Dear Brother and Sister Taylor and
family,
We wanted to write to you and
express our gratitude to you for sharing your son, Elder Taylor, with us for
the next two years. We have enjoyed meeting him. He is a fine young
man and we have enjoyed our interactions with him and look forward to many more.
We met the arriving
missionaries at the Ontario airport. Elder Taylor, along with nine other
Elders and one sister, arrived at the airport about 12:30 Tuesday, June
19. They looked amazing as they were coming down the stairs - all in their
new clothes, white crisp shirts, new suits and shined shoes. While we
were waiting for their luggage, we had a quick visit with each of them.
They were excited and just a little uneasy, (maybe more than a little)
wondering what was happening next. The assistants to the president (AP's)
had been driving around the area in a pick-up truck and a van, waiting for us
to call them to come and get the new missionaries and their luggage. We
called, they arrived and all luggage was loaded into the vehicles.
We left the airport with the
new missionaries and a load of chairs in the AP’s truck and went to the Glen
Helen Park at the mouth of the Cajon Pass. I took a sack lunch for the
missionaries to eat there. Sister Marilyn Mills, a local historian and sister from
the Upland stake, met us there and told the missionaries how the area had been
settled.
After the experience at the
park we took the new Elders to the mission home for a short orientation
meeting. President and I spent some
time with them answering questions and explaining our expectations of them as
missionaries. We also let them play ball, ping pong and just relax a
while. That evening we had dinner with them and then showed some safety
videos the Church has made for the missionaries on car and bicycle
safety. We then played another paper sack game and a good time was had by
all as they competed and laughed together.
We then had them get bedded
down for the night. Everyone was exhausted and fell right off to sleep
after writing in their journals. The next morning we cooked waffles and
put things away while President had an initial interview with them. About
11 a.m. their trainers arrived and we talked to all of them about the new 12
week training program. For lunch we cooked hamburgers and hotdogs outside
and everyone ate on the patio, played ping pong and just got aquainted.
About 3 o’clock we sent them all to their areas to begin, in earnest, their
missionary efforts. They were all happy to get out in the field to start
finding and preaching the gospel.
We are looking forward to
working with your missionary in this most wonderful of experiences - preaching
the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people in this area. There is a lot of
diversity here. He will learn a lot about other cultures. We know he will
be a fine missionary. He is a wonderful young man.
If you have any questions,
please feel free to contact either one of us.
Also, if you do not know, we have a
mission blog where I put pictures of the missionaries from time to time.
I don’t have a lot of time to spend doing it, but try to update it every week
or so. I am sure your missionary will have pictures on there as we
associate with them and have pictures sent to us. The address for the
mission blog is: http://sanbmnews.blogspot.com.
Warmest regards,
Sister Godwin
President Godwin
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| Elder Taylor with President and Sister Godwin |
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| Elder Taylor with his first companion and trainer Elder Smith |
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