"Dinner" Peak

On our last P-day, we decided to climb Donner Peak.  (Ok, I decided and Marc went along.)  It was beautiful.  We left at 7:00 a.m. and were on the trail by 8:00.  We were glad we went early because when we got to the top we had it all to ourselves.  On the way back down there were lots of people and dogs.  I guess the trick in the Sierras is to get there early or the trails are super crowded.  Donner peak is just past Donner Pass in California.  Funny because when I texted pictures to my family, my phone kept autocorrecting to “Dinner” Peak.  Some Freudian iphone thing I guess.

From the top of Donner Peak.  Elevation 7,056 ft
Donner Lake in the Background

Donner Peak

Our last couple of District Council Meetings have been more interesting than in the past because they had more to do with working with ward members and less-active members.  That’s what our whole mission is about so we felt like we had more to share.  Sometimes we feel like we want to say, “Hey, listen, we know what we’re talking about.  We’ve been doing this for 40 years!”  But it’s not always easy to tell a 19-yr-old something.  We have some great missionaries in our district though.  There are two sets of elders and one set of sisters and us fogies. 

We’ve decided to start taking the missionaries in our district out to dinner, one companionship at a time.  We started this because we are concerned about one of the new elders and wanted to get to know them better.  (Thanks Sister Petersen for that idea.)  So we took the District Leader and his companion out this week to Chili’s.  After we left the restaurant one elder said, “I can’t wait to be a senior missionary so we can take the missionaries out to dinner and fun stuff.”  At least if we accomplish nothing else here, we can inspire the young missionaries to shoot for a senior mission when they get older.

Elder Butz, Elder Jensen, Elder & Sister Williams

Speaking of senior missionaries, Marc told you that we suggested a senior missionary prep class to our Stake Presidency.  They actually went for it.  We get lots of questions from the older members of our ward so we hope this will be well received.  We told the presidency that our stake had started off with a senior missionary fireside, not knowing they would actually put us in charge of the whole thing.  Hope it goes as well as our stake’s did (the one we were NOT in charge of). 

Marc and I were feeling like we had way too much down time during the days and were feeling guilty about it (at least I was).  I was a little hesitant to suggest that we talk to President Godoy about it because I was sure he would tell us we should start knocking on doors.  But we finally decided to go talk to him.  Before we left I said to Marc, “maybe we could help inspect missionaries’ apartments or something.”  When we sat down and talked to President, he said, “Well, I know it won’t work for you to go out finding (knocking on doors) in your ward.  My wife and I tried it and it just doesn’t work there. The members will have to be the finders.”  (Can’t tell you the great wave of relief that swept over me. Haha.)  He told us most of the senior couple like to relax in the mornings and get errands done but that if we had the energy maybe we needed an additional assignment—like inspecting apartments!  We’re not sure it will happen and we may be sorry if it does, but we will be happy to have more to do.  At least for the time being, I am feeling a lot less guilt.

On a sad note, we lost our patient that we had been visiting at the hospital since we got here in June.  We went to see her and her room was empty.  We went to the desk and they said she was in room 101.  We told them we were just there and she was gone.  There were five people at the desk and no one knew where she was.  We hadn’t exchanged numbers with the family because frankly, we never saw them.  We pretty much her only visitors.  We hope she didn’t die but we’re pretty sure someone on her floor would have known if someone had passed away and she had been feeling much better.  We think they would have at least hinted if she had died since they know us as her ministers.  We called the main hospital and they said she was in room 101!   Well, you’d think they could keep track of their patients.  We think they just moved her to a different facility.

Our ward is very good to us here and they often feed us dinner.  Somehow word has gotten out that Elder Williams likes ice cream and they all feed us ice cream for dessert.  Marc has even started bringing his ice cream scoop with him, which embarrasses one of us, but people are (or pretend to be) impressed with his special scoop.

I saved our best experience for last.  We visited a less active sister who hasn’t attended church for years.  We showed her the “Christ-like Attributes” video.  It’s only about 3 minutes long but she started to cry (like real sobs) and said, “I miss. . . .”  She couldn’t finish her sentence but we know what she meant.  She missed the feeling the Spirit brings.  So she said we can continue to visit and will ask her husband if her 8-year old son can take the lessons from us.  We’re pretty excited!

Actually, we often feel like we are not doing much but when we look back at things we have accomplished we realized we are doing quite a bit.  We remember the scripture in D&C 18:15 that says, “And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father.”  We know it’s true.

Lake Mary from Donner Peak Trail

Donner Peak

Near Top of Donner Peak

Still Waiting for it to Hit 100 Degrees!

Another week has snuck by!  They seem to get shorter and shorter.  There’s not a lot to write about, but as I often do, I’ll just start writing and see what comes out.  Our last Monday preparation day was spent cleaning out the old apartment in Sparks, then organizing the new apartment in West Reno.  Not very exciting!  The new apartment is much more homey than the old one, but it has little storage space - especially in the kitchen.  It also hadn’t enough storage space for all Diane’s office and study supplies.  (Those supplies multiply almost magically!!)  So, we bought two sets of shelves, two thingies to add another layer in existing shelves and freezer, and a hanging drawer for the fridge.  Now we have most things we own in a place.  We also upgraded the toaster, the silverware, the knives and the shower curtain.  (Aren’t you glad you are reading this blog to find out all this important stuff?!)


Our time during the week is still spent meeting and having brief lessons with members, with service assignments to help fill the mid-day hours.  We’d love to spend most of our time working with less-active members and referrals, but that hasn’t quite developed yet.  There are fewer than ten less-active members that are willing to meet with us and/or members of the ward, and the referrals are still to come.  The ward is so good that we like to think we can generate some work with non-members!  We both spoke in church last week (Diane on Example, and me on Overcoming Fear), and we (working with the EQ and Ward Council) are about to roll out a new ward mission plan in the next few weeks.  I think most ward mission plans are way too complicated, so ours will be something along the lines of “INVITE OTHERS TO ‘COME AND SEE’ (John 1:39)”, with several responsibilities spelled out for leaders, members. missionaries, ministering brothers and sisters, and ward bulletin editors.  We are hoping that by keeping it simple and constantly in front of the ward that people will remember it!  We’ll see…

You can see the temple on the hill almost anywhere in our area.

As far as other missionary work, our stake presidency has told us that they would like to have a senior missionary fireside, followed by a senior mission seminar assuming enough interest.  We have received quite a few questions from members of our ward about senior missions, so we may have run it up the flagpole to see if there was an appetite.  We don’t know what our role will be yet, but more to come…


One of the highlights of this mission location is that it isn’t too far out of the way for drop-by visits from friends and relatives going to or from California, or just coming to see us!  Stephanie and her family were here 10 days ago, and my sister Marcy and B-I-L Todd came Thursday and went out to dinner with us.  It was really fun talking, and I don’t remember ever before actually being asked (politely) to leave, so they could use the table!  Then, we stood outside and talked for another 20 minutes. It was great!  It also looks like Angie and her family will come see us in early September, and our friends Dale and Margaret Smith will come see us in later September.  We love it!

Jesse, Lucas, Hailey

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

One of the Hot August Night cars

Climbing walls in the middle of Reno

Empty Nester FHE

We are growing to love our mission more and more!  We have come to realize that things happen at a slower pace than we full-time missionaries would prefer, but they will come around.  Things that are top priorities for us are sometimes just one more thing to fit in for people in the middle of normal life.  We try to remember that, and try not to be too annoying bugging them (my companion reminds me).  We also have to admit that we are not as young as we once were, and after an hour or two of work, we often need a rest to catch our second wind.  We cannot do everything the young missionaries do – they are amazing!!  They go and go and go, and we are learning not to be embarrassed when our car is in our parking spot more often than the young missionaries’ car is.  We will do what we can do, and we know the Lord will cause it to work for the benefit of our area and ward! We know this is the Lord’s work, and we know He brings it to fruition through the weak, so we should be OK if we keep working at it!  We know this is where we should be, and (even when we see our Facebook friends having fun) we are glad to be serving a mission!!  

Hot August Nights . . . and Days

So here’s Sister Williams finally writing a blog entry.  Things are starting to pick up a bit.  Or maybe we are just getting adjusted to the pace here.  We are officially moved into our new digs.  The other couple, the Gigueres left on Monday to go home.  We have mixed feelings.  We now have more to do but we grew sort of close to them in the 2 months we were here.  There are far fewer couples here for us to get to know.  We think it hasn’t been a tradition for senior couples to do things together much, so we are trying to change that.

Tuesdays are District Council meetings.  We don’t always feel they relate to our mission but last week’s topic was activation.  We enjoyed it more since that is what we have been called to do and we felt we could contribute more.  The Gigueres told us they feel that one of the main contributions of senior couples is to mentor and to be there for the young missionaries and we feel that way too.

Last week for P-day, Elder Williams and I went to scope out Virginia City.  It’s a fun little western mining town up in the mountains.  We thought the Gowen grandkids might like to see it when they came.  However, we realized they have never even seen a Western and wouldn’t be able to relate.  (Angie said maybe they’ll have the kids watch Young Riders before they come next month.)  It’s a fun place for adults though and I was able to find some jewelry stores.

Jay and Stephanie and the kids came to visit this week and we had a great time.  They chose a good week because this was Hot August Nights week in Reno.  It’s an annual event where about 3000 classic cars come to town.  Just 4 blocks from our Sparks apartment they had a nightly “cruise” where they close off a street and people line the streets and watch the cars parade by.  The kids loved it.  Although we think it may have had more to do with the candy being tossed to the crowd than it did to the actual cars themselves.  It was great to see the grandkids!  We worry about them forgetting us.

We are loving the Peavine Valley Ward.  They have all been so welcoming and loving to us.  It’s a very talented ward and we are wondering if maybe we were sent here for what they can teach us rather than for what we can teach them.  We are happiest when we are working and love it when we can teach less active members or those who are not of our faith.

 

Things are going OK at the memory care center which we visit once a week.  We generally show them pictures and sing old timey songs with them.  The Gigueres told us that we could show the same pictures over and over and they the people wouldn’t remember but last time we showed some pictures the Gigueres had shown them and one woman said, “You already showed us these”.  Oh well, they still seem to like it.  One woman who can’t talk even smiled as we were singing.  They remember many of the songs and often sing along.  We try to sing songs they would have learned when they were young.  Those are the ones they remember.  We are grateful to provide this service and in some way try to brighten their days and we are getting to know the care-givers there.  A new man, Paul, came last week.  He is from France and fancies himself a ladies man.  He has stories he likes to tell of his conquests with Egyptian women (fortunately PG rated).  We’re not sure how many of his stories are fact and how many are false memories of his past fantasy life.  At any rate he was entertaining and the women enjoyed having him there. 

Life is good and I feel like I am reaching the stage in mission life where I no longer want to be transferred to another place.  I know the Lord is constantly there for us and He wants His missionaries to be successful.  We have felt His love and help many times.

I found my old Barracuda from college--or one like it

Hailey, Jesse, Lucas, Jay & Stephanie at the Reno Temple

Some of the Elders from our Zone

Sisters from our Zone at Zone Conference