Stephen and Elaine Biddulph

18 - 24 APRIL 2016

April has been the month for conferences. The first Sunday was general conference. Two Sundays later was stake conference. This Sunday was ward (Gemeinde) conference. This past week was also a mission presidents interim conference here in Bad Homburg (just outside of Frankfurt). All 31 European mission presidents and their wives came for training. It was historic for us on the medical support team because we were invited to actually sit in the back and listen to the training. Last April, we ate supper with them the first evening when elder Bednar was here, but were not included in the training. So, we seem to be making useful inroads and gaining greater confidence with the area presidency.

It was so nice to be able to personally meet the mission presidents and their wives on this occasion, in many cases for the first time. They were so kind and appreciative of our services in behalf of themselves and their missionaries. We were able to personally spend a little time with each of the 11 mission presidents we serve: Amorims (Porto), Mathews (Cape Verde), Tavares (Lisbon), Anderson (Malaga), Pack (Madrid), Dayton (Barcelona), Packer (MTC Madrid), Babin (Paris), Brown (Lyon), Bunnell (Netherlands/Belgium), and O'Bryant (Copenhagen Denmark). The actual training was done by the area presidency. It was so helpful for us as medical support personnel to understand more clearly what the mission presidents' charge and focus is, and to feel the spiritual uplift that came from instruction through the Holy Spirit.

We had our ward conference today. The stake presidency and stake priesthood and auxiliary (Hilfsorganization) attended. We began with a ward council at 8 a.m. followed by normal ward meetings (taught by the stake leaders), and ended with a Gemeindeessen (munch and mingle). We held a short hot wash-up between stake presidency and branch presidency to review important factors and future goals. They are younger than Stephen, and they have sons and daughters they hope will serve missions. Knowing that he works with challenged missionaries, they asked him about cause-effect and ideas on how to prepare their youth. He was able to give them some of his insights. Long day, but we are back home again. As we returned from our day of worship the other senior missionaries who attend the International Ward were just going to their meetings. We are so blessed to serve in the Offenbach branch.

This past Thursday we held our third-Thursday bridge call with SLC mental health and all of the AMHAs across the work. We each gave our reports, and SLC was pleased with our report of being invited into the mission president seminar. They cited that as evidence of our ability to build trust and confidence with the area presidency. All of us have worked very hard to accomplish that. President Dyches has given us his trust mostly because he has heard so many glowing reports from the mission presidents about our assistance. They see our value, and we are humbly grateful and grateful that it is bringing about needed changes.

We have been pondering our future after the mission. It is beginning to hit us hard that soon we will be back home. Striking is the feeling that we will be released from a very engaging, active, demanding, and useful assignment, and be left with nothing. We think of being back in our home in Provo doing the same old things we used to do, and it is deflating. We do need to spend some time with our grandchildren, but as we grow older we begin to feel like a fixture instead of a light bulb. Stephen's mother felt that way at 98, that she was the last leaf on the tree and that her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren didn't need her input. Where we were once so vital and engaged, we begin to feel like others see us as old and out of touch with their day and age. Talking with missionaries has been so fulfilling. They are so accepting and appreciative of help. We will hate to lose that. We must find things to replace it with, and there are a variety of things we can engage in doing. We want to be able to go and do things together when we want to. We want to explore together and also to serve others. We also feel a need to downsize. Our home is too big and should be enjoyed by a younger family with children to use the back court and pool. We need something smaller that fits our needs. We will see what life brings after the mission.