This has been such an enjoyable week. Not only have we had the opportunity to teach the gospel in a number of settings, but we have been taught by prophets and apostles. Between the two of us, we had the opportunity to teach a missionary discussion, a family home evening lesson, a Sunday School class, and Priesthood and Relief Society lessons. And then on Wednesday, we attended a world wide training broadcast for all full time missionaries.
Sunday, Robyn was assigned to teach the relief society lesson in the ward. The relief society sisters in the Kaw River ward meet together for opening exercises and then they split up for a lesson in Spanish and a lesson in English. I encouraged her to teach the Spanish group to practice her language skills, but she was not amused. She ended up teaching the English speaking sisters from President Hunter's manual. The lesson was entitled 'Where Can I Go to Find Peace'.
Each Monday, the senior missionaries living in the Independence area meet together for family home evening. Last Monday was our turn to prepare and teach the lesson. We decided to call my mom for some ideas for lessons. Mom hosts a monthly family home evening for all the single sisters in her ward and so she had some great ideas for lesson topics. The hard part was picking just one, she had so many great ideas. We ended up asking everyone that was going to attend to come prepared to share about a prophet or woman from the Book of Mormon that they would like to meet someday and why. Abish and Sariah along with Moroni, Nephi, Alma, Alma the younger, Abinadi, Amulek and King Benjamin were among some of those chosen. It was a very spiritual evening as everyone bore their testimony of how these great men and women have blessed their lives. Of course, refreshments are an important part of any family home evening and Robyn decided to not only bring some home grown lilikoi (passion fruit) syrup to pour over fruit and ice cream, but also made enough for each couple to take home a small jar. We have a large lilikoi vine back home in California. Robyn carefully harvests the fruit and freezes the concentrate. We brought an 18 month supply of concentrate with us to Missouri to enjoy and share. Naturally, it was a big hit. Most of the missionaries here had never heard of passion fruit,
On Saturday, we taught the second 'discussion' to Sofia Almaraz. She is the young girl whose parents and sister are members, but she has not been baptized. The lesson focused mainly on the gift of the Holy Ghost. Because of her limited English, and my limited Spanish, we decided to utilize the KISS method for my benefit - Keep It Simple, Stupid. The CTR 7 primary manual was a great help. Lots of great visual aids and object lessons. Again, Sister Brown prepared a wonderful lesson that helped Sofia understand how important the Gift of the Holy Ghost is. She is excited to have her father baptize her in a couple of weeks.
We have been asked by our bishop to teach the Marriage and Family Relations class during Sunday School. Today was the first lesson. Our main focus in the class is a young couple who we have been working with to prepare to go to the temple. We hope and pray that the Lord will bless them as they work to be temple worthy.
Along with the Sunday School lesson today, I was asked to teach the priesthood lesson. The lesson was from Elder Cook's conference address entitled 'Shipshape and Bristol Fashion'. Every Conference talk is inspired, but Elder Cook's message was very powerful and hit home for me.
We both have grown so much as we have planned and prepared and taught the gospel this week. We love serving and we love learning.
As I mentioned, this week we were also privileged to attend a world wide missionary training broadcast on Wednesday. Elders Andersen, Bednar and Oaks along with President Clayton, Bishop Waddell and Sister Oscarson all taught us how to be more effective and inspired missionaries. Elder Andersen said, "Speak of the Savior. Testify of Him. Speak of His doctrine, of faith in Him and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, the the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. This is your purpose. This is your charge."
We are trying to apply his counsel and direction in all that we do.
 |
| Elder Neil A. Andersen |
It seems that there are more museums per square mile here than any place in the world. There are tractor museums, barn museums, baseball museums, jazz museums, Jesse James museums, farm museums, Harry Truman museums, toy museums, airline history museums, WWI museums etc. etc. etc. along with all the wonderful Church historical sites.
Robyn has decided that we will use our P-Days to get to know Missouri and Kansas better. It looks like we will be museum junkies during our stay here.
This past P-Day we visited the Arabia Steamboat Museum in downtown Kansas City. The Missouri River flows right through the middle of Kansas City. It is often referred to as the Muddy Missouri - too thick to drink and too thin to plow. In the 1800's paddle wheeler steamboats were used extensively to carry goods and passengers from Saint Louis all through the Midwest. Unfortunately, the Missouri was very hazardous to navigate and in 1856 the steamboat Arabia hit an underwater snag and quickly sank with all it's cargo a few miles from Kansas City. A group of treasure hunters finally discovered its location a few years ago and recovered 200 tons of cargo that was amazingly preserved, having been covered in dirt and muck all these years.
 |
| buried under 40 feet of dirt for over 100 years |
 |
| part of the preserved keel |
 |
| Just a fraction of the recovered cargo |
We finished up our P-day at the races. We decided to attend a multi-ward pinewood derby race here in the stake to see how it compared with the races on the west coast. We were not disappointed. The first and second place finishers were kind enough to sign autographs and take their pictures with us. Unlike the rules back home, the only rule here that is enforced is that the car weigh 5 ounces. Custom wood, axles and wheels are good to go. Apparently, the father of the two winners has a little experience in this regard...
 |
| Creeper Car - 1st place, Modified Tank - 2nd place |
 |
| My best friend since we have been here |
No comments:
Post a Comment