Letter from Elder and Sister Theler, Philippines Manila Mission, September 2014 - Its Been a Busy Few Months for Sister Theler - Last Sunday was a red-letter day. I met Sister Lemmon who just arrived from the US. I will be handing over to her the Mission Medical Coordinator responsibilities I have had for the past three months. She is highly qualified--a career nurse practitioner. In late June, President Ostler asked me to take on this additional (stress-filled and time consuming) assignment involving attending to the medical needs of over 200 missionaries. I felt inadequate and untrained to fill this position. Interestingly, when I was a freshman in college in 1966, I received a blessing where in the Patriarch referred to me ...becoming capable in your chosen field of service [nursing]; of having your service sought after throughout your life; of being a blessing both spiritually and physically unto many... True, I graduated with a degree in nursing (44 years ago), but except for passing state boards, working part-time for a couple of years in the early 1970s, and of course attending to the medical needs of our six children, my husband and occasionally our grandchildren, I felt only marginally involved in medical care-giving. Yet, in the past three months, I have attended to the numerous medical needs of these wonderful young Elders and Sisters. I have tried to both help and do no harm in this assignment. I feel peace inside--that my effort is acceptable. And while I am more than ready to hand this responsibility over to Sister Lemmon, I know that I will miss the close association I have developed with so many as we worked through difficult medical challenges and care-giving. - Its Amazing How Small the World Is! - It is interesting how people we become acquainted with 7,000 miles from home know other friends. One day while emailing Sister Kastleler (Sister K) regarding a medical need of a missionary, Sister Theler happened to notice her maiden name Dunford. Sister Theler asked her “Do you know Kevin and Kelly Dunford?” She emailed back, “Yes, Kevin is my nephew. We know the Dunfords from our old South Mountain 6th ward in Draper. Also, at our next transfer (October 8), Brandon Dunford, Kevin and Kelly’s son, will become one of the new missionaries with us in the Philippines Manila Mission. Another day Sister Theler received an email from our good friend Lacey Ence. She mentioned she had some other friends in the Philippines and wondered if we had met the Kastelers? A few days later Sister Theler was checking out Facebook and noticed a comment from our friend Becky Seare about Carolyn Kasteler. What a small world! One of Elder Theler’s students from our year in Beijing , Edison, is now working at a company with an acquaintance in the Beijing congregation we attended. A couple that we became good friends with while teaching in Beijing, the Butlers were high school friends with our good friends in Willow Creek,Tom and Paula Heath. I think the most dramatic example of this occurred more than ten years ago. We went to the Grand Caymans for a vacation. We attended a very small congregation of our church there. They invited the visitors to introduce themselves. In the process of the introductions we discovered that three of us had connections to missionaries serving in El Salvador at that time! It was amazing! We were sad a few weeks ago when we had to say good-bye to our good friend Anne as she moved back to Taiwan. Anne was the one who really got our English classes started. She came into our office one day not long after we arrived and said that she heard we offered English classes. We took her name and started thinking about the possibility of offering an English class. So we called her and started the class with her, Peggy and Sherry. We have had several others come and go over the interim. Sherry went back to Taiwan this summer for a short vacation but is now staying until December. We still enjoy Peggy and have added a few new ladies. Love, Elder and Sister Theler
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 21:33:12 +0000
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