December 17, 2012
Hello everyone. Merry Christmas from rainy Sacramento. Last night was our Christmas Devotional that we had worked so hard on with the Marshallese and Fijian members. It went well. To see our laid back, somewhat timid members get up in front and recite in English "The Christmas Guest" by Helen Stiener Rice was a beautiful site. Sister Downs loving way of cracking the wipe over the past few weeks paid off. Now this week we are taking our gifts of the Savior (different framed pictures of the Savior) to all those we have been working with. Today for the first time we were able to locate and get in to see a family that has been less active for several years due to hurt feelings. They have invited us back for a Family Home Evening night, which they say they have missed very much. So hopefully in our return visits we can help rejuvinate the spirit of the Lord in their home again.
Recently we were challenged by Elder Porter of the Seventy, who came to our mission, to think about some very spiritual thoughts and directions in our lives. 1. What are we doing now in our lives that is spiritually different than what we were doing before our mission? 2. Where does our commitment lie for this period of time that we are on our mission? 3. Are we assisting the Lord or is He assisting us? 4. What kind of Christlike attributes do we have in our lives?
Powerful questions that will take all the rest of our mission to think on and put into action. One of the best scriptures that seems to relate to these questions is found in D & C 84:88 "And whoso recieveth you, there will I be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up".
Here in the Sacramento Mission our Mission President Lewis had projected a goal of the mission having a little over 700 baptisms of people who would come unto Christ through the restored gospel in 2012. Presently the mission is at 670 baptisms and counting! What a truely wonderful White Christmas it has become for these people who have found the gift of eternal life through the Savior.
May we all reflect on that gift that He has given us and in some small way determine what we can give Him in return.
Elder John
Monday, December 17, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
December 11, 2012 I couldn't get into our blogsite for some reason on Sunday and here it is now Tuesday, almost Wednesday! The month of December seems to run much faster than the other months of the year, don't you think? I received a special package in the mail today from a dear friend sharing memories of a fun, girls only, road trip taken some years ago and it filled my heart with joy and sweet reminising. Thanks for the memories dear friends. As you can tell by our writings, John and I are entirely different in our approach to blogging so hopefully one or the other of us will inform, educate, uplift or just say something to brighten your day, or night, depending when you are reading our blog. Because both of our memories seem to be dimishing at times, we have decided that we will split the week up and each take a day to be "the one" with good memory recall for the day. The problem with that is that I know everyone's names and addresses, which he doesn't, but he knows how to get to everyone's homes, which I don't. Goodness,what a pair we are!! The most confusing thing is that many of the saints have the same last name and MANY of them look very much alike, so it is very easy to put the wrong name on the right person and vice versa. Our branch president's name is Naga. The "g" is "almost" silent but it is said VERY softly with a very loose tongue. So it sounds like Naa'na but I think it is Nanaa'. Needless to say, he really would like his name said correctly so we have reverted to addressing him as simply, president. We have learned that in the islands there is definitely a 'pecking order" or a class system. The Fijians are at the top, the Polanesians second, and the Marshallese third. Our people are used to being "on the bottom" so to speak and it's so hard to help them realize that with lots of work they can become the "top dogs" in island culture. I cannot imagine coming from a culture that you either walked or rode your bike anywhere you needed go and never had to deal with the complications that getting and driving a car can bring you. Now they are in a world that you have to be able to understand bus and light rail schedules, sometimes with several transfers and find the money to take pubic transit. John and I are trying to help several families learn how to read bus and train schedules and take them on their first public transit trip to give them the confidence to do it on their own. It was kind of like that saying, "the blind leading the blind"! :) Boy, we both have college educations and we looked at those schedules and just scratched our heads. So we have appointments with other families who need to develop the confidence to use public transit so that they can get to and from their jobs. We gave lots of "high fives" when we got back to the right bus station. We were really feelilng smug and smart like we had just aced an exam! The work goes slower than we like. We go to homes and give them Family Home Evening manuals and then offer to come to their house and do the first one for them (to do some modeling here), treats and all. Two have turned out great and the other two did not keep
their appointments. We were really excited after we visited with this one family and they seemed excited to have us back for an evening. We planned a really cool interactive lesson and of course, made some yummy treats. Well, we go to their door and no one was home!! In our state of
despair :) we ate over half the treat by ourselves! So now we have a new policy.....just FHE but no treats. I think we both looked at each other and said, "Hmmm, the devil made me do it." Got to have someone to blame. We are having our first missionary Christmas fireside this Sunday. Our Daily Dose (English class) students are reading Helen Steiner Rice's "The Christmas Guest". We are all pumped about it. I'm not printing a program to hand out because I imagine there will be lots of last minute changes. So I probably have to have Plan B through J ready to roll. I had to make sure that I had offered parts equally to the Fijians, Marshallese, Americans, and Samoans so everyone would feel validated. We have 2 very young, inexperienced Elders in our branch who need lots of guidance so John and I have been assigned to do a little bit of coaching/mentoring with them Always opportunities to grow here! We went to the stake nativity display and it was a bittersweet experience for me. It was simply incredible. It was what I had always hoped and prayed ours would become. It was held Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1-9:00 p.m. They had enormous crowds from other churches who came on Sunday after their own services. The Stake RS president gave a tour of 25 Catholics who asked if they could go sit in a room with her and ask her questions about the church when they were done. She said the spirit was so strong in their conversation. Every room plus the cultural hall had nativities in them. We have made some headway with some folks in our little branch here and they are good people who are struggling to learn the gospel and how to apply to it their lives. All the while learning how to survive in a culture that is so different from their island culture. For example, in the islands if your bicycle did not work, you helped yourself to your neighbor's bike and this was not a problem. Here, if you take your neighbor's bike without asking, we call it stealing. When teaching a church lesson we often need to explain words like "honesty" or "compassion". We must constantly remind ourselves that many of these folks have been members of the church for less than 2 years! Well to close now....I love this Christmas season and the opportunity it gives me to testify of the divinity of our Savior, Jesus Christ. How deeply indebted I am to Him who was willing to die for all of our sins. How grateful I am to have found his restored church and to have learned about his great plan of salvation. Just a closing thought.....what do you plan to give the Savior for his birthday? Sure love ya!
their appointments. We were really excited after we visited with this one family and they seemed excited to have us back for an evening. We planned a really cool interactive lesson and of course, made some yummy treats. Well, we go to their door and no one was home!! In our state of
despair :) we ate over half the treat by ourselves! So now we have a new policy.....just FHE but no treats. I think we both looked at each other and said, "Hmmm, the devil made me do it." Got to have someone to blame. We are having our first missionary Christmas fireside this Sunday. Our Daily Dose (English class) students are reading Helen Steiner Rice's "The Christmas Guest". We are all pumped about it. I'm not printing a program to hand out because I imagine there will be lots of last minute changes. So I probably have to have Plan B through J ready to roll. I had to make sure that I had offered parts equally to the Fijians, Marshallese, Americans, and Samoans so everyone would feel validated. We have 2 very young, inexperienced Elders in our branch who need lots of guidance so John and I have been assigned to do a little bit of coaching/mentoring with them Always opportunities to grow here! We went to the stake nativity display and it was a bittersweet experience for me. It was simply incredible. It was what I had always hoped and prayed ours would become. It was held Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1-9:00 p.m. They had enormous crowds from other churches who came on Sunday after their own services. The Stake RS president gave a tour of 25 Catholics who asked if they could go sit in a room with her and ask her questions about the church when they were done. She said the spirit was so strong in their conversation. Every room plus the cultural hall had nativities in them. We have made some headway with some folks in our little branch here and they are good people who are struggling to learn the gospel and how to apply to it their lives. All the while learning how to survive in a culture that is so different from their island culture. For example, in the islands if your bicycle did not work, you helped yourself to your neighbor's bike and this was not a problem. Here, if you take your neighbor's bike without asking, we call it stealing. When teaching a church lesson we often need to explain words like "honesty" or "compassion". We must constantly remind ourselves that many of these folks have been members of the church for less than 2 years! Well to close now....I love this Christmas season and the opportunity it gives me to testify of the divinity of our Savior, Jesus Christ. How deeply indebted I am to Him who was willing to die for all of our sins. How grateful I am to have found his restored church and to have learned about his great plan of salvation. Just a closing thought.....what do you plan to give the Savior for his birthday? Sure love ya!
Monday, December 3, 2012
Good evening. Yesterday began the Christmas season and as always it brings feelings of excitment and joy from all ages in and outside of our family. We've just received a wonderful package from our grandchildren that has 12 small gifts in it representing the twelve days of Christmas. We can't wait for December 13th when we can open our first gift! Tonight we put up our 3 foot Christmas tree that was given to us by another departing missionary couple. We also opened our first gift to each other which is a beautiful Nativity set from Willow Tree that somehow survived our jam packed car on the trip here in August.
When I think of that jam packed car and that there was not room for one more item, I think of my life and contemplate how much room do I have inside of me for the Savior. Do I have space left for Him? Our "simplistic" missionary life tends to allow us to reflect more on "what can I give the Savior" rather than the traditional thought of "I wonder what I am getting for Christmas"? I think my best gift I can give Him is to move out a lot of stuff inside of me and make more room for Him to the point that I am able to share Him with other people.
An analogy of this might be of a perfectly round beautiful piece of pottery. It was completely enclosed such that no light could get in. If one would gently shake it something could be heard rolling around inside. But sadly other than to put it on a shelf and admire it, it didn't have much use. Then one day it was jostled off the shelf onto the floor and cracked enough that light was allowed inside. The pottery was about to be thrown out until the seed inside start to receive light and from the broken pottery came a new form of beauty, a new form of life.
Maybe that's what our lives are like. If we clean out, make more room for Him, something new will grow out from us and our growth will flourish. As it says in the scriptures "ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God, and for all men. If we press forward feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, we shall have eternal life".
Elder John
When I think of that jam packed car and that there was not room for one more item, I think of my life and contemplate how much room do I have inside of me for the Savior. Do I have space left for Him? Our "simplistic" missionary life tends to allow us to reflect more on "what can I give the Savior" rather than the traditional thought of "I wonder what I am getting for Christmas"? I think my best gift I can give Him is to move out a lot of stuff inside of me and make more room for Him to the point that I am able to share Him with other people.
An analogy of this might be of a perfectly round beautiful piece of pottery. It was completely enclosed such that no light could get in. If one would gently shake it something could be heard rolling around inside. But sadly other than to put it on a shelf and admire it, it didn't have much use. Then one day it was jostled off the shelf onto the floor and cracked enough that light was allowed inside. The pottery was about to be thrown out until the seed inside start to receive light and from the broken pottery came a new form of beauty, a new form of life.
Maybe that's what our lives are like. If we clean out, make more room for Him, something new will grow out from us and our growth will flourish. As it says in the scriptures "ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God, and for all men. If we press forward feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, we shall have eternal life".
Elder John
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