I enjoyed Dad's letter very much. He didn't mention in it that the plane to Paris was so small that the "first class" seats were the same as the economy ones. There was just a curtain between the classes. But he didn't have anyone in the seat next to him.
The Roberts came and picked me up and brought me home today. They are the CES couple here. She was telling me today how much time they have on their hands. They work with the young adults on Monday for FHE and then teach on Wednesday. They had a baptism last Saturday that they attended and two of their young people have been called on missions so they went to the temple with them. Other than that, I guess the weeks are feeling long. Sister Roberts told me that the senior sister missionary who works in the mission office works hard every work day from 8 to 6. She has volunteered to change missions with Sister Roberts any day she wants.
Today she told me a story about Elder Roberts. When the kids were grown up, their daughter and her husband came to live in their ward. There were some apartments where a lot of dental students lived and they also lived there while he was going to dental school. At the time Elder Roberts was busy in his calling in the church and was seldom there on Sundays. He did go to special activities for the ward however.
One day a member of the ward asked her son-in-law, "Is your father-in-law a non-member? I never see him at Church with Sister Roberts." Their son-in-law laughed really hard, but managed to say between moments of laughter, "My father-in-law is the stake president."
Two of the "young" people have been called to be missionaries. One of them is the young man who has sometimes translated for Dad in priesthood. He grew up in Spain and recently came to Finland to do his mandatory military service - 6 months. I don't remember if the bishop mentioned where he has been called to serve.
A missionary who has just returned from his mission in London South accompanied the high counsel representative today. He said he had been home 2 weeks and had not yet spoken in his home ward. He is in Helsinki 2, I think. He talked about what he had learned while on his mission. Obviously I should have taken notes because I don't remember anything but one story he told. He said he knew that our leaders are inspired by God. However, when a missionary from Fiji who spoke no English came to the mission, everyone wondered why he was there. How come no one had sent him to the MTC so he could learn English. He had only been in the mission for a short time when he received a call from some other missionaries. They told him that they had met a family who wanted to learn about the Church who were from Fiji. Could he help them? When he started to teach them at first by telephone, he learned that this was his uncle from Fiji who had left home and never stayed in contact with the family.
As a side bar to this, the returned missionary told us that there were so many different countries represented in the mission by both the residents and the missionaries. It was not at all unusual to have a family taught using Skype. Some times they had to contact another mission in Europe to find someone to help teach a family in Polish or Armenian or some other language.
Wow! I had never thought about Skype being a missionary tool.
I love all of you and miss you so much. MOM
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