Monday, January 6, 2014

"Thanks to our Camden Missionaries"

January 5, 2014

Dear Family,

Hope you all had a wonderful New Years Eve and now are ready for another new year.
It was great to skype with you again on New Years Day.  Although, I have to admit that it made me pretty homesick for each of you.  I was a little teary eyed when we hung up. However we know how much you are supporting us on this mission and we truly feel it when ever we hear from you and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Friday was our Zone Training Meeting.  Many of you know about Zone meetings, but this is new to Grandpa and I.  There were about 50 of us, all young elders and Sister and 3 Senior Couples.  The meeting is conducted by the Zone Leaders (2 Young elders and 2 Young sisters).   I would say that they were all 19 years old.  Wow...it was so well organized.  We moved from gospel teaching topic to another with such smoothness and great planning.  They gave excellent teaching examples with great teaching points.
Their enthusiasm for the gospel of Jesus Christ was a great testimony of how very great this generation is.   They could conduct any business meeting that I have ever been to.

It had been very quite here.  It has been cold and people have been on the move during the Christmas Holiday.  They don’t go back to school until tomorrow.  I feel bad when I say cold here, when I see the temperature in Centerville and in Portland.  (We always check the temperature in each of our cities)  But I have to tell you, we have never been so cold as we feel here.  It’s like you can’t put on enough layers to get warm.
We are suppose to get a small rain storm tonight, but then the frigid air is suppose to come in right after that front passes through.  They are predicting the temperature to be 7 degrees in the morning with the possibility of icy conditions.  The people here say it hasn’t been this cold in 20 years.  We knew when we came that we would have wonderful and new experiences while on our mission and that is just what we are having.

I had been feeling a little down as it didn’t feel like we were making much progress, but then today was Testimony meeting and everyone who bore their Testimony “thanked their Missionaries here in Camden” .  They are thankful for us being here, for our offer of friendship and our loving support to their little Branch.  Truly Heavenly Father knew of our disappointments and sent us messages to encourage us in each effort we put forth.

We are so blessed to have the gospel in our lives.  To have been taught from our youth the teachings of the Savior which help us in everything that we do here in this life.  The gospel gives us such a wonderful way of living.  We pray for you several times each day and are so grateful for each one of you.  Our Mission Theme is:  STEADFAST IN CHRIST”  Let it be your motto too.   With love to you, Grandma and Grandpa

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