Mission update 11/24/2024

 Happy week of Thanksgiving! We've already had our first Thanksgiving dinner, yesterday, with Blaine, Richard and families. Then we get our second one on Thanksgiving with Tyler and family. It's a good thing we really do love turkey!

We spent the first two days this week working from our apartment and resting up to recover from the colds we had. By Wednesday we actually spent a couple of days in the office and made it to choir that evening. Singing didn't work great but we tried. We were really grateful for Elder and Sister Kunz this week who happily take whatever students we give them to interview. We kept a few but passed most on to them so we didn't have to talk too much. 

We are seeing signs that the new computer system for Pathway is working in the way the students are showing up for us to see that they need interviews. We have had a few minor hiccups but are working through them so far. Some of the students we see come through were just interviewed a few months ago and somehow end up being told to request again. So, we just pass them unless we feel they could use a check in. Others continue to show up as in person BYU students when they live in the middle of Africa and have no intention and studying in person. Good thing it can all be fixed.

Temple Square is almost ready for Christmas and this week the Nativity in and around the reflecting pool was put up. 

Saturday we went to Logan for our first turkey meal and had a great time. The kids planned a good meal and we had fun with the grandkids as always. The little boy's table was the most exciting of course. 

Three grandsons and a dog (who was very excited about the meal)

We had a wonderful time talking with our Primary kids today about the Jaredite barges. They were quite excited to talk about what was needed for a year long trip. They also, as always, loved the coloring page. Singing time was pretty much total chaos this week but once we get the kids in the classroom, they calm down and we can have good lessons. They're such great kids!  We are so grateful for our chance to work in the Primary in our assigned Ward here in Salt Lake City!

We have spent a few minutes looking at our endorsement requests coming in over the weekend and it looks like we'll be getting busy again which is great! A little down time is good but too much is just annoying. Now if we could just find the happy medium between bored and completely crazy that would be great.

With Thanksgiving coming this week, we are reminded of how grateful we are for our family, our friends, our mission and most importantly, our covenants with a loving Father in Heaven who continues to bless us and love us!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving week!

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack

 

Mission update 11/17/2024

We started off the week with our Mission Conference, which means we had an evening devotional with Elder and Sister Pearson of the Seventy. Elder Pearson is the President of the Utah Area.  Sister Pearson talked about following the prophet--treating what he says with exclamation points not question marks and aligning our will to God's. Elder Pearson continued with that and challenged us with three things:

1. Choose to be a disciple of Christ

2. Prayerfully consider what more you can to keep my covenants with precision and exactness

3. Prayerfully consider what you can do to teach the power of making and keeping covenants. 

It was a beautiful start to the week!

This week was the final opportunity for us to sing with our Missionary Choir from October Conference.  We started on Sunday with our first rehearsal in the Tabernacle.  Tuesday we had the dress rehearsal run through for the Church Music Festival Concert and actually got to rehearse with our new full Choir which included three Institute Choirs from USU, UVU and U of U.  There were many other groups included in the Concert, and some of them were there too.  It was a long night, but fun to hear what other groups were singing/playing. There was a lot of logistics, getting people on and off the stage in the right direction and so on. After the short run through on Sunday, I was feeling much more comfortable with my violin part for I Will Walk with Jesus and it was just amazing playing in the Tabernacle! I told Gary that I could just die happy at that point. 

Saturday was a full day and we were rather miraculously blessed to get through it. We went to part of the Church Music Workshop held at the University of Utah Institute where we learned more about the process of putting together the new hymnbook (huge project!) and were greatly inspired about what a difference music makes in the Church!  We found our daughter-in-law, Emily (Kendall) Pack's picture in the Workshop Program because she was one of the award recipients of a Music competitions:

So proud of you Emily!

Then from 4:00 on we were at the Tabernacle doing the sound checks, a boxed dinner, and the Concert. A couple of my violin/viola students were there so it was great to catch up with them a bit.  The Concert was streamed live all over the World!  Our Choir sang the first live song from the Tabernacle "Come Lord Jesus," then sang again toward the end of the Concert with "I Will Walk With Jesus" accompanied by Sylvia on the violin.  Please see Sylvia's international artist debut here (that is Gary's rather exaggerated comment): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8h235wn4FE&t=5445s

We started nursing colds during the week and ended up working hard to stay healthy enough to perform on Saturday.  We felt the hand of the Lord in making this possible for sure!

Then Sunday was another great day of music programs! Our Whittier Ward and our son Tyler's Ward both had their Primary Programs!  Since we teach Primary, we had parts in our Ward's Program.  While still nursing colds, we survived our Ward's Program, then attended Tyler's Ward Program virtually! Our grandchildren performed perfectly of course! 

So, lots of good things were done this week!  And yes, we did a bunch of Endorsement interviews for BYU Pathway students around the world too!

Also, just for fun, they have been experimenting with lights on Temple Square so we got to enjoy those a couple of days--very exciting!

North side of the Tabernacle

First vision statue, also north side of the Tabernacle

Thanks for sharing our mission with us!

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission update 11/10/2024

 We had a bit of a lazy start to the week with no Monday morning devotional but we still managed to get to our office not too much after 9:00. We had some interviews and a Pathway meeting where we got an update on the new system roll out. Things are going as well as they hoped they would so we should start seeing more student interviews in the next week or so. 

Tuesday was just an interesting day for walking around--cold, windy, raining and some snow. It was quite the adventure to get out for lunch but hunger won out and we had an exciting walk. For lunch we can either go right across the street to the Church Office building cafeteria or another half a block to the City Creek food court. It's fun to be right down town (as long as we don't have to drive in the mess around Temple Square). Of course, we love seeing any progress on Temple Square and were very excited to see more scaffolding come down this week.

Crooked picture but you can see both towers all the way down now on the north side

We got 14 new full time missionaries this week and 9 of them ended up in our zone this time. Some working in Ensign college, some with the young service missionaries who do tech help, and some doing special projects. It's fun to meet the new missionaries and see where they end up. One year ago this week we were the new ones getting our assignment. 

This week's temple was Logan and we took Elder and Sister Ng with us. Both Elder and Sister Ng served in Hong Kong as young missionaries and Elder Ng was even Gary's brother David's companion! We met David and his wife Sandy at the temple and went to dinner at their house afterwards. The best thing was while we were in the waiting room, Gary's sister Vurvian walked in and was able to do the session with us too. 

We always find excellent "professional" photographers to take our temple pictures :)

Christmas decor is starting to go up around Temple Square and it's fun to see new things every day. We especially loved the sign by the tree in the lobby area of the Church Office Building.

In case you wondered what the church's position is on decorating before Thanksgiving....

The front of the Relief Society Building looks quite classy and festive

Yesterday we went to This is the Place Park to wander around and get some exercise. We've always gone in the summer and it was lovely to walk around and not be sweating like crazy. They are starting to get ready for the Candlelight Christmas they do every year and it was fun to see more early decorating along with some Thanksgiving/harvest decor as well.

Today we had Primary program practice part two and I think it might have been even more chaotic than the first one last week. It's going to be quite the adventure next week for the program. Hopefully the kids will quiet down a bit more when we have a chapel full of people!  In fantastic news, after we have the Primary Program in our Ward, we will be going to our Son Tyler's ward to see their Primary Program too!  Nothing better than two Primary Programs in one day!

This coming Saturday we are singing for the Church Music Festival, doing two of the songs we sang in General Conference with our Missionary Choir. We had a rehearsal for that tonight and it was so fun to sing in the Tabernacle! Sylvia gets to accompany the Choir on her violin for "I Will Walk With Jesus!" The concert will be lots of music besides our two songs and you can see it here (Saturday at 7:00 pm MST):  

broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org 

Have a wonderful week!

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Pack

Mission update 11/3/2024

 This week started out with some visits to other missionaries in our zone. The missionaries who deal with senior missionary applications got moved from the Church Office Building to the KSL building, two blocks to the west. They have a beautiful office area but the big downside is how far it is from the other parts of the mission and especially the cafeteria! It was fun to visit and we even got to see the pickleball court one of the missionaries taped out in a big open area that used to be used for the Deseret News offices. 

Monday afternoon we discovered another of the first 19 ward buildings in Salt Lake. Some are still in use by the church, some are used for other things and some have been torn down. We loved how unique this one was.

We had time to attend one of the family history classes that are offered every other week in the North Office building where we work. We learned about finding hints, checking them and then attaching them to people. It was fun to learn about easier ways to find and work with hints than what I've been doing. 

Since it was Halloween week, Gary filled his pockets with chocolates every day and we gave candy to the Temple Square missionaries who we passed. They were very excited! There was one pair of sisters who managed to find us every day which was pretty funny. On Halloween itself we dressed up as missionaries and went to work. Same thing we did last year...

Sister Demilo Brown not wearing a Halloween costume :)

Also on Halloween, we went to dinner with Gary's Mission President from Hong Kong: Garry Mitchell.  President Mitchell lives here in Salt Lake just a few blocks from us!  He was a very young Mission President when he served in Hong Kong, so we are lucky enough to still have him around!  He is from Australia and is a joy to spend time with!

Gary's brother Dave built a cabin at Bear Lake and invited all the local siblings up for a house warming Friday night through Saturday morning so we had a lovely drive through Logan Canyon. Those canyon drives feed the soul! 

A little bit of lake and lots of beautiful mountains

We started reading Saints 4 this week and were excited to find out that the first chapter talks about Hong Kong (where Gary served his first mission). We love having more time to study scriptures and other materials with our lighter schedule at the moment. We did find out in a meeting however that this down time won't last much longer. The new computer program launch is going somewhat smoothly and we should see lots more students in the next week or so. We've still had a few trickle in and interviewed about a dozen this week. 

We just got back from our monthly Break the Fast and had the biggest turn out yet (also an amazing selection of food). Every time we go, we meet new missionaries who have been around for several months but just not crossed our path. Today I sat by a sister from Enoch Utah who taught high school at the same school in Cedar City as my Uncle Jeff Corry. We laughed a bit about how Jeff has a voice that carries--she said she could hear him clear from the other end of the school. It is so fun to meet people and find connections.

We practiced the Primary program today in our ward and we get speaking parts, so exciting! We also get to keep several kids more or less in line. It will be so fun, best Sacrament meeting of the year!  After doing the Primary Program in our Ward, we get to go to Tyler's Ward and see their Primary Program that same day!  That will be one for the journal for sure!

Have a wonderful week!

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Pack