It seems like so much has happened already and we are only starting our fifth week of our mission. Gary pointed out that our 1st month anniversary of starting our mission will be on November 26 which happens to be Thanksgiving Day. That seems appropriate. I am so grateful to be a missionary and can't imagine doing anything else right now than this. It was last year in December that Gary and I both felt the feeling that it was time to start the process even though we weren't sure how it would work with our circumstances. Now, just five weeks into it, I am thinking how grateful we are here doing this BECAUSE of those circumstances. We need all of the support and nurture from God that we can get and I testify that He is giving it freely to those who serve Him where He wants them to serve. For us, it is the Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission--for you, it might be in your home, your neighborhood, your ward, or your workplace. Figure out and just DO IT!
The third week of our mission was spent mostly with Elder Higginson as he trained us in the work of the Collection Zone of the Church History Library. He sent us lots of handouts and shared his experiences as he has done this work. We spent a lot of time on zoom meetings with him and learning so much.
One moment that stood out for me: Elder Higginson was sharing some experiences with doing interviews with former mission presidents and he then stated, "This is a great opportunity you have to listen to these great men who have devoted their lives to serving God and to hear their stories of faith and service." Immediately, my mind filled with some of my past clients--perhaps who seem on the outside "the downtrodden" and "the needy." I have been humbled to listen to their stories of heartache and troubles and their own journey to follow Christ. I thought to myself how lucky I have been to have heard their stories too. As God's children, our paths are very different one from another, but faith, service, charity and humility grow from all sorts of experiences. It truly does not matter to Him what stations or callings or whatever we have done. The question is what are we becoming? I am looking forward to hearing the stories of men who have served in this particular way in the Church and count it an honor, just like I do in hearing the stories of my clients in the past.
In addition to the direct training we received, we also attended our first mission devotional and also our first zone devotional that third week. Both were great experiences and allow us to see a bit of the depth of our fellow senior missionaries. Our mission theme is "Hear Him" and six missionaries shared their experiences of "Hearing Him." In each case, they shared personal experiences within their lives where they felt the love and direction of Heavenly Father and Christ. The range of experiences was great, but all of them ran true to my own sense of how God loves his children and speaks to them. I am in awe of these people and can't wait to meet them in person whenever we are able to go "on campus" as the old-timers call the Temple Square area. At the zone conference, the Dawsons spoke. They were actually finishing their mission the following week and they shared an experience where they were in a car accident which took the lives of two of their children years ago. It was a tender story and again reinforced that these missionaries have all lived a lot of life and have had tough things happen but also have been faithful through those things. I can't believe I am so lucky to be counted among them.
At that zone meeting, we were also introduced and given a minute to introduce ourselves. Gary and I had made a plan to share some unusual things about us--including that we have a Little Free Library, that our four of our kids are adopted, and we shared our famous lizard with our zone and indicated that he had attended 32+ Christmas parties as a white elephant gift. (I don't think they appreciated how weird he looks over zoom.) I don't think they will forget it and maybe they will remember our names.
We also got to watch the Church History Talent Show--virtually of course. Staff and missionaries made videos and they were shared over a zoom meeting. It was entertaining as people were quite clever at how and what they shared--not the usual stuff. My favorite was a Church History staff member who did a type of martial arts with a different kind of num-chuks. They were more flexible and in black lights, she made them dancing in the darkness. It was beautiful.
We didn't end up going to Salt Lake for a tour with Elder Higginson because the Covid numbers have been so high in Utah and the governor had really encouraged not being in public unless it was essential. We did meet him briefly in a parking lot where he handed us some files and other paper stuff to use in our work on Friday, Nov. 13.
Over that weekend, we got a list of mission presidents from our zone leader which were part of the work that Dawsons had not completed. So week four we were hoping to start working on arranging interviews--our mission has really begun.
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