May 12, 1961- Elder AR and Alice On Their Mission

Elder Arthur and Alice Anderson received their mission call to the East Central States Mission on December 13, 1960. Also see: April 24, 1961- Elder AR and Alice On Their Mission. Here is the letter from President David O' McKay inviting them to go on a mission. In part President McKay wrote:  "The Lord will reward the goodness of your life, and greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you serve him humbly and prayerfully in this labor of love among His children." I wonder how Grandma Alice felt about President McKay's blessing on Friday May 12, 1961?

Grandma Alice kept a diary while on their mission. Here is her diary for May 12, 1961. (See copies of her handwritten diary to the left and a typed copy below.) 

"Up at 6 A.M. did a little Reading. Had Breakfast and went down town to take the window down to put glass in while going down the steps I fell and about broke my neck there was 13 step I couldnt get up for a min or two. then we went and saw Dewy Morgan about giving the sunday school lesson. from there we went up to. george andrews Hammel and wife place about 15 miles on High way 7 then you park your car and walk the rail road for 1 1/2 miles. that the only way you can get there. we left at 1.30 back to the car 45 min walk came and got dinner so tired you couldnt hardly move at 5 pm Louis a little Jeu girl came up and put my hair up and A.R. went to the hospital to see the smiths and the Long family quiet a day."

Alice "walking the rail road" to teach the Hammel Family.

I believe Grandma Alice might have thought as Orson F. Whitney said: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven” (cited in Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1972, p. 98).
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Elrain (Granddaughter to AR and Alice) and Larry Thompson are currently on a Church History Library Mission as Church Service Missionaries.They are focusing on Global Acquisitions. Elrain recalled finding Alice's Mission diary - "When we moved mother (Mary) out of her house we hauled all her stuff down to Floyd's. He has been going through mother's stuff. And this diary was in a 3 ring binder. Grandma Anderson has used it as a journal." Elrain and Larry are in process of placing this Missionary Diary into the Church History Library.