Great week ending with Mother’s Day

Sister and Elder Barker’s eldest daughter, Alicia, lives just over 2 hours north of the mission in Vancouver, Washington. 

We were invited to come to her home and be with her family for Mother’s Day weekend. We received permission to go so we left Saturday morning for the drive north. Alicia and her husband, Matt, and their daughters, Aspen, Brooke and Callie welcomed us to their lovely home. 

We played some games, went to dinner at Grassa, an Italian restaurant on the Columbia River walk in Vancouver. We enjoyed a walk along the river and then had ice cream at Salt & Straw. 

There were people on jet skis enjoying the day and I was standing at the rail watching them a little envious. It was a hot day. I quickly got cooled off though….

I was drenched and pleasantly cooled off. It was really hilarious. 

My purse was filled with water too. Those jet skiers knew just how to throw up a wall of water!!!

French lavender outside Salt & Straw 

Mt Hood after the mist had cleared

We attended church as a family and then Matt smoked steaks for us on his Traeger before returning to Eugene. Yummy!!

Sister Barker, Alicia, Aspen, Callie, Brooke

Opening Mother’s Day gifts

Beautiful weekend!

My river walks in the mornings along the Willamette River in Eugene always give me a good start to my days. We saw a lot of birds, animals and flowers this week. 

There are 2 herons in this picture. One in each log. On the end of the slender log opposite the heron is a big lump which is a turtle

I was blessed to have lunch with sisters on Tuesday and Wednesday and dinner on Thursday. Unfortunately I neglected to get pictures of dinner with Sisters Weeks and Wensel but it was enjoyable being with them nonetheless. 

Sisters Zollinger and Davis

Sisters Boulter and Arnold

The round of interviews for this transfer began on Thursday with the Santa Clara zone and on Friday with the Corvallis zone. 

Instead of candy and chips for treats, Sister Cornelius brought waffle irons and batter along with sliced strawberries and whipped cream for waffles. The missionaries had fun making waffles and enjoyed eating them as well. 

Santa Clara zone

Corvallis zone

Elder Peterson downing whipped cream

Elders Peatross, Peterson, Baker. Just can’t keep them out of the whipped cream!!

Elder Bundy taught me the Dab dance move. Now I’m cool!!

This week I studied about prophets. I’m so grateful for the blessing of a living prophet, President Russell M Nelson. 

He offers guidance to help us maneuver through this earthly life. One of the articles I read was actually suggested to me by Katie, my daughter. It is a BYU Hawaii devotional speech given by Sheri Dew in 2022 titled Prophets Can See Around Corners. 

Sisters Dew gives several examples in this talk of times that she has been guided by the Prophet. I loved the stories! One of them touched me because in a way, I was a part of it. 

"In 2014, then-Elder Russell M. Nelson chaired the Missionary Executive Council or MEC. One day in the MEC, Elder Nelson held up his smartphone and said, “We need to put these into the hands of every missionary.” You can imagine the discussion that ensued about all the challenges missionaries with smartphones would create. But in time, the MEC began allowing missionaries in a few test missions to carry iPads or smartphones.

Every problem the MEC predicted happened. But Elder Nelson never wavered in his conviction that missionaries could be taught to use the internet righteously and that they should have smartphones. The tests continued and over the next few years, more and more missionaries received phones.

Now fast forward to January of 2020. That month, President Russell M. Nelson, now President of the Church, authorized everymissionary worldwide to have a smartphone. Then, just weeks later, the pandemic shut down the world and proselyting as we knew it stopped.

Elder Brent H. Nielson, then executive director of the missionary department, was initially concerned that baptisms might drop to nearly zero. But they didn’t. Inspired missionaries working from their apartments found and baptized 125,000 people in 2020—largely because they had smartphones.

Says Elder Nielson: "I quickly learned that the Lord had prepared us for this day. Prophets can see around corners." 

In 2015, I began to serve my first mission in the New York New York South Mission. That mission was a "test mission" for using electronic devices. The missionaries had iPads and then smartphones. I feel it was a privilege to watch the work proceed with these new tools. 

Then in 2020 I was in the New Zealand Auckland Mission when the pandemic hit. I watched the missionaries work from their apartments to continue the work using the Internet and smartphones. It was, and still is, amazing to me to have witnessed this miracle. 

I know without a doubt, that our prophet, seer, and revelator, President Russell M Nelson, leads and directs the church and all of us to better paths. I know that if I listen to him and follow his advice, I can draw closer to my Savior and follow more closely in His footsteps. 

I love my Savior. 

I love you my family and friends.