Scott and I were talking the other night about all of the things that have changed drastically in the past 70 days or so and he was saying that he feels bad about leaving our mission in this condition. Our missionaries are working so hard from home, but finding has definitely changed. We were on the top of the world going into this, and things look very different now. Although as we talked, I feel strongly that we couldn't be leaving our mission in any better condition. I feel the spirituality and testimonies of our missionaries have increased dramatically. As one missionary told me "I felt like before I was busy all day just 'doing' missionary work, but now what we are teaching has sunk deep into my heart and I am not just doing, I'm changing". They have more time to study and learn and I feel like their foundations are becoming rock solid. When they can go out, they will be so spiritually prepared. The other stuff will come back, but what they have gained will never leave.
I was reading in Alma 23 and verse 10 seemed very applicable. "Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries, and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his hands in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of the truth." I feel like a missionaries are going through this time of tribulation, they are learning to cry unto the Lord like never before. They are going to be more prepared to be instruments in the hands of the Lord and I believe there will be an abundance of people whose hearts have been softened that they will be able to bring to a knowledge of the truth because they are being prepared spiritually to do so. It's an exciting time and it is going to be exciting to see what comes from all of this. One thing I am sure of is that this is God's work and is unfolding exactly as he has planned.
We continue to see miracles, I will mention just two.
In February we received our first two reassigned missionaries from the Hong Kong Mission. I believe they were the first mission to evacuate, or at least close. Elder Pitt was one of the missionaries who was reassigned here. He told this story to our newest group of reassigned missionaries. The following account was written by Elder Pitt.
I had a very spiritual experience letting me know God is still directing and leading my mission. On February 4 we got the news we would be leaving Hong Kong because of Covid-19. On that same day we were all reassigned to different missions in our home countries. I was reassigned to Sacramento, California. I remember being a bit confused on how fast I was reassigned and if it was truly revelation where my next assignment needed to be or if it was done out of simple desperation of the situation. I returned home and spent 2 weeks quarantined with my family. I remember talking to my mom and asking her why I would be called to Sacramento rather than New York, or some other place that had a Chinatown or more Chinese people. Because I was called Mandarin speaking I wanted to continue to improve and use my Mandarin. I sincerely had the question of "what is my specific reason for coming here?" Despite my different questions, I was overall just excited to get out and work again and continue teaching and representing Christ.
2 weeks later, I boarded the plane to Sacramento! After some time, I was transferred to a Chinese group here that has about 20-25 members or so. I love and miss Asian culture and people so much so I was so excited. That same week we met with Ben! He is originally from China, a father with a son around 6 years old and daughter who is 14 years old and loves to play Ping Pong. He has been taught for a couple months by different missionaries but hadn't been progressing too much. The first time I met him in person was the very last day we could meet with people outside before we were confined to apartments because of the virus. I remember at the start he was shocked that I could learn Mandarin in such a small amount of time and speak like I did. We had a great lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ. I remember in the lesson he was especially listening intently to what I had to say and thanking me for everything I told him. During that lesson, despite it being my first time meeting him, the spirit was strong and I felt prompted to ask him to be baptized. He accepted and we set a date for May 10th. We kept on teaching him and on May 10th I was able to help Ben be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! He said he "really felt a difference between before baptism and after" and was full of the spirit. It was a great baptism but where I was really impacted was the experience that he shared with me after I gave him the priesthood.
After giving him the Aaronic priesthood he came up to me and said "I need to tell you and experience I had." He then told me about an earlier stage in his life where he had just been married, no home and very little money. He was really struggling and didn’t know where to really go with his life. He then said one day he was driving and he missed his exit and got lost. He then asked for directions from a nice lady standing in front of a company. This lady was very nice, gave him directions and also talked with Ben about his situation a bit more. They eventually became good friends and this lady was even kind enough to give Ben enough money to buy a house and start his life! While Ben was telling me this story I was real happy for him and thought it was real nice of her to do that but didn’t see the relevance to the situation. But what he then told me was a miracle for me. He told me, that kind lady that helped him out back then has the same Chinese surname as me. 潘. A Chinese name I was given at the MTC. Ben then told me he promised himself at that time that the next person he meets with the same surname (潘) he would intently listen to what they had to say and thank them for everything the first 潘 did for him.
Since Ben first met that lady named 潘 he hasn’t met somebody else with that same surname until I met him arriving in Sacramento. I'm sure he wasn't expecting the second person with that Chinese name to be a white guy wearing a white shirt and tie! As cool as an experience as this was for Ben it was really powerful to me. Up until that point I didn’t know why I was in Sacramento or didn’t believe my temporary reassignment call was out of true inspiration but now I can see how it truly was and how I was supposed to meet Ben. God had prepared Ben for over 30 years and I just happened to be in his hometown with the Chinese Surname 潘. Ben is now a priesthood holder and is excited to baptize his daughter we have been teaching on June 1st, Chinas "Children's Day" Holiday. I know God uses missionaries in his own way and time to carry out his work and through trusting with faith we can become tools in his hands!
Our days continue to look pretty much the same. We have a daily schedule we have the missionaries follow. It helps them so much to be able to continue to set goals and feel productive. Missionaries love structure and this has helped quite a bit.
Every morning we have continued to hold our Daily Devotionals. We continue to be blessed with wonderful speakers who lift, teach, inspire and testify. Our missionaries basically get a spiritual Zone Conference every morning and it has been such a blessing for them and for us. We are continually grateful for the good people who have so willingly joined us and have lifted and loved and served our missionaries in significant ways.
Here are the guests we have had since I last posted. I never want to forget these amazing mornings.
Brother and Sister David and Neill Marriott. They were so amazing, they mainly told lessons tied in to her conversion story and the entire hour was focused on the joy of the gospel. It was the most delightful hour!
John and Jen Eyring. John told some stories about his father President Eyring and his grandfather and waiting on the Lord, and Jen told the story of the conversion of her grandfather who went on to become a Mission President in Sacramento. So special!
Brother Stephen Clark continues to join us and teach us so much. He taught another devotional on the parables of Jesus, and one of the prophet Joseph Smith that was incredibly powerful
TC Christensen is a well known filmmaker and friend of ours from Centerville. He showed a few clips and talked about the miracles that occurred in the making of his most recent film 'The Fighting Preacher'. His message was inspiring and focused on obedience, love, kindness and standing next to the Savior. And now we all want to watch The Fighting Preacher.
Elder and Sister Craig and Jan Zwick spoke of the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ and told some incredible, faith promoting stories of how they have been blessed by relying on and accessing His Atonement in their lives. They also had their son Scotty, who is mentally and physically disabled, share his testimony and I don't think there were any of us who had a dry eye after listening to his sweet testimony.
Gary Crittenden, who was the executive director of the church's Missionary Department for the past 3 years talked about the way mission calls are assigned, he had some really amazing stories, and then he talked about some of the things they do in the missionary department to assist us in our work.
Our dear friend, neighbor and Stake President from Centerville, President Alex Dushku shared some personal thoughts about growing up in Sacramento and then gave 6 lessons and blessings we receive by being missionaries. As he talked about these 6 things, it was evident the blessings FAR outweigh any sacrifices.
Scott and I usually take one of the devotionals every week. We have been focusing on teaching and helping improve their teaching. It has been fun to connect with them each day, and as they teach us, it is fun to see them implement the tips we talk about during the devotionals. They are getting so good at teaching and are getting a lot of practice. In November we started tracking how many lessons our missionaries were teaching and the first week we tracked, we taught around 850 lessons. Last week we taught over 1500 lessons. Many of these are to members, friends and family, but they are definitely becoming master teachers.
That is how our mornings begin, and each of our evenings end with missionaries teaching us. We usually have two companionships teach us every night. What a great way to begin and end our days. These have been our great teachers the past few weeks.
Elder Anderson and Elder Foster
Elder Smith and Elder Vest
Hermana Bretzing and Hermana Rowland
Sister Bodily and Sister Ball
Elder Seely and Elder Xiong
Elder Geng and Elder Pitt
Hermanas Rose, Hall and Clark
Elder Hawkins and Elder Moulton
Sister Va enuku and Sister Nicoll
Elder Lowenthal and Elder Burke
Sister Durfee and Sister Prettyman, who had a member present lesson, and to our surprise, the member was our dear Sister Fifita
Elder Thompson and Elder Staheli
Hermana Styers and Hermana Smith
Sister Bonnett and Sister Ballantyne
And as promised, the picture of Elder Wood and Elder Decker from a few weeks ago
In between morning devotionals and evening lessons, we have filled our days with finishing up our interviews last week, and zoom zone conferences this week.
Our very last interview of the transfer ended with President helping Sister Bodily and Sister Ball jump their car so they could get back to Lodi.
We actually pushed our zone conferences back by a week, hoping that we might be able to meet in person, even with just a zone at a time. That didn't happen, so we had our second round of zoom zone conferences this past week. We are so grateful for the technology we have that enables us to continue on, but we sure do miss seeing these beautiful faces in person.
We condense our zone conferences to three hours. The assistants taught about The five points of contacting, using Alma's dream team of missionaries to the Zoramites as their examples. We had missionaries give talks on our Christlike attribute of diligence that we are studying this transfer, we had our departing missionaries give their testimonies and I talked about finding joy in every circumstance, using examples from the people in the time of Captain Moroni. Scott talked about the path to conversion, and how to help our friends, and how to help ourselves be converted disciples of Jesus Christ and stay on the covenant path.
Zone Conference May 22. Lodi, Stockton and Manteca Zones
We did have some comings and goings during this time as well. We had to say goodbye to our two Temple Square sister missionaries. How we love Sister Steinmetz and Hermana Garcia, and it was awful that we couldn't hug them goodbye. We loved having them serve here and thanks to Corona, we got to keep them 3 transfers instead of 2.
Sister Steinmetz
Hermana Garcia
On Friday, May 15 we received our first group of reassigned missionaries to our mission. We received 19 who had previously served all over the world, in addition to two who were called here who had gone through the home MTC and had to wait a few weeks to come to the mission. It was an exciting day. We were able to have a zoom meeting with all of them prior to their arrivals and Scott did a video interview with each of them to make the day flow a little smoother, and to get to know them prior to their arrival.
They arrived on 5 different flights at 5 different times, and so we had to prepare logistically as well as spiritually. This was a good preparation for us, as next week we get 33 new missionaries in over the course of 3 days, 3 different flight times all three of those days.
Since we had a devotional, we sent our assistants to pick up our first group. We met them at the church, had a welcome meeting, fed them lunch and then took them to the temple for pictures before introducing them to their new companions. They were off and working by about 1:30.
Elder Wilson Elder Dawe
Elder Ashcroft Elder Walkenhorst
As we were doing our trainings, the next flights were arriving so we sent the assistants back to the airport and we were back at the church waiting for our second group who arrived at 1:30. We again, fed them, did our welcome training and introduced them to their companions. We didn't have time to take this group to the temple before the next group came in and so we had them go up with their companions on their way to their areas.
Hermana Fullmer Sister Lewis
Elder Fuller Elder Kleinhenz
Elder Manger
Again, we sent our assistants off to the airport for round 3, we got these missionaries off with their companions and then headed to the airport to greet our final group of the day who arrived at 4:00. This group came from Utah and was the largest of the three groups.
Sister Smith Sister Golightly
Sister Hansen Hermana Rose
Sister Pace Elder Feldman
Fun fact: Elder Feldman served in Scott's bother's mission in Argentina. Scott was joking with him about the fact that he had to serve with both President Hymases.
Elder Bartlett Elder Schoeneman
Elder Miller Elder Christensen
Elder Jones Elder Luque
Once again, we got them fed, welcomed and off with their companions.
Such big thanks to our Assistants, Elder Balser and Elder Swainston, to Elder and Sister Mair, and Elder and Sister Bartlett. We couldn't have done it without each of them. We are so grateful to have these wonderful Elders and Sisters join us. We loved them immediately and it feels like they have just always been with us. We got them off and on their way by around 7:30. We were pretty tired that night but lucky for us, we got to come home to this...
Bennett and Stacie had given their kids a trip to Disneyland for Christmas, and they were going to swing by Sacramento on their way for a quick visit. The Disneyland part didn't happen but we were still so glad they decided to make the first part of their trip happen. They arrived on Friday night before we did and even though our pool heater was broken, and it was a bit chilly outside, this is where we found them when we got home.
We had a wonderful, quick visit with them. Even though the weather was bad for most of the time, everything was closed due to COVID-19 and, as stated above, our pool and hot tub were freezing cold, we had a great visit with them. It's not about what we do, it's about who we are with and we were grateful to be with Stacie, Bennett, Thomas, Charlotte and Caroline for the weekend.
We went on lots of hikes and walks...
Including this one, where we were about a mile from our home and got caught in a torrential downpour. Stacie and I thought it was fun and a great memory maker, the kids, not so much. Thankfully Bennett was able to come and rescue us.
A rainy Sunday walk around the temple....
Swimming in the cold.... We decided if we were wearing coats while watching the kids swim, there was something wrong with that picture.
A picnic, games, and time together made it such a wonderful weekend.
We loved having them here. We were doubly blessed that week because as The Rasmussen's were coming, they passed Preston and his girlfriend Tasha leaving. They literally saw each other somewhere in the desert of Nevada.
Preston and his girlfriend Tasha were here at the beginning of the week. It was so great to have them here as well. We felt bad, we were pretty busy during the few days they were here so they were kind of on their own during the days, but we were able to have dinners with them and after our lessons we got to sit around and talk, laugh and get to know Tasha better. It was so wonderful having them here as well.
We walked up our favorite trail to see this gorgeous sunset.
Prepared to go exploring around Sac Town.
As always, we are deeply grateful to be serving in Sacramento with the Lord's finest missionaries. We will be forever changed because of every experience we have had here and know the Lord has helped, strengthened us and blessed us. We can truly say we have not missed the joy and have seen his hand in every circumstance. We love our Savior and thrill in the opportunity to testify of Him.
