Mission update 3/30/2025

 It was a great week and the highlight was our Wednesday mission conference with Elder Bednar. We met in the Bountiful Regional Center and there were almost 1000 missionaries from our mission there. Gary and I got to help with ushering so we got to see lots of them as they came in. The meeting was a discussion of the talks we had been given to read before hand. Elder Bednar led the discussion and we learned from each other about faith, listening to the Spirit, acting on promptings and so on. It was wonderful to hear how everyone had learned different things from the same talks. Elder Bednar encouraged us to take notes, not on what was being said but on what the Spirit was telling us. We also heard from Sister Bednar and Elder and Sister Taylor from the area presidency along with testimonies from President and Sister Craven. It was a great two hours!

We filled the lower half of the Bountiful Regional Center

We have been spending lots of our time researching students to get all their information and then passing more than half of them on to the other missionaries who are helping us with the interviews. The interviews themselves are just a part of what we do and some days we get rather tired of all the research and recording that is involved. But, it helps get students moving forward on their education and that is wonderful! We had the Pathway all teams meeting this week and it was good to hear that we are not the only people experiencing issues with systems not always working and things moving a bit slower than desired. It's good to know that other people are dealing with the same issues and that those issues are being fixed as quickly as possible. 

We had appointments in Logan on Thursday and while we were up there we drove around the Smithfield Temple. It's looking so good and is very exciting!

Smithfield Utah Temple 

We had the dress rehearsal for the conference youth choir on Saturday and got to figure out our duties for the day of conference as we shepherd the youth from the Little Theater to the auditorium for the session. It is a complicated labyrinth and we'd really rather not lose anyone down there. The kids are sounding so good! They have one more rehearsal tonight that we help with and then we'll be there a big part of the day on Saturday when they sing for the afternoon session. 

In other news, we saw a granddaughter in her Jr. High musical and she did great! We also got to go to a grandson's 4th birthday party on Saturday and it was great to see him so happy and excited. Of course we also loved seeing his little sister who is just getting bigger all the time.

Skeptical Granddaughter Wondering About Grandpa's Antics

We have a lot of great things going on with our Mission assignments and are very excited about General Conference this coming weekend!

Have a wonderful week!

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Pack

Mission Update 3/23/2025

 Monday we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with the traditional corned beef and cabbage--it was great. Other than that we had our usual Monday devotional, interviews and lots of research on students to make sure we have all their information. We enjoyed our one free evening of the week mostly by catching up on things at home.

Tuesday our MTC District went to the Bountiful Temple together. We had all but 3 of us there and it was wonderful. Our favorite part was when we were all gathered in the Celestial room together. We love this group of missionaries so much! We followed it up with ice cream (of course) and it was just a wonderful evening all around.  We have truly established eternal friendships with these missionaries!

View from the temple to the west

Nielsen's frozen custard

Choir was great this week. On Monday the women sang "May I Serve Thee" for the devotional because it was also the Relief Society Birthday. It was beautiful! Then on Wednesday we worked on the Easter music which is coming along nicely. The best part of practice is when we go out in the lobby area at the end and sing around the piano out there. The acoustics are amazing! Now if we could just move our whole devotionals out there. (not happening but a nice pipe dream)

We got to go to a grandson's piano recital this week and he did very well. It's fun to see his progress each time we go to a recital. This coming week we get to go to his sister's musical at the Jr. High. Grandchildren are great!

The most exciting thing this week is our mission conference with Elder Bednar. Our whole mission is invited so we could have up to 1200 people there. We've got several talks to read to prepare so that will be our study for the next few days. 

We helped with the youth choir again tonight for conference (they're singing in the Saturday afternoon session). We hard a bit of their actual rehearsal and it's going to be so good! We can't take any credit for how they sound but if they look relatively organized then that's about 1% because of us :)

From Gary:  We have just finished another round of the Leadership Pattern Journey, which is leadership training for employees and missionaries here at Church Headquarters.  We love this course and really have enjoyed being with this incredible group of missionaries that joined us on this journey!  I was the facilitator and Sylvia joined to help me.  Sylvia's banana bread for our last gathering was greatly appreciated!

Leadership Pattern Journey Friends

We got outside to walk a couple of times this week thanks to spring weather showing up!  With the forecast expecting 70 degrees here in SLC next week, we expect even better weather for being outside! We do enjoy getting out now and then!

We also enjoyed having USU and BYU in the NCAA Basketball tournament this week!  We did not watch much, but do love the idea of our Utah teams playing in the March Madness!  We tend to cheer for USU first, but do love to see BYU do well, so it is amazing to see them make it to the next round!

Have a marvelous week!

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission Update 3/16/2025

 This has been a week that ended much better than it was in the middle! 

We started off with our Monday morning devotional and Gary got to sing in a quartet, God's Gracious Love, from the new hymns. It was beautiful and the devotional was great as well. It makes for an early start to the day but it's worth it.

Tuesday started off with the discovery that our master spreadsheet which we all share as Chaplains had been deleted because the employee who put it together no longer works for Pathway. So, that was a mess. Then the endorsement request system crashed which is where we pull the names of students needing their interviews and clear them when they're done. Then, the Pathway search program crashed which is where we look up the information on the students. So, it was just a special day all around. 

It took until Thursday to get the endorsement system fully working again and then we started to rebuild our spreadsheet. By Friday we were more or less feeling on top of things, kind of. We've lost a bunch of information but we can survive without it. 

But, other things were great this week. We went to a concert at the Cathedral of the Madeleine on Tuesday with some choirs and an orchestra from Utah county. The music was absolutely beautiful and the Cathedral is a wonderful place for acoustics. We loved the whole evening!

Wednesday we had a lunch meeting over at the Pathway building so we got to catch up with some of the Pathway people we work with but don't see much in person. We also got some great Argentinian food which was fun.

Obligatory picture in the Pathway building

The students we interviewed continued to be delightful and so happy to live the standards required. I talked to one girl who is from Nigeria but has lived in the UK for the past few years. She was all bundled up in a sweater and says she still hasn't gotten used to the cold yet. It was funny to see a student in a sweater since most of the ones we talk to are in places where it's just hot all year. 

Saturday we went up to Logan for Gary's brother Kevin's 70th birthday party. It was great and fun to see nieces and nephews we don't see very often. 

Primary was a zoo today with almost double the kids in the two younger classes. We helped manage the 3 and 4 year olds and they were a handful but delightful as always. One boy just wanted to keep telling everyone about his Dad's new truck. Apparently, before we got there he'd also been talking about his Dad's new girlfriend. There are not secrets in primary!

Another early day tomorrow and another busy week but life is quite good and we love what we're doing.

The mission secretary has this on her desk and we love seeing the progress each day.

Spring is coming!

Maybe....

From Gary:  I had another sweet experience this week to share.  I interviewed a gal from Ghana a couple of weeks ago and she told me she was close to being baptized into the Church.  I asked her to send me a picture when she was baptized.  She sent her baptism picture to me on Saturday!  This is always a great treat to see what getting closer to their Heavenly Father and finding Christ in their life more fully because of the BYU Pathway Worldwide program!  They fall in love with the Church and decide to join!  We see this quite often!  The last numbers we heard was that 44 percent of the non-members who come to Pathway join the Church in the first year of their Pathway education! Wow.

It was wonderful to go to my brother Kevin's 70th birthday celebration on Saturday night!  We got to see so many friends and family there!  Family and friends are everything!  

We are excited about the upcoming General Conference!  We are assisting the Music Committee with some simple ushering duties for a couple of choirs that are rehearsing performing on Saturday April 5th.  It is so fun to be involved with this again even if we do not get to sing this time!  :)

Have a marvelous week!

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack

Mission update 3/9/2025

 Monday we had our first of the month evening devotional which was given by Elder Sandino Ramon of the Seventy. He spoke about preparing for the Second Coming (we are definitely sensing a theme lately...) by bringing others to Christ. We took lots of notes and will hopefully have time in the near future to go back and read through the references and talks he shared. There is always more to read!

Speaking of reading, we are over halfway through the "Read the Book of Mormon by Easter" challenge and as we mark sections that refer to the Doctrine of Christ we've definitely run into drought sections where nothing is colored red and then other chapters where pretty much the whole chapter is red. In some of those chapter of wickedness and war we get really excited when we see repent or faith so we can finally color something!

Tuesday we had a great plan for interviews to work around the devotional and orientation we needed to do. It was a beautiful plan and we got all the messages sent out. Then the responses started coming in. This student needed an hour later, this one two hours earlier, etc. By the time we got to Tuesday morning the schedule was ridiculous. During orientation time we had an interview every 15 minutes so we sent Gary off to orient new missionaries with Elder Smith and I shut myself in a room to do non stop interviews for an hour. It all worked out but was pretty funny. Some days everything goes according to plan, other days, not so much.

In other chaos, Wednesday was a busy day so by the time we got to choir we were a bit done. Then, we got six new choir members so we needed to get folders put together for them and get their information. That shouldn't have been all that difficult but since both of us were a bit frazzled, it drove us a bit crazy. However, everyone got their music, practice went fine and we all survived, mostly. Then we came home and spent some time calming down.

Thursday we were able to go to a bit of RootsTech in between meetings and interviews. It was great and got us excited for the next two days when we were able to go more. We ran into many people we knew from other places which was great and the classes and general sessions were so good. My main takeaway is that I need to write the stories of my parents now. 

With Shane Brough from Layton

With Becky and Charlie Bown from Brigham City (Becky is my cousin)

We loved the entertainment at RootsTech as well!

Today we got to do singing time in Primary and it was great. Primary songs are the best ever and getting to sing them with the kids is so fun! This evening we get more music as we get to help with the youth choir for conference. No singing for us this time but we get to help with keeping them more or less organized. 

With Rosa Griffin from Layton and the youth choir in the background (they are amazing!)

From Gary:  Some weeks are more full than others!  This was one of those!  We loved RootsTech and really were inspired to do more for our personal histories and our family histories.  There is so much to learn about this subject that we will never get to the end of this row!  We loved seeing so many of our friends and relatives while there!  We even ran into the latest returned missionaries from our home Ward in North Logan who just returned from their Senior Mission in Cambodia!  Welcome home Elder and Sister Williams!  And we loved hearing from President Holland and Elder Anderson. The Piano Guys never disappoint either!

We have also loved being able to help with the Church Music Committee and help with choirs for General Conference!  The Youth Choir from Northern Utah sounded great last night!  

Working at Church HQ is an amazing adventure for sure.  We get to see so many things that the Church is doing to move the gospel forward and expand even more to all the world.  This is a great way to have a front row seat to the many aspects of Church administration!

We are still loving our mission!

Have a wonderful week!

We love you all!

Sister and Elder Pack

Mission update 3/2/2025

Hello All!

We've had a great week topped off with the baby blessing of our 21st grandchild today. Artemis was blessed by Blaine and behaved beautifully through the blessing. She is quite the perfect baby with her beautiful head of dark hair.  There is nothing more beautiful that a baby getting blessed through the priesthood by her father.

Blaine and Deanna with Artemis plus her cousin Elliot who wanted to join in the picture

We had lots of students this week who are just starting their Pathway Connect classes. Normally we get them as they are finishing the third class so they know more what they're doing. These newer students take a little more explanation but are still quite delightful. I love when we get to the end of the interview and let them know that they have passed. Some of them are just so nervous up to that point and when they find out they are done, they get the biggest smiles on their faces. It is beautiful!

A student I interviewed a week or so ago, let me know that her baptism was happening on Saturday. She sent me picture of her wonderful day which made me so happy!

Gladys is in the middle in white, she is so delightful!

We did sealings in the Draper Temple this week and it was wonderful! I love putting families together!

We followed that up with crepes and smoothies which were wonderful, and very filling.

Saturday we spent the afternoon in Logan, replacing a door to the basement apartment. Then, today we had the baby blessing and lunch with family and friends. It was a beautiful weekend!

Two Pathway missionaries: our daughter Maria and husband Gordon are service missionaries in charge of a Pathway gathering group.

This next week is Roots Tech and we'll spend some time there when we aren't interviewing. It's a fun, exciting time in Salt Lake and we're looking forward to the wonderful classes and just being around so many people who love family history.

We continue to see miracles in our mission experiences every day!  The Lord is truly hastening His work!  

Have a wonderful week!

We love you all!

Elder and Sister Pack