They might have taken a tortuous direction to get here, but after a multi-year adventure that spanned everything from Russia to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Kevin D. Staples and his wife, Sister Sonja Staples, found their way to southern Utah. . as Utah St. George’s new Chiefs of Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Staples undertook a project that covered a vast geographic area, with 127 full-time projectors and a dozen elderly couples serving south, from Provo to Nephi and Price to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and all the way west to Milford-Minersville. And this Escalante. Il there are 66 stakes and seven coordinating councils within those borders, with projectors from all over the world, speaking several languages.
Kevin Staples, whose professional background in engineering and team management, said his love of numbers and detail-oriented personality served him well.
“I have also worked not only as an engineer, but I have controlled various groups and engineers at work, and I feel that this project has prepared me for this project, and that it is going to prepare me for the future,” he said.
However, finding the way to St. George is not easy.
The circle of relatives had originally planned to serve on a project in St. Petersburg, Russia, starting July 1, 2020. Kevin Staples had served on his proselytizing project as a young man at the Ukrainian project in Kyiv from 1995 to 1997 and had the wisdom of Russian and cultural language.
But as the start date approached and the circle of family members watched as other new project managers left for virtual education and prepared for their assignments, Staples had nowhere to go when the Russian consulate stopped accepting new visa applications. Of the 134 project presidents called through the church in 2020, the Staples were the only ones unable to physically attend their assigned project.
Then, in 2021, the family circle was released from the mission call through Elder Dieter F. Uchtdort due to the pandemic, as the church halted many of its proselytizing missions.
It’s a tough time, the Staples said, but everyone felt blessed when they learned last year that they would receive another assignment, this time in Utah, to lead the St. Petersburg. George.
Now, 3 years after they hoped to start serving, they are starting their new project and have moved their circle of relatives from five to St. George from his former home in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Southern Utah is “hot” compared to Michigan, as 16-year-old Brynn Staples pointed out, but the circle of relatives temporarily settled into their new home. Brynn attends Dixie High School and is a member of the tennis team.
Andrew, 13, is at Dixie Middle School. He plays piano and trombone, learned pickleball, a St. George, playing with his older neighbors and his circle of relatives in a nearby field.
And Conner, 11, attends Tonaquint High School and enjoys his legos, betting on soccer and betting on the trumpet on the band.
The Staples also have two other young men living away from home: Kamren, 21, a missionary who recently returned and enlisted in the Marine Corps; and Ashleigh, 19, who is a missionary in Vancouver, Washington.
The circle of family members is excited to be in Utah and still be able to undertake their missionary work.
Sonja Staples said she sees the direction the circle of relatives took toward St. George as a result of “God’s guiding hand. “
“We probably wouldn’t realize why things happen, but we know it will be for our own good,” he said.
David DeMille writes about southwestern Utah for The Spectrum