Mission update 10/27/2024

 It has been a week of more beautiful fall weather with some wandering walks to enjoy it. The fall colors are still very much around and the weather is cooperating nicely for us.

Northeast of the Capitol looking down into Memory Grove

Monday morning the mission choir sang for the devotional so we had to show up at the rather unearthly time of 7:15. Thanks to some good warm up, our morning voices didn't sound too terrible. A couple who are zone leaders in one of the family search zones spoke and we loved hearing about their experiences learning and growing in the months they've been on their missions. The family search missionaries have to pass off several levels of learning before they are certified to actually help people and it is not easy!

Later that morning we met up briefly with Brad and Dantzelle Allen who were out neighbors in Layton for a while. It was great to spend a few minutes with them and then they had to get back to the training they are doing for their assignment with church histories.  They have been on several missions and are great friends from Scouting and Wood Badge!  They now live in the Saint George area.  We have loved our friendship with this amazing couple!

Allens and Packs

We've had several students submit their endorsement requests this week with an old request form that does not actually have BYU Pathway listed as an option. That is causing us some difficulties as we try to get them in the right place in the system. As it is, they show up as in person BYU Idaho students which is a little tricky when you live in Ghana or Zimbabwe. 

I interviewed a couple of women on Thursday who were both in their fifties. I was so impressed with them, working to get more education so they could better take care of their families. One has a 14 year old son and when we talked about the honor code standards she said that of course she lives the standards, to set an example for her son. 

We went to the Ogden Temple on Friday and loved it as always. We have beautiful memories of our many months as Temple Workers there before Layton was moved into the Bountiful Temple District, and it makes it a very special temple for us. 

Last night we had another MTC district gathering and had a great time together as always but it was also a little sad because Elder and Sister Kopp go home in a week, back to Switzerland. They have been great missionaries in the International Zone in the Family Search Library!  One of the greatest gifts of being missionaries are the eternal friendships that are formed with the missionaries that you are blessed to serve with.  We have gained many great friendships here!

MTC district 

We got serve in our Ward's Nursery this morning, which is always fun!  Our Ward had the privilege to have Sister Porter, who is the General Primary President of the Church, come to visit our Ward.  She spoke in our Sacrament Meeting and then spent some time with our Primary children.  She has an amazing gifts that she shares with everyone she meets.  She is an inspiration each time we get to hear from her.

We're looking forward to another great week ahead and hope to see many more student requests come in. Last week was more than the week before so that's something!

We love being missionaries!

Have an amazing week!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission update 10/20/2024

 We started off Monday morning with a devotional by President and Sister Howes. They spoke on D&C 121 and it was beautiful. The last two verses of that section are just so wonderful: ...doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven...it shall flow unto thee forever and ever. So good!

We walked up to the Capitol and down into Memory Grove again but went a little further this time and it was beautiful with the trees turning yellow and being able to get out of all the city noise for a while. 

The beauty of a quiet road

Tuesday we went on a Salt Lake Cemetery tour with a woman who works in the Church History Library. She had some great stories about several of the pioneers who are buried there and also about some slightly less famous people like the "pickled pioneer" who was carted to Salt Lake from Montana or Wyoming in pickle juice (to keep the body from stinking). He was supposed to end up in California but his widow found someone else to marry and left him in Salt Lake. There were other, more inspiring stories but that one was pretty great.

Friday we went to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple and then over to UVU for the LDSPMA awards banquet where our daughter in law Emily received one of the Spark awards for her song Kitetail. We love her songs and are so happy to see her talent recognized. Here is a link to the song if you would like to hear it:  https://youtu.be/3hcWwda1DJY?si=zoPOQXT5rMK-azOK

The event was great and it was fun to get to see Emily, her mom and aunt. We also got to see a niece who has a publishing company which publishes middle grade books. It made for a fun evening!

With daughter in law Emily and niece Kiri

We got a few interviews done this week and were happy that some of the students are able to figure out how to request their interviews even when the system is mostly down for the update. We hope that word of mouth will help more students figure out how to get this done to cut down on the onslaught in November.

There is a church music festival in November where part of the conference choir will be able to sing one of our songs again so we're looking forward to that. I think it is in the Tabernacle so that will be very cool.

Since it's October, we have a few seasonal pictures to include this week:

Spooky tree roots

Ghostbusters!

From Gary:  We had a wonderful Zone Devotional this week where the topic was about being of good cheer!  The direction that this was delivered was a little bit unique: The scriptures never say it might be a good idea to be of good cheer.  It is more of a commandment to BE OF GOOD CHEER!  That is a really fun way to look at it!  If we love the Lord and have faith in him, we have every reason to be of good cheer and thus we can trust that he will help us find ways to do that!  Life will never be easy, and we all have big challenges to overcome, but focusing on the good news of the gospel will give us more power to overcome and move on from the challenges we have.  If we seek to see our lives in a Celestial perspective, we can more easily find the path that will lead us to good cheer amidst the trials of our lives.

So I have a goal this coming week to remember to be of good cheer!  Anybody want to join me in this quest?

We had an absolute blast being with Emily, our son Kendall's wife, and my niece Kiri Jorgenson, who is my sister Carol's daughter, at the LDSPMA awards event!  Emily is writing some amazing music and creating fun videos, (see https://youtu.be/3hcWwda1DJY?si=zoPOQXT5rMK-azOK) while Kiri writes great kids books under the company Chicken Scratch Books (see https://chikenscratchbooks.com)

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission update 10/13/2024

 We have managed the post conference let down fairly well, not too much sobbing and we're both still healthy which is wonderful. We still have the songs stuck in our heads of course but that isn't a bad thing. 

We had no access to our church Outlook accounts on Monday along with most of the other missionaries who came out the same time we did so that was an adventure. We figured we must have gotten ourselves fired and wondered if we should start packing out bags. Fortunately, with the help of several missionaries we were back up and running around lunch time. Nothing fell apart as far as we could tell during the time we were down. 

We went for an evening walk up to the Capitol and then down through Memory Grove. It is a beautiful place to walk and quite peaceful as long as you aren't afraid of dogs. It is amazing how so many people who live in apartments in the middle of a city have dogs--big ones. 

We're not real great at looking good while taking selfies

We got a few interviews in on Monday and Tuesday which was pretty miraculous because they are overhauling the student system and it's keeping most students from being able to access anything. We had a few other students who needed help straightening out their applications so they would end up in the place but mostly we're just having to tell people to be patient until mid November when they can actually register. 

We had a couple of trips to Logan this week--one for a dentist appointment and one for the Primary program in our home ward to see Richard's kids. They did great and we love Primary programs so much. We also love playing with our grandkids so it was a fun day.

We spent some time at the Family Search Center on Friday and got some help with research for a friend who lives in Colorado. With the help of people more expert than us at Italian research we were able to find the records that she needed. It is so great to connect people together!

We made it to the Payson Temple this week which was lovely. The drive, however, is not lovely. We'll probably stay out of Utah County for the next few weeks to recover. 

Yesterday we were going to drive to Mirror Lake and go hiking but thanks to a forest fire, we just drove by Mirror Lake, up through Evanston and then back to Salt Lake. Not quite what we intended but it was a beautiful drive and very peaceful compared to the freeways in the valley. 

Bald Mountain through the smoky haze

We visited several cemeteries this week which is always wonderful. We visited my parents, some of Gary's Pack pioneer relatives and walked by the Salt Lake Cemetery where John Pack is buried, along with several of the prophets. When you have a week with the temple, the family search center and cemeteries, it's a good week of focusing on important things!

Mantua Cemetery

Kamas Pioneer Cemetery

We'll see what happens this week in our missionary work. We're sure hoping more student figure out how to get around the maze of trying to figure out how to request their endorsement interviews!

From Gary: One of the BYU Pathway students we interviewed a few days ago told me about his upcoming wedding and promised to send me pictures!  That was after I asked him to do that of course!  It is wonderful to see these students taking great steps in becoming more in their lives by getting closer to God and getting a better education!

The Happy Couple

We are reviewing the talks from General Conference of course!  Please listen and re-listen to Elder Kearon's talk regarding the Gospel being the Gospel of Joy!  Lets all work harder to make that so in our lives and all those we minister to this week!

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission update 10/6/2024

 It has been a wonderful week! We are a bit tired but so thrilled with the experiences we have had. It has been a highlight of our mission so far.

We started off the week with a mission devotional where we got to do a musical number which is always fun. Tuesday we got do the orientation for new missionaries to tell them about our zone which is always fun. I think there were 19 new missionaries this week. 

After that we headed down to the MTC for a practice with our Conference Choir and then the MTC devotional where we were able to sing 3 of our conference songs for the prelude and one for the musical number. It was good to get a chance to sing all of them for an audience.  It made for a late night by the time we got back to SLC.

Waiting for the MTC devotional

Wednesday we had our rehearsal in the conference center which was quite exciting. The logistics of getting everyone in and seated was quite the undertaking but the miracle that evening was that every single choir member made it! The rehearsal went well but was exhausting after a late evening singing the night before. 

Waiting for the rehearsal to start...

Thursday and Friday we helped answer student messages and welcomed the new missionaries who were assigned to our zone. Then we got to go play with Tyler and Marie's kids while they went to a mission reunion. Popcorn, a movie and grandkid hugs, life is good!

Saturday we got to watch morning session of conference and loved it. Then we headed over to get ready for our 2:00 rehearsal. We ran into a niece and her two boys in line for the session which was great and we also found a family who had lived in an area Gary served in on his mission to Hong Kong. Conference time is great for running into people!

With niece, Erika and her boys

While the afternoon session was going on, we practiced for a while and then ate box lunches that were brought in for us. We have really come to appreciate all the people who make conference possible through this whole process! 

When the session was over, we started our trek to the choir loft. It involved twists, turns, a parking lot and stair cases. But, the best part was passing the children's choir on our way and getting high fives from all of them. Once we got in the choir loft and organized we did some run throughs with the camera crew, got a few reminders and then settled in to wait for conference to start. 

Almost ready

Our songs went well from what we could tell and it was absolutely beautiful to testify of Christ in that amazing setting with so many other missionaries. Definitely something we will never forget!

Now we get back to work and back to our normal missionary lives. If we can just remember what normal is...

From Gary:  Back in June we were put in charge of helping the Music Committee team here at the Church put together this Missionary Conference Choir.  We have met and consulted many times each week with this amazing committee and our conductors as we worked through what seemed like thousands of details to make this all work.  We have had a great experience!  

We will forever remember this once in our lifetime experience with great fondness and gratitude for this amazing event!

We found ourselves a little exhausted after last night's Conference Session and getting every missionary out of the Conference Center.  The MTC missionaries all climbed on buses and headed back to continue their training.  All the rest of us either got rides, drove home, or like us, walked the three blocks back to our apartment.

We feel that our lives are now richer for this experience with the Spirit of God as we sang praises to Him.  We truly are as the army of Heleman, and we are now the Lord's missionaries to bring the world His truth!

Have a wonderful week!

Elder and Sister Pack