Changes in the PA Harrisburg Mission

There has been some very interesting news that we have received this week. On Tuesday evening we got a phone call from President Pugh telling us that the Church has decided to combine our Mission with the Pittsburg mission effective July 1, 2009. That is why a Mission President has not been announced for our Mission. Our new President will be President Summerhays who is from Salt Lake City Cottonwood area. President Pugh said that they were neighbors when the Pugh’s lived in Salt Lake. Anyway we will be closing the office in Camp Hill after July 1. After the office has been closed down we will be finished with our work here and will probably return home a week or two earlier than what we had planned. At this point we don’t know how much we will be involved in closing things up or if the Church will send a group out to do this work. We do know that all of the information concerning our missionaries, apartments, utilities and mission files will have to be combined with the Pittsburg Mission. We are not sure right now how all that is going to take place and how much our involvement will be. We do know that we are here to serve and will do whatever we are ask to do. The two Presidents will be meeting together and traveling to the Mission Presidents seminar next week and will work out some of those details. Our original plan was to return home after the August 31st transfer. President Pugh had asked us to stay a month longer so that we could train the new President. Now we will be finished with our work on July 1st in the Camp Hill Office and will probably stay until after the July 20th transfer to close up the office and organize the move. We then want to do some traveling to Washington DC temple, Philadelphia, and New York before returning home through the Church history sites of Nauvoo, Independence, Far West, and Winter Quarters. That would put us home about the first week of August.