Hna Deb's Mission President and his wife leave in a few days and
they sent this last picture with their missionaries before returning home
to Linden, Utah. A new couple has been assigned.
(Click to enlarge)

Dear Family,

Happy P-day! It's been a good week. My fingers are all covered in paint, we had fun painting in our NEW BRANCH MISSION LEADER's mom's house yesterday. We haven't had an active branch mission leader for about 5 months, so that was really really exciting. Plus, painting is fun. I'm going to spend a week cleaning out my fingernails. I really enjoy doing service, but we haven't been able to use our lawn mower yet. It's been really busy. The bishops of other wards have been giving us names of young single adults to go visit and most of them live pretty far away or don't have lawns. Sad day. But we'll keep on rolling on. It sounds like Mom is out doing more missionary work than I'm doing. That's really great. Colorado Springs 2nd needs some good missionaries like you guys. Keep it up. That's really exciting. I've been showing off your letters in the guides room at the visitor center.

The Visitor Center has been super busy as well. It's neat how there's always a connection between myself and the tours that come in. They're usually from a mountainous area or they know someone I do or study the same thing I study. It's neat, how it all works out. I really liked some of the people I got to take on tour this week. I took a man from England on a short tour at the Visitor Center. I asked him if he knew anyone from Leeds. I guess he used to live there and he served as a high councilor with Al and Val Mitchell -- the only people I know in England. That was cool. There one this one little couple from Podunk, Alberta, Canada. And the husband was a convert. His wife looked young, but apparently she'd already been a primary president and was a Relief Society counselor in their little family ward out there. And in this city of 8,000 they were from, due to missionary efforts there were already 3 wards. I was really impressed with how positive they were, despite being in the middle of a move and how much love they expressed for the Gospel. If they testify that much to everyone they meet. I'm not surprised they're so many who want to join the church in that area. It's great. There's a lot of power in testimony.

Something like 25% of the wards in the US didn't have a single convert baptism last year. I've heard of more of my friends being sent stateside on missions, because we're not as up to par and excited about sharing the gospel as we could be. I think on average here in Missouri there's about 10 baptisms in a ward per year, some a little more, some a little less. In Kansas it was a little lower, less members. I want to know what the retention is over a 30 yr period. I've discovered that most really active member have all gone less active at some point in their life, but still had a testimony and felt a connection, if not a commitment to the Church. So I wonder in a 30 yr period who stays or becomes really active.

We've got a lesson with Josh tomorrow and he's still active and doing great and I hope he'll be able to go to the Nauvoo temple trip to do baptisms next month. I'm really excited for him.

Thanks for your service and all that you do. Thanks for the letters and the support and the prayers. I love my family.

Hermana Deb

Our missionary, Deb, sent a picture of the Sister Missionaries in the Independence MO mission Visitor's Center during a visit from Elder Holland. She is at the feet of the Christus. This was a very special day as your read in her letter.
(Click to enlarge)

Hi Family!

How's Colorado, Washington, Utah, Virginia and California treating you? Missouri's good. Spring's really nice here. There's millions of dark purple trees that have been in bloom the last couple weeks. I have my 'tree guide' out trying to figure out what they are, but I don't know. Maybe 'eastern redbuds'. But summer's on it's way and there was a waterfight/volleyball at an FHE barbecue last night. We've spent every activity thus far going around and making appointments and asking referrals. This time we just did our best to make friends and play. No one recognized us pulling into the parking lot because we were wearing shorts. One of our recent converts brought a friend. Another guy that claimed he 'didn't want to be Mormon anymore' because it wasn't fun enough showed up too, and had a really good time.

We got a lawn mower! Going on my mission, I'll admit I haven't missed mowing our yard, Dad. But we've been looking for a way to serve and I'm excited to use my skills. Our elders quorum president finds old mowers all the time at his work. He found one that we can take apart and fit into the back of the Corolla. Sweet.

Let's see, so all that was exciting this week, what else interesting happened...oh yeah. ELDER HOLLAND CAME TO THE VISITOR CENTER! He's really short. But he's really really nice and walked around through everything we had and then when he was done greeted every sister and every visitor lucky enough to be there, actually it was the other way around. He greeted everybody, walked around, greeted everyone again, then said,“I've never met a missionary without a camera. Let's take pictures. Are you all happy, I'm the head of the missionary happiness committee. Are you busy here?” So I have a picture with Elder Holland and we sang "Beautiful Savior" for him and Elder Watson of the 2nd Quorum of the 70. Elder Holland's really funny. He kept threatening to kiss everybody. I was good with a handshake. I found out he did kiss one of the senior sisters he knew from UT on the cheek. Her husband's been teasing her about it ever since. The sister that took them downstairs through the history center said he spent the most time at the one display I don't ever seemto fit into my history tour. It's a rounded plastic display on the wall about the Proclamation on the Family. So I've tried to work it into the history tour more this week.

I'm thankful for opportunities to share the gospel. I was reading on oneof the first pages of Preach My Gospel and it said something like, "We welcome you as fellow servants of the Lord in His work." I recognized this week how true that is. No matter what calling we have. We've been called. I've been choristering at church lately. The person who's called to do has showed up late or not at all. He went up at testimony meeting and held up the program and said, “You see 'Chorister', next to it, it says my name. I need to do better. I know callings are important. And they are opportunities to grow. And I will do better.” He led the closing song. Change is a really neat thing. We're also getting a branch missionary leader. That's a big change. I'm excited to find out who it is.

Well. I love you all. Thanks for supporting me and loving me and doing lots of good. I know you all do.

Tu Hermanita Dev [Translationfrom Samoan - "Dev" = Deb]