We have had the most fun with this group of young missionaries. Every week we get together to report and practice new missionary skills. They are such incredible young people. We took this picture in anticipation that some of them might be moving on as transfers were coming up last week. Well, we are losing some of them. Sis Clayton the taller young woman is going to Cold Harbor in Nova Scotia. She is super sweet, and she is excited to go to the other end of the mission. Her companion, Sis Alomia is staying here with us. They are both very good with technology and Sis Alomia teaches us the coolest techniques. We are losing Elder Neuf, Elder Orr and Elder Chang. Elder Orr is from Midway, Utah right next to us in Heber. He is the tallest one in the center. Elder Neuf is next to him. They are both assigned to be French speaking missionaries and will go to some French wards on the Montreal Island. Elder Chang is our clown. He is always laughing and a joy to be around. He is going Mandarin, but he doesn’t speak it much yet. Elder Mering, our District leader, who has been on the other end of the mission in Newfoundland, is happy that he is staying here.
So, we will be getting a new sister and three new elders. We have grown especially close to our sister missionaries. Their washer broke down and so for several weeks they were coming over on their P-days to use ours. We have worked together with them in activating and teaching in the Greenfield Park ward and have given them rides to meetings to save on their car miles (they have a monthly limit). I’m going to miss all the ones who are moving on, but hopefully over the next months we will run into some of them again. And we have the new ones to get to know.
We know something that they don’t know yet, but will find out tonight from Pres. Sorenson. There will be a tour of the mission for our visiting authority, Elder Alan Haynie, this week. To make it work in such a vast area they are flying all the missionaries into the mission home over a two-day period. We will have two days of combined zone conferences with three on Tuesday and four on Wednesday. We will go to the one on Tuesday, just a half hour drive for us. Then on Wednesday we will be helping in the kitchen to feed the other zones. We are excited for the week ahead. Last night and today we had a wonderful Stake Conference with Elder Robert Daines of the Seventy. He was a dynamic speaker and really brought the spirit in his presentation last night. We were all encouraged to draw closer to God through some very thoughtful personal questions. Today he continued with that theme. We were encouraged to seek to see God in our lives.
Doctrine and Covenants 93:1
Verily, thus saith the Lord: It shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am;
Something else that Elder Daines encouraged was temple attendance. This last week was our first week to work in the temple as ordinance workers again. What a joy it was to be involved again in those sacred ordinances and to become acquainted with the other temple workers there. This is a much more intimate temple than the Provo Temple and we are getting to know everyone on our shift including a couple of other senior missionaries. We also feel closer to the temple presidency here. We don’t have to do ordinances in French yet but hope to be fluent enough in a few more months to do that. They actually do ordinances in Spanish too, so we will see if we get up to speed on reading in the foreign languages. It is really a multicultural temple here. What a joy it is to serve the Lord for both sides of the veil. I have been getting a lot of the names on my temple list done on our patron visits as well.
As the holidays approach we are mindful of our Lord and Savior and his holy birth. It is our greatest hope and desire to share this message of love and hope to all those in our community here. I’m ready to put on the Christmas Hymns and ponder on the life of the Great Redeemer.