Greetings from the Washington D.C. South Mission
at Fort Belvoir. The new year has had a great start,
as we have met many new friends that we have
had the opportunity to teach.

Our mission is going well,
and time is passing too quickly.
We hope you enjoy our current post.

The Zabriskies

We are teaching a young lady named Debbie, (third from the right), with Elders Lu and Cragun at a members home in Woodbridge. We mentioned her in our last post as being eager to hear about the gospel and asking what she needed to do to get baptized. She is now on date for baptism February 22.

Teaching Debbie another lesson with Elders Lu and Cragun, Elder and Sister Gowans, and Elder and Sister Zabriskie.

A blessed event for our family--our daughter Ashley had a baby boy on January 17^th. We received permission to leave our mission for ten days to go to New York and help with things there. This makes four children for their family, and 16 grandchildren for us (plus one on the way).

Here is baby Harris Mark Wall having a well deserved nap. He is named after Sister Zabriskie's maiden name. It's true, grandchildren are the best kept secret in the world.

The proud grandparents, Ashley, baby Harris, and our daughter Megan who was so kind to come from Utah and help with things after we left to go back to our mission.

The happy Wall Family.
Liza, Mama Ashley, Harris, Hazel, Vern jr, and Papa Vern

Proud sisters and brother meeting their new brother for the first time in the hospital.

Baby Harris was only eight days old when he received his name and blessing. He was blessed at home on a Saturday with some friends and family before we returned to Virginia to our mission.

This is the Fort Belvoir district just before six-week transfers. We are going to lose three wonderful missionaries this time--two are going home, and one is getting transferred.

The Fort Belvoir district holding two missionaries, (I assume they are symbolically carrying them out of the mission). These two have served with honor, and are going home. We wish them the best, and they will be sorely missed.

On P-day, the Fort Belvoir district had an activity. They decided to go to Alexandria and visit the Masonic Temple. It is open to the public (for a fee), and was quite interesting to see what the Masons represent. Here is a picture of the steps to the entrance of the temple.

The Fort Belvoir district on the steps of the Masonic Temple.

There were many beautiful murals, statues, and other memorabilia in the temple. It is a huge building with a large auditorium in the center that could hold several LDS wards.

   

The symbols of the Masons: the Square, the Compass, and the All Seeing Eye or the Eye of Providence. The "G" can have multiple meanings, representing different words depending on the context in which it is discussed. The most common is that the "G" stands for God. Another is that it stands for Geometry, and it can also stand for Great Architect of the Universe.

We had the opportunity to teach several lessons with Elder Lu from Taiwan. He stayed in our apartment the night before he left for home because his flight was early and we are the closest to the airport. We got up at 3am and arrived at the airport at 4am. He was somewhat nervous about the whole check-in and security process. A woman got on the elevator with us and asked where we were going. When we told her Elder Lu was going home to Taiwan she said, "I'm a Mormon and I work here. I will help you." She took us to the front of the line and expedited the check-in procedure. Then she took us to the security, and came back later to make sure he had passed security. She said she would go to the gate to check on him before he flew out. What a wonderful blessing for Elder Lu! It gave him courage for his very long trip, which would be about 24 hours. He emailed us to tell us he had arrived home safely and copied this sweet sister on the email. We love the tender mercies that the Lord provides the missionaries.

Elder Worthington is going home to Vermont. He was the Mt. Vernon zone leader, and we have been in the Fort Belvoir district together the whole time we have been here. We have had the opportunity to teach with him many times. He is such a good young man, we will miss him very much.

Sister Chaffin is going home to Washington state. She was in the Fort Belvoir district, and we taught with her on several occasions. We have had her and her companion over for dinner several times, and we will miss her fun personality. (That's Sister Zabriskie being "squished" in the middle).

We finished 10 weeks of Resiliency Class this month with seven families involved. We plan to do a repeat of the Resiliency Class to accommodate some families who were interested, but unable to attend the first time.

We have begun teaching the Temple Preparation Class in the Fort Belvoir ward where fourteen people have been invited. Some of those have never been to the temple before, and others have not attended for several years.