Oct. 28 2012     Fall is in the mornings and evenings and then Mother Nature thinks it's summer again in the afternoons.  Each week, Thursday mornings, we meet with 3 other companionships in a district meeting or once a month we meet with our entire "zone" which consists of a total of 7 or 8 companionships.  We are the only "seniors" in this zone and everyone else is between 19 and 21 years old and all are males.  We have sister missionaries serving in other parts of our Sacramento Mission but not here.  How we admire these young men!  In the past, we have always admired the sacrifice of these young folks, particularly our own children, but we really had not totally appreciated the unique lifestyle that they chose to embrace for 2 years. I just read that missionary applications have gone from 700 per week up to 4000!  Wow, the work of the Lord should be on fire soon!  We continue to do our "Daily Dose" classes and just this week went to 3 public libraries to offer to teach this wonderful English course in the libraries.  We have not gotten their approval yet but are praying for a positive response.  We, of course, will not be able to include anything religious like we do in our church classes,  but know the Lord will bless us with his Spirit to be there and that hopefully will lead to missionary contacts outside the library itself.  Our class today at church was entitled "Being Punctual".  Because most of the folks we work with are from the islands, punctuality never has been a priority.  We talk about it a lot though because it is so critical to maintaining a job and fulfilling church responsibilities.  A very special family is moving to Utah this week and will be sorely missed.  They are such an incredible example to all the Marshallese.  We had a "farewell"/Halloween party last night.  It was quite an evening!  The Marshallese and the Figians both sang songs in their native tongue and then a group of young Marshallese did a native folk dance.  The place was really rocking especially since there were dozens of children on a massive sugar high running about.  It was really quite emotional as well since this family is so loved by all.
Yesterday we went to Amy's home for the day.  Many of you will remember our telling you of Amy's dear friend who died of a heart attack a few months back at the age of 41.  He had been trying to work on his back yard before his death.  My son-in-law, Alph, organized a gigantic service project that  John had the privilege of helping with.  A large group totally landscaped the back yard, shrubs, trees, sod, irrigation system, gardening boxes, etc.  Eleanor was gone for the week-end and when she arrives home tonight she will be so surprised!  Wish I were a little mouse and could see her expression!  Isn't it wonderful to serve one  another!!  I wasn't at the service project but I was on the Wise homefront doing grandmother service!  The older Wise children have matured so and the twinners keep everyone hopping!  This grandma is definitely getting older!  :)  Being close to them helps us (a little bit)not miss our other kiddos quite so much!
:)  Have a wonderful week full of happy service!

October 21, 2012

Hello again. Time goes so fast when working for the Lord. We continue to marvel at the changes in those that are attending our Daily Dose classes. Those that were once reserve, shy and even non-committal to us are now very friendly, supportive and eager to learn more. Recently in one of the classes that we teach in someone's home there were five people in attendance and they were all non-members of our faith. We were teaching the subject on how to give a prayer. Again, we are talking about people who speak limited English and haven't been very religious in their lives. At the conclusion we asked if anyone would give the closing prayer, and one fellow said he would, and in his simple prayer he stated how grateful he was for us to teach him English. A simple prayer but very much from the heart. Today that man and his wife and children showed up at church today and attended all the meetings! What a joy to see how much he has changed. Then earlier this week we met in another person's home for an evening meal. He had invited some non-member friends over to fellowship with and talk about having The Lord in all of our lives. One of those individuals showed up at church today also! The Spanish, Chinese and Mien groups we helped set up in Daily Dose are going well now also.

Last Friday night Sherrie and I needed a little more culture in our lives so we attended the Sacramento Ballet Company's performance of Romeo and Juliet. It even brought tears to old John's eyes, or was that from me imagining the pain in my toes if I was standing on them in ballet shoes!! Tonight the Fall rainy season is starting. It hasn't rained here since last February, but then that's why everything is connected to a sprinkler system!

We have several friends back in Jefferson City who are recovering from painful surgeries or have other trials in their lives right now. Our hearts in prayers go out to them all.

Until next time,

Elder (John) Downs

October 14, 2012

Sunday night has come again!  Time to share just a few thoughts from this week's experiences!  The highlight of the week was undoubtedly our visit yesterday from our oldest daughter Amy and her 5 kiddos.  They live in Walnut Creek, CA, about an hour + from Sacramento.  As Senior Missionaries, we can have visits from our children upon occasion as long as we do not neglect our work here.  Our only negative in being on a mission is our distance from our children and grandkids. Hopefully, they miss us (which we hear that they do:), but they also realize that sometimes in life you need to stretch and serve outside of your comfort zone if you want to grow in your faith and service.  Friday night we went to a large ward (unit within the church) that has a small group of Chinese within that unit. Most of the younger Chinese know English quite well but as is usually the case, the older ones (like us!) do not know how to speak English.  The church had badminton games set up in the cultural hall and there were quite a few folks there.  They had us do a quick overview of "Daily Dose" and soon hope to have regular classes going.  This morning we went at 10:30 and met a small group of people who are Mien (I think!) and had come from the foothills within Viet Nam.  This group, and probably some of their grandparents, were instrumental in assisting the United States during the Viet Nam War.  The majority of them have immigrated to the states because if they had remained in their country, they would have been destroyed for helping the U.S.  Right after we met with the Miens we met with the Spanish Ward's Council and introduced them to Daily Dose.  Many of them speak both languages but often need pronunciation help as well as conversation skills.  Soooo, this Tuesday evening we will be presenting the first Daily Dose classes to Spanish, as well as Mien, speaking people.  We will teach this first  class, then a couple who have just returned from a mission in Mexico have been called to teach Daily Dose in that ward.  Then, today, we came back to our little  Marshallese LDS Church and watched the Elder's Quorum president substitute for us in teaching the Marshallese.   He did a fine job!We have had a very busy week-end and week!!  We get a weekly newsletter from our mission president, Pres. Lewis, and this is a quote that I thought worthy of passing along as possibly your "thought for the week":  Obedience is the price, Faith is the power, Love is the motive, the Spirit is the key and Christ is the reason."  (Unknown author.)

Have a great week!  We are praying for those of you who are having some extra health challenges right now!!

        Good morning from the City of Trees as they call Sacramento. Darn it's only going to get up to 78 degrees this week! Ow, that was a dig for our friends outside of California wasn't it! I will repent later. But nice weather doesn't make me immune from getting a cold. All stuffed up sitting here today. I've been enjoying riding my bike in the early morning hours before we get started for the day of visiting people. I've steadily been building up my distances one trip at a time. From 20 miles, to 35, then 52, and then last week 65 miles round trip. There is this beautiful American River Bikeway that meanders over and along the winding river. From our apartment to the end and back will be about 80 miles so I hope to accomplish that on one of our P-days (Personal Days) during the next few months.
      This past month my eternal companion and I celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary. I don't know of a better place to do so than where we are and what we are doing right now. We will likewise be here for our 47th and when we arrive home in 2014 we will be 69 years old! Now that is scarey, but I feel the hands of time are only going backwards while we are here instead of forward. Sherrie/Mom and I have always gotten along well in our marriage, and that's not to say that we haven't had disagreements along the way, but we've always worked on resolving them as we go. I've still got my checklist that I need to improve on. As a flawed and imperfect man I have been blessed to marry a wonderful woman who has less imperfections than me, but together we are striving to be a perfectly smooth rolling stone one revolution at a time.
     The three of us (John, Sherrie and the Lord) are together 24-7 now and the spiritual change is a marvelous change to describe. It is such a peaceful and united feeling that we share. Speaking for myself, little spousal irritants that might have bugged me before don't even surface now. More than ever now I see the wonderful qualities and capabilities that Sherrie has especially in working with people. She can make any "grumpy" or downhearted person smile and feel the Spirit of the Lord. Together we have been able to see not what people are today but what they will become yet in this life or the next. As was said recently we've learned to "first observe, then serve" when working with people here.
      In closing, I've been reflecting more and more on what it means to me to be a Christian, and how I am doing in my quest to follow Jesus Christ. I feel that is an ongoing process and as my testimony of the Savior increases through service to others my testimony of Him grows more each day. As was recently said by David A. Bednar "Our testimony of the Savior is a point of departure not our destination".

Take care,

Elder/Dad Downs
    

October 7, 2012 Every 6 months we have a satellite broadcast from Salt Like City where the leaders of our church speak to us.  Two of our favorite times of the year!!  I love the hymn "Come Listen to a Prophet's Voice" because it makes me think of General Conference and hearing such incredible words of love and faith coming to us directly from our prophet and other leaders mouths.  What a blessing it is to be born in this time of advanced technology!  How exciting it was to learn that our young missionaries can now leave a year earlier on their missions if they so choose.  Our "Daily Dose" (English) classes are going well.  We had a sweet experience early this week that really boosted our morale.  We were teaching a group of 5 Marshallese and the topic was "Learning to Pray in English".  We were teaching them how to address Heavenly Father, express thanks, ask for additional blessings then close in the name of Jesus Christ.  We ask each person to think of one thing that they could express thanks for.  Everyone said the usual "family", "food", etc. but our lone man participant said, "I am thankful that you come and teach us better English."  We all had tears in our eyes and the Spirit was very strong.  Some days we go along and wonder if we are making a difference in anyone's lives and then Heavenly Father drops down some rays of sunshine such as that sweet experience and we feel blessed to be here.    We have also been praying to find one or two brethren within the Marshallese Branch who would be good leaders if they could develop stronger testimonies and build their commitment to the Lord.  We think we have found such a young man!  He committed to go to the Priesthood session tonight at church with John and he did!! It is very difficult for the Marshallese to grasp the importance of keeping commitments so this was a major deal.  It's just one meeting but everything starts with a little step in the right direction!  He left many friends and other more "fun" activities to attend this important meeting so we are very pleased and are praying that this is the first step among many to bring him into activity in the gospel.  Life is good and we are blessed!