It has been awhile.

Dear family and friends,

It has been quite some time since my last post. We are still doing fine and enjoying our work here in the mission office.

We received 3 missionaries from the MTC  2 weeks ago that area VISA WAITERS.  As the name implies, these are missionaries that have completed their MTC training, and are just waiting for their visas to travel to the country where their mission is located.  We don't know when their visas might come through, and assigned them in a THREE-SOME companionship.  Because they are, and are not, part of our mission, it is a little awkward, but we make them feel welcome and try to integrate them as best we can.  One example is that they don't receive a JP Morgan Credit Card which is the card I load up with the monthly maintenance each missionary receives from me.  So, I made the arrangement with the Senior Companion of the Threesome to give him an additional $65 (1/2 a month's allotment) on their card which he would then withdraw at the local ATM, and give to the Visa Elder for his support allowance.

This past Tuesday we got word that they were flying out on Thursday morning. They had been with us for only two weeks. Normally the President or the Assistants take care of it, but they would be doing training in the Northern part of the mission, and so I was asked to take them to the airport. No big deal, other than 2 were flying on Southwest Airlines to Boise to pick up their visa, and one was flying to Los Angeles on Delta to get his visa there. The Mission President in Boise and LA were in the loop because they would have to pick up the Elders at their airport, take them to their visa appointment, and then put them back on the plane to travel to Mexico the following day.

Now the exciting part: 
The Delta flight leaves at 600AM from Terminal A, and the Southwest flight leaves at 615AM from Terminal B.  I have to pick them up at 400AM which means I have to get up at 315AM to get showered and dressed.  Now this is only 4 days after Daylight Savings time took effect, so my body says it is only 215AM!!!!!  I THINK THOSE ASSISTANTS OWE ME A CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!!

Yesterday (Wednesday) evening at 800PM the Visa Elders come in to our office to pick up their travel itinerary and to weigh their bags to be sure it is under 50 lbs. I worry because some of these guys don't look like they have had a lot of experience with air travel, so I go through the procedures of finding your gate, and going to baggage claim at their destination and look for the Mission President or their A.P.'s because they can't meet them at their arriving gate to pick them up.

In this review process, I discover that the Elder going to LA is really connecting in LA with a flight to Las Vegas which is his final destination.  All the communication Mom had with Missionary Travel was about this missionary traveling to LA.  We now had to figure out and make sure that it is the Mission President from the Las Vegas Mission that will pick up this Elder and that all will be alright.

We are never comfortable just dropping the missionaries off at the curb, and always take them in to make sure their bags get checked in and that they are booked for the correct flight. We then walk them to the TSA counter where only people with boarding passes can proceed. We then leave them there in line and consider the job "done".

So here I have 2 groups leaving at the same time from 2 different terminals.  Mom and I can't split up and do it by ourselves where Mom would go to escort one of the missionaries through the airport.  Besides, Mom does not do 300AM.  Well, our wonderful Zone Leaders came to the rescue, and they went with me at that early hour.  They took the 2 Elders to Southwest Air, and I took the Delta Airlines elder to his departing terminal.

We made it back by 515AM at which time I went back to bed.


It is hard to imagine that in 2 weeks we will have been out for 12 months.  Time just really flies by.

Until next time.

Love,
Elder and Sister Kolditz

Departing Missionaries

Dear Family,

Mom wrote last week that we met the 2 new couples that will be working with us in the office.  They will be starting on the 15th of February, and will have a 2 week "training" overlap with the Johnsons and Morgans that will finish their 12 month mission at the end of the month.  We have really come to love and appreciate the 2 couples we have worked with, and will miss them a lot.  We look forward to getting to know the Jacksons and the Pietzs, and know we will get close to them too.

All four couples are Service Missionaries, which means they are "live at home" missionaries which seems to be the way the Church is encouraging for more Senior Couples to serve.  It would be less expensive to serve this way and more couples can serve in meaningful ways.  It makes sense.  If you are called as a "Member Support / Leadership Missionary", why leave home to serve in some other Ward on the East Coast, when there is just as great a need 3 Stakes over.

This is the Johnsons third mission, and they have commented that this mission has been the most difficult for them.  Although they come to the office 4 days a week, and are kept busy at the office, they have mentioned that the family and Ward members don't recognize that they are serving a mission, and they are still expected to attend ballgames and concerts and recitals for the grand kids, and baby sit for their children when they have already put in a busy day at the Mission Office and are tired.  They also still have to keep house and maintain their yard, etc.

They have also told us that they feel bad for us because one of the things they really enjoyed on their other missions was the association with the other couples and the activities they were able to do together because they were all away from home and in the same circumstance.  They were able to go out exploring and discovering new things together.  Because of their obligations at home, they feel like we have been neglected by them and they have not been able to interact with us as they would have liked.

We did try to have an office get-to-gether today by attending the Sacramento Temple and go to dinner afterwards in celebration of Mom's birthday and the Morgan's 61st wedding anniversary on February 2nd, but we found out yesterday that the temple is closed for maintenance until next Monday.  We will regroup and try again then.

Of the new couples coming in, Brother Jackson was an airline pilot for Delta, and this is their first mission.  They will be serving for 12 months.  Brother and Sister Pietz have a cattle ranch some 60 miles North of us, and they will be driving in every day.  They just returned 6 months ago from serving a 23 month mission in Puerto Rico where they worked in the mission office and handled the apartments and the vehicles. They have been called to serve for 18 months.


This last Wednesday mom and I took our "Temple Square Mission" missionaries to the airport to return to Salt Lake and finish their mission there by this coming April 25th.  I had mentioned in an earlier "post" that the Temple Square missionaries are assigned to a "regular" mission for 3-4 months to have that experience.  These Sisters are both "top notch" missionaries, and both were able to teach families and see them get baptized into the Church.  Neither one wanted to leave, but their time was up.

Mom, Sister Alejandro, and Sister Harris.

Sister Alejandro was in our Zone for her 4 months in our mission, and so we really got to know her.  I told them that I needed the above picture as proof to President Weston that we really did take them to the airport.  They both wanted to stay and we would have loved to have them stay.

That same Wednesday we received another missionary from the Temple Square Mission to do her stint with us.  Her name is Sister Shemanga and she is from Zambia, Africa.  Because of the positive experiences of Sisters Alejandro and Harris, I am sure the CA Roseville Mission will be THE place to be assigned from Temple Square.

Sister Shemanga

We did our mission orientation with Sister Shemanga, and she was assigned to serve with Sister Barfus who was in our zone at one time, and comes from Portland Oregon.  Sister Barfus is also a wonderful missionary and besides that, we have Portland in common.

Guess that is all the news I have for this week.

We love you and thank you for your love and prayers in our behalf, and for the prayers for our missionaries.

Mom and Dad.

A Busy Transfer This Time

We are getting sooo good with the transfers.  We really have our routines down.  I am thinking that I have to start considering what instructions to write down for my replacement.  It was nice that Elder Gwynn, the person I replaced in the mission office, is a local resident, and was able to come back and help me through my first transfer.  He had spend 4 days with me when we came out, but Transfers were scheduled for 2 weeks later, so he had to come back to cover that scenario with me.  Sure was grateful for that.
When we leave, transfers are scheduled for 3 or 4 weeks after we have left, so we will not be able to train that function in a "LIVE" setting.

There have been several things about IMOS, the Church's "Internet Mission Operating System", that I had to discover on my own.  It sometimes was rather comical.  With all the MENUs in the program, I would discover, quite by accident, where to assign a proselyting area to a set of missionaries, but then the next time, I would have to hunt for an hour or more to find out where it was in the program that I was able to do that.  There are also some sequences in the system that you have to follow under different "departments" with their own menus to set up a new apartment and to pay the rent.  It all is simple to me now, but I want to make sure my replacement does not have to go through the same discovery period.  I'm sure that it will all work out.

We had 16 new missionaries arrive from the MTC on Tuesday.  13 Elders and 3 Sisters.  one of the Sisters is Tongan, but comes from Australia.  They are a great bunch.  One Elder is almost 25 years old, and has a GREAT attitude.  Maturity really helps.  Another Elder is from Hawaii.  He is part Hawaiian.  His first and last name are Caucasian, but his middle name is Hawaiian and contains 26 letters.  I have been deleting his middle name so his name will fit in my rosters and reports.

At one point two sisters from our zone dropped by the office, Sister Alejandro and Sister Totau.  While they were in the office, I came in with the 3 new Sisters and introduced them saying "Ladies, these are MY girls".  Alejandro and Totau just smiled and beamed with pride.  They know we love them, as we do all our guys in our zone.  We again fed two on Wednesday, and two on Saturday.

Guess that is all from me.  Don't want to duplicate what Mom has already written.

Have a great week.
Love
Elder and Sister Kolditz

A Sweet Story

The following happened when getting ready to hand out Christmas packages for our zone the Antelope Zone, and the Citrus Heights Zone, who had met together in our building.

We have a sweet sister from Tonga serving in our Zone. As we have gotten to know her, we have found out that her parents moved from Tonga to Hawaii when she was 7 years old, leaving her in Tonga with an aunt. I don't know what the family dynamics are in Tonga, but can you imagine doing that to one of your children? That was a very hurtful experience, and now that she is 22, she is still affected by that. (She is one of the kids Mom is helping to get into BYU Hawaii).

We had the Relief Society room set up where the missionaries would enter through one door, proceed to a table where our Senior Elders from the office, Elder Johnson and Elder Morgan, would find the package for the missionary. The packages were on a long table and in alphabetical order, sort of.  The missionaries would then continue on to the next table where Mom would hand them a "Goody Bag" prepared by the Relief Society sisters from the Rocklin Stake.  These sisters prepared 220 goody bags for our missionaries containing cookies, a small loaf of banana bread, 2 Mandarin oranges, and various candies.

They would then proceed to the next table where Sister Johnson would hand them an envelope that had their personal letter from home, a Christmas card from The First Presidency, a Christmas card from President and Sister Weston, and a picture of both "Half Zone Conferences" when Elder Kearon came to visit last October.  We then asked them to see Sister Morgan to sign a "Thank You" card to be sent to the Relief Society sisters that made the Goody Bags.

Elder and Sister Johnson, and Sister Morgan

They finish that off with a photo with the President and his family.

So this Sister missionary is at the end of the line of Sister missionaries, and quietly tells me that her mother told her that she had send 3 packages for her.  She then asks if she indeed has three packages there on the table.  I was a little slow on the uptake, but I guess she has been disappointed many times before and she did not want to get herself all excited if it was all going to be for nothing.  I knew that we had something for everybody even if parents had not followed through, so I told her to just go to Elder Morgan and Elder Johnson and see.

A few minutes later, I looked behind me, and here she was, beaming with a smile from ear to ear, carrying a stack of three boxes with a goody bag on top.   THAT MOMENT WAS PRICELESS!

Elder Morgan and I.  Waiting to go to the next location.

We love being on our mission, and we love our missionaries.  Last week, our Ward Mission Leader asked us if we could feed the missionaries assigned to our Ward on New Year's Eve Day.  We said "of course we would".  It's not like we are going anywhere for New Year's Eve.

This afternoon, the Spanish speaking Elders came by the office and asked if they could join the other Elders with us on New Year's Eve.  I guess it is hard getting a dinner appointment when everybody is out partying.  We are looking forward to having a great time with them.

This coming Monday, Jan 2nd, the Missionaries going home will be processed through the office.  A new batch will arrive from the MTC on Tuesday.  IT IS TRANSFER TIME AGAIN!


Thank you all for your love and prayers.  We have officially reached the halfway mark (already??).

Love,
Mom and Dad

We made it through Christmas

Dear family,
We are excited that this week is done.

We had our "Santa Run" where we delivered Christmas packages to the missionaries.  Three locations in the Northern half of the mission on Thursday, and 3 locations in the Southern half on Friday.
We met at the office at 600am to drive to Redding in Northern CA for our first delivery, and then went down to Chico, and then to Yuba City.  We made it home at 600pm, and we were in bed and asleep by 730pm.  Friday was a little easier because we did not have to travel as far.

Mom took care of accounting for all the packages and letters, while I took care of all the logistics of getting the right package to the right place.  I am sure glad Mom dealt with the parents because I may not have been as diplomatic.  You really become attached to the missionaries.  Mom started the process the middle of September, 3 months ahead of time, with an email to all the parents,  she then followed up with a letter.  She corrected the email and addresses by contacting the missionaries of those parents who had not yet responded, and send another notice.  Slowly but surely she contacted all the parents she could, even making multiple phone calls.  We pretty much got all the packages together, but the frustrating part was getting emails the week before the event asking if it was too late to send a package.  We went ahead and prepared gift packages for all the missionaries who did not have a package by our deadline.  If packages came later (which some did) we were not going to let "our guys" not get something because of their parents.  If they ended up with 2 packages, so be it.  We were not going to risk it.  As Mom wrote in her letter, she also ended up supplying 47 "personal letters from home".  That is 25% of our missionary force that did not get a personal letter from home.  That is very disappointing when you think about it.  These guys (and gals) sacrifice so much, tears come to your eyes when you hear their stories.

Well, the logistics part went very well.  We only had one package end up at the wrong place.  A package was packed in the bags for the first location, and it should have gone to the fifth location.  That was an easy "recovery".  Imagine if it had been the other way!!!  But that was the only mix up.  Everything else went smooth and everybody was happy.

After receiving their gift box and letter from home, it was pretty quiet.  Everybody was content.

They also had their picture taken with the Mission President and his family.

At Yuba City, all the girls wanted to have their picture taken.

After we came home from deliveries on Friday, we still had to host a Zone Gift Exchange party at our house.  These are the guys I called on to help me sort the packages, and to load the trailer.  I guess it is one of the missionary trademarks, but they are always willing and anxious to help us out.  We sure love them and think they are beyond wonderful.

The missionary receiving the gift had a Santa Hat pulled over their eyes, and had to unwrap and guess what the gift was.

Saturday was finally our day to vegetate and do nothing.  Well, there was laundry, grocery shopping, and cleaning house that we normally do on our "Preparation Day".  Well, there was also Mom practicing for her duet with the non-member organ guy for their performance on Sunday (It went great today.  We each had a part in the Christmas program).  And Mom checking on one of the Sister Missionaries in our zone.

Saturday evening we had a wonderful meal together and were able to do "Face Time" with Ross using our IPads, and seeing Lisa' family and Joie too who were gathered at Ross and Dixie's house for Christmas Eve.  After the musical performances, and the lighting of the candles on the tree in Cathlamet, I participated in the video conference by reading for everybody from Luke 2, just like when we are at home.  These are great gadgets.

That evening, after finishing the face time, we opened our presents, and called it a day.

Merry Christmas to everybody.

Love, Dad

A very busy week. Part 2

Dear Family,
Here is the second part of my letter.

The initial letter to the parents explaining the program we wanted to do went out the 1st of October, and presents have been trickling in ever since.  Now picture 190+ presents.  We stored them in our Utility Trailer because we did not have room at the mission office, but also for security.

On Tuesday we took the trailer to the office to sort the packages by Missionary and by Zone where that missionary serves.  That process would have taken Mom and I a good part of the day to complete.  But, again, the Lord provides.

Enter Elder Amatago, a big Elder from Samoa, and his companion, Elder Kober.  They came to the office to have their car fixed and so had a couple hours to kill.

Elders Amatago and Kober

We sorted the packages, got them bagged in heavy duty plastic leaf bags, marked by zone, and reloaded in our trailer in one and a half hours!!!!

We then used some of the Target Gift Cards we had received to buy things to make up additional gift packages.

That evening Mom and I had an assignment to teach a class in the Ward Relief Society meeting.  It was about the teachings of the Savior.

On Wednesday we did our normal office work, and that evening we fed the Spanish speaking elders.  They wanted a "Breakfast" Dinner.  Elder Leetham is from Colorado, and his companion, Elder Calderon, is from Mexico City, and not always comfortable speaking English. He is a very sweet elder.  After dinner Calderon helped load Mom's Rosetta Stone program on her computer.  He wants to become a Computer Tech after his mission, and knows his way around computers.  It is a program to learn Spanish, so they helped Mom with pronunciation of the first lesson words.  We also found out that our refrigerator quit working.

On Thursday, the first thing I did was call an appliance repair place to look at the fridge.  They came out later that morning and determined that the compressor was shot.  The repair estimate came to $760 and they suggested to just buy another fridge.  I could not get a hold of the landlord, but there was an old fridge that worked in the garage.  The problem is getting these two heavy appliances switched out.

Again, the Lord provides.  On my way to the post office, I run into 4 of our guys.  They are in our Zone, and we see them all the time.  When something happens, good or bad, they run to us to tell us all about it.  We are their surrogate parents.

So Elder Dryer and Whiting, and Elders Woodward and Gardner came over to help.  Elder Whiting even tried to get the water line to the ice maker installed, but we did not have any plumbers tape to make a tight seal and there was a slight leak.  When he disconnected the water line, he forgot which way to turn the water spigot to turn it off, and when he disconnected the hose it was still "on" and he got sprayed and soaked with water.  It was quite a mess.

Elder Whiting.

We were happy to have our fridge exchanged.

Tomorrow, Friday, we have our office Christmas Dinner here at our house.

This week sure has gone by fast.  Next week we will put on the final touches to having the gifts ready.  We will have to focus on the "personal letters" and create letters for those without.

On Thursday we will be hitting 3 areas in the Northern half of the mission for our Christmas program.  Two Zones will meet in a Stake Center where we will do our program, and then move on to another area where 2 Zones have gotten together, and then we do it again a third time.

Then on Friday, we do the same thing for the 6 Zones in the Southern half of the mission where we will go to 3 different stake centers where different zones have gathered.

Saturday will be Christmas Eve, and we will be ready to just vegetate.

Never a dull moment here, and you can see why time just flies by.

Until next time,

Love,

Mom and Dad

A very busy week. Part 1

Dear Family,
Here are a couple pictures of the kids during the Thanksgiving week-end.

Here is our Henri!

At the train museum, "The Girls" found Mrs. Claus.

Last Saturday, December 10th, we went again to Coloma, CA because they had a Christmas themed celebration of the Gold Rush that took place there.  It was a nice day.  There was no snow, and the sun was out.  They had a number of venders plying their wares, and there were a number of food booths with people in period dress.  There also was a band that was pretty good.  It was a fun outing for us.

This week has been busy.  We started Monday with our monthly Office Staff Meeting.  We always do lunch after the meeting, and we have 2 former Ward and Stake Relief Society Presidents.  You can imagine that it is always good.  

That evening we attended a Christmas concert at our non-member friend's Church.  He is the 15th century Organ builder that is married to a member and does the Organ/Piano duets with mom.  They had the Sacramento Strings group there.  They were very good, and mom and I wanted to go buy violins afterwards and learn to play like that.

Tuesday we dedicated to getting our Christmas Gift program organized.  We have asked missionary parents to send one modest present and a personal letter to their missionary through the office, where we would collect them for a special missionary Christmas program, and distribute the collected presents and letters.  

We have a number of foreign missionaries in our mission whose families are too poor to even pay the postage for a package.  We also have a number of missionaries who do not have parental support. Who are the only church members in their family, or, who have been disowned by their families for joining the Church.  We are totally aware of these missionaries, (there are about 30 out of 195 missionaries), and we are preparing gifts and personal letters for them.  We were prepared to mobilize our immediate and extended family to help with providing presents for these missionaries, but people have been so generous.  The Lord always provides for His own.  Missionary parents have send extra presents and gift cards for us to give to those who needed them.  Members have also asked how they can help.  Just yesterday, somebody gave the President $1000 to use for the missionaries.

There is much more to say, and this entry will be too long, so I will do it in parts.

I will be back soon.

Love, Dad