Squirrel Wars

May 17. For two years I have been hearing but seldom seeing the amazing variety of birds that abound in and around the mission home. In our West Valley home in Utah I put up a bird feeder and saw a lot of sparrows and finches, but that was about it. So I went to Pet Smart and got a bird feeder and bird seed to see if I could induce them to come out of the woods where I could see them up close. I hung it on the patio from some 2x4’s left over from the construction of the home eight years ago. I wondered if I would have trouble with the squirrels.

May 16. Sure enough, in no time I had a squirrel chomping away hanging on the feeder when I got up this morning. So I took the feeder down and left it in the garage while I went to the office. After completing some paper work Sharon and I went to Home Depot and bought a metal pole used for hanging potted plants. I put it on the patio in place of the 2x4’s and hung the bird feeder. Hopefully the squirrel won't be able to climb it. It was no not problem at all for the squirrel. As soon as I vacated the patio he climbed it and continued his feast. The next thing I knew he wasn’t even bothering to climb, he just leaped from the patio railing to the feeder. I had no idea they could leap so high! He has a 17” vertical leap and he can’t be more than four inches tall. This is war; It's me vs. that dratted squirrel.

May 17. I stopped on the way home from a district meeting and got some anti-squirrel stuff. I will win. I applied the fixes while Sharon looked on laughing and taking pictures. I raised the hanger two feet off the deck, cut a hole in the bottom of a gallon ice cream bucket and inverted it on the pole about halfway up. It seemed to work—the enemy would come by and look longingly up at the bird feeder, climb the pole till he got inside the bucket and come back down puzzled. I had won!

Jun 2. I got up this morning to find the squirrel hanging from the birdfeeder enjoying breakfast. How did he get up there? The bucket was in place. Sharon has named him Einstein. As soon as I opened the patio door the thief jumped down and ran. I went back in the house. Only to see him fly through the air from the roof of the home and land spread eagle on the bird feeder. It was a leap of 6 and a half feet. Unbelievable!  Not only he is smart, but he is quite an athlete. So I moved the pole from the side of the patio to the corner which would require a leap of 12 feet.

  

June 9. Einstein was back on the bird feeder, but how? Watching him again get to the bird feed he didn’t even bother to try to climb the pole, he just leaped from the railing to the bottom of the feeder and pulled himself up. That is an astounding vertical leap of 41 inches! That boy has been working out! So I screwed water bottles down on the top of the railing so close to each other that he would not have space to gather himself for that astounding leap. That puzzled him, but not for long. I was amazed to see him once again enjoying the bird food. Watching him I was again astonished at his intelligence. He learned that he could climb the pole, reach out and bend the ice-cream bucket and climb around it.

I went on line to see if I could find a better cone to put on the pole. There are plenty and quite pricey. One squirrel proof feeder I saw when activated by the weight of the squirrel would start a battery operated motor that would spin the rascals off. I got some satisfaction in watching the demonstration video. I could also tell that I’m not the only one in the world trying to keep squirrels out of bird feeders.

I again visited Home Depot and bought a couple of lengths of black pipe 5 feet long. By golly, I don't think he will be able to jump five feet to the bottom of the feeder. When I asked a worker if they had a squirrel barrier for the pipe, he said that most folks around here just use Vaseline on the pole or pipe. I confess I had thought of trying that, but had not done so. So I screwed the pipes together attached a shelf bracket for hanging the feeder and put it up in about 30 minutes. Then I greased the pole with Petroleum Jelly. One of my fond memories will always be watching Einstein jump up and grab the pole and come sliding back down. I just roared. He sat there with a puzzled look on his face and looking at his paws. Ha! gotcha. So far as I know he has not been up on my bird feeder but once when the weather wore off the grease. I now grease the pole every time I fill the feeder.

Peace and Serenity

One of my favorite places to read all of those e-mails. The weather in Pennsylvania has been fantastic this year! The mission home is in such a peaceful setting. The only sound that disturbs the peace is the noise of lawn mowers mowing all the acres of grass. Now if all the neighbors could agree to have their lawns mowed on the same day. . .but it seems they are mowed on different days so the noise of the mowers happen for a little while on just about every day of the week except Saturday and Sunday.

You can run but you can't hide

It is fun and spiritually uplifting to read the stories of faith from the missionaries each week. I liked this one:

"We found a lady named Angela. She was taught by the Elders a year ago and she now has a baptismal date. She came to church yesterday. We asked a bunch of kids on the street 'Who do you know that likes to talk about Jesus?' One of the kids said 'I know, follow me.' That's pretty much how we found Angela. She went up and bore her testimony on fast Sunday, it was priceless. She had the whole church laughing and she was talking about how excited she was to repent and get baptized. She said 'They just keep coming back! I moved and they still found me. It's always the missionaries from your church that keep finding me. When the elders came back for the second time my son said mom Jesus is on the front door! I told him he better not be, because we're not baptized yet!' The little boy that led us to her has a date [for baptism] also."

A Ripple Effect

This letter from one of my wonderful Sister Missionaries.

"I told you awhile ago about how we knocked on a Sister L.'s door who is a less-active member. She wasn’t home so we left a note; she called us and wanted to meet with us but in the mean time that following Sunday she came to church. Well she has been coming to church faithfully every week. We have been meeting with her and helping her do service. She hasn’t missed a single Sunday since we left the note on her door. She is very involved with the ward now. She comes to everything and she has made such great friends with the relief society sisters. Well another one of our less-active sisters in the ward was running and got swept away by a flash flood and sucked into a drainage pipe and shot out the other end of it and was taken down the river. She was in the hospital for days and had to have surgery! Well last Sunday they announced that they needed someone to take Sister M a dinner. Sister L. (who has only been coming back to church 3 times) offered to take her a meal. I guess when she dropped it out they ended up talking and realized they had a bunch of stuff in common. Well Monica came to church on Sunday because of Sister L! They both stayed for all 3 hrs. They hit it off and are the best of friends! Look at the ripple effect this has had simply because we got lost one Sunday afternoon. God is good!"

Investigators at Church

One of the most difficult tasks missionaries have is to get investigators to come to church. Most of the humble and teachable people the missionaries find do not have cars. Typically they get many people to commit to come each Sunday. They wait expectantly by the front doors with their cell phones to their ears trying to find out why those who said they will come are not there yet. I call it the pacing and calling time for missionaries. In spite of all their best efforts the missionaries are often disappointed. There are exceptions. Unfortunately, it is often a shock to missionaries that have had their hopes dashed so many times.

When investigators really do want to come to Church they will find a way. This is such an account from one of the missionaries:

“Despite not talking to people as much as we should have, this has been a pretty great week with miracles. They mostly deal with an investigator named ______. A little less than a month ago, while waiting for a member to pick us up for a meal appointment I was talking to people that would pass by. Just before the member drove up, ______ came by. We talked and got a return appointment. The member commented to us that he was probably meant to be a little late so we could talk to that person. At the time I was just happy that he saw us talking to him because I felt that it was helping us build member trust. We didn't think much of ______ at that time because we make appointments with many people that don’t keep them. However, after having to reschedule we did meet with ______ and taught him a short Restoration lesson on a Friday afternoon. We committed him to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, come to church told him the bus route he would need to take on Sunday. To our surprise, he was sitting in the chapel before we arrived. In our next appointment with him we asked him about the Book of Mormon. He told us that he knew it was true. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and set a date for his baptism. The next Sunday was Fast Sunday and he came again. I sat next to him and explained about fast and testimony meeting to him. Halfway into the meeting, he asked me if he could go up. When he got up, he said how much he liked this church and he said that he knew that the Book of Mormon was true. "Something told me that it was true," is how he said it. We met with him at the end of the day. We found out that he had walked home from church both Sundays. We estimate that it is about 8-10 miles to where he lives.  When we asked him about it he simply said how much he loves going to our church. From now on we'll make sure he gets a ride home so he won't have to walk.”

Ask more questions



Chef



One of the assistants asked if a "few" of the missionaries close by could use the back lawn of the mission home to play a game of football on p-day. Oh, and could they use the barbeque to cook a "few" hamburgers and hot dogs. When we returned from a speaking assignment in the South of the mission, the home and back yard were full of about 50 missionaries. I believe the scriptural defnition of "few" is eight. (1 Peter 3:20)  It was all in good fun and they cleaned the place up, but I will ask more questions before I consent next time.







Two games at once-8 to a side







Cheerleaders

Prayer

I often get such a lift as well as a smile when I read the letters from my missionaries. I will share this one as it did both. By way of background, this mission has been authorized to use facebook as a tool to find, teach and keep in touch with members and investigators. This letter is from one of my dear sister missionaries.

"I have learned a lot about specific prayers this past transfer. I was unhappy that no one was answering me on facebook so my companion told me to start praying more that I would get an answer. I prayed very hard that one person would answer me and the next day someone had. It was a very rude and inappropriate answer. So I prayed that someone would answer me positively, and the day after I received a message saying how attractive I was and that my future spouse would be very lucky. So I prayed again, this time asking that someone would be interested in hearing about my message. There were three people the next day who were. Since then I have had many responses and have started teaching some of them. Specific prayers will get specific answers. Have the faith to ask specifically. Sometimes all we have to do is ask before a blessing can be granted."

The Inner-city

There are wonderful people in our inner-cities amid the crime and poverty. Many are searching for the truth and a way out. The Spirit of the Lord is strong in these units of the Church as they worship in Sacrament and other meetings. It is like passing into another dimension to step across the threshold of a converted store. The wonderful members of the church and the Spirit greet you even more warmly than the mor affluent congregations.

Our missionaries dressed in their white shirts are respected by the gangs who rule these streets. Sometimes the local police will stop the missionaries and ask them if they know where they are. When the reply is positive, they are counseled to be careful. Of course the missionaries are taught to avoid crowds and any sign of crime and civil unrest. However they often observe drug deals and hear gunshots. I was told of one missionary that started a collection of empty dime bags. I now instruct them not to pick up things off the street. On one occasion I know of, a couple of our missionaries got roughed up by one of the local hoodlums trying to get in with a gang. It was reported that the hoodlum received a severe beating for that and told to leave the “Jesus Boys” alone. Once in a while a returned missionary will take his parents to some of the inner-city places where he served. He quickly learns that without the name tag, the white shirt, and tie the feeling there is much different.

One of our missionaries wrote this poem of his work in Camden, New Jersey.

          Broken Glass

By Nicholas Kenneth Reese

Graffitti’d walls and broken glass

Church bells ring for vespers mass

            The contents of a sidewalk’s edge

            Tell the tales of weekends past

With smoked butts and stray malts

And scattered, broken glass.

Half-Smoked Newports, whisky Flasks

Last night’s “40’s” paper bags

            From over pass to Pigeoned parks

            Inner-City streets are packed

With strange finds, and gang signs

And scattered, broken glass.

Rubber bands and latex

Corona bottles on the steps

            A cop displays the Doppler Effect

            Through streets filled up with car wrecks

And Zig-Zags and Dime bags

And scattered, broken glass.

Ghetto birds and narc cops

The constant smell of brewed hops

            The history of a lifetime here

            Is told with tattoo’d teardrops

And bad Jokes and blunt smoke

And scattered, broken glass.

Shattered glass of all kinds

Gives the street a strange shine

            Beneath a sky devoid of stars

            And Jordan’s hang on power lines

And streets lights and cheap fights –

Just scattered, broken glass

Bolted doors and drawn blinds –

Perhaps a home where we can find

            Amidst the pits of poverty

            And anything but welcome signs

A humble heart, a chance to start

From broken, scattered glass.

--Nicholas Kenneth Reese (2011)

The Gift of Tongues

It is remarkable how quickly our Spanish speaking missionaries are able to pick up the language. Imigrant Spanish speakers from the same country gather together in cities and towns throughout our mission. Our Spanish missionaries will be working with one Latin American culture and then get transferred and have to learn new idioms and accents from a different culture. I recently received this from one of my Spanish speaking missionaries who comes from Idaho:

This last week, we were walking to an appointment that we didn't need to be there for about another 30 minutes for, because of an unexpected change in travel plans, etc, and just trying to talk to everyone. We passed a younger man who was smoking, said hi, and continued on. He stopped us with, "Hey, can I ask you guys a question?" Of course we were more than happy to talk to him.

His question was about what we really do, and what church we go to. He has a neighbor that just left to do a mission like what we are doing, and he wasn't sure what it was all about. So, we explained to him that we are missionaries for 2 years, all the fun other little details, and I mentioned that we both speak Spanish.

"Oh really?" he says. Then, in Spanish, "Y como tu hablas el espanol?" (Basically, "How well do you speak Spanish?")

I replied in Spanish with something like, more or less, and said a few other things.

His jaw seemed to drop and he said, "Have you ever lived in a Spanish country?"

I told him no.

"Eso es mentira!" he said. ("That's a lie!") "Where are you from?"

I told him Idaho.

"Yeah, but where are you from, like what country."

I told him the United States. "No. That's a lie," he continued.

At this point I couldn't help but laugh. I pulled out my driver's license; he still didn't believe me.

"It's impossible for you to speak like that. How have you only been learning Spanish for a year, and you don't have an accent? It's impossible. You're lying."

Anyways, eventually I think he either believed us, or just accepted that we weren't going to change our story. We went on to explain more about our church and the Book of Mormon. He seemed really interested in everything we had to say, and asked us for a Book of Mormon. We dropped one off at his mom's store, like he asked us to, and we plan on getting in touch with him this week to see if we can start working with him more.

The Unexpected

As a missionary you must be ready for the unexpected. This is from the same companionship on the same day.

“So, the other day my companion and I were waiting for the bus when a Honduran lady got off and started to talk to us. She was surprised that we spoke Spanish, so we explained to her why, and had a short conversation. Out of the blue, she says, "Can you guys get married?" We were a little taken back at that, but we replied yes, we can get married but we have to wait till after the mission. "And how much longer do you have?" she proceeded to ask. My companion told her that he's got 15 months left and I've got a year. "Ok. Well, the thing is that I need someone to marry my sister, so that she can get her papers. We would be willing to pay you." We were shocked, and I had to hold back a startled laugh. She was asking us to marry her sister!! hahaha. She exchanged phone numbers with us, and said to call her. We're going to see if we can try to teach her instead of marrying her sister. hahaha.

“One day too, we were on the bus headed to an appointment and were standing next to a guy in a wheelchair. We were talking quietly and then stopped. My companion started to whistle quietly one of the hymns, and hadn't been whistling for more than 5 seconds when the man in the wheelchair exploded. He used every swear word in the book, I think; telling my companion that he can talk to me, but he can't whistle. "There's no dogs here! Take that back to the hills, or wherever you're from!" Those are some examples of the things he said, but of course the edited version. My companion was the better man and tried to kindly explain to the man that he should just ask and not get so angry. Nothing happened after that; we arrived to our destination safely and had a good evening.”

Opposition

Quite often as people hear the Gospel and desire to repent, there are obstacles and stumbling blocks thrown in their path. I hear from the missionaries all the time about how cars break down on the way to church, someone breaking an arm so they can’t keep their appointments, etc. This brief comment from a missionary telling me about their week seemed to express it quite well.

“It's a bit crazy with illness right now. One of our investigator's daughter is in the hospital with pneumonia, another's girlfriend over dosed on some pills. One member broke her leg very badly skiing and now her father has passed away. Another member is in the hospital recovering from open heart surgery following a heart attack, and another one is hospitalized due to a blood clot in her leg and a bleeding ulcer. That sounds terrible but they all should recover. Opposition in all things I guess.”

Miracles

My missionaries talk often about miracles. They see the hand of the Lord working among His children such as the following I received in my weekly emails. I fully believe that the greatest miracle we ever see is the changing of a human heart to righteousness.

There was an investigator we met with our ward mission leader 3 weeks ago who had been way interested in our message. When we met back with her she slammed the door and said it was a bad time. That was not the most exciting return appointment for a golden investigator. We continued to call her to no avail. This past Sunday as we were walking we felt that we should knock on a few doors on this street. We found a man who was in need of the gospel. Later we took a member with us to meet with him. The member invited him to come to church and he accepted. As we were doing service at the same apartments where our formerly talked about 'Golden Investigator' lived she was sitting outside. We went over to talk to her. She hung up the phone saying, 'here they are now, the missionaries are here.' Unsure as to what to expect we said hello and she said, ‘you won't believe it’, we asked, ‘what?’ She responded, ‘I am coming to church. You guys are teaching my boyfriend’ This past Sunday they both made it to church.”

There are so many account of things that just “seem to happen,” they cannot be passed off as coincidence. The Lord of the vineyard works right alongside His servants. (Jacob 5:72)

Transfers

Transfers happen every six weeks. Those who have completed their missions go home, new missionaries (we call them "goldens" in this mission, not "greenies") come in. It starts a domino process. I have learned that some will be happy and some will not. Here are two letters I received after the transfer last week:

Missionary #1 "I am so, so ecstatic to get to serve with my companion for another six weeks. And so is the ward! When we told everyone in Relief Society during the “Good News Minute,” everyone cheered! Ha ha, it’s flattering, but not why I wanted to stay. I sincerely and genuinely love this area and all these people. I’ve resolved within myself to make this my best transfer yet."

Missionary #2 "Staying in _____ for another transfer is really going to help me with this. I was hoping to move to another area after my fourth transfer here, but I am reminded of "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go" or I'll stay where you want me to stay, DEAR Lord. It's God's will. Not mine. I'm the type where I get antsy after several months, and like change. But that's my will. Not God's."

Missionary Cars

The Standard joke I heard and still hear about being a mission president is “that’s like being on a three year scout camping trip.” I always reply “my scouts didn’t have cars.” The roads in this mission are nearly always packed with cars going 10 to 30 miles an hour over the posted speed limit with no gaps between them. I often think of a Nascar race while I’m driving. Into this environment I place a nineteen year old fresh from an Idaho farm whose only real experience is driving tractors and potato trucks, behind the wheel of a brand new mission car.

One missionary after hitting a guardrail and causing significant damage to the front end of the car complained that the speed limit was too high. “I was going the speed limit, but that was too fast to make the corner. They should lower the speed limit.”

Another didn’t see the car in front of him stop and smashed the whole front end—the car was totaled. It had been driven less than 200 miles.

So what is it like being a mission president? It is the most exhilarating, spiritually uplifting experience I have ever had in all my years serving in church callings. Nothing can compare with the feeling of walking into a room full of missionaries all with their scriptures open studying; words cannot express the strength of the spirit of the Lord that is always present. I have come to know that the Savior watches over and truly loves His missionaries. Nowhere else in the world can be found such dedicated young men and women sincerely wanting to serve others and make a difference in the lives of people. I think it was President Gordon B. Hinckley who replied to the question, “Why do you send 19 year old young men on missions?” the reply, “Because it works.” And so it does.

Just one example from a missionary:
"Later that night we received a voicemail from ___ [who had just been baptized] where he simply thanked us over and over again. It was so sweet and so sincere. I know that that is why I am here. We didn't do anything as far as his conversion, however, he was in the right spot at the right time and simply sharing the message with him has completely changed his life for all eternity. He knows it is true, and that is enough for me to know that this is the Lord's work and it is my purpose to share it. To change lives. It's amazing! I love it! I love being a missionary!!"

Feeding Missionaries

I am still chuckling about this elder's comment. The wonderful converts love the missionaries and feed them their favorite foods. Some times the ethnic foods are a bit strange to the missionaries.

"oh last week we went over to another recent convert and had dinner there. it was by far the worst dinner i've had on my misson, it was fried fish smothered in this weird red stuff and cow feet in peanut soup. it was really gross, i saw my companion gag a few times. made a good journal entry.:)

Weekly emails

Each week I read about 160 emails from my missionaries. A few are very disheartening , but most are uplifting and full of faith. I also get many chuckles. Many are are a few short sentences, some are pages long. I think the longest I have ever received was 3300 words long. Though some may think it would be boring, I find it fascinating to feel what they feel and to share in their joys and disappointments. Most write quickly with many grammatical errors and misspellings, but they write from the heart. I respond to about 50 percent of them especially when they ask me a question. I am going to try, from time to time, to give a sample of what they write and some of the questions I respond to. I have way more on my to do list than I will ever have time to.

Here is a sample of what I write to the missionaries that get stopped by the police for "soliciting" without a license.

We are not door to door salesmen--we do not solicit
"The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the constitutional right of missionaries and others to share their religious views door-to-door. This right was upheld as recently as 2002 in a case involving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Supreme Court said that it is unconstitutional to require missionaries to get a permit before they can go door-to-door to share a religious message." That being said, many law enforcement officers do not know this or if they do tend to ignore it. If one of them stops you from going door-to-door, note the time and address and without being belligerent, see if you can get the badge number of the officer. Send all this to me and I'll address it with their Chief of Police.