Elder & Sister Vollmer - We are going to Miss You!

We are so very grateful for Elder Vern and Sister Elaine Vollmer's wonderful service here in the great California San Bernino Mission!  They will be returning home to Caldwell, Idaho on May 22. 
We appreciate all they have done for us and the support they have been to the saints and missionaries

 in the Adelanto area.  You have touched so many lives and we are so grateful for your service!!  We Love You both and wish you well as you return home,
Love, President & Sister Godwin

I asked the Vollmer's to send a short report of their mission.  This is their reply:

"During the time we have been in Adelanto we have been working to reactivate those who have for some reason fell away from regular activity.  Not too long after getting started we met a couple who had been married for about a year.  The wife was a member, but had lost her membership.  She knew the church held blessings that she wanted and was willing to give all she had in order to regain her temple blessings.  Her husband was willing to take the discussions and see if he could understand what it was that made the gospel so important to her.
      We were asked specifically by Trish, the wife, to teach her husband and not the young missionaries.  That was a nice opportunity for us to not only study the lessons but to apply the ideas we had to help him understand the message.  Then one day in the Gospel Principles class he heard about being married for time and for all eternity.  He told his wife that would be a good thing.   So we taught about temple marriage and the covenants that were made with God through the power of the priesthood.  After challenging him to be baptized the third or fourth time, we all pointed out that he would not know everything or be perfect before he was baptized. 
     In February 2011 he was baptized.  We continued to visit with them and go over the lessons again. 
     March 2012 found us in the Redlands temple for his endowment and their sealing.  It was a pleasure to be able to watch someone grow in the gospel in this manner.  Just before moving to Georgia they had filled out their papers to go on a mission and had given them to the bishop. 

     Sister Lewis was another person that we met.  She was not a strong member but willing to learn.  She had, prior to our arrival on her doorstep, thought about leaving the church altogether since no one seemed to care about her.  We started visiting and eventually set a goal that seemed to be practical to attend the temple.  With some visits with the bishop and getting some things straightened out, she was invited to take the temple classes again.
Those classes finished just about a month before we were to go home.  So with a little shepherding by Sister Vollmer we arranged rides for her to make interviews and get her recommend.  The day she got her recommend from the bishop, she was elated and made sure that Elder Vollmer got to see it.
     On the 19th of May she got to enter the temple and receive her endowment.  No one was more happy to get the ordinances of the temple than she was.

      There were many others we worked with, but those two are a couple of the ones we got to see go through all the necessary steps to receive the crowning blessings of the temple.

      We have been well blessed as we have gone out and met the people and getting to see how concepts of the gospel change lives is rewarding.  We know that the Savior called Joseph Smith to be a prophet and that the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth.  That the Book of Mormon is the word of God, written by prophets here on the American continent.  We are so thankful for the fullness of the gospel that is contained in that book, as well as the other standard works.  We know that the Atonement is real and that it can give hope to the hopeless and change lives for those who are willing to apply it in their lives.  We have loved serving the good people in Adelanto and will miss them a lot!  What a great privilege it has been being a Senior Missionary in the San Bernardino Mission.  It has blessed our lives and the lives of our family.
Love, Elder and Sister Vollmer