Thanksgiving week 11/25

 This has been a strange week for missionary stuff with Thanksgiving but we've had a great week. We got several interviews done early in the week and even did some today (Saturday) along with some great family time in between. What we did not do well was take pictures. We will repent!

Our week started off with the Primary program in our ward here. It was wonderful with all the beautiful primary songs, adorable children, an impromptu prayer by a 4 year old instead of the part he'd been given, a piano duet that only slightly fell apart, and a few run away children. We loved it and needed kleenex by the end with the beautiful, pure testimonies. There is just nothing better than the primary program for teaching the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Monday morning we had our weekly mission devotional and President and Sister Holmes gave a great message on the Doctrine of Christ. It is such a basic principle and yet so huge. I think I could study the Doctrine of Christ for a long time and still be learning new things. I love that about the gospel.

The men in the choir sang at the devotional and it was beautiful. Gary is front and center 

On Wednesday we had a meeting to discuss handling growth in Pathway and we had the meeting at Maddox in Brigham. It was pretty tough, we actually had to eat lunch there and even forced ourselves to have some of those amazing rolls with raspberry butter. Our lives are just so hard. The meeting was great and we're excited to watch Pathway grow and be able to help even more students worldwide.

After the meeting we headed to Logan for Thanksgiving since we were already halfway there. We got to spend some time with Richard and Daria and it was so fun to see how they've made the house their own with new pictures on the wall and, of course, toys all over to keep three kids happy. It's great to have the house lived in while we're gone. 

Catching up with Richard

We spent the night at Gary's brother Dave's house (it was a bit crowded at ours) and had fun catching up with what they're doing on their mission. Our missions are so completely different and yet both wonderful.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with Blaine and Deanna and they did such a great job hosting it. It's fun being the guests instead of hosting and we loved spending time at their place. After a visit to my Dad, we headed back home Thursday evening.

Hanging out with grandson, Jared, after Thanksgiving dinner. He was so happy to see us!

Friday we tried to get a couple of interview lined up but sometimes communication across the world doesn't work as well as we want it to so we settled for doing lots of scheduling of interviews for the next day instead and then met Gary's sister and family for breakfast instead. After that we spent a few hours with Maria and Gordon on a tour of Eastern European food market south of Salt Lake. It was great fun, as it always is with those two.

Breakfast on a snowy Black Friday

Now we're back to working hard again. We got several interviews done this morning (Africa) and have a few more this evening (Pacific Isles). One call this morning couldn't go through because apparently it was raining too hard in Rwanda for the internet to work. Other times calls don't go through because the power randomly just gets shut off for several hours. I feel so blessed to live where we do!

We did some decorating and now are in full Christmas mode, mostly. It's strange to not have all our usual decorations but also fun to do something new. It will be an interesting Christmas season this year. 

We're hoping to learn more this week and meet many more wonderful people from around the world. Also, we are going to actually wear coats and stay warm now that winter has decided to show up.

Mission News 11/18

 It has been a busy week and we've learned so much and have so much more to learn. We started the week with a vague idea of what we are supposed to be doing and ended it able to actually do stuff by ourselves without our trainers having to coach us through every step. Progress!

Sunday we missed our assigned ward here to go to Tyler and Marie's ward for the Primary program which was delightful of course. We got pretty lucky because tomorrow is the Primary program in our ward here. They are the best Sacrament meetings of the year!

Monday morning we had a 7:00 am choir practice before our weekly devotional (who can sing at 7:00 in the morning?) and then a great meeting to start off the week. After the devotional we spent time in the BYU Pathway offices getting training from Elder and Sister Johnson. They continued with the training the next couple of days and then set us loose, doing our own interviews. It has been great getting to meet amazing people from countries in Africa, the Pacific Islands and even some in the US. All are excited to have the chance to take classes through Pathway and eager to do whatever it takes to get their education. We've heard wonderful testimonies of Christ from several of them. We get just 10 minutes or less with each of them but it is so great to get to know them a little bit and feel their spirit shine through in their smiles. 

View from the Pathway offices

Wednesday all the missionaries were invited to the Ensign College devotional where Elder Uchtdorf spoke. It was so good! He spoke about doing hard things to achieve our goals--like when he learned English to become a pilot. It was great to sit in the middle of a bunch of excited college students.

Waiting for Elder Uchtdorf

Friday we got to go to President Ballard's funeral and it was beautiful. We were early and got to hear the Tabernacle choir practice before the funeral and watch people (always fun to see who you recognize). The funeral itself was so good and I especially loved having Elder Holland (now President Holland) speak after so many weeks of being ill.  We ran into our friend President Larry Gibson (previous YM General Presidency) after the funeral and had a short chat with him and his new wife.  They are heading on a mission to England soon.  They asked about Dave and Sandy of course.  President Gibson came to our Wood Badge course those many years ago, and Dave and Gary worked with him to create our Genealogy and Family Life Merit Badges for the BSA National Jamboree in 2010.

It has been a long time since we've been in the Tabernacle and the feeling of so much history here is amazing.

We did our weekly shopping today at the Centerville Walmart and ran into a former Layton neighbor (Sue Wheeler), our zone leaders (Elder and Sister Lund) and a fellow new missionary who is very excited to be working in special projects in the Church History Library. It was a rather long shopping trip :)

Walmart with Sue (Goodwin) Wheeler who we knew in Layton

This week we'll hopefully get lots more interviews done, helping these students move on to the next phase in their education. And, of course there is Thanksgiving! We'll spend that in Logan with Blaine and Deanna which will be wonderful. We love seeing those grandkids!

Also, don't tell our children, but we have a Christmas tree and it may go up before Thanksgiving...

Training week part two

 We had a great week of training in Salt Lake. The mission headquarters are in the North Office Building, just north of the Church Office Building. One of the first things we learned was all the acronyms: COB (Church Office Building), NOB (North Office Building), WOB (West Office Building) and so on. It's a lot!

Our group of missionaries 

With President and Sister Holmes

Each day we got to learn about another area of the mission. We spent time in the Church History library and got to see the displays there of first editions of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants along with pages of original translations in Joseph Smith's handwriting. Pretty cool stuff! We also spent a day in the Family Search library and learned the ins of outs of family search along with all the fun things they have on the discovery floor. We got a presentation on church security which felt a bit like an FBI action movie and was so cool! Also, a bit of an eye opener. Then on Friday we had a "Go Forth" presentation to motivate us to go and serve where we are called. There was lots of kleenex needed for that one of course. It was a great week of learning, motivation and excitement about the work of the Lord.

The moment we realized the training was ending and it was time to go to work...

In the Family Search center you can have your picture taken in front of a green screen and then choose your temple background. The other couple are the Loveridges who are leaving for their mission in South Africa on Monday but hung out with our group waiting for their Visas. 

Gary and I have been assigned to the Headquarters Support Services zone (I think that's the name, the acronym is HSS). Our specific assignment is with Pathway and we will be Chaplains, helping one other couple do the Ecclesiastical Endorsement interviews for non members wanting to do Pathway. These people are mostly in Africa along with other far away places but all speak English and we do the interviews virtually. It's a really new thing in the mission because BYU Idaho had a Chaplain who handled it all up until August  when it got turned over to our mission. So, the other couple has been figuring it out the past few months and are very excited to share the load with us. Everyone in Pathway needs an interview every year and the backlog gets a bit much. We're excited to get more training next week so we can get to the point where they trust us to do the interview on our own and we can actually be helpful. We've been told that we're basically building the plane while flying it so it's going to be an adventure!

We toured the Pathway building with the Johnsons, the other Chaplains

Our mission has a choir and as with most choirs they desperately need more men, so we joined the choir and had a fun practice this week. The choir sings at the devotionals and firesides. Monday morning we have a 7:00 practice for the 8:00 am devotional so we'll see how we feel about it on Monday morning.

Our ward last Sunday was so fun and we're going to enjoy attending it. It is a big mix of cultures and nationalities with wonderful people. We think the ward building is also used for institute classes for the community college with half the building. 

We're excited to see what we learn this week. We're also working on some goals for our mission so that we can grow stronger in our testimonies of Christ and our ability to serve Him. This is a great place to serve!

Our cool, old church building

Brigham Young statue by his grave, which we can see out our balcony window

Brigham Young's grave, one of those balconies on the right is ours

Week 1, November 5, 2023

Monday morning we drove to the MTC and went through a morning of orientation and meeting other senior missionaries. There were an even 100 senior missionaries who started at the MTC with us and 17 of them were going to our mission. There were so many amazing people, all ready and willing to serve wherever they were called.

Our first lunch at the MTC was quite the event. It’s a little bit overwhelming to eat in a cafeteria with a couple thousand young men and women, who are all hungry teenagers! They were all very nice and let us cut in line if needed, helped us find things and made room for us at their tables. Our favorite part of meals at the MTC was meeting so many amazing missionaries. One day we ate with three elders who were all learning Chinese–two going to Hong Kong and one here in the states. Then a bunch more came over–going to Taiwan and other places and Gary was just in seventh heaven speaking so much Chinese!

We got assigned our districts Monday evening and were in a district with 5 other couples going to our mission. We became known as the district full of people who had no clue what they’d be doing on their mission. Everyone else was already assigned to MLS, office, etc. but in our mission we don’t find out until our 2nd week of training which happens in Salt Lake. The other couples are all great and a pretty diverse bunch. We especially enjoyed the couple from Switzerland who brought everyone chocolate every day!

Our trainers were Brother Jacobsen and Sister Breinholt, both returned missionaries and students at BYU. They both did a great job, even when they got some push back from the old people they were teaching. We spent the week learning to really appreciate Preach My Gospel and all it has in it to help not only teach but learn the gospel more.

We had a devotional on Tuesday night with Elder Homer of Seventy. Gary served as his zone leader when they were both missionaries in Hong Kong so that was wonderful to have him be the speaker. We both sang in the choir which was pretty cool–800 strong. 

Wednesday night we had the Character of Christ devotional and it was amazing as well. I came away with a determination to turn outward and think of others more, especially when I want to whine about something. Also, from now on, whenever Elder Bednar speaks I’ll think of Cookie Monster 🙂

We left the MTC at noon on Friday and drove to Salt Lake where we had a brief orientation and were given our apartment keys. We are in the Brigham apartments on the seventh floor and are very lucky to have a nice, big apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms–more room than we need but now we have an exercise/guest/storage room. On Saturday we made a Walmart trip to stock up on all the essentials and actually managed to fit it all into two carts. It’s starting to feel like home.

Next up is church in our assigned ward--the Whittier ward in Salt Lake and then we start our training at Church headquarters first thing Monday morning.

This gospel is amazing and I think the biggest thing we've come away with this week is a determination to do our best to represent Jesus Christ the very best we can over the next two years. This gospel is amazing and oh how we love our Savior!