Crazy, crazy, crazy week. We had leadership training...but it was in a town an hour away in one direction, and we had to pick up missionaries from an hour away in another direction. So I spent a good chunk of my week driving around, sleeping on floors, and sitting in meetings. It was well worth it though. The missionaries in New Jersey and incredible individuals who teach with power and authority and learning from them was a precious opportunity that I was so grateful for. Also, my mission president is an incredible man. His optimism and devotion to the work are contagious. I love learning from him.
On top of training Sister Lowry and I were assigned to spend a day at Ellis Island this week. So we kicked around there for the better part of our Saturday. I'm learning to really love working at Ellis Island. I helped a sweet Australian couple find their family. They were so excited to find them. The man air punched and giggled uncontrollably. They want so desperately to know about their family that they have dedicated an entire month long vacation to traveling family history research. When we had done all we could with the Ellis Island research they kept asking me how on earth they could find out more. Specifically they wanted to know if the LDS Church had any genealogy information that could be useful to them. Right about then is when I flipped my hair over my shoulder, for dramatic effect, to show off my name tag "I'm actually a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what would you like to know about our work with family history." Oh I LOVE when people have questions about the church because at Ellis I'm not allowed to talk about it unless people specifically ask. They were even more excited to know that they had a real life representative of the Church right there to answer their questions. Insert more giggling. We talked and talked and I directed them to the website and helped them find a family history center both during their vacation and back in Australia. It was a happy day.
Want to know more of the happiness that is my life? Well let me tell you. A sweet little girl named Thalia got baptized yesterday. She was so excited and kept asking for us to take pictures of her, sing with her, and do anything and everything on her very special day. It's cool how wise children are. They recognize truth so quickly and accept it so fully. I learn so much from Thalia every time we teach her. Her baptism was a very special day.
In other news, Sister Lowry and I do everything we can to be exactly obedient. As missionaries one of the things included with obedience is being at home by 9...the only problem is that most days our appointments end around 8:45. We've gotten pretty popular on our street for being the girls who RUN home every night. Our land lord has even started holding the door open for us around 8:58, sweet man.
Now it's on to a new week. I hope each of you are having a wonderful autumn.
All my love,
Jari
No comments:
Post a Comment