Friday the 13th (April 2018) - we awoke this morning
to see that spring has finally arrived in Edmonton

Sister Debbie Hatch has accepted a call to serve a Church Service Mission,

and will be trained by Sandy to become the mission secretary

Elder Jackson Earnest is from Perry, Utah. His mom periodically sends him specially boxed gifts,

like this Easter egg. For Christmas she sent him a box shaped like a mail box.

Our first date was April 1, 1969.  To celebrate our 49th anniversary

we went to a dinner theater here in Edmonton. It was a nice evening.

The dinner theater is in the West Edmonton Mall. We saw this attractive background, and I thought to improve the scene by adding an even more attractive foreground.

President Pattison has a personal interview with each missionary at least once every six weeks.Before the interview he has  them complete a questionnaire. Click on the following link to view the questionnaire: Missionary Questionnaire. If the questionnaire needs to be rotated follow these steps: 1) open the document, 2) press ctrl+p, 3) press "Cancel," 4) right click on the document and select "Rotate clockwise."

Tuesday is Preparation Day for the missionaries. The Zone Leaders come to the office each Tuesday morning to pick up mail for the missionaries in their zones. Sister Burnett and Sandy trade-off every other Tuesday and bring a treat to the office for the Zone Leaders. Last night Sandy made salsa and chips for the missionaries to enjoy today. Below is a photograph of her preparation, and for some reason it caught my eye as being artistic. So, I gave the photo a name.

 

"Culinary Art"

With the historic announcements in General Conference this past weekend,Church-related memes are flourishing.

Robyn and Alan Calderon announced their engagement on Friday, March 30th. Plans are underway for a June 5th temple sealing.

President Pattison decided to now have a quarterly newsletter. Click the following link for this year's first one: CEM Newsletter 1st Quarter

One thing that Sandy does as mission secretary is schedule missionary interviews with the president. The following poem by Elders Griffin and Hoppie is in response to a scheduled appointment:

We thank thee a lot for all that you do, 

We're excited for this transfer's president interview! 

We will drive so safe and get there so surely, 

Yes ma'am, we'll arrive 10 minutes early! 

Thanks for being the sweetest and such, 

We know you're the best and love you so much! 

-Love Elder Hoppie and Elder Griffin,  your Stettler elders!

I recently took a look at our young missionaries and where they come from. I found the following statistics interesting:

Gender

     Elders       105   (67%)

     Sisters       51   (33%)

                    156

North America      133   (85%)
United States         120   (77%)

Asia                         12   (  8%)

Central America        3   (  2%)

Europe                       3   (  2%)

Great Britain             2    (  1%)

South Pacific             2   (  1%)

South America          1    (  1%)

Canada                    13    (  8%)

Intermountain West

     Utah                 59   (38%)

     Arizona            17   (11%)

     Idaho               13   (  8%)

     Nevada              1   (  1%)

     Colorado           0   (  0%)

     New Mexico      0   (  0%)

                             90   (58%)

As spring approaches, removing snow from the streets is a major project. During the night machines plow the snow into windrows, then other machines come along and blow the snow into large tractor trailers for transport out of town.

Every six weeks a few missionaries return home. Prior to their departure the mission has a lunch for them featuring donair pizza. (For more about donair go to the bottom of this post.) Sandy decorates the tables for the lunch.

Donair is heavily spiced ground beef that's shaped into a large loaf and roasted on a spit, then shaved and seared on a flat top range. Spices include black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, and oregano. (It's something we will miss.)

Two sister missionaries (Mills and Toone) recently had an automobile accident (fortunately there were no injuries). Their car was in the shop eight days for repair. When they got it back they noticed that the odometer had an additional 231 kilometers on it, so they called me. I was impressed that they noticed the kilometers, and that they had the good judgment to inform me.

I called the shop manager and told him about the odometer. He was nice, but told me that his people had been with him for years and nothing like that had ever happened before. However, he offered to do some checking.

He called me back about an hour later and said that he checked three shop vehicles and discovered that they were all low on gas, though he knew they should have been near full. He said that he had one person in mind who might be responsible, and that he would confront him, then let me know what happened.

The manager called me today and said that the employee confessed to taking the gas and driving the mission vehicle. The manager said that as restitution he would deduct $1000 from the cost of repairing the car.