Goodbye Van.  We've had many good times with you!

We are selling quite a few of the mission vehicles.  We've been getting new ones to replace them.  So all week we've had tow trucks arriving to carry off a couple of our vehicles.  Here's a picture of our trusty mission van being hauled away.  The missionaries call it "The Bull" because it used to have bull horns on it.  (Before our time)  I wonder what they will call the new one.

The Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

One day, a man with a tow truck came from the Tulsa area to pick up two of the cars. He happened to mention that he had six children. Chris asked him if he knew much about our Church. When he said no, Chris asked if he would mind if he gave him some reading material. He was okay with that so Chris went back in the office and got him The Family proclamation.  I went back out with him because I love watching them load up the cars.  Chris gave him the Proclamation and then I asked him if we could send some missionaries to talk to him. He said yes! Woot Woot! But we didn't have any paper. So Chris tore this corner off the Proclamation and wrote his name and phone number on it. 

Chris entered it in the referral system. The next day he got a text from the missionaries in the Oklahoma City Mission saying that they have an appointment with him.

Shows you just never know. Quality conversations are reasonably easy. This one led to a teaching opportunity.

Tornado

Last week I mentioned we had a tornado warning.  Here are a few pictures of damage in other parts of our mission. Missionaries love service opportunities and they got a lot last week.

Goodbye Sister Matsuda!
Our referral secretary, Sister Matsuda, finished her mission this week.  She had planned to serve 18 months, but she's having some health problems and had to go home after 1 year.  She was very sad to have to go home.  Her husband was Japanese and they lived in Japan for 25 years.  So we used a Japanese tradition to cheer her up.  We folded a lot of cranes.  I think the tradition is to fold a thousand cranes but we didn't do that many. We surprised her with them hanging in her doorway.

The office staff is taking over her responsibilities for now.  I'm doing Baptism records and referrals.  I also take orders for supplies from the missionaries and get them ready to go out at transfers. Chris is going to do the ordering of supplies.  The secretary will do the mail and the transfer board in the president's office.  It feels a little overwhelming.  

Referral by phone

Yesterday we got a referral by phone.  A man called Salt Lake and was transferred to us.  He gave us the information for his birth mother who lives in our mission.  He's been communicating with her, gave her a Book of Mormon, and she's excited to have the missionaries teach her. Hurray for the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Missionary apartments
Elder Johnson helped clean out a missionary apartment this week and they took 3 truck loads to Goodwill.  Could it be that missionaries are hoarders?

Going Home

We took Sister Young to the airport yesterday.  She's only been here 3 months.  She has health problems that can't be solved here.  Us office ladies went to visit her before she left.  She got to ride in a wheel chair at the airport.

I got this cute text from some elders after they hung up the planning board I ordered for them.