September 14, 1984 Billings, Montana

Dearest Johnny; Roy; Bob, Claire, Michael & Laura; Rick, Jean, Ricky, Barbara Jean & Mary Ann; and Ron, Ann, Susanna, Jessie, Russell & LeeAnna:

It's Friday night and I'm going to start my letter now because starting tomorrow we are going to be SUPER busy until Tuesday. This weekend is the Custer District Conference and they are going to have a buffalo dinner tomorrow night and Daddy is the main speaker and then their conferences are all day Sunday - the Crow and Cheyenne Tribes won't mingle so we have to have two different conferences in two different conferences in two different places!!!!

I need to clean house in the morning and do something to the flower gardens because they have been neglected for the last little while since we've been gone. We are going to have our big HarvAugust pig roast on Monday - the Elders have dug the pit and will go after the pig tomorrow and start the fire and then put it in sometime on Sunday night. I told you in one of my last letters that Elder Cardinet was going out of the house - it was so funny but the night before he was to leave the financial secretary's job over to the elder he had trained they found quite a few errors in the books and Daddy didn't dare have this new elder take it over so he had to keep Elder Cardinet in. Anyway - Daddy has put Elder Cardinet in charge of the pig and he's doing a great job. Last year all the elders said they would help but Daddy ended up doing it so he learned from that to put one elder in charge of different things and it will work out a lot better. I'll bet Johnny won't either - they put the hot rocks inside the pig while it was on the kitchen table and the whole house filled up with smoke (I believe Brent was here too wasn't he, Johnny?). We will have 38 missionaries coming in on Monday about noon and we'll have chips, dip & root beer for them all afternoon and then a big dinner at 5. Two of the Lady Missionaries are coming in to help me and they were over this morning and we have it all planned out - if it rains and we can't have it outside I think I'll leave!!!

We had a wonderful time in Canada! We left last Saturday morning at 4 o'clock and drove to Kalispell for our zone conference - we got there about 1 and the meeting was at 2. The conference was really good - that zone has been the top zone for the last three months - some of you remember Elder Klem who was in the house for quite a long time and then was a traveling assistant with elder Madsen and then an assistant - he is the zone leader there and he has done a remarkable job - he had seven baptisms in August!!! After the conference which ended about 7 o'clock we drove to Glacier Park - we were worried that it might be closed or too dark to see anything but it was just perfect. We were about the only ones in the park and everything was so beautiful - we saw two Mountain Goats and Daddy stopped the car so I could get out to get a closer look and I could practically touch one of them and then they went down the steep mountain cliff - that was so neat! We drove right into Canada and stopped in Cardston for the night - that was such a special treat because we had never been there and as we drove into the town the first thing we saw was the temple - it is up on a little hill and is all lit up at night as they all are. The town of Cardston is really, small - we stayed in a motel that was expensive but almost shabby compared to the ones in the United States. It rained all night but had stopped by morning - the church is right across the street from the temple so we went there intending to go to their meetings but there weren't any cars. We went to the visitor's center at the temple and the couple there told us they were having a regional conference in Lethbridge so there weren't any meetings there - we knew that but we thought the conference was in Cardston instead of Lethbridge. Anyway it was too late to attend the conference so we just leisurely drove on to Calgary.

The city of Calgary is much larger and more modern that we had expected and is very beautiful. We went to our hotel to get registered - we had a beautiful room and the hotel is very plush! We were to all meet in the lobby at 6 p.m. so we just rested and got ready for the things that were scheduled that night. It was so much fun to see the other Mission Presidents and their wives that we had come out with two years ago and it was also neat to meet the others - there were eleven at the conference (seminar). There were missionaries and vans ready to take us all out to the Mission Home. Their home is the same plan as ours here in Billings but it seems a little smaller to me and it isn't one half as pretty - I felt bad that I have complained so much. They don't have any missionaries living there and there is a door that separates the big living quarters from the offices so the President and his family have a lot more privacy but I still like ours much better. Pres. & Sister Melvin Green from Centerville, live there with their son who is probably about 14 or 15. There are many things that are better there - they have their laundry room upstairs which would really help and their kitchen more modernly equipped but from the outside it looks like a Doctor's clinic or something and they don't have the balcony which we have just loved. Anyway - we were so thrilled to be able to come back to this beautiful home and yard and our situation. The Greens are very business like and he says his motto is "I don't do anything I can get someone else to so" - he has business hours from 8 till 5 and he won't receive any phone calls other than at those times - he has a private line for his family to call if they need him. Sister Green has a big office and she hires all the work done in the house - she has a Vietnamese man come in three days a week and a cook who comes in to do all the cooking for the day they receive new missionaries and the transfer day. Missionaries only stay there one night a month - can you imagine all those beautiful bedrooms and beds not being used??? The Greens are just darling people and very successful in their business life but Daddy and I are just different and the Lord knew that when he called us to come to Billings.

They had a delicious dinner (prepared by 6 women) served at the Mission Home and Daddy and I were seated right next to Elder Howard W. Hunter from the Council of the Twelve - he is such a nice, nice man and he told us all about building twenty-one Mission Homes like the one we live in and also that one in Calgary - he said of the 21 they only have three now - ours, Calgarys and one in Dallas. He is getting quite feeble but he is really sharp and so sweet. The area presidency and their wives were all there - Loren Dunn, Enzio Busche, & George P. Lee. We just loved Sister Lee - Elder Lee is Navajo and she is Comanche and they are really special. We attended meetings all day on Monday with lunch and dinner served at the Stake Center there and everything was just wonderful - their building is really beautiful. We also had family Home Evening with entertainment by a couple in one of the wards there and they sang old love songs and that so good - the night before at the Mission Home a family with six girls put on a musical program and that was outstanding (the father is a doctor). Tuesday we had meetings until about 2 o'clock and then they took us on a little tour of the city and to a shopping mall for about an hour and then back to the hotel to get ready for a trip to Banff. We left the hotel about 5 p.m. in a chartered bus and drove to Banff - the scenery was absolutely gorgeous but it was raining so we didn't get any pictures. That is one place we would really like to go back to. We had a very "fancy" dinner in the Banff Springs Hotel - I'll enclose a picture post card of it - I guess it is a very famous place. We really loved the whole thing.

Elder Dunn had asked Daddy to give a talk on how to get help from the members in our missionary work. Well - some of the members, especially the leaders, just don't want to get involved and Daddy told them so. They never want anything negative brought out at these meetings but once it was opened for discussion we found that other missions are having the some problems we are having. It was really interesting to hear how the new Mission Presidents are having some of the same difficulties we had when we first started so I guess it is universal. They emphasized so much that we are not to have any materialistic rewards for top baptizers or any motivational projects other than to do missionary work solely for the spiritual rewards. Daddy and I rally agree with this but we already had this pig feast under way - last year it was a wonderful motivations tool but this year it hasn't been that successful (it was Elder Madsen's brainstorm and he is a great motivator and we have really missed him). Anyway, they talked about how we weren't supposed to do special favors for missionaries or "coddle" them in any way and when I said I made birthday cakes for those living in the home who had birthdays they about died. Our mission has been so much different from most of the others it is just unbelievable but we don't have the same situation they do either. We came away from the meetings feeling we were doing everything wrong!!! We left Calgary early, early Wednesday morning and drove right to Billings - we got here about 9 that night and we were really tired. The next morning the Elders woke me up practically (it was 8 a.m. but I was half asleep) and they wanted something to make dressing with - all I could think if was those other Mission President's wives who didn't have to worry about things like that! They fussed with that Turkey all day and they were so proud of their accomplishments and I kept thinking - they should be out doing missionary work!!!

I may write some more on this but I'll close in case I don't get back to it. We love each one of you so very much and really miss you - PLEASE BE CAREFUL IN EVERYTHING YOU DO - Let us know how we can help you!

P.S. We appreciate so much the Woolleys being in charge of our family Reunion next Summer or Fall and we loved your sweet and detailed letter Ann. Daddy and I vote for option #2 - a week at Park West! I personally would prefer that to a week at Lake Powell anytime because I'm not a "water person" but it seems to us it would be much more enjoyable for the children in October because we think the water would be too cold for them at that time. I can't think of anything prettier than the Fall mountains in Utah. If the majority of you vote for Lake Powell we will go along with that and he just as happy.

Johnny locked his keys in his car on Wednesday night and he called the Mission Home but for some reason they didn't call us to the phone - I guess it was late and they didn't want to wake us up since we had just come in from Canada. Daddy sent the extra set we had here to him but I'm afraid he won't get them until the first of next week - if we had known they were in the ignition I'm sure Daddy would have sent them Federal Express. We talked to Johnny on Thursday night and he was really worried. Surely no one could break a window in a car on the BYU parking lot would they???

We have had such a beautiful garden here all Summer and we have given vegetables to the neighbors and everyone else. Well, while we were in Canada someone really ruined the garden - they tromped all over the cucumbers picking some as well as the squash and everything else and they even dug up most of our carrots - can you believe that??? We have an elderly woman who lives right next to it and we have told her to help herself to what she needed and I guess she did!!!

We had the sweetest letter from Lucile Webb in Lehi - she said that our home there is being well cared for - she said everyone is looking after it!!!

We loved your wonderful letter too, Johnny and your schedule sounds great. His original schedule was wiped off the computer because we failed to do something right in his registration and they didn't think he was coming to school so he had to start all over. The only thing I don't think I would like is the evening biology class but that is only once a week - we surely hope you will study hard and get most from all your classes.

Ann & Jean - everyone at the Mission President's Seminar was wearing those "whitish" hose so I was grateful you had helped me with that. Sister Busch is very, very stylish and she wore the sculptured ones - she also had different outfits for everything - she's very tall and thin and so in Sister Dunn.

Elder Madsen sent me a box of nuts and nut candy from Hawaii - he sent them to "Sister Nut Mellor". That was so cute of him - I'm going to give them to the Elders who had the most baptisms for the HarvAugust in his honor. Johnny says he sees him as well as some of our other missionaries often at the - they're special young men.

Sunday night - we just got back from the Custer Conferences in Dunmore (Hardin) and at same Deer. We went to the buffalo dinner last night - drove two hundred and fifty miles and got home about ten-thirty and then turned right around and went back to the same place for he conferences today. It is interesting to be with the Indian people - we have great admiration for the District Presidency and High Council and their wives who sacrifice so much to try o help them.

Rick - we hope you have a wonderful birthday Tuesday!!!

That's all -

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