Mission Conference

First of all, Steve is recovering quite well from his surgery.  He has graduated from the walker to a cane. And he has moved away from the high-powered pain meds to just acetaminophen.  He saw his primary care provider on Friday who pronounced the scar was healing nicely.  He will see the surgeon this Thursday and hopefully get the green-light to return to the mission office.  Although, he has been working on mission business from home all last week, thanks to screen mirroring with the computer at home and the one at work.   And, he has his phone with him to field calls from repair shops and missionaries. 

I went to the dermatologist to discuss the removal procedure of the little skin cancer on my cheek and he proposed just freezing it and see if that takes care of it.  I agreed and we'll see where we are in six months.  Sure a lot simpler than a Mohs procedure.

Cade and Colby Ellsworth received their temple endowments yesterday in the Gilbert Temple.  Steve wasn't quite up to attending so I just went.  It was a really nice experience.   I also had a great visit with Jerri afterwords. 

The Arizona Phoenix Mission had its annual General Authority mission tour this past week.  Elder Lynn G. Robbins was here from Tuesday through Friday.  Thursday had two multi-zone conferences - four met in the morning and four met in the afternoon.  I was asked to put together a choir for each session.  I chose two hymn arrangements from the Hymplicity series and assigned myself to be the accompanist since we don't have many skilled pianists right now and they wouldn't have time to practice, anyway.  I also assigned a musically skilled missionary to lead the impromptu choir (we only had 30 minutes to rehearse).  Elder Talbot is a former drum major and he conducted the morning group expertly.  Elder Choate is a trained vocalist and, aside from rushing the tempo a bit, he did a good job (at least he could hear the down beats and if his beats 2,3,and 4 were a bit off, he was always right there with count 1).  Wednesday and Friday, Elder Robbins held leadership meetings.  That meant on those days that the office was filled with missionaries collecting mail and supplies.  Those times are my favorite.