I have not reported on my activities for a couple of
weeks so this might be a little wordy.
One thing that has not changed in our work is that we are still driving
around in both wards trying to find sisters at home. We love visiting the sisters, but most of
them have to work to help pay the bills; so often we are only able to leave a
note on their door saying we are sorry to have missed them. We try to use cheery notes and included a
little thought about General Conference and Easter in the month of April. We are beginning to see some response from
some of the visits. Some sisters who
have not been to church for a while have started to return, not every week, but
once or twice. Others recognize that
they should come back, but habits are hard to break sometimes. And sometimes it is not because they do not
want to be there but it is difficult when they don't have support from their
family so that they can come. All we can
do is to continue to offer friendship and remind them that in spite of
everything going on in their lives, what matters most is their relationship
with the Savior.
Sister Moraga shared a thought with me about the
importance of seeking to know the Savior.
In the April 1974 Ensign Elder Neal A. Maxwell responded to his call to
the Quorum of the Seventy with a humble expression of appreciation for all of
the people in his life who had influenced him and allowed him to be where he
was. He ended with this testimony
"Finally I testify that what a wise man once wrote is true: 'If you have
not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what
you have chosen instead.' " [quoting William Law (1686-1761), English
clergyman] This is what we would like
the sisters here to realize, and it is so important for all of us. The most important choice we can make in this
life is to choose to follow Jesus Christ and then get up and follow him.
We have seen a little more variety in our days though
since talking with President Cooke last month.
For one, we have enjoyed eating out a little more lately. Sometimes it is a lunch date to discuss
missionary work with the Mission President or the Stake and Ward leaders, and
sometimes we have been the ones inviting others out so that we can visit with
them when it is difficult to meet with them in their homes.
Sister Moraga has a difficult time sitting for long
periods of time because of neuromas in her feet. We made a mutual decision that we would not
be attending the temple every week, and especially not trying to do two
sessions as Sister Boone and I did.
However, we have been able to attend at least monthly. We attended a session following our March
27th interviews at the Visitor's Center and then followed up by seeing
"The Savior of the World" presentation at the Visitor's Center that
evening. That was a very enjoyable day. Last Sunday a sister in White Plains 2nd Ward
asked us if she could go with us to the temple when we go again so we went this
last Tuesday. Then she took us out to
dinner to show her appreciation for taking her.
Pictures from our recent trip to the temple. There are new beautiful scenes every time we go there.
I was treated to an extra special activity just last
week. Anson and Lora traveled with a
family that they are friends with and brought Sydney and Camden to Boston and
Washington D.C. for a week. They called
Heidi and I when they were in D.C. and invited us to spend some time with
them. I met Heidi and her boys at the
Branch Avenue Metro station and we took the train to D.C. We called Anson when we arrived at the Metro
stop near the International Spy Museum to see where they were. He told us that they were in the museum and
they would probably be there for another hour.
We wandered past one of the windows of the museum as they talked, and
when I glanced over at the building and looked in the window, there was Anson standing
right next to the window in earnest conversation on his cellphone. Heidi told him to look out the window and we
all had a good laugh. We ate lunch with
them at the Shake Shack next to the museum, and then we walked around three of
the Smithsonian museums together before I had to leave to attend a meeting with
the Stake President and Stake Relief Society President that evening. I was a little nervous about going back on the Metro alone but was equally troubled about leaving Heidi to make it back with her two boys in tow. All ended well though. It was good for my soul to see family again. I have been too busy to even see Heidi lately
or even talk frequently with any of my children. It is good for me though. It means I am more engaged in this very
important hastening of the work, and that would make President Cooke happy.
I didn't get a lot of pictures while we were in D.C., but this picture at the end of the day is a pretty good representation of how much fun we had. By the time we got into the Museum of American History, everyone was pretty worn out.
In our meeting with President Sakai and Sister Ramon,
they told us that they would like us to start working with two additional wards
up in the District, Anacostia and Capitol Hill Wards. It is not a safe neighborhood for us to be
there on our own, so they told us they only want us to go to the chapel and
attend Sunday meetings or do weekday activities at the church or in the company
of the senior missionary couples who are serving there so that there will be a
priesthood leader with us. We were told
that the church doors remain locked and someone watches to open
doors for people. During meetings,
Elders watch the parking lot to deter crime and vandalism. Their desire for us is that we will be able
to help the Relief Societies in these wards and perhaps be able to teach them
homemaking skills.
In addition to doing visits, we have had the opportunity
to offer some service to the members and participate in volunteer work in the
community. We have started working each
Thursday evening that we can to help out with an outreach ministry called the
Shepherd's Table that feeds meals to the homeless. We helped a sister clean up her house and
pack some things in anticipation of her husband coming home from his
deployment. My companions have all been
good pianists and have been asked to play the piano for Relief Society meeting
occasionally and in our District meetings.
I am grateful that I have not had to do that one. But I got to use one of my talents as well
when I was recently given the opportunity to help a new convert with his family
history work so that he can submit some names to the temple and go do proxy
baptisms for some of his family members.
As the Mission is rolling out a new Family History Initiative to train
the missionaries in using Family Search so that they can use this wonderful
tool as a finding and teaching tool in our missionary work, I am hopeful that I
will get many more opportunities to work in this area where I feel I have some
knowledge. As far as the specialist part
of my title as a Women's Auxiliary Specialist, I am feeling like less and less
of a specialist as time goes on. I
recognize that I have so much to learn and so many areas where I need to
improve so that I can be an effective missionary.
This past week, I have been able to call on some of my
past experience of working beside my husband in home remodeling and in his
construction work to serve one of the sisters in White Plains 2nd Ward. On Last Saturday, Sister Moraga and I were
invited to have dinner with Tamara. When we first talked with her,
she told us that she knows that she needs to be coming to church. She works in Virginia and travels so much
during the week that she is just exhausted by the weekend. Besides that, she has some health challenges to
deal with. She has a very nice home, but
her budget is very tight because besides her own bills she is paying the
mortgage and other expenses for her son and daughter-in-law, which leaves a
meager amount that she can draw from to pay her tithing. She told us that she has set a goal to start
coming to church again and paying her tithing so that she can get back to the
temple.
She lives
alone in a big, beautiful house. She has
someone helping her paint her house in hopes of improving the appearance so she
can get a renter who can help with the bills.
When we were over there last week, she showed us the progress she was
making on the house. We volunteered to
go back on Monday and help her strip wallpaper off of the upstairs bathroom
that she is working on now. She was able
to share a testimony-building experience with us as we worked. She told us that when she received her
paycheck this week, it was about $400 more than usual. When she talked to her employer to tell him
that she thought they had made a mistake on her check, he said that it was a
bonus and he was also giving her a raise, so her check will continue to be
about that much higher now. This was a
testimony to her that Heavenly Father really is aware of her and her desire to
pay her tithing and keep His commandments.
He really does keep his promises that he will bless us as we keep the
commandments.
Another
area that President Cooke would like to see us be more engaged is in actually
teaching missionary discussions.
Although we do not go out knocking on doors as the young missionaries
do, he felt that by working with the young sisters now assigned in Lexington
Park and Patuxent Wards we will be able to arrange some splits so that we may
have teaching opportunities with them.
In the meantime we had a great experience this week that has given us
hope that we will be able to fulfill that assignment from President Cooke.
We have tried several times to visit with one of the less
active sisters in White Plains 1st Ward.
We have met her husband on a couple of occasions. The first time when we asked if Phet was
home, he looked at our nametags and said, "oh, yeah, her cousin signed her
up." I am not sure what that
meant. Anyway, we surmised that she has
not been active in the church for quite some time. This week when we stopped she was not home
but her husband stepped out on the porch and chatted with us for a while. He mentioned how he has had a very rough
past, having been raised in a home where drugs and illegal activities were
involved and this extended into his adult years as well. But he said he has turned to Jesus now and
wants to do things the right way. He
then asked us if we are Christians. When
we said yes, he said well what makes your church different from say the Baptist
church. Sister Moraga asked him if he
wants to hear what we believe. I was a
little surprised when he said he was interested. We said it would take a few visits, and he said
okay to that. He said he would have to
talk to his wife before setting an appointment, but usually any night after
about 6:30 would be okay because he is not working right now.
We viewed this experience as an opportunity to do more
teaching as President Cooke told us he would like us to be able to do. For the next couple of mornings we spent our
companionship study reviewing the Preach My Gospel lessons, mostly for my
benefit so that we would be prepared to teach Chris and Phet. We thought we would just be able to call
them, but we have no phone number, so we determined that we would stop by again
on Friday. It began to rain in the
afternoon, and by 6:30 it was raining pretty hard. Water was just running in the streets like a
river by the time we arrived at their house.
All the way there I told Sister Moraga about my experiences with
thunderstorms when I was younger and of people I knew that had been killed by
lightning. I think I was trying to talk
myself out of this. The closer we got to
the house, the harder the rain came. No
cars were in the driveway so Sister Moraga said there was no need for both of
us to get drenched; she would just go alone and knock to make sure no one was
home. No one answered except a dog that
kept poking its head through the living room blinds to bark at her. She wrote a note to let them know that we had
stopped by and gave our number to them realizing that they most likely would
not call. As soon as we left the house,
the rain eased up, and by the time we got home, it had almost stopped. It feels like the adversary is at work on
this one, but we are not going to give up. We will continue to pray for teaching opportunities.
The weather is slowly improving. I finally went outdoors for a walk recently instead of just exercising in my room.
I spotted an eagle that occasionally hangs out near the walking path. It seemed to know when I was trying to take a picture and flew off every time I got close.
This is the picture that my slow camera captured--minus the eagle which had taken off just as I snapped the picture.
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