Transfer Day

The mission goes through quite a two-day process every six weeks when we have transfers. On a Monday the departing missionaries arrive at the mission home for a special lunch that I prepare with the help of our housekeeper, Leonora. We try to make it particularly nice for these missionaries who have given such great service. Mom Tanner’s best-in-the-whole-world Hot Fudge Sauce over vanilla ice cream has become a traditional dessert that they seem to look forward to. While the missionaries eat, Marsh gives them their exit interviews. Then we hand out the de-worming and parasite medicine, take pictures, give heartfelt hugs and handshakes, and load the Americans into taxis for the trip to the airport. The Brazilians go home early Tuesday morning. Sometimes there are tears. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to love them so much after only a few months of knowing them, but we do. It’s hard to send them home. Our wonderful Assistant Elder Castleton went home this past transfer. This good elder, along with the other assistant, Elder Gabriel, worked tirelessly to help us through our first few intense months of transition. Pres. Tanner relied on him for so much. I’m sure at times the switch from one president to another was very difficult but he never complained or gave any sign of questioning Marsh’s decisions. He just worked hard right up to the last moment. Marsh drove him to the mission office one last time before taking him to the bus station for his trip to the airport. So much of his life was in that office with those other elders who were remaining behind. As Marsh and Elder Castleton began to back out of the driveway, the two new assistants raised their arms and shouted, ‘Hurrah for Israel’. Neither Marsh or the elder could speak for awhile. It's hard to leave what you've put your heart and soul into.


This is Marsh and me with our three assitants, Elder Castleton, Elder Gabriel and Elder Olsen in the Mission home on a transfer day.

Our arriving missionaries come on Tuesdays fresh from the CTM (MTC) in Sao Paulo. They arrive pulling luggage, wide-eyed and very anxious to meet their new companions and see what their life will be like in the mission field. We serve them a good lunch while President Tanner interviews them one at a time, but this time their plates are barely filled. They are too nervous to eat much. Their whole future is about to be unfolded. While the interviews continue the assistants orient and train them and I talk about health and grooming. I can do a lot of the training now in Portuguese with the occasional help of a translator.




When the final interview is done we take a photo with each of the missionaries to send home to their parents, give them a brand new pillow, pack them into the waiting CTM van and drive them off to the Mission Office where they will finally meet their Trainer. These ‘trainers’ are carefully chosen, prayed over, and admonished to teach and to care for their new missionaries the best they can. A good first companion can make all the difference in a missionary’s mission. So can a bad one. They set habits and shape expectations, they teach and prepare the new missionary to be successful and therefore happier. They are crucial to a mission. They feel the weight of the responsibility and they are often as nervous as the trainee.


At the office, while the new elders and sisters are getting more instructions, the trainers gather outside in a half circle. As they sing ‘Called to Serve’ with gusto the new missionaries are led outside to meet their new companion. The new missionary is called forward and the name of his or her trainer is read. They meet for the first time amid lots of cheers, hardy bear hugs and back poundings, and kisses for the sisters. Then it’s time to go. They are finally real missionaries on a real mission.
Our American missionaries usually lug several large new suitcases behind them bulging with new clothes and things their mothers packed for them. The Brazilians often have a single small bag, sometimes a paper bag with a shirt or two and a pair of socks and garments. I watched one very heavy young American with his huge bags and I thought he was going to die hauling them around on crowded buses and pulling them down cracked and broken sidewalks. I was worried for him. As he and his new companion began to walk down the driveway and as he passed me he asked, ‘Are you coming with us to tuck us in tonight, Mom? I laughed outright. Marsh asked him if he was going to survive. He answered, ‘I will, or die trying.’ I liked him immediately and I knew he would be okay. I love these missionaries.

Grandma Barbie

Communicating with our sweet Brazilian sister missionaries is getting better for me but is still so patchy. However, there are some things I do understand. Just a month into our mission I was waiting alone in a room with one young sister while her companion was having a requested interview with President Tanner. We were just beginning to try to talk when she reached over and gently touched my cheek.

“You are Barbie,” she said wistfully in her halting English.

“Barbie? Barbie!!! I am Barbie??”

“You are Barbie”.

My mouth dropped open. I started to laugh self-consciously. That was a first. Me Barbie; that icon of young, sparkly blue-eyed, blonde perfection; of glittering gowns, flowing platinum locks, wasp waist, and tiny feet.

That night I peered in the mirror at the woman who stared back at me. Sixtyish, chin-length straight brown hair, full-waisted, flat-footed, not a glitter in sight.

Oh, those darling, loving, blind missionaries. Barbie. Barbie, you say. Hmm... Well, maybe I’ll just get me a pair of those spiky high heels. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

James Bonner - Nov. 20, 1916 - Oct. 4, 2010

My beloved father, James Bonner, suffered a stroke and passed away a few days later on October 4, 2010 surrounded by his family who loved him so much. Though Marsh and I are currently serving a mission in Brazil, I was able to fly home to be with Dad during those last few precious and sacred days. He was an exceptional father and man and I miss him. He lived an exemplary life and I will always be grateful to him for all he did for me and for what he taught me. His life spanned a period of the greatest changes the world has ever seen. He was born on November 20, 1916 just thirteen years after the Wright Brothers first airplane flight and he lived to see the explosion of the computer age. Four years ago I wrote the following tribute to him on his 90th birthday and I would like to share it again.

To Our wonderful father on his 90th birthday,
Marsh and I are also celebrating your birthday and your long and wonderful life even though we aren’t there in person to cut the cake and give you hugs. You have been a great father to me and all us kids. Together with Mom you made us a wonderful home and taught us by your example what we needed to know to live good and happy lives. Thank you for your righteous and honorable life.

Thank you for working so hard for our family and making sure that we always had a beautiful and comfortable home and everything that we needed while we were growing up. Thank you for being so capable and competent in your profession. I took it for granted when I was younger, but I realize now how tough and competitive and unforgiving the work force is and I recognize and appreciate your talent and hard work for us for so many years.

Thank you for your faith. I know you love the scriptures and you understand them from years of study and thought. When I was little I loved to see you hold your well-worn bible and open right to the one you wanted, like magic. Now I know it was because you knew the book like an old friend. Thank you for your faithfulness in keeping the commandments and for the example you and Mom set in paying your tithing first, before other things that could have seemed more necessary at the time. Your examples have set the path for me, too, and have given me the chance to have those same sweet experiences.

Thank you for your diligence in serving Heavenly Father throughout your whole life, even choosing a mission call over a great career opportunity and then leaving a young wife of only three months to serve that mission with her approval and later turning down wonderful job advancements to fulfill callings. In this you and Mom were a team and she gave you 100% support. In all the years you served as bishop and traveled so much, I never heard her complain once about your calling or the responsibilities that took you away from home. She was behind you with all her heart.

Thank you for your faultless integrity and honesty. I have always remembered how, to my dismay, you wouldn’t sell our old black station wagon until you had carefully pointed out to the potential buyer all its problems and the things that didn’t work. No ‘buyer beware’ for you. No taking advantage of anyone. I wanted to take you aside and say, ‘Dad, do you know what you’re doing?’ But of course you did. Honesty was part of your make-up.

Thank you for your love. Do you remember driving Kathy Baker and me all the way to Baltimore for an ill planned stake dance one snowy Saturday night? You sat waiting on a rickety chair for several hours and then drove us home. I don’t think Kathy or I danced one dance between us, but I have never forgotten that you took that precious time that you really couldn’t afford because I wanted to go. Now as an adult I value the sacrifice you made for me like I couldn’t then as a young teenager.

Thank you for watching over me and keeping me safe. When I was twelve while swinging from a rope I fell and broke my wrist. I lay there in the dirt and stones with the breath knocked out of me trying to breathe. It was a panicky feeling. One of the kids had run to get help and then I saw you charging down the steep dirt hill in a cloud of dust coming as fast as you could. I remember thinking in my pain, ‘Here comes Dad. He’s really running fast. He loves me. I’ll be okay’. And I was. And I am. You’ve kept me safe all my life by having shown me through your life the best way to live.

Thank you for your beautiful and good life, Dad, that’s so entwined with Mom’s. Thank you both for living a life that I want to emulate. I thank my Heavenly Father that you are my wonderful Dad and my beautiful Mother. I love you. Happy Ninetieth Birthday!

Love, Colleen and Marsh

The Campinas Temple

This past month we had a once-in-a-mission four solid days of training. All our trainers, district leaders and zone leaders and assistants and office elders came to learn the new missionary program that was taught to us in the MTC. On P-day Wednesday all fifty-seven of us met at the beautiful white Campinas temple to attend a session together. The day was perfect, clear and warm and the temple grounds were beautiful. The courtyard outside of the temple was full of our shining missionaries wanting pictures with Marsh and me in front of the temple. I felt like a celebrity with flashbulbs going off from every direction. The elders filled up every seat in the endowment room and extra chairs lined the aisle and front of the room. I and one other woman were the only sisters there. Marsh and I stood at the door as each elder came into the Celestial room, and Marsh wrapped him in a big abraço.

After the session we ate lunch in the downstairs cafeteria. Marsh picked up the tab for the meal with a prearranged charge for each plate. Cost is determined by weight and a plate usually runs about $R5 or $R6. For us the temple charged a set rate of $R10 per plate which seemed high until the elders began to fill up their plates. They were mounded up and spilling over. Those elder can eat. We left the cafeteria sure that we had gotten the better deal.

This stately white granite temple is built on one of the highest spots in the city with a broad grassy lawn that slopes unobstructed down to the freeway. It's just several miles from the mission home so it is easily seen from where we are. It’s there on its hill in the distance when I shop at the nearby mall. It's there when we return home late at night tuckered out from one of our long road trip. We round the bend in the freeway and see it is softly lit against the inky sky and it means we’re almost home. Serene and constant, it calms me and anchors me. I feel as though it is watching over this city and gently blessing and protecting us.



Five years ago when Marsh and I had just been in São Paulo for only a few weeks we visited the Campinas temple one Monday afternoon. We were very much missing our own Newport Beach temple which was in the midst of its open house and about to be dedicated. We had been so involved in the construction and preparations for its dedication that it was hard to leave for Brazil just weeks before that marvelous event took place. Every email we received from friends talked about the wonderful experiences they were having and we were missing it all.

That afternoon we pulled up to the gates of the Campinas temple knowing it was closed but just wanting to be near a temple. A young man came over to us and introduced himself as the temple engineer. We walked around the temple grounds with him and then he invited us to go inside. No one else was there. It was just us three in that still and peaceful place. This young man had great love for ‘his’ temple and obviously took such pride in caring for it. He took us through the laundry room and explained the special system that kept the towels snowy white. He ran his finger along the top of the door frame. No dust. He showed us the dressing rooms and the gleaming bathrooms, everything perfect and spotlessly clean. He mentioned that many of the patrons came from simple homes that did not have flush toilets and had to be shown how to use the modern restroom facilities. I thought to myself that I had never seen a more beautiful temple. From the molded ceilings to the cut carpet nothing had been spared in creating this magnificent building. The people who came to it would have been absolutely delighted with something much less, but it is the House of the Lord and it is for Him that we build with such care and perfection. It was a sweet experience to walk through that beautiful quiet peaceful place and it became my substitute temple, so it feels good to be near it again and to see it every day.

Brazilians love the temple. I saw that first hand when I served in the Sao Paulo temple. I worked on Tuesdays and it so happened that Brazil’s Independence Day fell on one. The Church Offices next door to the temple were closed for the holiday so Marsh had the day off. I was surprised that the temple was going to be open. I figured that at best there would be light attendance because Brazilians love their holidays and this was a big one. Not so. The temple was crowded with patrons. Every single session was filled to capacity and folding chairs were brought in to utilize every spare inch of room. The baptistery was overflowing with teenagers. The U.S. fire marshal would have had a fit. Many people had come long distances by bus and train, including a very special and severely handicapped young man who moved spastically and with great difficulty using braces and metal canes. He began his journey before dawn and took two trains and a several buses to get to the temple. This wonderful young man came every Tuesday for the three years that I was there. I saw this over and over again.

Two Busy Amazing Months

Well today marks eight weeks since our first day in the Provo MTC. We've already been on our mission for two whole months. That's amazing to me. We certainly stay busy. We just completed interviewing all 172 missionaries in our ten Zones. It takes ten full days, one zone per day, to interview every missionary for the recommended ten minutes each. We will do these interviews once every three months. Before July 1st of this year, mission presidents were asked to interview each missionary once every six weeks. I don’t know how they did it. I think many couldn’t and didn’t. It is both a wonderful and draining experience. We picked up the Assistants at the Mission Office, were on our way by 9 AM and got home at the end of the day between 7 and 9 PM. One Friday we did two zones back-to-back, Americana and Botucatu. It’s a one hour drive from the mission office to Zona Americana and is an additional three hour drive from there to Zona Botucatu, the district which sits at the far western end of our mission. I packed a lunch and we ate on the road as we travelled from one zone to the other.

We finished a long day of interviewing around 8 pm and before heading home we took the Zone leaders and Assistants out for their very favorite food, Pizza Fritta, fried pizza. I could see the excitement and anticipation in their eyes. They were sure that we would love it, too. I had heard a lot about this culinary specialty. All the missionaries crave it so much that there was a rule in the mission limiting them to eating it no more than twice a week for whatever reason. Well, I think twice every ten years would be plenty for me. Take a large pepperoni (chunks, not slices, scant cheese) pizza, fold it in half, deep fry it for five minutes and you have fried pizza. To be able to sleep comfortably after consuming that for dinner you need a strong, young stomach used to eating whatever you can find. But give me three more years and I may light up, too, at the mention of Fried Pizza. We ate it while driving home and three hours later around midnight, groggy and still stuffed, Marsh and I finally pulled into our driveway, called it a day and woke up the next morning to do all over again (minus the pizza).

The two assistants travel with us when we do the missionary interviews and they conduct training while the missionaries await their turn to talk with the president. We’ve got it down to a system now so that not even half a minute passes between one interview and the next. I am Marsh’s official timer and give him a signal when he has two minutes remaining, but often those interviews go much longer when a missionary needs more time, as many do. In one zone Marsh averaged twenty minutes per person and there were twenty missionaries. That’s over 6 ½ hours of solid listening and counseling. During that time I have the chance to talk with the ones waiting and to learn about them and their families, to hear about their mission experiences, and ask about their living conditions and their health. It’s been a blessing for me to get to know each of our missionaries better.



In the seven weeks that we’ve been here we have put 5,000 kilometers, or about 3,000 miles on the odometer. That is like travelling from LA to New York City. Many of those miles are driven on winding undivided two lane roads. We drive, drive, drive, criss-crossing the mission for Marsh to counsel with missionaries who are discouraged or having problems, to conduct baptism interviews for investigators with special circumstances, to meet in the evenings with stake and district presidents, or to speak on Sundays in the stakes and wards and branches. Fortunately, the tollroads, or rodovia, in this area are well maintained and pot-hole free, much better than the bumpy, patched ones we bounced along on in Sao Paulo.

At night, the freeways become more dangerous. They are dark and unlit and the headlights of our SUV only illuminate forty or so feet ahead. You must always, day and night, be watchful of pedestrians who wait by the side of the freeway for a chance to run across, often with children or bikes in tow. But at night you cannot see anyone until you are upon them. We barrel into the dark; rounding curves, peering ahead for what may be there. The freeways are always crowded with semis and old, poorly-lit trucks creeping up the hills. More than once a motorcycle or car with no taillights has loomed out of the dark as we’ve rushed up on it. I need eyes like Superman, not Mr. Magoo. Somehow we always manage to arrive home safely.

I do not mind the long drives because the countryside is so beautiful. Crowd us humans into a city and we tend to be pretty messy creatures, but get us out in the country and oh, what a thing of beauty we can create, and Brazil is a land of breathtaking beauty. On a clear day its colors are vibrant; deep red earth, blue skies, billowing white clouds, vegetation in every shade of green, and vividly colored blossoming trees. We drive past miles of white-fenced orange groves and vast fields of sugar cane. The dirt country roads that cut through the fields are deep red gashes in the green and the gentle hills are blanketed with a patchwork of crops and orderly rows of furrowed red earth. At times it reminds me of the rolling hills of New England, especially Pennsylvania, except that these hills are dotted with white Brahmas and the fields are broken up with tall swaying palm trees and feathery clumps of bamboo. Ragged spiky banana plants grow everywhere, both wild and cultivated. Tucked among the fields here and there are small, white-stuccoed, Monopoly-like farmhouses with worn and blackened terra cotta roofs. These homes are rustic and picturesque but are often very poor dwellings. Occasionally, a house will be painted bright yellow or as red as the earth. While driving to Socorro, a small city way out in the country, we spotted two toucans flying along side of us, and we were told there were monkeys in the trees in town, though we didn’t see them this time.


Right now wherever we go the air is hazy blue with smoke from burning cane fields. Cane grown on hillsides has to be cut by hand and the fields must first be burned to be able to be harvested. The fires are not only cane fields. Small blazes are everywhere, seemingly uncontrolled, and no one seems concerned. At the off ramp near our home we drove past an unattended fire that was so close to the road that we could hear it crinkling and snapping. Yesterday, a fire broke out near our house. It burned for a few hours and the air became so thick with white smoke that we needed to close all the doors and windows so that we could breathe comfortably. The air is always smokey and I think we smell like a campfire. But then, I imagine everyone else does, too. We need some rain to clear the air and make the colors sing again.

The First Six Weeks

We have had an incredibly busy first six weeks. It is really true - long days, short weeks. From everything I'd heard I was expecting it to be so. We had a wonderful and intense four days of training in the Provo MTC. We began each day early in the morning, filled our notebooks full with all we were learning and dropped into bed late at night ready to start it all again the next morning. There was always a spirit of peace and sweetness and encouragement. Every day a member of the First Presidency, several of the Apostles, and other general authorities spoke to us, visited our classes and ate meals with us. As we kept learning more about just what it is to be a mission president and feeling the weight of the expectations and responsibilities we would have, they kept saying 'you can do this, you can do this, you can do this.' I think they know that there will be many times when we need to know that it can be done like it should be done. We keep that in mind when things seem overwhelming as they already have at times.

On Monday morning, June 28, Marsh, I and other presidents and wives boarded a big white bus bound for the SLC airport. It looked just like one of those old prison buses. I thought as we barreled along the freeway that passing motorists must be wondering what those poor people had done to get themselves into such a situation. We were wondering the same thing.

Our flight to Dallas was delayed by over an hour and left us with barely enough time to make our connection to Brazil. Dallas was stormy and flights had been cancelled and delayed all day long. When we were about a half hour from landing the pilot reported that the airport had been closed down and he had been directed to fly an hour back to another city where we would gas up and try again to land at Dallas. This couldn't be. We had eleven mission presidents and their wives and families on that plane, all of whom would miss the flights to their missions throughout South America. It would a day before many of us could catch another plane and Marsh and I would miss the Area Training planned for the new Brazilian mission presidents. We needed that training. I think a mighty prayer went up immediately. I know it did from me. I felt sure that if Heavenly Father wanted us to make our flights He could control the weather and make it possible. Within a few minutes the pilot announced that the airport had okayed him to land which we did five minutes before our next flight was to depart. Once the jet doors opened we hurriedly said our goodbyes to the other couples, disembarked, ran like crazy and made our flight to Sao Paulo just in the nick of time.

We arrived in Sao Paulo about 9AM and were met by Brother and Sister Andrews whom we had served with two years before in the CTM. They were back in Brazil serving now as the Area President’s Executive Secretary. It was de je vu. Same people, same smells, same sounds as before.


Early the next morning, June 30th, we were driven about an hour North to Campinas where we met the outgoing president and saw the place that would be our home for the next 3 years. It is a lovely home in a gated and guarded community. As always in Brazil the house is surrounded by 15 to 20 ft walls topped by electric fences and razor wire. There is a heavy spiked iron fence in front that opens and closes remotely. The mission home is light and airy inside. We have three levels, 4 bedrooms, each with a grated glass door leading out to a sunny balcony. The windows are all barred and the glass doors all have a second metal barrier behind them that we bolt tight at night. We have a security system, too. The Church tries hard to keep us safe and I feel that we are.



After talking with the outgoing president for an hour or so, he introduced us to the Mission office elders, gave us the keys, wished us well and left. We had lunch with the assistants and then they drove us to a nearby chapel to meet our new zone leaders. I was nervous. I wondered if they were feeling sad to have their young energetic mission president and wife leave. Would they have difficulty making the switch to us old new ones? As we walked down the hall to the cultural center where they were gathered I felt very much unlike a mission president's wife and very inadequate for this job. Before we reached the room they began to sing 'Called to Serve' in Portuguese and when we walked in they were facing us in a wide semicircle, smiling and singing for all they were worth and I felt my heart fill and my fears evaporate. They are great young men and I love them all.



One of my responsibilities is to handle missionary health problems. At the Mission Office an elder gave me a fancy spanking new cell phone and the first time it rang (about ten minutes after it was put in my hand) my heart jumped into my throat. How in the world would I know how to help those sick missionaries? How could I even understand them, or they understand me in my broken (really non-existent) Portuguese? I felt panicked and frozen, but since then I've lost count of the calls (it's often my early morning wake-up alarm) and now I feel like I've been doing this for a lot longer than just five weeks. We've had an elder with a hernia operation, one with kidney problems that sent him home for surgery, chicken pox, seizures, heart problems, migraines, infected burns, sprains, tons of flu and colds and sinus infections, and on and on. I'm getting pretty good at helping them help themselves. Thankfully I have Dr. Richard Hill, an Area Medical Advisor doctor in Sao Paulo, who is fabulous and diagnoses the hard cases. We've gotten to know each other well and he is on top of things.


We had our first transfer 5 days after we arrived. Two elders went home and 16 new missionaries arrived. Previously our mission had only closed areas, never opened any, so this was new for everyone. The president hadn’t worked out the details yet because he had no idea how to do it. It seemed overwhelming to open 7 new areas, find 4 new apartments and outfit all seven places with new fridges, washing machines, beds, and on and on, besides identify and train 16 trainers, and prepare an orientation, all in just a few days. But we have four awesome elders in the office who worked so hard and it all came together. The main thing is that this is God’s work and if he wants the work done he does help you get it done after all you can do. It’s pretty amazing to experience. We've also already had three days of Zone Conferences and three weeks of missionary interviews and met all the rest of our elders and sisters. Our days, especially Marsh's are packed to the brim. He never stops working, writing, taking calls, thinking, planning, counseling. So far P-day is just an idea for him. But I think he will get his arms around this assignment in a few months and it will be manageable.

Here We Go Again

Well, after almost two years home, here we go again, bound for South America where Marsh will serve as president of the Brazil Campinas Mission. We packed up the house, sold our cars, got a multitude of scary sounding injections and bid tearful good-byes to our beloved parents, brothers and sisters, kids, grandkids and friends and flew to Utah where we entered the Missionary Training Center in Provo this past Tuesday evening, June 22nd. We have spent all of four jam-packed days learning just what it is we will be doing on our mission and training to do it better. Tomorrow we board American flight #1392 for Dallas and then on to Sao Paulo, Brazil.

I will miss sweet summer corn dripping in butter, English, libraries and bookstores full of books that I can read, stores with clothes that fit me, and In-N-Out. I will miss wide, straight, well-lit streets and freeways, central heating, a good car that's ready to take me wherever I care to go, and friends that I love and love me. I will miss Mexican food of every kind, drives along the coast, watching the sunset over the ocean, Costco and Office Depot, peanut butter and chocolate chips, hugging and kissing our little grandkids, and waking up in my pleasant light bedroom to the sound of birdsong. I will miss our kids, our parents and all our wonderful family, the Tanner Fourth of July Hollywood Bowl bash and our family Christmas party and many, many other things.

But I am also looking forward to experiencing again the things I came to love while we were in Brazil the last time. Juicy sweet mangos, Maracuja pudding, pao de queijo (chewy puff cheese bread), and real Brazilian rice and beans. I look forward to our dear Brazilian friends, samba music on the beach, rain, thunder and lightning storms that leave you awestruck. To tall fields of swaying sugar cane, forests of yellow, red and purple flowering trees. Flocks of green squawking short-tailed parrots, parking in either direction on the street, running red lights if no traffic and Portuguese. I look forward to working so closely with Marsh on our mission, to meeting and coming to love our missionaries, to getting to know many more good people, and for all the experiences that I know we will have these next three years. We'll give it our best. So thank heavens for email, Skype, Vontage and all the other things that will let us keep in touch. We will see you all in just 25, six-week transfers. Ate lago!