EQ History - 2009

At the close of 2009, the Elders Quorum presidency consisted of Joseph Brubaker as President, Matthew Archer-Beck as first counselor, Sterling Fillmore as second counselor, Brent Olson as secretary, and Lance Gorbutt as assistant secretary. During the year, the Elders Quorum leadership had changed as Timothy Valentiner and Scott Lund moved for employment reasons. Blessed with many capable quorum members, both Presidencies organized the quorum to fulfill the Church’s missions of proclaiming the gospel, perfecting the saints, and redeeming the dead.

On the missionary front, the Elders Quorum focused on conversion, retention, and reactivation. A number of investigators joined the church, and on one special evening the five adult members of the Lkhagvasuren family were baptized. The quorum strived to fellowship these and other new members by teaching the lessons from the Preach My Gospel manual to support their conversion, despite the language challenges presented by the ward’s cultural diversity. Working on reactivation, Elders visited homes to meet and invite members to receive home teachers as well as to determine if unknown members on record still lived in Arlington. Highlights included another Lost Sheep Blitz in December and the return of Tigabu Afework.

The Elders Quorum developed spiritually and physically by participating in various uplifting activities. Spiritually, the Elders Quorum was blessed to participate in weekly class discussions and many ordinations, including Matthew Kantorski’s and Bumbagerel Norov’s ordination to the Melckizedek priesthood. On the temporal side, house moves were still common, but one interesting new challenge was the massive snow-shoveling expedition that we held close to Christmas when the DC area was hit with one of the biggest snowstorms in the last 50 years.

Snowmageddon, when Arlingtonians had to live
without Crate & Barrel and the Apple store
for 4 whole days!

The Elders Quorum also focused on temple work. Elders attended the Temple on Stake Temple Day each month and also helped new members prepare to attend the temple to perform ordinances for the dead. Together with the High Priests Group, the quorum helped new members create family history records. With quorum members, many new members entered the Temple for the first time and second times on planned trips in May and December. Several had the wonderful opportunity of receiving baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost for beloved siblings and parents.

Toward the end of 2009 the Elders Quorum presidency made changes to improve home teaching. The presidency increased the number of home teaching districts so that each district leader could work more closely with assigned companionships and also began using personal priesthood interviews to train and follow up with home teachers. Despite the challenges presented by high turnover in the ward, many home teachers served faithfully, and, of particular note, the quorum performed many priesthood blessings throughout the year for the members of our ward.

EQ History - 2008

The Arlington 2nd Ward Elders Quorum (EQ) was formed with the creation of the Arlington 2nd Ward.  The Elders Quorum Presidency (EQP) called at that time comprised the following: Timothy Valentiner (President), Scott Lund (1st Counselor), Joseph Brubaker (2nd Counselor), and Matthew Archer-Beck (Secretary).  In the first weeks following creation, the EQP extended callings to quorum members in order to fill the needs for managing quorum hometeaching activities; quorum instruction; and overseeing activities under the quorum's stewardship for fulfilling the church's three-fold mission by calling Chairs and Committee Members to an EQ Missionary Committee, EQ Temple Committee, and EQ Temporal & Spiritual Affairs Committee. The quorum has been very blessed by the many able quorum members and their willingness to faithfully serve in the callings extended.

The EQ has been especially blessed as well by the diversity of backgrounds of its members, including recent converts that joined the church just prior to and following creation of the Arlington 2nd Ward.  These new members have provided a unique opportunity for quorum members to maintain a vision and focus on the importance of missionary work and retention of new converts.  The EQ has made this effort a priority in conjunction with the ward and stake's focus on missionary work. The EQP, in conjunction with the Bishopric, created an EQ Mission Plan outlining the goals, structure, and methods for achieving the objective of "focusing on the conversion, retention, and reactivation of our neighbors that they may receive the joy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, including temple blessings." Part of the ward Mission Plan, which directly involves the EQ, includes the role of hometeachers delivery/facilitating the New Member lessons to recent coverts they hometeach, as opposed to calling separate Ward Missionaries to do so.  This has been a blessing a challenge thus far for the quorum's hometeachers.  We are striving to carry this out faithfully.

A unique aspect of the EQ is the growing number of converts of Mongolian origin.  Language barriers and cultural differences within the quorum have posed new challenges and been a source of great blessings for quorum members.  The EQ Presidency has sought to encourage as many activities as possible to encourage fellowshipping/integration of recent converts, as well as promote their spiritual growth.  These activities have included weekly sporting events at the ward building, PPIs, ward/EQ dinner activities, and a break-out Basic Priesthood Ordinances/Principles class that meets once a month during EQ.

One significant quorum activity worth highlight was the Lost Sheep Blitz effort carried out in December.  The activity included quorum members going out as hometeaching companionships (during EQ meeting on Sunday) to knock on two less-active members' doors to introduce themselves, extend a personal invitation to attend church next Sunday, and to assess whether the less active member would like to receive hometeaching visits.  This turned out to be a very motivating activity to all that were able to participate, with many encouraging anecdotes.  This effort also helped the EQP identify quorum members that have since moved from the ward in order to pass their names to "address unknown" so they may be eventually located and their new wards informed.

Overall, the Arlington 2nd Ward Elders Quorum has been very blessed as a newly formed quorum in 2008 with many opportunities to serve one another, and those under our stewardship, as Priesthood holders and disciples of Christ.

EQ History - 2013

2013 closed with Pace Barker as the elders quorum president and the presidency consisting of Matthew Chandler as first counselor, Daniel Harbuck as second counselor, Robert Brown as secretary and Yogendra Paneru as assistant secretary.

The quorum rendered countless acts of service throughout the year.  In the October Lost Sheep Rescue all third-hour meetings were spent visiting les-active members two-by-two.  Over sixty households were visited and nearly every team was able to make one home visit.

Baz Otgondorj was baptized into the quorum we saw Ian Evans and Paul Johnson leave for missions.

The elder's quorum also enjoyed some great activities. A BBQ was held at Lacey Woods Park in typical elder's quorum fashion—complete with hot dogs with no toppings, warm root beer, and all of this in the dark by the light of cell phones. The priesthood session of the October General Conference was broadcast online for the first time, but that didn't stop the quorum from holding its semi-annual pre-session burger and shake party at BGR. The tradition of holding an annual Turkey Bowl and a May hike in West Virginia continued.

The quorum set a goal for every member to do one piece of family history for their ancestors, in particular to take a name to the temple for ordinances.  Many brethren fulfilled this assignment and reported uplifting experiences.

We were uplifted in our quorum discussions and were able to strengthen and support one another through our testimonies of the Savior and our gospel experiences.

EQ History - 2012

At the close of 2012, the Elders Quorum presidency consisted of Pace Barker as President, Ryan Peterson as first counselor, Daniel Harbuck as second counselor, Matt Kantorski as secretary and Yogendra Paneru as Assistant Secretary. During the year, the Elders Quorum leadership had changed to include Yogendra Paneru as Assistant Secretary.

The Elders Quorum was blessed to witness many miracles this year, including the baptism of Yogendra Paneru’s family. The year was marked with record high home teaching of 88% in November, with attendance as high as twenty-four in Elders Quorum. Tyler Green organized hurricane Sandy Relief over Thanksgiving Weekend, and Abraham Smith coordinated hunger-relief efforts in conjunction with the Stake and State’s day of service. Abraham continues the service by coordinating Elders Quorum support of hunger-relief service of the nearby Mount Olivet United Methodist Church.

Latter-day Saint volunteers from dozens of congregations spent Thanksgiving weekend helping families in New York and New Jersey neighborhoods impacted by Hurricane Sandy. More than 6,500 Mormons answered the call to serve their communities by cleaning out flood-damaged homes and treating them against mold.

For the first time in known history, the majority of moves the Elders Quorum helped with (out of 13 total) were moves to remain within our ward boundaries – a testament to the family atmosphere of the ward.

Activities included a board game night, annual barbecue and "Turkey Bowl" Thanksgiving Football game, a temple trip for new members to perform baptisms for the dead, organizing the Ward’s Mongolian New Year and Halloween Parties, watching a BYU Football game, and meeting for dinner before Priesthood Sessions of General Conference.

EQ History - 2011

At the close of 2011, the Elders Quorum presidency consisted of Pace Barker as President, Ryan Peterson as first counselor, Daniel Harbuck as second counselor, and Matt Kantorski as secretary. During the year, the Elders Quorum leadership had changed as Joe Brubaker was called to serve as a counselor in the bishopric and Sterling Fillmore moved out of the ward with the birth of their third child.

Outgoing President Joe Brubaker

Outgoing 1st Counselor Sterling Fillmore, right

The Elders Quorum was blessed to have various members join its ranks through baptism.  One Nepalese member, Suman Sangroula even received the Aaronic priesthood and was able to baptise a fellow Nepalese sister, Babita Ranjitkar, just a few months after his baptism.  What's more, Suman received the Aaronic priesthood from another Nepalese convert, Yogendra Paneru.

Toward the end of 2011 the Elders Quorum presidency made a change in the format for home teaching reporting by opting to "go digital" through the use of an email-friendly Google form which feeds responses into a secure Google doc before it's uploaded (manually) to the Church's reporting system, MLS. We have already seen significant improvement in both the breadth (number of responses) and depth (thoroughness of comments) of home teaching reporting and we are optimistic that we will be able to attend to all of the needs of the quorum with thorough home teaching as our primary resource.