Wednesday, May 5, 2010

CES (S&I) and PEF training week

After a wondeful weekend at home we returned to the MTC on Sunday evening hoping to meet up with Elder Oldroyd who is leaving on Monday.  We did not have a chance to bid farewell on Friday and were glad to have found him at the Fireside and had a short visit after with all the Tahatian Elders.  Then on Monday morning we met with Elder/Sis Boren along with additional CES trainers from Salt Lake.

Wait!!  Jack didn't begin to describe the reaction of the Tahatian elders when they saw me standing outside the chapel after the fireside on Sunday evening.  One of them just yelled out Fran!  We were soooo happy to have connected.  They have invited us to their four day homecoming party.  That's not a four day party but a party after they have been home four days. 

CES training on MTW was absolutely over the top.  Learned more about how to study the scriptures than in all the rest of my life's instruction  combined.  PEF training at church headquarters on TH  & F was great the first hour then it got technical and I nearly lost my testimony. 

Wonderful weekend at home.  Mollie, Tony, and AJ were there.  I attended Cassidy's school play twice, second time with the Bones and Angie and Molly.  Tearful goodbys on Sunday and then a loooooooooong
day of travel on Monday.  Arose at two AM and went back to bed in Kingston at a bit after midnight.

Tuesday our wonderful neighbors (I"ll explain later) the Schaefermeyers, picked us up at the Hilton and took us to the mission office.  We met office personel, went to lunch with the office couple, the Chesmans, the Bradleys, who are leaving June l, the Schaef"s and two elders who were in town for zone conference.  Afterward we got our GPS programmed, did some other errands and went to Jamaican Costco.  Then home to Mandeville. 




Starting at the left Sister Bradley, Sister Shaefermeyer, Fran, Jack, Sister Cheesman, Elder Cheesman, Elder Shaefermeyer, Elder Bradley - Pic on right at mission office: E/S Cheesman, center you know who, and E/S Shaefermeyer.

OK!   Here's the real news.  When the AP's picked us up at the airport almost their first words were " Pres. Graff has been given an honorable releaase and left on Saturday"  Elder Coleman of the Area Presidency is here now and will preside over the mission until the new president comes.  Everyone has been  very  positive and ready to move forward but it was a bit of a shock.

So today we drove over to Savannah-La-Mar to a zone conference with Elder and Sis Coleman , the AP's, and the Schaefs.  Elder Coleman gave a short explanation and then gave us some wonderful instruction.  Met all (I think) Elders and Sisters in the zone and then went to lunch at Burger King with Schaefs and another couple from Lucea and a couple of Sisters.  It was raining bucketsful which was wonderful..  All of the Carribean is in drought mode.   

This is a bit of a back up.  The Schaefs are living in a three bedroom, two bath apartment in Mandeville and had reserved the apt. next to them for us, but leaving the option to find something else open.  On the way home Elder S. dropped a bomb.  In talking with E. Coleman everyone is in agreement that the Schaefs really should be in Kingston so they are going to go there and we will take their apt.  We are staying with them because the other unit was not ready for us - which means that we actually are at home - unless , of course, we also get transferred.  Our immediate boss is in the Dominican Republic until next Monday so we really don't have a clue yet as to our function in  this part of the vineyard.  We can't wait to get going.  We love you all  and will try not to be so wordy going forward.

5 comments:

  1. I love you all dearly and miss you immensly but... I have a little bone to pick. I know it may be hard after only being your daughter for 29 years (a blink of an eye in an eternal perspective) but... uh... My name is spelled incorrectly in this post. Who's to blame for this? ELDER or SISTER Andersen??? Oh well, because you are serving the lord, I'll overlook this one. Maybe NEXT year you'll get this one! LOVE YOU BOTH! We miss you dearly.

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  2. While we're on a spell-check kick, was neighbots a new word or a typo? This is what you get for correcting our spelling at the dinner table for all of these years!

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  3. Unfortunately both typos were Sister Andersen -
    They have now been corrected. CHEERS!!!

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  4. so yesterday I typed in a comment that said "I like the wordy commentary - keep it coming..." and then I typed in a VERY wordy story about an Eliza drama that you missed this week - but went to publish my comment & it couldn't process it for some reason. Then I was too discouraged to re-type the whole dang thing... so it'll be coming soon :). But I also want to throw out - "Please sign your comments so we know who's writing" :) xoxo

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