It has been a really busy week and a half or so. Last week we started our interview process. We scheduled interviews for 3 days, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Scott wanted to schedule interviews for 15 minutes with each missionary so he could spend some good time with them and really get to know them. While he was interviewing one in the companionship, I would just sit in a room and talk with the other companion, getting to know them as well. It has been a blessing to be one on one with these wonderful missionaries. On Tuesday we interviewed 22, Wednesday we went to two different churches, interviewing 2 different zones and we had 28, Friday we had a light day with only 14. Today we interviewed 2 more zones with 28 and we finish up on Friday with 2 more zones. On our full days we typically have left home at 8 to be at a church by 9, and we finish up around 4:30-5:00. I have absolutely loved getting to know these consecrated missionaries. I have heard some really sad, hard, heartbreaking things about their lives, and I have also heard their joys, their love of their families, and their accomplishments. My heart has broken as I hear of some of their challenges, and I have rejoiced as they have told me of the many, many good things in their lives. I have asked many of them how they are different now than they were when they came to the mission, and it humbles and inspires me to hear their responses. A few of them had great hurdles to overcome to get to the mission, but they are here and they all have such good hearts and desires to serve their Heavenly Father. They are obedient and are trying their hardest to be the very best missionaries they can be. I am constantly inspired by their stories and have felt the love that our Savior has for each of them. It has been tiring, but exhilarating at the same time. What a blessing they are to us. We will never be the same.
This is Elder Or from Cambodia. What a story he has and he is such a joy and a wonderful missionary. I didn't take any other pictures from interviews, but Elder Or knew my nephew who served his mission in Cambodia so I had to send him a picture. And, I wanted them to feel like they were able to talk to me like they would talk to their mom, and so, of course it helps to have homemade chocolate chip cookies. Someone once told me that if you give someone something to eat, as they are opening their mouths, they open their hearts. I found that to be true.
We have had several opportunities to get out and speak a bit this past week. On Thursday night we were the speakers at the Sacramento Stake Youth Conference. That was when I realized how much I have changed since being here. Scott and I talked briefly about what direction we were going to go, and I had a video I had the office elders get ready for me, but other than that I hadn't had time to do one thing for the talk until Thursday afternoon, and I had about 20 minutes to prepare. If I had been the main speaker at a youth conference at home, I would have had my talk prepared several weeks, if not a month in advance and would have gone over it numerous times. We pretty much relied on the spirit and I think it went ok. It was really fun to be at that stake, it is very diverse. They have a couple of Spanish branches, a Fijian ward, a Tongan ward, and a Marshallese branch. It was so fun to see all of these faithful young people from so many diverse places all gathered together doing good things.
On Sunday we had quite the experience. Scott was asked to speak in the Sacramento 7th Spanish branch. Ethan and Preston and I had planned to go with him and be his support system. He was pretty nervous to speak in Spanish, it has been a long time since he has given a talk in Spanish, but we were all behind him. On Friday night the branch president texted him and told him they would like me to speak as well. I don't speak Spanish so that was a problem. They told him they would have an interpreter for me. I had Ethan help me with a few opening sentences and a few closing sentences in Spanish and I relied on the interpreter for the rest. I had never used an interpreter before (when would I have ever needed to???) I realized that a 10 minute talk with an interpreter would take 20 minutes, so I cut a lot and just bore a very simple testimony. The branch president also called Ethan up to bear his testimony and then Scott spoke and did a great job. There was such a sweet spirit there, it was a blessing to be there and to just feel the spirit, not understanding the language was kind of a blessing because I focused on the spirit I felt. They are trying to strengthen the men in the branch and for the rest hymn they had all of the men in the congregation come up and sing "Oh How Lovely Was the Morning" It brought me to tears to watch and hear these humble men sing that song. I wanted to hear every one of their stories, where they were from and what brought them here. It was a special meeting.
After that meeting we had to take Ethan and Preston to the airport because they were flying home for the week. Then we headed to our next speaking engagement, which was in the Fijian ward. At both the Spanish branch and the Fijian ward, at the beginning of the meeting there were a smattering of people there, and the longer time went on, the chapel started filling up. In the Fijian ward the pianist didn't come until just before the sacrament song and so there was no prelude music. Even though there weren't a lot of people there to begin with, you could have heard a pin drop. They were so reverent, even without prelude music. When we got there the bishop told us that the missionaries in that ward had been at his house for dinner on Wednesday and they told him we would come and speak. He agreed, but apparently no one told the speakers that were assigned to speak that day. He told us he would just tell the other speakers to wait until next week. We didn't want to bump anyone and so we told him just to have the meeting as planned and we would just bear a short testimony. He told us he would just have an extended sacrament meeting and we could take all the time we wanted. I wish I had some of the laid back nature of the Fijian culture. So, we got the program and there were four speakers scheduled. He announced the program and it got going. After the second speaker the bishop got up and announced that we would have a rest hymn and then he called on two of our former missionaries who left last transfer and were back visiting, to bear their testimonies, and then the rest of the meeting would be the Mission President and his wife. (He couldn't say our last name, but we couldn't say his either.) I don't know what happened to the other two speakers who got cut, but no one seemed to be bothered by it. We stood to sing the rest hymn. We had just been at a Spanish ward singing the hymns in Spanish and now here we were singing the hymns in Fijian, after two speakers just possibly got bumped from the pulpit. I thought, 'when in the world in my life would I ever have these experiences if we weren't on this mission?' Scott and I just looked at each other and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. He started singing this Fijian hymn with gusto and it struck me so funny, I had to really try hard to keep from laughing, and it didn't help that our missionaries were out there grinning from ear to ear at us. It was a good day.
Who would have ever thought I would see my name on the program of a meeting completely held in Spanish? And I had to snap a picture of one of our Fijian Hymns. Boy does that congregation know how to sing the hymns of Zion.
On Saturday Scott had some unexpected mission things that came up, and so Ethan and Preston and I had a free day so we went to the Folsom Farmer's market and found some amazing Argentine food. Scott would have loved it so we will definitely be back. Also, I realized I had never had a really good strawberry until I had one at the Farmer's Market that was locally grown. My mouth is still watering over those strawberries.
One blessing of being in a mission in the US is that it is easy for former missionaries to come back to visit their mission. This is Elder Carroll, he went home two weeks ago to Hawaii and was able to come back with his family to visit the mission. We were lucky enough to see him on Friday at the mission office, and then he and his family came to our home for dinner on Monday night. He is the most loving person I may have ever met. We only knew him for 2 weeks but he completely took us into his heart and has shown so much love to us. After meeting his wonderful parents, grandma and brothers I could see where he gets it from. What a blessing to have them in our home and to feel of their love and testimony of the gospel. It was a lovely evening. And the bonus is, now he isn't a missionary any more I can hug him.
We had mission leadership council on Tuesday morning. MLC is a meeting of all of the mission leaders. The zone leaders, sister training leaders and assistants come to that meeting and we hold it at our home. It is a great meeting, we love counseling with our missionaries who have wonderful and insightful ideas on how to continue the good work of this mission. We talked about using time wisely and assessing every activity to see if it helps us improve our key indicators. We also talked about mission unity. We came into an incredibly loving and unified mission and we want to continue that. We talked about strength in numbers and unity of purpose, when one baptizes we all baptize because we are all in this together. Scott talked about uniting in mighty prayer and as a council we decided that as a mission we will unite in mighty prayer each morning at 9:55, right before they go out the door. As each of us drop to our knees at the same time, and petition our Heavenly Father for 6 specific things, that the council came up with, we feel we can access more heavenly power in our mission. I love how excited they get about coming up with and sharing ideas and insights. The church is in great hands with these young leaders.
This has probably been the hardest week of our mission for me, as far as homesickness goes, because it is the week my entire extended family goes on our family reunion. We have been going to Sun Valley Idaho for a week, every year, almost of my entire life. It is our happy place and where we gather with all of the people that I love. I was a little sad on Monday, but I am great now and I am so happy to be where I am. We have been surrounded by missionaries the past two days and it is hard to feel anything but joy when you are around missionaries. This is an example of why I love them so much: When we did our meet the president meetings I showed them a slide show of our family and things about us. I had a picture of our family at Sun Valley and told them about that tradition and told them, jokingly, that they needed to be extra nice to me the first week of August because I would be missing this trip for the first time, in probably 50 years. I had also told them that the way to our hearts was Hot Tamales for me and Pretzels for Scott. I had completely forgotten about saying that, but in the past two days, I have gotten 4 boxes of Hot Tamales, and Scott has gotten 2 bags of pretzels from missionaries who remembered the first week of August was going to be hard for me. I was so touched, I couldn't believe they remembered that off handed comment a month ago and remembered enough to reach out to me in such a sweet way. No wonder we love them so much.
This is our stash from Elders Duncan and Ludlow, Sisters Moffett and Koller, and Elders Yazzie and Damon. In addition I had several of them today ask me how I was doing because they knew it was the first of August and wanted to make sure I was doing Ok. They are remarkable.
And finally, I got a text this morning from Sisters Brown, Coombs and Cha wondering if we had dinner plans. They were our last interviews today and we finished just at dinner time. We told them we would take them to dinner after our interviews. We went to Cafe Rio and they are so awesome. We finished dinner and, in the middle of Cafe Rio they asked us if they could leave us a message and they proceeded to give us a powerful message on faith. I know I sound like a broken record, but we just love them so much and continue to be blessed by each one of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment