We started off the week with our monthly One Heart mission gathering where we heard briefly from the 30 new missionaries and then a little more from the 20 plus missionaries who were going home. It is so fun to see all the new ones come in and find out where they will be serving and one couple even got assigned to Pathway. They won't be serving with us but, still, more Pathway missionaries! They will be helping connect students to jobs within Pathway. They are from Australia and met our nephew Daniel Pack when he was there on his mission.
That evening we made Kung Pao Tofu to celebrate Chinese New Year. It is the one type of tofu that I actually get excited about, probably because it is fried and has lots of peanuts as well.
Lots of interview this week and the requests for interviews are picking up a bit so there will be no slowing down. We met several students who are preparing for baptism which we love (because that means we can still interview them) and a few more who just recently got baptized which we also love but we can't interview them. There were a few interviews in the dark due to power shedding in Nigeria/Ghana/Zimbabwe etc. Those are fun, when the only time we can tell someone is there is when they smile. Good thing most of them are happy and smiling when they talk with us!
This week's temple was the Saratoga Springs Temple. Gary stayed home because he got a cold and his cough would not have been appreciated. I love our Temple Tuesdays!
In other Temple news, the Salt Lake temple is still progressing...but doesn't look much different yet. I can't wait for all the spires to be uncovered!
We added a couple of new countries to our list this week with interview in Russia and Columbia. Our list of time zones just keeps growing but we're going to have to redo all of it when Daylight Savings Time hits. Ugh.
Today we went to the BYU Young Ambassadors concert at the Conference Center Theater and quite enjoyed it. Lots of energy and fun songs. Next week we'll get to see the BYU Ballroom Dance. Life is exciting!
At our mission devotional on Monday, one Elder, who works in the FamilySearch Library spoke. He quoted Elder Bednar: "God orchestrates intersections with people." About four years ago, he was digitizing yearbooks on a previous mission. In a college yearbook from the 1950s he found a tribute to a professor who had come from Poland. He felt inspired to find the man on FamilySearch and attach it to his record. Recently he was contacted by a relative of the professor in Poland. The relative is an orthodox Catholic who has been working to get his family history organized and found FamilySearch was the best tool to organize family records. Together they worked to get more of the man's family information entered into FamilySearch. This man has also worked hard in Poland to help Ukranian refugees there. This led to the missionary mentioning the temple in Kiev. They then talked about the Temple "rites" that we do in our temples and the relative was very interested in getting those rites performed for his ancestors. The Polish man testified that he has "felt constant divine help" as he has sought his ancestors information! They are planning on coordinating a day when a bunch of missionaries will go to the temple to get the work done, and the man in Poland wants to join them in prayer that day as these ordinances are being performed. The missionary ended his talk with this testimony: "We are preparing people both in and out of the Church for life in the eternities and the return of the Lord to the earth."
We love being involved with the work here at Church HQ!
No comments:
Post a Comment