At our mission devotional on Monday we got to hear from both mission presidency counselors and their wives. It was a great meeting and we look forward to hearing more from them over the next few months. Gary got to lead the music and we sang the Handcart Song so he had to do some quick review from Primary days for that one.
Tuesday we went to the Draper Temple with just the two of us and had a lovely time. We had choir practice that evening and it went fairly well but there are a couple of songs we're supposed to have ready for tomorrow that just weren't close yet. Hopefully we'll have miracles occurring for our Patriotic/Pioneer program tomorrow!
Wednesday we got up, got ready and then stepped our the front door of our apartment building to watch the Days of 47 Parade. It was a great place to watch, right at the start of the route as they turned down 2nd East. We watched the whole parade and then went back into air conditioning. It was so hot! We loved the parade though and were excited to see it live. The last time we came to this parade was in 1997.
Thursday we got a few interviews done but spent a big part of the day going with the Lunds (zone leaders) to take President and Sister Howes (counselor from Australia) on a tour of part of our zone. We started off in the Church Administration building where one of the sisters in our zone works doing research for the general authorities. She took us on a tour and it was so cool. We got to be in the room where the First Presidency and Apostles meet so of course we all took selfies.
Then we went to the woodshop in the basement of the Church Office Building and got to see some of the furniture being built for Elder Kearon.
We also visited the other offices that our zone has missionaries in and it was just so fun to see all that our zone does. We also got cupcakes in one office because they were celebrating someone's birthday and had extra. Life is hard but we suffered through.
Fun quilt in the Missionary Travel Department
Love this so much!!
By Friday afternoon we looked at our totals and were pretty impressed with how many students we got interviewed between us and the Smiths. We have known for a while that we only have the Smiths until next Wednesday but Friday we were able to find out why. They are moving over to the Service missionary department in the Church Office Building and will be our new zone leaders (replacing the Lunds). We are so excited for them, they will be fantastic. As far as we know we will still be the assistants so we will continue to work with them in that capacity.
Friday evening we made it to another concert in the park and this one was all Broadway tunes. We loved it but realized we are not staying very current on musicals since we only recognized a few of the songs.
Today we went to our ward and then up to the U of U hospital and Huntsman Cancer center to do musical numbers in both the branches up there. It was great and there are so many good people serving up there.
From Gary: If you are wondering where growth is happening in the Church, you just need to look at Africa! A friend of mine from High School, Scott Wyatt, is now serving with is wife as Mission Leaders in Sierra Leone. They just started this month. He put the following picture on Facebook for us to see:
He then explained that they had just gone to a baptism for 64 people at three different services. The thirty or so shown in this picture were all taught by two sets of Sister Missionaries and baptized last week! They are having to limit the number of baptisms in many areas of Africa while they work to build up the Wards and Branches strong enough to handle so many new members!
We are still having amazing experiences every day as we speak to students all over the world who are using BYU Pathway Worldwide to get their education. They continue to teach us much about how much our Heavenly Father loves us and all of His children!
It was also wonderful to be reminded of the great heritage we have received from all of our ancestral lines who joined the Church in the 1800s and eventually came to Utah. We are so blessed to have had these pioneers in every one of our family lines!
Have a wonderful week!
Elder and Sister Pack
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