The Sun Is Out In Kenosha!

4.22.2013

Dear Family & Friends,

Today, Monday, is a beautiful sunshiny day.  To look out the window is to see green grass that is now growing up everywhere, but it is also to see barren trees everywhere, with no sign of leaves yet.  I suppose it is with the plants as it is with us; each one in its own time and season.  We certainly find that with those we try to share the gospel with.  Everybody must go through the readying process that they require.  So, apparently grass is ready to grow, and the trees are still getting there.  Have faith!  Spring will yet come to Kenosha!

Kelly finds his Danish roots in Racine.  Since the last writing we have been blessed by a short visit from Shelley and Kelly.  Coordinating their visit with a business trip to Chicago, they arrived late Friday PM, 4/12.  How wonderful to see family again!  And to be able to visit in person!  It was a stormy day, but we nevertheless took the short drive north to Racine along the Lake Michigan Circle Tour route.  It was not a beautiful view, but the Lake was there.  (Incidentally, the LMC Tour route takes interested persons on a 1,100 mile journey around Lake Michigan.  It purports to be a wonderfully scenic drive, with tons of interesting attractions.  Much is available on the Internet about it.) 

In Racine we went to an authentic family owned Danish bakery, where we purchased a “Kringle” to bring back home to enjoy. Kelly was right at home in the bakery.  The Jespersons are Danish.   The Kringle is a delightful pastry, about 14” flat oval-shaped with hollow center, and made of secret recipe crust layers, filled with amazing combinations of fruit filling, and lightly glazed.  Delicious, but also rich.  Not for every day, but definitely for special occasions.  Racine is known for their Kringles.  They are in high demand during the Christmas season.

After getting our Kringle, we returned to the apartment to enjoy a nice home-cooked meal, visiting, and then partaking of the prize.  Goooood!  All of it, not just the Kringle.  Vicki still does her magic in the diminutive apartment kitchen.  As always, she is amazing!  We’d hoped our guests would stay overnight and spend Saturday morning with us.  But, alas, Chicago beckoned to them and they returned, very late to their hotel.  It was wonderful to see them, but Saturday it was back to our regular routine.  

MP Interview.  Fast forward to Friday, 4/19.  President & Sister Jones came to do interviews with our district.  This was our first opportunity to visit with them personal like, since arriving the first week of January.  It will be our last also.  They will be going home the first of July, and President & Sister Cutler from SLC will be coming into the mission.  It is always exciting to experience changes in church leadership.  We do not know the Cutlers, but have heard great things about them.  President Cutler will be the third engineer to preside over the Milwaukee Wisconsin Mission.  President Jones told us that several general authorities, including a member of the Twelve, are coming to Milwaukee to do area priesthood leader training in June.  He is trying to get SLC to agree to do an all mission conference in connection with that training.  That would be awesome. We will see what happens.  Incidentally, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square is touring the Midwest during June as well.  We have invited Cecilia and her non-member friend, Teresa, to accompany us to the Milwaukee Theatre performance on Monday, June 17^th.  Cecilia is the recent baptism we are teaching NM lessons to.  She is progressing very well.  It would be an experience of a life-time for her and her friend to attend the performance.  We’ll see how it progresses. 

We continue fill our time with less active visits, visits to teach NM lessons, teaching our much loved Primary classes, giving service at the Shalom Food Pantry on M & W.  We finally got to visit with the Racine Correctional Institution chaplain, Ray Cole, and the wheels are turning for us to perhaps do some “pastoral visits” with LDS affiliated inmates.  Pastoral visits, we learned are one on one visits.  A need and interest on the part of the inmates must be determined first.  We prepared, in English and in Spanish, bulletin board announcement sheets for the inmates to make their interest known to Chaplain Cole.  If that interest materializes, we will take the next step of arranging to make visits.  When we visited the chaplain, we presented our clergy credential to him.  He said we had already passed the background check and he did not really need to see our clergy license.  So there you have it . . . . if you can pass the background check, you are in.  If you cannot pass, your fishing/hunting license, driver’s license (even English), social security card, bar card (lawyer type), nor temple recommend will get you in, not that you really want in that place anyway.  It’s okay!!!  We will see how it progresses.  (As a side note, church service to inmates is not a missionary responsibility, but a stake responsibility.  President Jones reminded us that our mission is “to invite others to come unto Christ, by helping them receive the restored gospel, through faith on Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.”  He said the inmates are not able to be baptized until they have satisfied their obligation to society.  At one time the Church did have representatives serving the prison.  But somehow that has been lost.  Maybe we have no LDS affiliates in the prison.  That would be a good thing. 

The Basic Music Course.  Vicki started the Basic Music Course instruction on Saturday, 4/20.  She taught a lesson to the mother and daughter of our Hernandez family in Elkhorn.  We returned to Kenosha and she taught a class of 5 youths and 2 moms from the branch in the afternoon.  Vicki was pretty stressed out about how it was going to go, but it appeared to go well.  It is a beginning.  The course starts with the rudiments of music, then directing, then basic keyboarding.  If some new blood can be developed to provide music and teach others to do the same it will be a great blessing for this branch.  We are almost without at this time.  We will see how it progresses.

Getting to know Eric.  For the past two months we have been assigned as HT/VT to hna. Lupita Mancera in Racine.  She was baptized in the branch about 2.5 years ago.  Sometime thereafter she found Eric and they fell for each other.  They moved in together.  Now two years later they have two children, Emily, almost 2 and Zayra, born Feb. 1.  Eric is a NM, also a non-divorced husband from a previous marriage.  Obviously Eric and Lupita are not married, cannot get married until Eric gets a divorce from his previous wife.  They are probably about 30ish in age.  Lupita was so excited when we first visited her two months ago.  She is feeling the Spirit again in her life after missing it for a long time.  We go and teach her every two weeks.  She has missed her contact with the Church and is excited to have it back.  She realizes she has the dilemma of not being legally married to deal with.  One of her first inquiries was about whether Zayra could be blessed in the Church if she and Eric were not married.  Two weeks ago when we visited her, we felt impressed to ask if we could come back when Eric would be home and get to know him.  She said she would ask him.  She did.  He gave his okay and we went to meet him on Tuesday night last week.  We noticed the first time we visited Lupita that there was a candle burning in front of a picture of a young man.  We asked about it and she explained that Eric’s brother was killed a couple of years ago in a shooting.  The picture was of him.  The Catholic way is apparently to burn the candle in front of the picture.  Not sure what that is supposed to do, but it is what it is.  So Vicki suggested that we go to meet Eric, get acquainted and then talk a little about the Plan of Salvation and how it applies to Oscar, Eric’s brother.  Vicki was inspired to make that suggestion.  I had other things on my mind that I had thought to talk to him about, like manning up and getting a divorce so he can marry Lupita.  Anyway, I was wise enough to follow Vicki’s counsel.  Eric was very receptive.  We read from Alma 40 about where the spirits of all men go when we depart this life.  His response was, “This is very interesting.  I’d like to know more.”  Perfect!  So this week on Wednesday, we will return, with the elders to begin teaching Eric.  Maybe Eric is ready to bloom spiritually??  Heavenly Father knows such things.  We will see how it progresses. 

Can Dominga learn to read?   Dominga Morales, recently baptized mother of hno. Emilio Aquino, is in her mid-70s.  She cannot read or write.  Grew up in a tiny Mexican pueblo.  She has a wonderful spirit about her.  We gave her a Book of Mormon to hold close to her heart while she listens to the CDs of the BofM.  The branch president called and wondered if we might be able to teach Dominga how to read.  Well, who has a special education background and knows how to do things like teach people to read???  That would be Amazing Vicki.  So she went to work to figure out some way to assess Dominga and then to see if she has the desire and the capacity to learn to read.  Friday last week was the first lesson.  Just like school, a lesson has homework that goes with it.  So once a week a lesson and homework.  We will see how it progresses. 

German blesses the sacrament!  German, Dominga’s son who was baptized with her, finally  was ordained a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood by the branch president.  (We thought his brother Emilio, and elder, and counselor in the branch presidency, should have been the one to ordain him, but . . . . )  Well, yesterday it was wonderful to see German come to church dressed in a white shirt (collared) and tie, and even slacks.  He’s always come in jeans and T-shirt before.  He was assigned to be at the sacrament table with his nephew, Giovanni, who is getting ready to submit his mission papers.  Giovanni schooled German a bit before the meeting started.  German did his part wonderfully well.  What a joy to see the locals magnify the priesthood.  It has now been a couple of weeks without missionaries at the sacrament table.  That is a step forward for the branch in my opinion.  Yea!  We will see how he progresses.

As you can see we are continuing to enjoy the blessings of serving in the Lord’s work.  We trust each of you is doing the same wherever you are.  What a blessing to see the Lord’s hand in our efforts, not always the way we had anticipated.  We are excited to be with family members for little Reed’s blessing in Snowflake AZ on May 5.  What a wonderful blessing it is to have this marvelous family.  Each one of them is a keeper!  We love each of your dearly!  Wyatt will be turning 12 in May and is readying to receive the Aaronic Priesthood and be ordained a deacon.  Wonderful stuff is happening!  How blessed we are! 

Love to each of you. 

Charles & Vicki

Rain In Kenosha!!

Dear Family & Friends, "April showers bring May flowers." We will see how true it is. Rain this morning and good possibility of it off and on most of this week, although it might turn to snow flurries later in the week. The temp ranges from the low 40s to the mid 50s. Brown grass is starting to show some green, and what look very much like leaf buds starting to show on trees. So this must be the beginning of spring in WI. What a wonderful General Conference! We enjoyed being able to watch the Sat. sessions in our apt. on the internet. Priesthood session was at the church. The R.S. room was set up for Spanish. I am very sorry to say that not one branch Hispanic adult or youth showed up for the priesthood session broadcast. Hard for me to understand, but apparently that is where we are at with the branch. Sunday morning we took hermana Cecilia, one of the recent baptisms, with us to conference. Turned out the Spanish broadcast in the R.S. room would not give any volume, so she had to watch the English transmission in the chapel. Fortunately she does fairly well with English. She said afterwards that she enjoyed it. She was most impressed with how big the Church is, its worldwide presence. She loved the choir. She's heard things about the Tabernacle Choir. It is coming to Milwaukee in mid-June. So to be able to listen to "Music & the Spoken Word," as well as the conference music was special for her. My restless companion has prodded us to find service opportunities to fill in our free time. Consequently, we are now officially volunteers at the Kenosha Shalom Food Pantry. We are scheduled to serve on Wed. and Fri. from 9:30 AM until everybody has their monthly food given to them, about 2:30 PM. We are mostly escorts for the shoppers, explaining to them their options for commodities and the quantity limits they have. We also help with translation needs. We are the only Spanish resource they have. A lady and her daughter from Puerto Rico, who spoke only Spanish came on Fri. The director needed some translation help to get the lady registered and qualified to receive commodities. So we were able to help with that, as well as with escorting them for their shopping. Of course we wear our missionary name tags while serving there. We do not do any proselyting, but can answer questions if people ask. We have had nice opportunities to share what we are about with several of the other volunteers already. We are an LDS presence at the Pantry. We had talked about and planned to go to the temple in Chicago on Thursday. Since that is out of our mission boundary, we texted the mission president Wednesday night to ask his approval. He immediately called us and in his very kind and sweet way corrected us. He reminded us of the policy for missionaries, even senior missionaries, regarding attending the temple. Once every six months, or with members we are working with when they go to the temple. As President Jones talked to us, I felt the Holy Spirit remind me that we are here to serve others, not ourselves. Although it is a good, and wonderful thing, to go to the temple for ourselves, it is not the appropriate thing for us to be focusing on at this particular time. We were very grateful for the sweet inspired way that he re-directed us. How can you be upset when you feel the Holy Ghost confirming to you what your priesthood leader is teaching you?? As much as l love being in the temple, I am very grateful Heavenly Father loves me enough to give me reminders like He did on Wednesday night. Since our morning was open on Thursday, we decided to go to the church and do service by deep cleaning the kitchen. For some time we have both been commenting to each other of the need. Armed with some cleaning materials and determination to make a real difference in that kitchen, we went to work. Fortunately there were no local members hovering to pass judgment on whether some of the items long kept in the kitchen should stay. It was pretty amazing what we found. Some of the stuff just needed to go into the dumpster. The Salvation Army Thrift Store was the beneficiary of other stuff. Even the window curtain got washed, ironed and replaced. This building must be the only one that has no wet mop. Instead it has some kind of high pressure cleaner. It looks like it washes and then vacuums up the water. Only one problem. It doesn't work. So, as of Thursday, the building has its own wet mop, and it has been duly broken in and tested in the kitchen. We are making a list of other service projects at the church. The limbs from the pine tree that broke off during winter and are laying on the front lawn. The massive amount of lost and found articles, piled in the corner by the Primary room. Vicki has already taken over the long-neglected Primary bulletin board by the branch president's office. It now shows the monthly sharing time theme, with pictures and words to support it, all in Spanish. That companion of mine is amazing. How does she know how to do that in Spanish?? We have had wonderful, Spirit-filled visits with the recently baptized people that we visit each week, giving the new member lessons. We have completed the restoration lesson and will move on with them to the plan of salvation this week. These lessons are a review of the basic lessons they received from the missionaries as they prepared for baptism. Each new member needs to have the chance to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. We have had the opportunity to share doctrine of family history and temple work with them. They are amazed at such a wonderful doctrine. (We all should be!) Each of them has the "How do I begin my family history?" worksheet in Spanish. It is the starting place. We will soon see what resources are available for doing Mexican family history on the Family Search website. Each of them needs to experience identifying an ancestor and taking them to the temple. It will be an interesting process. We have a little Family History Center at the church. Twice we have visited there asking for direction. So far they have not been much help. But, if we can help our new people to find a starting place, maybe help can be found to proceed from there. Missionary transfers took place on Wednesday morning. We were asked to help shuttle some of the companionships to the transfer point, our Milwaukee South Stake Center, located in Hales Corner, to their new assignments. We now have Elder Fisher, from Florida, who has joined us in the branch. He has been out more than a year. Elder Ashcraft, from ID, was been sent to Neehah, up north, near Oshkosh. The mission received 19 new missionaries; 3 went home. You might think about the logistics of all these new missionaries President Monson talked about on Sunday. Think of the transportation and apartment needs that accompany them in each mission. New places of assignment have to be determined. Places are receiving missionaries that have not had them in the past. Elder Shumway, our mission "car czar," told us at the transfer point how desperate the mission is for more cars. He said he spoke to somebody at Church hdqtrs. about the mission's needs and was told that the Church just ordered 3,000 new cars to support these new missionaries. Do the math on that purchase. Even with the fleet prices the Church must pay for the cars, it is mind boggling to consider the financial impact to the Church of all these new missionaries. I don't think the change announced last October was a sudden inspirational idea that the prophet had. I think it was well thought out and planned for. It had to be. The ripple affects of that announcement are astounding. Our telephone and mail contacts with Stuart are very interesting. He has been telling us about meeting on Sundays with Bro. and Sis. Hale at the jail. After asking some him a few questions, we have determined that it is Steve Hale and his wife from Mesa who are serving in that assignment. We know them well. Stuart says he is reading the Book of Mormon, and doing a fill in the blank worksheet with his reading. He also has received the conference Ensign from last October and is doing some reading in it. He attends anger management classes too. He commented in one of his short letters that the idea had come to him that we had probably been praying that he would end up where he is at, so we could serve this mission without having to worry about where he is at or what he is doing. He did not seem to say that in any sense of anger. It was more like a light of understanding had come on in his mind. We constantly pray he will receive a sentence and prison assignment that will allow him to receive drug addiction help. We love him and know that Heavenly Father loves him. We hope he will be remembered in all of your prayers. As a result of the good experience Stuart is having with the Hales, we are looking into doing some volunteer work at the Racine Correction Center, a medium security prison located about 15 miles from where we live. We spoke with the chaplain by telephone last week. Our background checks should be completed this week and then we will be able to go into the prison and see what the situation is, and what opportunities may exist for the Church to have a presence there. How excited we were for little Reed Jesse Skinner's arrival on April 2. We are very thankful for this new grandson. We are thankful that his mother and he are doing well. His naming an blessing on May 5th will no doubt the most costly of any of our grandchildren for us to attend. But we will be there! We are very excited for that occasion. May will bring another Aaronic Priesthood holder to our family as well. Wyatt will turn 12, and be ordained a deacon. President Monson got my attention in priesthood meeting on Saturday evening when he talked about the huge number of missionaries that are serving are will be serving shortly. Then he said, in two years these will all be back home, and their places will be taken by you Aaronic Priesthood holders who are here present in this meeting. My thoughts immediately went to Preston, Jarom, Riley and even to Wyatt. It will come sooner than any of us realize. Our English missionary, Elder Jordan Jones, will have his 20th birthday this week; no longer a teenage boy, but a man, even a man of God. He has been very blessed by serving in the motherland. He has been and will continue to be a blessing to that historic country. We are very thankful for his faithful service. He is a blessing to our family as well! We reiterate Elder Nelson's invitation to each of us to catch the "missionary wave" as it moves forward. What an amazing time we live in. How blessed we are! Love to each of you! Charles & Vicki

Baptism of Cecilia...

 

Hermano Flores, Cecilia and the missionaries

 

 

Elder Kanahele and Elder Ashcraft

 

 

Cecilia and grandchildren

 

 

 

Winter Storm!

 

Beautiful Winter in Kenosha

 

 

Farm near Elkhorn

The Hope Of Spring In Kenosha...

March 23, 2013

 

Dear Family & Friends,

 

Spring has officially arrived, at least on the calendar, and we are anticipating the promised changes in weather that will follow.  Here in WI there is snow still piled high in places where it was stacked during the last storms. The wind is what is most bothersome, cold and cutting.  However, the temperatures are warming slightly (33 & 19 today) and on the level we are beginning to see bare ground.  We will watch the trees for the real signs of spring.  They know better than the calendar.  Their buds will tell us when the real changes are about to happen.  The natives are always cautious with their predictions and promises.  Most of them say to not get too excited for another month, and don't be surprised if we have more snow between now and then. 

 

On Monday I had my last cardiologist visit, the purpose of which was for the doctor to give me the official report of the TEE procedure.  The report was negative in all respects.  My heart valves are fine.  His final comment was, "you have nothing to worry about regarding your heart."  We took advantage of the opportunity to give him a copy of the Book of Mormon.  I wrote a few lines in it, mainly thanking him for his good care of me.  At first he responded that he already knew about the Book of Mormon.  We proceeded to explain what it is and how it tells of Jesus Christ's visit with the ancient inhabitants of America.  It became obvious that this was something new to him.  He listened and accepted the book graciously.  It is hard for doctors to be taught by anyone else, since they already know all that is important to know.  Anyway, it was a nice experience giving the precious book to him.  I have come to like this man.  As we left his office, his efficient lady at the check out desk snagged me with the intent to get me scheduled for the next visit.  It was a pleasure to hand her a Salt Lake Temple pass along card with our name and number written on the back and tell her that Dr. Shah did not want to ever seem me again.  She looked shocked.  I suppose not many patients are able to say that to her.  As we left the complex in rather miserable weather, another lady exited with us.  She was saying how she didn't think she could tolerate any more of this weather.  We were able tell her that while it was miserable for us too, it was also new.  We explained that we were from Arizona and were serving as missionaries for the LDS Church in Kenosha.  She asked if we were crazy, coming from AZ.  We assured her we were not and gave her a SL Temple pass along card. 

 

As you can see, we are getting better about giving out Church materials.  Now we need to improve our techniques so that we ask for the opportunity to follow up with a call back or visit to their home.  I guess we are making a little progress. 

 

The three recent baptisms were turned over to us this past week for teaching the new member lessons, and freeing up the elders to focus on other investigators.  We have had nice first visits with them.  German and his mother, Dominga, were taught by the Racine elders.  We were not involved in any of the teaching visits with them.  They are surrounded by family who are already steady members.  Cecilia was taught by the Kenosha elders and we were involved in all her teaching visits.  German's next step is to receive the priesthood.  The BP said he has already interviewed him and is ready to present him to the congregation on Sunday.  So our visit with him and Dominga yesterday was to help him have some understanding of what the priesthood is and what will be expected of him as an AP holder.  It was a good visit.  The Spirit was present and he seems very ready.  Dominga asked about tithing and how to pay it.  We had a nice discussion about the blessings of paying tithing, and actually filled out a donation slip with them both and explained what to do with it.  We talked about what tithing is used for.  Vicki gives a beautiful testimony of paying tithing and the blessings that come.  It was a very nice visit. 

 

We have also been assigned to be the HT & VT to six less active members, mostly sisters.  The new elders quorum president, Pte. Flores, is very engaged in organizing and encouraging the HTs to visit the members.  We have visited a couple of these sisters already.  One visit yesterday was very interesting.  Laura is the member mother.  Her 12 y.o. daughter Kassandra is also a member.  Neither of them come out regularly.  Kassandra has been out a couple of times to YW the past week or so.  This is because she wants to go to girls camp and they have been planning their fund-raiser.  Anyway, we were nicely received by the two of them, invited into the kitchen because the NM son David and his four buddies from school were in the living room, very engrossed in a video game.  We had a good visit with Laura and Kassandra, reading in the B o M together.  Interesting . . .Laura reads Spanish.  Kassandra reads English and does not understand Spanish.  All of our conversation was in English, which Laura prefers.  So as we were ready to conclude, we asked if we could have prayer and who would she like to offer the prayer.  Kassandra looked at her mom and said, "David should say the prayer."  The mom concurred.  Kassandra got up and went into the living room and asked all of the boys to come into the kitchen for prayer.   Amazingly they did so without protest.  David was then asked to offer the prayer.  He resisted a little and finally offered a beautiful prayer, thanking Heavenly Father for his family two or three times.  He hesitated in the middle for a few seconds.  One of his buddies clapped his hands.  David looked up at him and said, "I am not done yet."  He then concluded his prayer in a very appropriate way.  It was a marvelous experience.  All we can say is that this young man needs to have the opportunity to hear the lessons and accept the gospel.  Kassandra wants a priesthood holder older brother!  We will be working towards that now. 

 

We just returned from our Sat. morning walk around Kennedy Park, at the side of Lake MI.  It is a beautiful morning. . . full sun, the lake calm and sparkling.  Still a bit cold.  I asked our good mailman this morning if spring had arrived.  He quipped back saying, "maybe in Florida, but not here!"  The mailman is like the old Indian.  He knows the weather.  Way out on the lake a white triangular shape was visible.  Somebody else is anxious for spring.  A few geese are still found foraging and pooping on the park lawn.  Lots of others out for their jog or walk, several just like to park facing the lake and sit in their car reading.  I guess it is a place of peace for some.

 

Okay.  "Habemos popem!"  Yup that was the word.  "We have a pope."  How about that.  Five ballots and a pope gets himself elected.  My how men do change things over time.  How different from the smooth transition that takes place when the Lord's real prophet passes and the new one takes his place.  A fellow at Auto Zone who helped me install a new battery in the Pilot last week assured me that this new pope was a sure sign that the abomination of desolation was about to begin.  So there you have it.  You have been given a heads up.  I also have to confess to listening to the end of Marquette University's March Madness game Davidson on Thursday.  With 6.2 seconds remaining in the game Marquette was down a point.  It was then that the fanatic radio announcer called for the "pope card."  Sure enough Marquette came back from their time out and scored on a driving left-handed lay up, leaving 1.0 on the clock.  Poor Davidson.  What could they do against the "pope card?"  They tossed the ball in and turned it over.  Marquette won.  My only thought was that it was pretty early in the tournament to be calling for the "pope card."  I wonder if BYU has something like that to invoke at crucial times?   (In case you didn't figure it out, Marquette is the Catholic university in Milwaukee.  Hummm . . . okay, let's say Marquette ends up playing Notre Dame. . . how would that work out.  Maybe a pregame flip of the coin for rights to the "pope card?"  Sorry.  I got carried away.  Guess this is my confession about following March Madness while serving as a SENIOR missionary.  The only sorry part is we have no TV to watch anything on.  It is all just checking results on the Internet.  Pretty sorry alright.  Let me move on. 

 

Ten year old Angel in my Primary class asked Sunday about why we use oil instead of water to give priesthood blessings of healing.  Since the question was asked during Primary sharing time, I promised Angel we would come to his house the next night for FHE and answer the question.  He agreed.  We were already scheduled to be with la familia LaRosa for FHE on Monday.  They have been very irregular in attending Sunday meetings for the past two and a half months.  Hna. LaRosa had major surgery and has been struggling in her recovery.  I fully sympathize with her.  It takes time for the body to heal after major surgery.  The familia was ready for us when we arrived.  Hno. LaRosa conducted.  We sang "Families Can Be Together Forever," (mostly in Spanish) and Angel was asked to give the opening prayer.  Afterwards, hno. LaRosa asked 14 year old David to share a scripture from seminary.  David whipped out his hand-held electronic device and then quoted Paul's famous quote, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto Salvation."  Then David said there was a time when he was sort of ashamed to be a Mormon.  He said that going to seminary has helped him gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel.  He said he doesn't feel that way anymore.  It was pretty cool.  After that, hno. LaRosa turned to us and asked us to give the lesson.  All of them are pretty fluent in English, so most of our discussion was in English.  Even hna. LaRosa's comments were in English.  Turned out she is more fluent than most of the other Mexican sisters in the branch.  We took Angel's question from the day before and talked about the symbolism of olive oil in the ordinances of the Church.  What are your thoughts on the question??  We had a lovely lesson.  They are a sweet family.  When we were finished, hno. LaRosa became very serious and thoughtful.  In Spanish he began sharing his testimony with his sons about his love and gratitude for their mother.  I came away very touched by the Spirit.  It was beautiful.  We then sang another hymn and David was asked to give the closing prayer.  Vicki had made brownies for them as a treat.  A wonderful FHE experience!

 

Our beloved elders called us on the intercom at about 8 pm last night.  We were eating supper.  We pushed the unlock button so they could come up to our apt.  They had a crisis look on their faces.  We invited them to sit down.  They were sort of silent for a minute then Elder Chang (our California Hmong DL) said his companion, Elder Ashcraft (our Idaho spud), had something he needed to say.  It was like we were going to listen to a confession.  Poor Elder A.  He said they had been tracting in the lower part of town most of the pm.  They stopped at the Burger King before getting on the bus to head home.  While they awaited the bus, Elder A. set their phone on the seat of their booth.  They saw the bus come and jumped up to catch it, leaving the phone there at BK.  He asked if I could please take them back to see if they could find it.  It was a painful time for him especially.  It was obvious Elder Chang was having his patience with his companion put to the test.   I immediately grabbed my coat and off we went to the distant BK to check on the phone.  When we arrived the two of them went in to search and ask the manager if anyone might have turned it in.  All our efforts were futile.  There was no sign of the phone anywhere.  On the way back to the apt I tried to console Elder A.  I said, "Don't beat yourself up too bad.  I am certain you are not the only missionary to lose a cell phone."  He hesitated a few minutes and then said, "This is the second one I have lost.  I don't know what's the matter with me.  I let myself get distracted and then forget to pick up the phone."  He went on to explain that he lost one in Madison on a bus.  We were silent for a little bit.  Then I said, "Well elder, maybe you lead the mission in lost phones."  It guess it wasn't very humorous at the moment.  Arriving back at our apt, Vicki had prepared food for the elders.  They were not only distraught about the phone, but also hungry.  Thank goodness for Vicki.  She always knows how to serve others.  I love this amazing quality in her.  She is an amazing companion.  I intend to keep her, forever!!

 

Enough!!  Sorry for going on so long.  Blessings on each of us as we prepare for General Conference.  It is just around the corner!

 

Love,

 

Charles & Vicki