Going Home: Staying Busy

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

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.

The waterfowl seem to be enjoying the weather.

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.