Sister missionaries--photo from a few years ago

This is a photo I found online on a mission website.

It was taken after my mission president's funeral a couple of years ago.

If you know these sisters, you don't need identification, and if you don't know them, you don't care who they are, so skip the rest of this post. I'm writing the rest for myself, so proceed at your own risk: boring text ahead!

Photo identification, left to right:

• Sister Str, my MTC companion;
• Sister Br, who was in the MTC when I was and in one of my districts for probably eight months of my mission;
• Sister G, aka yours truly,
• Sister O'B, who was in the MTC when I was and who was in one of my districts in the mission for a few months;
• Sister Be, who was in the MTC just a few days before I left the MTC, my third companion and my first "greenie" (we called them "goldens" not greenies) and I'd just finished my "golden" two months before she came--"Innocents Abroad"!
• Sister Sc, who was in the MTC when I was and who was my companion for about six months in my last area.

I averaged a companion every two months on my mission. My companions were:

• *Sister Str (2 months MTC),
• Sister W (2 months Itzehoe, my golden trainer, from Germany),
• *Sister Be (2 months, Itzehoe, golden),
• *Sister Ch (2 months Luebeck),
• Sister Cla (2 months Luebeck, golden),
• Sister Sta (2 months Hannover),
• *Sister Sc (six months Hannover),
• Sister Cle (a two-week split in Hannover while Sister Sc had chicken pox and was with Sister Cle's ill companion), and
• Sister D (2 months in threesome w/Sister Sc and me in Hannover, from Germany).
• I also consider Sister V, a German ward missionary in Hannover Gemeinde, to be one of my companions. I was eight months in Hannover and she went out with us all the time.

The sisters with an * by their names were also in the MTC when I was, although Sister Str was the only one of my companions who was actually in my district at the MTC and who came into and left the MTC at the same time I did.

Keeping in touch all these years later.

I sent a Christmas card to all of my companions this year including Sister V, and excepting Sister Cle and Sister D, both of whom I lost track of right after our missions (i.e., who didn't ever write me back). I also sent Christmas cards to mission friends like Sisters B and O'B, pictured above, and Sister P, Elder SL, Sister Mc, Sister L, Sister N, along with a couple of people whom I taught, Mr. & Mrs. H, Frau B and her son-in-law and daughter M&S (though I didn't teach the son-in-law or daughter). I received no Christmas cards from Sisters St, Sta and Sc--must be something with the "S" names. I didn't hear back from Mr. and Mrs. H--we've exchanged Christmas cards for over twenty years and two years ago, I did not get a card. Since my card didn't come back, I sent a card again this year. I also keep in very sporadic contact with Sister K and her husband Elder C but we don't exchange Christmas cards.

After coming home from my mission, I kept in touch with my mission president and his wife until they both passed away a few years ago. They were wonderful people and I count them as dear friends.

My father always kept in touch with a couple of his mission companions and those companions and their wives were close family friends so I thought that is just what returned missionaries were supposed to do. :-) I've been home from my mission nearly twenty-four years. If I like people, I like to keep in touch with them. It is just something I do, have always done, and will likely always do, until I forget how. However, one important component to keeping in touch is having the other person keep in touch back. Much more satisfying.