Dear Family and Friends, April 6, 2013
This is the last letter from our apartment in Visalia. It is probably the last letter from Visalia. We need to be out of our apartment today because the Williams are coming to replace us today. We will be sleeping at the 1st Ward bishop's house for our last four days on the mission.
Elder Sheffer was so anxious that he woke up before 4:00A.M. and said, "We need to wash to mattress cover right now." Sounds crazy doesn't it. Well not really. A few days ago the mission office called and said that they had receive a letter from the power company that stated there would be a planned power outage in our area for repairs and it would start at 6:00am and end at 6:00pm on Saturday the 6th of April. That is today. So, your Dad figured that he needed to start the laundry at 4:30am to be sure there would be enough time to have the mattress cover dried and the apartment vacuumed before the power was turned off.
We have spent the last two days cleaning and packing, whenever we aren't teaching. We are leaving most of our things in the garage and on Wednesday we will pack the car and drive off. The funny thing is that Thursday the Sister over housing called and said they were going to bring more things for the apartment. We were one of the first senior couples to come on a mission when the policy changed and the mission was to find and furnish the apartments. They didn't know what the budget was for this task. So, for us we got dishes for four, four chairs, a table, a desk, dresser, nightstand, couch, love seat and four lamps. All the young Elders loved the fact that we had a couch. Our back room was empty. So, the trailer arrived and out came a leather recliner and two twin beds for the guest room, additional dressers, coffee table, end tables, and the list goes on. We had four Elders come over to help assemble the new furniture. Elder Sheffer said, "I knew if I served a good mission I would be blessed with a recliner. But I didn't know I would only have it for twenty four hours."
Just before the priesthood session the Williams arrived. They are an amazing couple who have served two missions. The first was in the Ukraine and the second was at Nauvoo.
April 8, 2013
We fed the sisters Saturday morning. Sister Baysden will be going home with us because she broke her colar bone. She was scheduled to go on the next transfer, so that was in an acceptable time window. In the picture Sister Sheffer is feeding her a grapefruit because her arm made eating grapefruit hard.
Sunday the 7th we enjoyed conference and prepared for our last baptism. Michael Malmgren was baptized by his father-in-law Wilem Madra who lives in North Salt Lake but was planning to vacation in Death Valley when Michael decide to be baptized. Michael had wanted to stop smoking for many years and we were able to use and stop smoking program with him which has the person make commitments, we would call and support him every day for a week. That was one of the final steps for him. When the baptism and confirmation was complete he asked to share his testimony. As he said it, "I wanted to be the first to welcome everyone into my family." He has a very kind heart. We are so grateful to have a wonderful ward senior couple who will teach him the new member lessons. We had to make a late night trip to the Exeter bishop's house to get his signature on the baptismal record so we could send it into the mission office. The bishop was not in town for the baptism. The bishop said, "I can't sign this form without a tie on." Elder Sheffer decided to share his tie with him, the form was signed.
Our last meeting Sunday night was with the ward senior missionaries. We have heard that another couple will be called soon. We are so excited. This will leave only one ward that doesn't have a ward senior couple. The Williams the full time senior couple was there and they are excited. We know that just like us they are overwhelmed. They have a wonderful spirit and desire. They will be helped and well supported by the members here in Visalia. We were able to take a picture of this amazing group. The Lara couple from the 5th Ward wasn't at the meeting. They work with the Spanish Ward.
Today is our last official proselyting day. We are sad to think of it ending. There will be many tears tomorrow night at the farewell. We love the Lord and His children and the best work in the world is missionary work. But we know that His work is one eternal round and we are so very grateful that we have been able to do this work for a short season and hope to serve again sometime.
After tonight's lessons we will turn our full attention to home and our beautiful family who has grown so much and been so patient in sharing us with the people of Visalia. We are excited to see them and hold them in our arms. It is very difficult to have your grandchildren hug the computer goodbye after a Skype visit. We love you all. We will be home on the 11th of April and our homecoming is on the 21st of April at 1:00pm. We hope to see you there.
God Bless You Elder and Sister Sheffer
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