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

We had a great family visit.

As Mom wrote in her letter, we had a great visit with Ross and Dixie and their kids, and, with Joie during the Thanksgiving week-end.  We always give thanks for our blessings, and pray for our children and grandchildren. Especially for our Joie.  In preparing to leave for our mission, we worried about leaving her the most, and it was the reassurances from Lisa and Ross, that they would look out for her, that we felt okay with going on a mission.  We were blessed with that peaceful feeling that everything would be all right when we entered the MTC, and really have not given it any thought at all.  We just  knew things would be alright.

With Joie coming to visit us, we wondered how she would handle seeing us, and if there would be "a scene".  We need not have had to worry.  When the kids arrived the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and we first saw Joie, her reaction was like: "Oh, Hi. Where is the food?"  Our experience in the past, when we had not seen her for a couple of weeks, Joie would be sure to let us know.  She would holler and complain as we entered her house, and would push us out the door to have us take her to our house or for a ride.

This was another blessing.  She gave us no cause to wonder or worry.  We were again reassured that, SHE knew that we were on a mission, that we loved her, and that we had not abandoned her.

We made her bed on the floor in our room, and she slept fine THE FIRST NIGHT!  She was probably playing catch-up from the night before, in the motor home where she kept all of Dixie's kids up.

The following 2 nights we did not get much sleep.  She was up all night!  We might have gotten 3-4 hours of sleep each night.  Our home is not Joie Proofed like our house in Washington so we locked her in with us in our bedroom.  This kept her from roaming the house at night and from getting into the refrigerator.  It did not prevent her, however, from playing with all the light switches in the room, including the switch for the overhead fan.  Although over the years, I have learned to ignore her noises, a breeze from the overhead fan could not be ignored.

We loved having the kids and grand kids, and especially our Joie come for a visit.  A big "thank you" to Ross and Dixie for bringing her down.


It is hard to believe, but we are nearing the half way point of our mission.  It almost coincides with our 40th wedding anniversary later this month.  I might have said this in an earlier post about the 2 couples we serve with in the office, but the Morgans celebrated their 60th anniversary this year, and the Johnsons
celebrated their 50th.  Mom and I are "The Kids" in the office.  (That is until the "real kids" come to the office - our wonderful missionaries).

We hope you have a wonderful week.

Love,
Mom and Dad

Another Transfer

It has been 4 weeks since my last entry, and here it is transfer time again.  Our Zone has 14 missionaries in it, and 2 of the guys will be going home this coming Tuesday.  We will have about 12 going home, and 12 arriving from the MTC on Tuesday.

At the last transfer, 6 weeks ago, we also had 2 of the guys from our Zone go home, and so we had an Ice Cream Party for the Zone.  Well we could not do less this transfer, so we had another Banana Split Party.  I guess we will continue this "tradition" from here on out even if no one is going home, because at transfers, you can be sure that someone from the Zone will be reassigned to another area.

Our Zone minus 2 sets of Elders.

Elder Barron returning to Syracuse, NY, and Elder Walkenhorst returning to Alpine, UT

Elders Dryer, Wright, and, Casteel

Sister Barfus from Beaverton, OR, and Sister Alejandro, one of our Temple Square Missionaries.

Elder Calderon from Mexico, and Elder Leetham. These are our Spanish speaking Elders.

Sister Polidario and Barker

It always is a lot of fun with the missionaries, and I think they also enjoy being with Mom and I.  We are always positive and provide a good, safe, environment for them especially when they have their ups and downs.

Our Mission President's wife and the children are off to SLC today. Sister Weston's father died from Pancreatic Cancer, and the funeral is on Monday.  The Mission President's wife has more freedom in going home to attend these serious family issues, where the Mission President can not leave the mission.  It would be difficult for him to leave anyway, with interviews for departing missionaries today and Monday, approving all the transfers, and then having the new missionaries arrive on Tuesday.

We will be helping with the Monday night dinner for the outgoing missionaries.  Usually, Sister Weston takes care of that.  Sister Weston hopes to drive one of their vehicles back from SLC, since she was only able to get a one way ticket home to Salt Lake, and plans to be back by Wednesday.  We told the President that he was welcome to join us for Thanksgiving if she did not make it back.

We are super excited to have Ross and Dixie and the kids here for Thanksgiving. The exciting news is that they will be bringing Joie with them for a visit. (Pray for Mom!!)  We can hardly wait.  Good thing we have transfers to keep us busy and that we will have a very full 3 days prior to their arrival.  The meal may be Chinese Take Out!!!!

We love you and pray for you every day.  

Have a GREAT Thanksgiving!

Dad

More pictures from the Gold Rush

Dear Family,

We had more pictures to show, but last week's post already had plenty, that I worried about how long it might take to upload all of them.  So here are some of the other pictures.

These folks are church members and are displaying the way lumber was cut with hand saws.

Making planks with a hand saw was very hard work.  A replica of the original Sutter's Mill is behind us by the river.

This is a cabinet of the style that was used back then.  No space was wasted.  The pans go in the drawer under the drop down preparation "table".

This fellow is a descendant of the Mormon Battalion.  Even his daughter was in character.

We had a great time there, and plan to go back in December when they will have one week-end with a Christmas version of what it was like back in 1850.  We are looking forward to that.

Transfers went fine this past Monday and Tuesday.  We all have our routines down now.

Mom was not feeling well on Friday and stayed home.  I was manning the fort by myself that day.

Saturday morning we went to an urgency care clinic to take care of what Mom thought was a bladder infection.  She got some antibiotics.  By Saturday afternoon she was in excruciating pain and we figured it must be a kidney stone.  I gave her a blessing, and off we went to the Emergency department at the hospital.

Sure enough, she had a 6 mm kidney stone traveling down the tube between the kidney and the bladder. They pumped her full of pain killers and send us home.  We started out at 300pm, and made it back by 700pm.  Of course all the local pharmacies close at 700pm on Saturday, so I had quite a time trying to find a 24 hour pharmacy.

Fortunately, mom was too doped up, and slept while I was gone for the almost 2 hours getting her pills filled.  The kidney stone passed into the bladder sometime during the night, and the pain was instantly gone.  She never even needed to take the medications I got for her.  She did have the residual effects of the pain medications given her at the hospital, and so we took it easy on Sunday.

She is better now, but still tires easily.  She has made it to the office for a half day on Monday and Tuesday.

Good thing we were not in some third world country.

Thank you for your love and prayers.  The blessing and prayers really helped us on Saturday.  I know Heavenly Father loves us and gives very sweet blessings.

We love you,

Mom and Dad

Pictures to go with Mom's letter

Dear Family,
Earlier this week, the turkeys were back.  The door to the mission office is a one way mirror type, and the turkeys were pecking at their image in the door.  The male turkeys even fanned their feathers for the occasion.

They are ugly up close.

Then on Friday evening we had a banana split party with our zone.  Elder Bunnell and Elder Ward are going home on Tuesday.  Elder Bunnell is the elder who lost 100 lbs on his mission.  It would be great to see the reaction from his parents when he comes down the escalator at Salt Lake Airport on Tuesday.

Sister Polidario and Elder Dryer

Elders Salvesen and Walkenhorst

Elders Bunnell and Calderon

Sister Barker and Elder Leetham (he is being goofy)

Elder and Sister Finch

Then on Saturday we went to the town of Coloma where gold was discovered in 1847, which started the California Gold Rush.  We timed it just right.  They have a special celebration on the second week-end of October commemorating the gold rush events.  Mom's letter details all the things we saw and did.

Mom panning for gold.

Mom actually found some flecks of gold dust.

One of the displays we saw was on how to make this very intricate ribbon.  What looks like pencils are really thread bobbins that are twisted over each other like making hair braids.  The Macrame we knew of in the 1970's would not come close to the detail and craftsmanship needed to produce this type of ribbon.

The ribbon is about an inch and a quarter wide, and it takes about an hour to do an inch of ribbon.  Very detailed.

Hanging out with "the Guys".

In the gift shop we found this hair pin that Mom liked.  It might be something lil' Lily might want to stock in her store.  You might look up the "Victoria Trading Co." online to find it.

Guess that is all for now.  On Monday we will be processing the guys going home, making sure their bags don't exceed 50 lbs, and getting their bikes shipped out.  Then on Tuesday we have the new missionaries coming in, so that will also be a busy time.

We love you.

Mom and Dad.

General Conference Week-end

The announcement yesterday of converting the Provo Tabernacle to a Temple was amazing.  The Church News this past week highlighted the groundbreaking ceremony for the Philadelphia, PA temple, to be located right there close to Constitution Square.  When living in Bethlehem, PA during my work assignment in Newark, NJ, we were only 40 miles from Philadelphia, and so we were able to visit the historical sites there.  One of the funny things I remember was all the pennies people had dropped on Benjamin Franklin's grave.  I guess they all knew his adage "A penny saved is a penny earned".  We live in exciting times.

I took the 8 Elders of our zone out for pizza yesterday after the Priesthood Session.  So here we are, all nine of us, in our suits and ties, in this very casual pizza place.  At home I would have gone with Ross and Carl, and would have been "Ross' guest".  I have comfortably made the transition where I let Ross pay.  We have come a long way from the "ice cream cone at the A & W", but it has become a great tradition that other members have also taken up.  At home we always run into other Dads and their sons that we recognize from church.

Tomorrow we will receive 2 sisters from the SLC Temple Square Mission.  A part of their 18 month assignment to Temple Square, is a 4 month assignment in a "regular" mission.  One is a convert of 3 years, and has been a "District Leader" and "Trainer".  The other one has also been a trainer.  Wait 'till I tell the guys that Sister Harris was a DL.  Our regular Transfer Day is next week on October 11th.  We have 14 missionaries going home and will receive 16 new missionaries.  Since the missionaries count everything in Transfer Cycles, we will be involved in 13 transfers during our 18 months, and this will be our 5th Transfer.  We have been out for 6 months already!!!!!  Hard to believe.

Mom told of the birds we feed in the back.  They are fun to watch.

We live in neighborhoods, but also have undeveloped fields close by.  The building we are in is a former Stake Center, where our offices are in what used to be the Stake Suite.  We are close to these undeveloped areas of farm land, and the other day we had about 7 wild turkeys by our office entrance.  I will have to check if there is a Turkey hunting season around here.  Thanksgiving is not too far away

We are entering the time of year that to me always moves fast, with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas happening in each of the following months.  We had the realization that since we live in a neighborhood, we better be prepared for "trick or treaters".  Where we have lived in the past 18 years, we have lived so far out that the only trick or treaters were our grandchildren.

We are getting to know our neighborhood better.  Our 1 1/2 mile walk each morning gets us known to the neighbors. They wave and say "Hi" when we walk by.  We recognize the cars that belong, and know the name of the dog.  There is this one young couple living with their folks, and they have a 2 year old son who has to be out in the morning on garbage day to see the big truck pick up the garbage cans.  All the homes here have these same sized garbage containers that are mechanically picked up by a hydromechanical contraption on the side of the garbage truck (their dog's name is Lucky).

Guess that is all for today.

Love,

Elder and Sister Kolditz

Half Mission Conference

We just got back from the conference in Yuba City.  It is about an hour's drive away, and about 60 miles.  It would be like going to Vancouver from our home in Cathlamet.

Elder Kearon and his wife were our visiting General Authority.  They are from England, and he was called to the 1st Quorum of the Seventy in April 2010.  You might remember his talk about growing up in Saudi Arabia and being stung by a scorpion after disobeying his father about wearing shoes outside.

He is a very nice and sensitive man.  We sat next to him at lunch today and were able to get better acquainted with him.  He asked about our children and how they were doing, and so we told him about our guys and about our Joie, and how things fell into place so we could come and serve the Lord.  It was a very tender moment for us and for him. More so for him.  We have been through it a couple times.

As part of the conference presentations, a musical recording was played while several pictures of paintings of the Savior were shown on the screen.  We were then asked what our thoughts were during that presentation.  The answer, of course, was the Savior, His love for us, His sacrifice, and so on.  I admitted to Mom that my thoughts were about seeing our Joie, and all of us running towards each other in a grand reunion where we were all made whole.

Elder and Sister Baxter,  Elder and Sister Kearon, and us.

The Baxters are serving a "member support" mission in Paradise, CA.  They are from Utah, and are scheduled to be released on November 22nd this year.

They will hold the conference all over again tomorrow for the lower half of the mission, and we will be manning the office.

Guess that's it for now.

Love you all,

Dad