Transfer 16 Week 5 Nov. 14-20 Week B3
The winds of tribulation that blow out the candle of commitment in some people, will fan the flame of faith in others
Preaching: These notes are from the Thursday night fireside that the senior missionaries had after dinner at President and Sister Rasmussen’s home: We are all sons and daughters of God. Believe you are called to be at a specific place at a specific time and don’t question when others are called to exotic places, or when you perhaps may lose a financial reward. Heavenly Father will bless you with trials to make you grow, as Elder Gay in Africa. He had just received a phone call telling him that his partner had just sold his (the partner) half of the financial fund from their business. Elder Gay had sold his half three years earlier when he had been called as a mission president. He had missed out on millions of dollars by selling early, perhaps more. He questioned why he could not have waited three more years before being called on his mission. Then, he was in a terrible wreck and he has a permanent “African tattoo” to prove it all over his arm where his arm was rubbed raw and bled on the dirt and grit as his vehicle turned over and skidded down a bomb torn road in Sierra Leone. As they waited hours for another vehicle to come along the seldom traveled road, Elder Gay wondered why he was there. Another vehicle finally came and took him to a small, isolated clinic. The doctor advised Elder Gay that he needed more treatment on his badly wounded, bleeding arm, but that he could clean it. As this doctor numbed, cleaned, and dressed the wound, the doctor explained that a few months ago he had no tools or supplies in his clinic. All the things that this doctor was using was donated by a husband and wife, a missionary couple, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This doctor thought that would interest Elder Gay, since Elder Gay wore the same name badge, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, on his shirt. This missionary couple had generously given the supplies to this doctor’s clinic. Elder Gay was being the recipient of their gift. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are in the details. Know that as you serve where you are, that Heavenly Father has a plan for you to get back to Him. And hopefully, you will bring many people along with you.
Monday: It was a good day to be moving somebody and that’s what we did. First thing we got Eldrex and Princes Joy to school and our usual p-day things. It had rained all morning but by the time we picked up the u-haul it cleared and ended up being a good day. Skyway B and the Spanish Elders helped us pack the first load and Skyway A helped us unpack. In between we took Skyway B and the Spanish Elders to lunch. Joyce J. and Thomas were fighting all day while we were moving them. The second load we ended up packing ourselves but Skyway A did come back and helped us unload. They were life savers! It was hard asking the Elders to give up their p-day and help us. There was still more to move but we needed to get the truck back to u-haul before they closed. It took us a lot longer than we planned so we will have to finish tomorrow with the pick-up. We were pretty tired when we finally got home.
Tuesday: Eldrex had a doctors appointment so no going to school. Joyce went with Estrella and Art went to the district meeting. It took a while to get going in the morning. We’re not as young as we thought we were. The moving took a toll. With Joyce gone we had to sing without the piano. The meeting was good and Art didn’t have to role play since Joyce wasn’t there. He just was the “investigator” for the sister missionaries. After a quick lunch we went to the Johnson’s to finish moving. We thought we were just moving the crib, (we didn’t have the tools to take it apart yesterday) and ended up with a big pick-up load. We were blessed that the rain held off until we got it unloaded. The Spanish Elders helped us unload and put the beds together, plus move the bedroom furniture around. It was pouring rain by the time we finished helping Joyce. We needed to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home for things for the salad on Thursday. When we got home, Joyce worked on the picture book for the Acostas and Art went to bed. The moving has made us a little sore. We still need to move a few things from our apartment that we are giving the Johnson’s and Karens bed but not sure when we will get it done.
Wednesday: First thing in the morning was down to the Acosta’s as usual to get Eldrex on the bus and walk Princes Joy to school. There was no rain. We took the Elder Sisters to Northwest Harvest where we boxed dried beans. After the service we all went to lunch along with the young sister missionaries, (Sister Leavitt and Young). We have to get permission from our district leader for them to go with us since it is out of their area. Joyce Johnson wanted Joyce to read the Book of Mormon with her. Art dropped Joyce off there then he ran a few errands. We had a few things at our apartment that we are giving her so Art went and picked those up while Joyce helped her put a few things away in her apartment. We should have her settled in now, except for a few more things we will give her when we leave. We came home and went to the Bishop/missionary meeting in the evening. Joyce is worried about the primary girls and achievement days. The Bishop said he will get somebody called soon. Joyce suggested that maybe the Elder
Sisters could help but they didn’t seem to excited about doing that.
Thursday: We picked up the Elder Sisters and went to our meeting from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. at the stake center with Elder Robert Gay. He is touring the mission. We met with the Renton, Kent and Federal Way Zones and the rest of the mission will meet tomorrow morning. With the three zones meeting together, we got to see lots of our favorite missionaries. The meeting was great. Elder Gay taught us how to teach better by getting to know the needs of those we teach. After this meeting we drove to the Mission Home and ate supper with Elder Gay, his wife Lynn, the Rasmussens and all the Senior missionaries. It was another good evening. Elder Gay talked a lot about the Self Reliance program and we found out that he wrote the “My Foundation” part of it. It was interesting to hear how this is be rolled out since we have been involved being facilitators in the pilot program in the Renton Stake. After dinner he talked to us all (kind of a mini-fireside) about the importance of senior missionaries and said again that the church only fills 40% of the requests for senior missionaries. We drove the Elder Sisters home after lots of good-by’s. We won’t be seeing most of the Senior missionaries again.
Friday: We attended the institute class in the morning without Sister Stevenson. She stayed home to look for her hearing aid that she lost yesterday. She did find it at the Renton Stake Center. It was another good class. Somebody had broken several of the bricks on the building with a hammer. We were told that things are getting bad in Auburn. After class we took Sister Beck out for lunch. Sister Stevenson didn’t want to go. She is getting ready for her family which is coming tomorrow, Saturday, and her family will spend Thanksgiving with her. The rest of the day we stayed in and worked on a few projects. Joyce checked on Estrella to see how things went with her the last couple of days at the hospital. Everything went great for them. It was very cold and windy so it was a good day to stay in and catch up.
Saturday: It was another cold and rainy morning. We went with the Acostas to Columbia Tower for our last field trip with them. Jenefer and Irma didn’t go because of the rain, but Geraldine and Nhoy came with us. Geraldine is Estrella and Ric’s oldest daughter here in the United States. She and Nhoy, her husband, have a beautiful home and live fairly close. We keep praying that we can interest them in the gospel. We had the twins, Princes Joy, Reymark, Eleazar, Eldrex, Estrella, Geralden, Nhoy and us, 11 in all. Geralden is due to have her baby on the 30th, this month. We had a great time and they loved the view from Columbia Tower. It was a steep climb up the hill to the Columbia Tower from the Light Rail Station, but Geraldine made it with Nhoy, to help her. It was raining coming down the after being up on the tower. Reymark fell, then Ruth, so Elder Knowles kept asking Sister Knowles if she had B Boy and the wheelchair in control! After riding the Link home we stopped at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant and ate a late lunch. The twins stayed with us, so we rode the bus to their house and dropped them off, and then rode the bus into
Renton for our “Thanksgiving Feast” with Brother Marler and all the missionaries in the area. While walking the twins home from the bus stop, we got a call from Bro. Lopez. It looks like we will have to speak in church next Sunday. We had some time before dinner with Bro. Marler so we walked around the library. Dinner with Bro. Marler is always fun. The food was very good. All the Skyway missionaries were there except Sister Stevensen. Her family is here, for Thanksgiving, so she stayed with them. Since it is a high crime area, Sister Beck gave us a ride home, instead of us riding the bus as we had planned. After the cold and rain in the morning it ended up being a sunny afternoon and a nice evening.
Sunday: Another busy morning picking up for church until we found out some were not coming to church. We did have some of the Acostas to pick up. Church went well. They split the primary class into boys and girls, as requested by Sister Knowles. The boys are the noisy ones. They were going to split by age, but you would lose the girls. Princes Joy,
Ruth, and Rubi are still very shy until they get to know new people. After church we took the Acostas home and ate lunch. Karen rode the bus to our place and went to the devotional with us. It was another good devotional. There was a quartet that sang, Elder Sumsion, Rex, Samuelson and Samuel. We have worked with all of them and they are very good singers. That made our day! It was in the southern part of the mission so it is the last time we will see several of the missionaries. Some we will get to see one last time on Thanksgiving at the missionary activity. They divide the mission for the Thanksgiving activity, so we will only see the missionaries in the northern half. We drove Karen back to Kirkland so it was a long night on the road. It wasn’t raining so that was good. Jake and Jared called before we left for the devotional but we just missed Josh’s call. Those calls are what get us through the week. As you can see we are trying to get things in place for the big day that is fast approaching. This was a really good week with the visit from Elder Gay and getting Joyce Johnson moved. The to-do list is getting smaller, but still a ways to go. Love you all Joyce and Art.
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