September began with our second transfer and ended with us preparing for the next one. In between we welcomed nineteen new missionaries, held our first zone conferences, spoke at two stake conferences, hosted our son and his family for two wonderful weeks, and rode our bikes sixty miles across eastern Indiana. Here is how the month unfolded.
Transfer Week
Transfers come every six weeks, and the decisions behind them start long before transfer day. In the weeks beforehand, Sister Flanagan and I consider the needs of each missionary and seek the Lord’s will for where each one should serve and who should lead. It is a revelatory process, meant to help every missionary become a better lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ and to further His work. We start by choosing the trainers for our new missionaries, then repair the damage that pulling those trainers from their current assignments causes. It takes days, and it is a lovely process.
On Wednesday, September 2, we started early. Sister Flanagan and I called each missionary who would train a new missionary or take on a new leadership role as a district leader, zone leader, or sister training leader, along with those finishing one of those assignments and moving on to something new. Our assistants called everyone else. The calls took a couple of hours. Then we held two trainings by Zoom: one for all of our new trainers and one for our leaders, including district leaders, zone leaders, sister training leaders, and our assistants. The assistants help us train our leaders and go on exchanges with them throughout the transfer.
This time we received nineteen new missionaries, and we needed nineteen trainers. We were short on Spanish-speaking trainers, partly because we also received three Spanish-speaking missionaries who were called abroad and are waiting on their visas. We are grateful to have them and welcomed them like everyone else. As a result, Sister Hamilton is training two new Spanish-speaking missionaries at once, and she is doing great. We also split up two Spanish-speaking zone leaders, Elder Montgomery and Elder Castilla, so that each could train while continuing his zone leader work. Both are doing a wonderful job.
Around 5 pm we went to Fort Wayne International Airport to pick up our new missionaries. We took them and their luggage to the church building in Columbia City, where we oriented them, interviewed them, and fed them before taking them to their hotel for the night. Somewhere in the middle of that busy day we also put a scratch on our car. I think the Lord wanted us to have more empathy for our missionaries when they bang up their vehicles. It is never good to damage the Lord’s property, but no one was hurt, the car has been repaired, and all is well.
On Thursday morning we brought the new missionaries back to the Columbia City building at 10:30 so Sister Flanagan and I could get to know them a little better, introduce ourselves, and love them. At 11:00 the rest of the transferring missionaries filled the parking lot. We introduced each new missionary to his or her trainer, took a picture of every companionship, and sent them on their way with all the other elders and sisters who were moving. It is a sight to behold. Watching the excitement and motivation that come with change, and with a new start for each elder and sister, is amazingly uplifting. Some of these elders, like the four at the top of this post, are so tall that they made me feel small in stature but mighty in spirit. We love them all.
At noon our assistants took the missionaries who were finishing their missions to lunch and then brought them to our home, where Sister Flanagan had prepared a feast. We had dinner, a devotional, and testimonies, then sent them to a hotel for the night. Their testimonies are strong and Christ centered; clearly their missionary service has changed them and made them more Christlike. Very early Friday morning we picked them up and took them to the airport for their journey home. Then we took a nap. The rest of Friday was for recovery, cleaning, and preparation.
On Saturday, September 5, we held District Leadership Council (DLC) to train and counsel with all of our district leaders, several of whom were new. These leaders each look after a small group of missionaries and have a huge impact on the culture and workings of the mission, so we want them to be well trained, comfortable, and inspired. Sister Flanagan taught, and the elders hung on every word. Like the armies of Helaman, these young men have faith and listen to the women in their lives. That afternoon, and again the next day after church in Logansport, we attended baptisms. Each one reminds us why the missionaries are here.
On Sunday afternoon we came home to counsel with our assistants and then joined the monthly missionary dinner at the home of President and Sister Bell.
Our First Zone Conferences
On Tuesday, September 8, we drove to Valparaiso for zone conference with the missionaries from the Lafayette, Valparaiso, and South Bend zones. We left a little early so I could hold my annual interviews with our service missionaries. Service missionaries serve for 18 to 24 months while living at home. They serve full-time, as teaching missionaries do, in places throughout their communities and in the temple, and they regularly go out finding and teaching with our teaching missionaries.
That evening we had dinner with President and Sister Astle and got to know them better. President Astle is the Valparaiso Indiana Stake president. Afterward we met with the stake’s leaders to coordinate missionary work in the stake. It was a rewarding and uplifting day.
On Thursday we held the same zone conference at the Fort Wayne stake center for the Fort Wayne and Muncie zones, again with service missionary interviews beforehand and a coordination meeting with the Fort Wayne stake’s leaders that evening. During the conference, a few local sisters set up in a classroom and mended our missionaries’ clothes. What kind and needed service.
Family Comes to Visit
On Friday, September 11, a pedal boat appeared on the pond behind the mission home. I was told we bought it for the grandchildren who visit. Perhaps there was another motive.
The next day our son, his wife, and their three boys arrived for a two-week visit. They stayed with us, and we enjoyed great discussions, good meals, and some fun outings. The grandchildren loved the pedal boat, and they loved fishing with Grandma. Every one of them caught a fish. One evening while we sat enjoying the view from the backyard, a pair of bald eagles stopped by. We hope they choose to stay.
Mission work did not stop while they were here, and they joined us for some of it. On Sunday, September 13, I traveled to a Coordinating Council with Elder Daines. On Tuesday our son had to work remotely, which freed me to work too, so I held my South Bend zone interviews by Zoom all day. I don’t enjoy Zoom interviews nearly as much as sitting with missionaries in person, and I hope not to do them again. On Wednesday, September 16, the whole family came with us to the airport to pick up a new Haitian Creole–speaking missionary, who joined our other Haitian Creole speakers that evening. Nearly twenty more new missionaries will arrive on October 7.
In between, we explored. We visited the Fort Wayne Zoo. We spent a day at a dairy farm, where the boys learned about dairy farming and had fun in the corn maze. We wandered through the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory, and we visited Shipshewana to learn about the religion and culture of our Amish neighbors.
Two Stake Conferences
On Sunday, September 20, Sister Flanagan and I both spoke in the Fort Wayne Indiana Stake conference, and it was fun to have our family there. Sister Flanagan read Doctrine and Covenants 82:14, which teaches that Zion must increase in beauty and holiness, that her borders must be enlarged and her stakes strengthened.
My talk was titled “Be Not Afraid, Only Believe.” I was born with ocular albinism, which leaves me with partial sight. I can’t legally drive, I can’t read the name tags of my beloved missionaries, and I have a hard time quickly putting names and faces together. That has led to some memorable moments, like the afternoon I climbed into the wrong white minivan outside my office at BYU, driven by a colleague’s wife, who also happened to be named Linda.
Years ago I was called to be a young men’s leader, without my wife at my side to help me see. I chose to accept the call in faith rather than turn it down in fear. Within a few months, three families moved into our ward with four young men who were partially or completely blind. At an outing, our little band set off on a compass course with talking and Braille compasses. We climbed over boulders and pushed through bushes that everyone else would have walked around, and yet we reached our goal. We never saw the obstacles that would give sighted groups pause, so we simply kept walking, trusting our compasses over our doubts. They were not afraid; they believed.
Sister Flanagan and I are in a similar situation now, surrounded by elders and sisters who answered a prophet’s call and don’t let obstacles stop them. When we arrived in June, we left our bags in the car and went straight to work with the missionaries in Fort Wayne. We were scared to death, but we exercised faith. I invited the members to pray for the missionaries, work with them, lead their friends to them, and, when their circumstances allow, become one of them. “The Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him” (1 Nephi 7:12).
Our family headed home on Friday, September 25, and we left right away for Mission Leadership Council (MLC) in Warsaw. That afternoon I interviewed our South Bend zone leaders and sister training leaders, and then we drove to Valparaiso, where I held interviews on Saturday before the Saturday evening session of the Valparaiso Indiana Stake conference.
On Sunday, September 27, we both spoke again. My talk, “Called to Serve,” was about the law of consecration: dedicating our time, our talents, and everything the Lord has blessed us with to building up His Church. When a call comes, we can share our challenges and misgivings with our priesthood leaders, but then we respond in faith and press forward with the best we have. Sister Flanagan and I accepted this call consecrating all we have, limitations included, and we are grateful for the Lord’s trust in us and thrilled to serve alongside the members and missionaries to hasten His work.
Sixty Miles on the Cardinal Greenway
Every so often we get out on our bikes for exercise. Early in the month that was practice for a longer ride.
On Monday, September 28, we rode the Cardinal Greenway from Gaston to Richmond, sixty miles on an old rail line. A rail trail is relatively flat, the wind was calm, and the weather was lovely, but we didn’t anticipate riding with the sun in our eyes most of the morning. It got better later in the day. In a few places the trail was closed, and we detoured on farm roads with almost no traffic. It was fun.
About five to ten miles from the end, Sister Flanagan fell over while nearly stopped and hurt herself a bit. With just a few miles to go, her rear tire got a hole and blue sealant sprayed everywhere, but the sealant did its job, the tire sealed, and we made it to our hotel. We parked our bikes in our room, and Sister Cole and Sister Hansen gave us a ride back to our car. We took them to Steak ’n Shake to say thank you.
The next day we held interviews in Muncie, then went home to prepare for the next transfer. The cycle never ends.
Looking Back
September reminded us how much of this work happens in cycles: calls and trainings, arrivals and departures, interviews and councils, and then it all begins again. Woven through it were sweet days with our family, the kindness of members who mend missionaries’ clothes and feed us at their tables, and missionaries who don’t let obstacles stand in their way. We are not afraid; we believe. We testify that Jesus Christ lives, that the Lord is able to do all things for those who exercise faith in Him, and that this is His work.