August 2, 2010

Dear Family and friends,    I am in Flagstaff.  Sat, July, 24 when the transfer news came through my name was on it and Sunday night Pres Jones called and asked me to come Tues as Sister Guymon had to come Tue to Farmington so a junior sister wouldn’t be alone.  I could stay until Fri but Sister Mathias would be without transportation and needed to be at the Institute on different days.  So I missed the graduation on Fri and came Tue.  Everything is very different.  My companion thinks that we have to keep pretty much the same schedule as the junior missionaries and we are running about morning, noon and night.  Sat is our Prep day because the rest of the week the Institute is open and when school starts before the end of the month we need to be there when it is open.  I well know more and understand more.  We are now in the process of helping the local Wards identity Young Single Adults who are still in the area, Yes, I know that ward membership clerks are usually responsible for this, but when it doesn’t get done because the youth are still in the ward, then they don’t get invited to the YSA wards or to the Institute program, so we help find those who are eligible to attend the Institute.   It is true that other adults can attend but the Institute program is especially designed for the YSA and to keep them active with other youth.

I don’t have internet anymore, we have to go out and find a connection, so I won’t probably be writing as often.  Although the Institute has wi-fi Sister Mathias says we can’t be there using it when we are supposed to be serving.  I may find that there are times when we can but that won’t be for at least a month.

Know that it isn’t important where you serve the Lord, but how you serve.  The Church is true no matter where we serve. The YSA that I have met so far are very accepting of us senior sisters.  We also work with 2 junior sisters who are assigned to serve in the 3 University Wards.

This Welcome program at the Institute is new and we are learning as we go.  There is an advisory committee that we work under.  A missionary couple is liaison between us and them.  It is complicated but all are learning as we go.  Before I arrived they had tried plan A, now we are in the middle of plan B.  The biggest challenge is that it takes the cooperation of all the different wards to bring the program to pass.  You all know how getting the total cooperation of several different groups can take time and effort.  The Peteresons  (Missionary couple) have to go to ward correlation at each of the local wards and then bring back our work for us.  Then a month later we take the results of our work back to the ward. There are just two wards left to contact and Elder and Sister Peterson have an appointment with one of them and hopes to get the other ward visited soon.  We do to as when the Univ starts we will be busy on campus while trying to finish this other work at the same time.

Life is interesting.  Love, mom , gma, Karen