he has to be there to give her a shot when that happens. She said it was the most painful thing she ever endured. We promised them that we will keep visiting, even after they get baptized.

Here are a couple of pictures that my trainer took. They day before transfers, we went zip-lining in Lenoir as a district activity. A member in Lenoir owns a zip-lining course and he let us use it for the day. Out of all the name tags in the picture, Elder Jackman, Elder Shumway, and Sister Ekins got transferred. Elder Morrow is the district leader and is training Elder Nelson. Sister Rendon is training Sister Dahle (she is from Sherwood, Oregon!!)

Today we are going to Lenoir for a Zone activity, we are doing the same thing as the last Zone activity.

I hope you have a great week.

From, Elder Stafford

Elder Stafford

I did get the package a couple of days ago. Thank you very much. I love everything about the package, especially the minionary twinkies and the yoda t-shirt.

I'm getting along pretty well with Elder L. We didn't have to feed ourselves for dinner for the entire week.

It was great that you got to meet Bishop and Sister Austin. They told me all about the visit.

Thanks again for the package!! :D

Elder Stafford

Graduation...Finally!!!!

Elder Stafford

 I am still in Morganton, but Elder J will be transferred tomorrow. Normally, I won't know who my new companion is, but I found out who he is. His name is Elder Lyman and no it's not Alex Lyman. Yesterday we went to a family members house named the Wheelers. Brother Wheeler gave both Elder J and myself a priesthood blessing. If missionaries eat at the Wheelers, Sister Wheeler won't let them leave unless they bring some food from the pantry.

Right now, we have six people with baptismal dates. When I first came to Morganton, we had almost nobody to teach, but now we filled our teaching pool and have six people with baptismal dates.

I sent Annalina and Joseph with a letter and a couple of drawings that they'll like.

I hope you get to meet Bishop Austin, because I gave him my memory card. Bishop Austin told me that BYU Idaho was flooded. I hope the school is still okay. And congrats for graduating!

From, Elder Stafford

Internship Fun

Friday morning we took Richard to the airport. He was flying to Denver, then on to North Dakota for several weeks of training for his new job.  The kids were feeling a bit blue at the thought of their Daddy being gone. So I took them to work with me!  We went to the new building and played with some of the residents.  We brought puzzles and got a couple of the men to come out and join us putting them together.  First Harold arrived and Annalina and Shauntelle (my intern partner and dear friend) helped him with that.  Joseph and I walked down to Aden's room and asked if he wanted to join us. He said no, but wanted to show Joseph a bunch of his fun photos.  Giant fish he caught up in Alaska and pictures of him on his quad just a few months ago.  After that we headed back to the dining room and before long Aden came with some more of his puzzles and Joseph and I worked on it with him.  Both men got a little tired, but neither wanted to go back to their rooms.

I am so amazed by my children.  They were both so excited to go with me.  They were both patient and kind to these two elderly men.  Harold repeats himself a lot, but Annalina played along with him each time.  And Joseph was so sweet. He would pick up a puzzle piece and point to a certain area and say, "I think this might go somewhere over there" and then he'd hand it to Aden.  Aden would then find where it belonged.  At one point Joseph went to the piano and played a couple of songs he knows. We were there for about three hours and the kids loved it. When we got home they asked when we could go again. 

Today was my last day as an intern.  They were getting ready to play bingo in the old building and I went to the new building to get Harold and Aden and take them over to play.  Harold has Alzheimer's, and was very concerned about the time and about his daughter coming to visit him. He said he didn't want to go, but Hillary, the manager, asked me to see if I could get him to go. He doesn't get out very often.  This sweet man reminds me so much of my father. I asked if he wanted to go and he said no. I told him it would be fun and he asked if it was just elderly folks who would be there.  I told him mostly, but I was going to be there too.  He then told me that if I was going, he would go too.  So I walked them over and they had a great time.  Harold won several games, but was very concerned about the time and missing his daughter if she should come by.  I just reassured him each time that she knew where we were and would come find him. 

Although my internship was not all I had hoped it would be, I did enjoy getting to know some of the sweet residents.  I will miss them and will do my best to get over to visit them from time to time!

Elder Stafford

Here are some pictures that my companion took. I still can't figure out how to upload photos from my camera, so I'll just send my SD card when I get the chance.

A couple of the pictures are most of our district in a Zone activity at Bo's in Lenoir. One picture is of our whole district, Elder D and Elder S (the missionaries on the far right) are the Zone leaders.  The rest of the pictures are of us with a part member family.

L is an investigator that the past couple of missionaries have been working with. We are very careful with him because he can get offensive when we give him a baptismal date. He knows he wants to be baptized, but we think what's holding him back is that he has a step-son on a mission right now and we think that L is waiting for him to get home so that his step-son can baptize him. In the mean time, we are developing friendships with him.

One of the pictures you see is of Elder J and myself standing in front of the oldest church in the U.S.  Anyway, because of how humid it gets during the day, I would consider NC being extremely hot. We do have AC in our apartment.

We are working with two gentlemen by the names of T and J. We found T through tracting, he was really interested in what we believe. T is a Pentecostal, he does have a couple of issues with the religion such as they believe in a trinity. We met with T again last Friday and that's where we met his friend J. We taught them the Restoration. T asked if he could have a Book of Mormon because he would love to read it, he also wanted to come to church with us to see what it was like. T did not come to church yesterday, but hopefully we will see him at church this Sunday. We invited T and J to be baptized and they accepted it! If they progress and keep the comittments we invite them to do, they'll be baptized on August 3rd and confirmed on August 10th.

I'm excited for you to be graduating. I hope you get to meet Bishop and Sister Austin while they're in Rexburg.

The ward here is like a big family. Even though we haven't gotten any referrals from them, they try hard to do missionary work, they love to go out with us on teams.

A couple of weeks ago, Brother Mears asked me for your cell number because he wanted to text you to let you know how good of a missionary I am. I didn't know it.

From, Elder Stafford

Quick Trip and a New Job

Richard had a job interview in Layton Utah last week.  This was to be his second interview with this company and it is a job he really wanted to get.  We decided to take the kids and make it a quick fun family trip in addition to the interview. While there we went to Cherry Hill water park.  It was a fun filled day of swimming, miniature golf, mazes, rock wall climbing and just plain fun!  Our favorite place was the lazy river.  It turned out to be a cloudy day and a little cool, so the place was pretty empty. But we are die hard Oregonians and weren't going to let cool and cloudy ruin our fun!  It was nice!

The night we got home Richard got the call!  He got the job.  He will be working as an electrical technician for a company called Schlumberger.  He will work two weeks away from home.  They will fly him around and then home for a week then back out to work two more weeks.  It is a tremendous relief after having no income for the past four months.  This job pays very well and will allow me and the kids to stay here in our home for at least another year.  For now, avoiding the huge change of moving is really important for the kids sake.  It will also take the pressure off me finding a job really fast after graduation.  If he settles into a place where he loves working, we may end up moving to be with him.  There are many location options and nothing is certain right now and we don't want to have to move the kids several times over the next few years.  Nothing has been certain for a long time now, so I am choosing not to worry and look at this as an adventure that could lead us anywhere. We are so blessed!

Before heading home we stopped at a fun restaurant that was having a half price special.  Have I ever mentioned how much I adore my little people???

Craters of the Moon

We decided to go out to the Craters of the Moon National Park and see what it is all about.  We took the Jeep with its top off and enjoyed the beautiful day!  We loved seeing all the different rock formations and plants. I found this quote about the park and it pretty much sums it up, 

"The strangest 75 square miles on the North American continent."

We decided to try the hike up the Inferno Cone Trail.  It was very steep and I almost didn't go, but I imagined the view must be incredible so up we went.  I had to stop a few times, but it was well worth the hike.  The hike itself was a half mile round trip to a 6181 foot summit that had an amazing panoramic view of the area.    I got some fun pictures at the top!

During our wanderings, the kids were working on their Lunar Ranger booklets.  So back at the gift shop they were sworn in and each received a patch.  After they were sworn in the Ranger made the announcement and everyone in the shop cheered!  It was a really fun way to spend the day!

Rexburg Airshow

I am from the land of amazing airshows.  I volunteered at the Hillsboro Airshow for many years in my youth.  I have attended many and have always loved a good air show.  Well, every two years Rexburg hosts a free airshow for the community. In fact, the day we moved here two years ago was Airshow day.  Obviously we did not get to attend due to unloading the moving truck, but we looked forward to being able to go to one while we live here.  I kind of thought it would turn out to be 4 or 5 people from Rexburg who own planes, flying them around for all to see. I was wrong.

We decided to take the littles  and go see what it was all about.  It was four hours of fun performances, including the Jelly Belly plane that does silly stunts and lands on top of a truck. It also took off, flew super high and the turned off its engines and slowly and ever so gracefully glided down to the ground, landing with the engines still off.  Very cool! One nice thing about a small town airshow is we were sitting right by the runway. I got some fun pictures.  It was a very fun way to spend a Saturday!

 

 

 

 

 

Elder Stafford

 A joyous occasion!

This is Kayla, she decided to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by proper authority. Pretty soon she'll have the opportunity to take a trip to Nauvoo and do baptism for the dead in the temple. I have a testimony this Church is true and this gospel is for everyone. And through the Lord's plan, families can be together for eternity. 

Elder Stafford

When we have holidays on a Monday, we don't get preparation day; we have it on Tuesday instead. I just got the letters and photos from the kids today. The letters were marvelous.

Last Tuesday, Elder J and I traveled to Charlotte and had a trainer-trainee meeting. That meeting helped me with my teaching. On our way back to Morganton, there was a homeless lady that needed food and money. I realized I had a couple of fruit rollups in my suit jacket, so I gave them to her. Elder P and Elder K came with us because we got another car. As of now, Morganton is an all car mission because Elder P can't ride a bike because of this wrist injury. On Saturdays Elder P and Elder K walk because every Saturday is car fast day, which is the day that we don't use the cars.

I finally learned how to polish my shoes, since I didn't remind Richard to teach me how; Elder K did.

Ward members do pretty good with feeding us, we rarely make dinner.

President and Sister Craven visited our ward on Sunday. They were travailing to Hickory to interview missionaries and our ward was along the way there, so they came and visited us. It was great to see them.

From, Elder Stafford

Serious Warning to Mom's Everywhere!!

A mission is an amazing thing.  Those who chose to serve the Lord for 18 months or two years are the most courageous people I know!  It can't be easy going off into the unknown. It would require so much faith!  I know missions are wonderful things and I was so happy when my son Jacob decided to dedicate two years of his life to the Lord.  I was thrilled.  Until the date of his departure got closer and closer. My excitement turned to worry and sorrow and I could not understand what my problem was.  So here is my advice, be prepared to feel anything you may need to feel!  You may be fine letting go of your child to serve a mission.  We are raised in the church to know that this is just what we do.  It is a beautiful, glorious thing.  And you may never have a second thought about it.  If that is the case, yay!

But I am here to say that if as the time grows nearer for letting go of your child, and you start to feel emotions that stray from joy and peace, it is okay.  My personal feeling is that giving up your child for two whole years, after spending 18-20 years raising them, is not an easy or natural thing for many of us.  We love our children. We grow accustomed to having them in our lives.  They grow attached to us as well and may express concern as their time to leave gets closer. So if you are having trouble with the thought of letting your missionary go, know that it is okay!  Probably the majority of us moms feel that way! One mother described herself feeling a sad joy, and I think that describes it beautifully.  Turn to the Lord and ask for the strength to support your missionary and the ability to let go gracefully.  He will bless you with peace, though it may not come easily or as quickly as you may prefer!  Trust that relief will come!

Jacob has been gone for 6 weeks now.  I can say that it has gotten easier for me emotionally.  I feel so blessed to be living in this time when his letters can get to me immediately via email and that I get those letters each week. I also love that I can see his updates on his facebook page. Although I cannot communicate with him that way, I love to read the spiritual thoughts he posts. I can see so much spiritual growth already and it is such a joy for me as a mother. I have learned not to worry about him.  I have replaced fear with faith.  I know that the Lord is watching out for him.