Mission update 9/29/2024

 We started our week with a mission devotional Monday morning. The Family Search International Zone presented and did such a great job. My favorite part was when the zone all got on stage, lined up behind the sign for the language they spoke (or the one they at least know well enough to be of use to people doing research) and sang I am a Child of God with sections of the song in each of the languages. It was beautiful! I love hearing from the missionaries in family search about the ways they are able to help people find their families and how many times they are helped by the Spirit to know where to look for that missing grandparent, great uncle, etc.

We had a few interviews this week and most of the students now have accepted the fact that they will need to wait until January to take classes. I had a delightful interview with a woman from Nigeria who had a little baby boy on her lap. He was just so cute! He also kept trying to grab the phone during the interview so that was funny. 

In the two weeks before conference, everything gets crazy at the Church Office Building with so many trainings going on. Our mission devotional got moved to the Church History Library basement and choir practices ended up on the 26th floor of the Church Office Building. It all worked out fine but we did do some directing to make sure people didn't go barging into the auditorium where Elder Soares was doing a training :)

View to the south of the Church Office Building from the 26th floor

We visited the prison ministry district this week, mostly to see how they were doing but also because they always have fun decorations up there. We love the work they do to support people who are looking to make changes and want to bring Christ and his gospel into their lives.

This month's decor

Thursday, Gary had appointments in Logan so we spent the afternoon up there at the dermatologist and dentist. It was no fun for him but I got lots of time to read in waiting rooms so it was great for me. We also got to drive back and forth through Sardine Canyon which is showing off it's fall colors quite nicely. 

Fall Colors in Sardine Canyon

Friday we went over to City Creek for lunch and got entertained by all the costumes of people who were in town for the Fan X convention. There was a whole lot of work put into the costumes, hair (wigs) and makeup. Meanwhile, we looked like we always do of course. Blaine and family went to the convention on Saturday and we got to hear from their three year old all about how many Spidermans he saw. It was a pretty entertaining couple of days to live downtown.

We had our weekly conference choir meeting on Friday and this is getting very real! We have a few assignments but are mostly just amazed with all that goes on behind the scenes to make the music happen in conference. It is going to be an amazing week ahead with several rehearsals and then the Saturday session. This evening we had a rehearsal in the MTC with most of the missionaries and it was fun to get almost the whole group together. 

I loved the height difference between these two elders walking to choir practice

We went to the funeral for Gary's Aunt on Saturday and it was wonderful to see so many family members and celebrate the life of Gary's mom's sister. Every time we were around her, I always felt so noticed and loved. She was always giving of herself to others. We love thinking of her having a lovely catch up chat with all her sisters now. We are very blessed to be able to attend family things while on our mission!

Here is a picture of all nine Alldredge children and their Dad.  Many of the Daniels, Reeses, Bybees, Daines, and Packs showed up for the funeral.  

Alldredges

Funerals are now becoming about the only times we get to see our extended cousins due to the many things we are all doing with our own families.  With Aunt Marilyn being 95 years old, it was more of a celebration than a sad moment.  She will be missed, but because we understand the Plan of Salvation put in place by our Savior's atonement, we know we will see her again soon!

With this coming weekend being General Conference, we are very excited to be part of the Missionary Choir for the Saturday Evening Session! 

Have a wonderful week!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission update 9/22/2024

 Happy Autumn! We are loving the color changes we see when we look at the mountains. We got a nice long view of the mountains by Ogden on our way back from the temple on Friday with a traffic mess that took almost 2 hours to get through. Good thing we had those pretty colors to look at :)

Sardine Canyon as we came home on Monday

We got back from Idaho on Monday in time to catch up on emails and messages a bit and then get ready for the evening devotional with Sister Eubank. She spoke about the Humanitarian aid the church does and told us the best thing that we can do is to minister to others in our own wards and neighborhoods. She is a wonderful speaker and the time flew by, we could have listened to her for another hour! She talked about the focus in aid being on children and their mothers--especially those children between birth and 5 years when so much happens to develop their brains and bodies. 

Our Pathway students started class this Monday for the fall semester so we had lots of messages from students who needed help getting their endorsements done (the procrastinators) and students who were stuck somewhere in the system and needed help that was easy (like look in your email) or hard (when we pass them off to someone who knows more than we do). For the most part we were able to help them but some will have to wait until the next semester. Normal college stuff but still frustrating for the students.

By the end of the week we were mostly caught up with students so we took off after lunch on Friday and went to the Ogden Temple. We were talking as we went in about not really knowing one in Ogden and how we probably wouldn't run into anyone we knew. Then, the officiator in the New Name booth was one of my college roommates who I haven't seen in years--so cool! In the session I was sitting by one of my first cousins and got to catch up with her after the session. And then, as we were leaving, we met one of Gary's high school friends just coming in. So much for not knowing anyone! It was a wonderful afternoon. 

We had new service missionaries training this week and so we got to go in and give them the run down of our zone. It's always fun to try and explain our ridiculously diverse zone in 7 minutes or less. 

We had our monthly district dinner and speaker on Thursday and got to hear from Colonel Guy Hollingsworth who spent his military time in the middle east. He talked about being the first to hold Priesthood Keys in that area of the world when he was called to be a district president. Gary was happy to find out that Colonel Hollingsworth grew up in Preston, where Gary was born and was good friends with his older brother David. Fun to make connections.

Today we were in the nursery again and we have one actual nursery aged boy and then 2, 10 and 12 month old kids all with their moms. All were from different countries and it was so fun. The funniest thing was that all three of the boys had amazing hair and lots of it and the lone girl was still pretty much bald. Nursery is the best place to be.

Last week we talked a little about our reunion in Council Idaho, but didn't have the group picture downloaded yet so here you go--8 of the 9 children of Don and Bonna Lue Pack and all 9 in laws. So cool that we could all get together!

Pack Siblings and Spouses 2024

Front Row: Janet Pack, Sylvia Pack, Gary Pack, Douglas Linford, Vurvian Linford, Carol Olsen, Ronald Olsen.

Back Row: David Ormond, Gayle Ormond, Susan Pack, Kevin Pack, Kent Dittmer, Genie Dittmer, Sandy Pack, David Pack, Jill Pack, Phillip Pack.

We also found out this week that Gary's Aunt Marilyn Alldredge passed away at the age of 95.  She has been really important in the Pack family story because the Alldredges lived close to the Packs in North Logan for a long time.  We are signed up to play a musical number in her funeral this coming week.  She will be greatly missed, but my what a reunion in heaven with all of her family who have passed on before!  We absolutely love the Plan of Salvation!

Have a wonderful week!

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission update 9/15/2024

This post is being done on my phone  so it will not be beautifully formated. Life will probably still go on, maybe...

We had a week of students trying to hurry and get their interviews done before the Wednesday deadline and then almost nothing after that. But, that worked out great for us because we left on Thursday for the Pack Sibling Reunion in Idaho. 

Monday our office was shut down while the power was shut off for the day so we worked from our apartment. Later on Monday we went to the Church Office Building to watch the broadcast for President Nelson's 100th birthday. It was so good! Afterwards we had cake and ice cream to celebrate. 

Our Wednesday conference choir rehearsal was great and gave us more to work on. We are supposed to have two of the songs memorized by this week's rehearsal. We're working on them and are getting there but we get random words floating around in our heads. 

Thursday afternoon we headed up to Logan to pick up the camping stuff we needed for the reunion. We left early Friday morning for Gary's sister's cabin near Council Idaho. We spent two days having a great time with his siblings and their spouses. We spent time catching up on our lives and our kid's lives. We played horse shoes, corn hole and had a zucchini boat race. Mostly we just loved spending time with each other. We both have such great families!

As I work on this, we are driving back to Salt Lake where we'll dive back in. We've both got lots of messages and emails to answer. It should be a good week and we are ready to dive in after a nice break. 

On our way to Logan we always try to pass the Brigham City Temple 

Happy Birthday to our prophet!

Zucchini boat races are serious business!

Beautiful skies always remind me that God loves me

Mission update 9/8/2024

 We spent Labor Day at This is the Place Park with Blaine, Richard and families. We love having grandchildren discover what a fun place that is. They got to ride the train, see pioneer homes--some big, some tiny, play on a ship and in the splash pad (the pioneers probably would have appreciated that after a long day of walking). Of course, our favorite home in the park is the John Pack home!

New statue depicting pioneer and modern day people, love this one!

Tuesday we were back at it with interviews and problem solving. Our problem solving generally consists of passing the buck to someone else to fix but at least we know who to contact most of the time. Classes start up next week so there are many rather frantic, worried students right now. 

I had a beautiful interview this week with a girl from Ghana who told me that she had broken the law of chastity. After some more questioning, I found that she wasn't living with the guy, she was living with her mother. She tearfully committed to live the law of chastity from now on and I told her I felt good about endorsing her. We only deal with from now forward--not what they did in the past. I hope she is able to get her schooling done, she's going to need it since she is also pregnant. I am so glad that Christ is in our lives and helps us to overcome our mistakes!

We had our second conference choir rehearsal and it was wonderful again. This week's goal is to get all the notes learned so that the conductors can focus on making it all sound beautiful, not on teaching us notes. We've also started to work on memorizing the words so we have random notes and words rattling around in our brains all the time. 

We went to the Taylorsville Temple and I actually remembered which way to go for the dressing rooms. I love that all the temples are different but it does get rather confusing at times. We love our weekly temple time and the peace we get.

We continue to love all the gardens around temple square and so appreciate all the work that goes into them. There are so many dedicated workers who are out in all types of weather. I think they're all enjoying the slightly cooler temperatures!

Pioneer gardeners getting a little help from a present day worker

Today we taught the 6 and 7 year olds and they loved coloring the "stained glass" picture of Jesus that was in Come Follow Me for this week. The only way any of them would leave class was for their parents to repeatedly reassure them that there were colors at home as well. They're fun kids!

We had our daughter in law Emily come up from Arizona this weekend to do some recording here in Utah.  We were so glad to get to spend some time with her!  She is an amazing musician!  You should listen to some of her stuff here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/75qPNxP2kkhH5RjrlrnZhE

Family truly is everything!  

Have a great week!

Sister and Elder Pack

Mission update 9/1/2024

 Happy September! We have our fall garland and gnomes out and life is good. 

We started off the week with our Monday morning mission devotional and our zone presented. I got to give a brief introduction and then various zone members shared 3 to 4 minute messages about what they do and feel working their areas. Gary got to sing in a quartet and it went well. The whole presentation ended on time (most important) and everyone did a great job sharing the spirit of our diverse zone. 

The rest of the day was interviews and then driving to Logan where we spent the night as I prepared for my colonoscopy the next day. Thank goodness those don't have to happen very often!

Tuesday we got home and got things ready for Wednesday interviews. We had great interviews, helped students try to solve their registration issues and then, most exciting, got to go to our first General Conference Choir rehearsal. Everyone was very excited and the majority showed up over half an hour early. We got to help get them all checked in and give them their music. One young service missionary was so cute. He said he couldn't check in because he had already turned his phone off so it wouldn't disrupt the rehearsal. We checked him in on our phones and let him through. There was just so much excitement to get started! The rehearsal was amazing. It is so fun to work with great choir conductors who know how to get choirs to sound amazing. We have lots of work to do, including memorizing all the music but it's going to be a fun month!

Thursday we went for a walk after the temple and it was almost cool enough for a sweater. It is always bittersweet when summer is winding down. It's been so hot that relief will be lovely but also, summer is so beautiful! We have loved how the flower gardens around Temple Square have filled in over the last few months. 

The opposites are so fun in this bed

Overflowing with flowers

Friday night we went to the last Concert in the Park for the summer and it was a Polynesian family of musicians and dancers. The last thing they did was fire dance which was perfect since it was dark by then. It was a fun way to end the concert series for the summer.

Saturday we got to find out that our run of grandsons (6 in a row) will be ending. Blaine and Deanna did a gender reveal and it was all pink. We're all pretty excited for another girl in the family!

Today our Fast and Testimony meeting was just wonderful. One girl got up and talked about her journey out and then back into the church. A man who never really says much at all bore a beautiful testimony of the gospel and how it has helped him through so many challenges in his life as he moved from his home country, Sierra Leone, to several other places before ending up in Salt Lake. I listen to testimonies of people who have been through so many more challenges than I have and am just so impressed by their strength. Then I am reminded that their strength comes from the same place that I can receive strength and it is a wonderful, comforting thought to know that we are helped along every day by Jesus Christ. We love hearing the same types of stories from the students we talk to about how they have seen God's hand in their lives. 

The reading we have been doing in Come Follow Me the past couple of weeks has been amazing as always.  Helaman 5:12 is always a great reminder and worth many discussions.  The stories of the Stripling Warriors always inspires and shows what undaunted faith can do.  And then the story of Helaman's sons Nephi and Lehi show us how the power of God can change so many lives. When we put God's promises to the test, we always find that with Jesus Christ we can do anything, and that without him we are greatly handicapped.  These students we talk with every day are figuring this out in their lives and are beginning to rely more on Jesus Christ and His gospel.  We so love being part of this work!

We love you all!

Have a great week!

Elder and Sister Pack