March 24, 2024

The highlight for me this week was that I got to sit in on (2) lessons with the missionaries. The local missionaries are teaching their friend Mossimo. Mossimo is 19 or 20 and has really been enjoying the lessons. He was even on "date" but the missionaries had not given him the Word of Wisdom, Chastity, or Tithing lessons. They started with the Word of Wisdom lesson last week and things started to fall apart. Mossimo said he no longer had a desire to drink heavily or party with his friends but he didn't see what was wrong with having an occassional drink with them and he was not sure he wanted to give that up. The missionaries were really concerned about him and we discussed him at District Council. I advised them that Mossimo had not had that change of heart that would propel him forward and they needed to give him time. They invited me to the lesson to share my own conversion story of when I felt that "change of heart" and to inspire Mossimo to seek after it for himself. We were all surprised at the lesson when Mossimo said the Word of Wisdom was not going to be a problem for him and seemed eager to move forward. We advised him that the Word of Wisdom came from a modern day prophet and that we had General Conference coming up where we could hear for ourselves counsel from our current prophet. This experience with Mossimo reminded me how much easier it would be for the missionaries to teach a member referral. Usually a member referral would already know the hard stuff like the Word of Wisdom, Tithing, & Chastity. It would not be new information to them of what is required to become a member of the Church. We need to do better in sharing with our friends and neighbors.

The second lesson was with Lonnie. The Elders found Lonnie but he was in the area for our Social Media Sisters so they turned him over to them. He had one lesson with the (4) of them before the lesson I sat in on with just Lonnie and Sisters Bodily & Jacobsen. Lonnie is probably in his late 20's and has had a bit of a rough life. He was meeting with the missionaries because he wanted a better life. In his 1st lesson he had been invited to pray so the missionaries followed up to see if he had tried praying. He indicated he had not. Just the idea of praying felt weird to him. Talking to someone who was not really there? And then what if he said something wrong, or didn't use the right language? We talked to him more about prayer and invited him again to try praying. Then we moved on to the Plan of Salvation. We asked Lonnie if he had any questions about life that he hoped the missinaries could answer for him, like where did we come from, what is the purpose of life, and what happens after this life. He said no, although maybe the purpose of life interested him. He was like a blank slate. He does not know about Jesus Christ or have any religious background. The gospel of Jesus Christ could change his life! We will see if he continues to show any more interest. In our study of Come Follow Me this week we came across the scripture in 2 Nephi 32:8 that reminded me of Lonnie.

"And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the Spirit which teacheth a man to pray, ye would know that ye must pray; for the evil spirt teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray."

"But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of they soul."

It is so fun to have a grandson on a mission! We are able to Message with him in real time on his P-day because we are his grandparents and that is great! Parker, or Elder Rowan, is teaching a 15 yr old young man, Harold, that has had similiar ups and downs as Mossimo. No matter how much these missionaries want things to go fast you just have to wait until the friends are ready and have received that confirmation for themselves. It was fun to talk with Parker and share these common experiences.

We continue to be grateful for our mission and how and where we are serving. The new couple, the Bready's, have friends called to serve an MLS missio in Portland. They are assigned to an inner city ward that apparently is really scary. They are too scared to even walk around the area they are assigned to and are already counting down the days after only a month. We pray for them that they will learn to love the people they are serving and look back on their experience knowing why they are there.

Things in the office went well this week. There were a few frustrating problems in finance but I have learned that if I pray about them and wait a day or two the solutions will usually come. I also cut Elder Rowan's hair this week for the 1st time since the missionaries cut it, using the techniques they taught me. It went pretty well and I was amazed at how much faster it was. I still need to learn a few things and gain more confidence but I was pleased with the outcome. After this picture we worked on the sideburns a little more and think we have that down now too!

On Thursday we had surprise visitors in the mission office. President & Sister Tateoka, former mission presidents in the Oregon Salem Mission, dropped by for a visit. They served here from 2016 to 2019. They said the unoffical rule for mission presidents is for them not to go back for 5 years. We had a great visit with them and it was so fun to hear their stories and learn how some things were different and some things the same. They corrected a few mission "rumors" we had heard and were just lovely people. We took them into the mission president's office and had him sit in his chair for old time's sake.

One of the beauties of being here for over a year now is that we know what to expect for the weather, the flowers, the landscape, etc. We were here last year at this same time. So, for instance, we know that now is Cherry Blossom season. On Friday we needed to go to Salem to deliver a bike to some Elders so we took advantage of our time in Salem to go over by the State Capitol where they have 151 Cherry Blossom trees. We hit it at just the right time and the trees were beautiful in all their splendor.

On Saturday we headed into Portland to take advantage of a Christmas gift from our son Matthew. On our way out to dinner we decided to check out the Cherry Blossom trees down at the Portland Waterfront. We have wanted to walk along the waterfront since we got here and this was the perfect time with the Cherry Blossom trees in bloom there too! We can report we did not fear for our safety but I was a little nervous wearing our name tags and wondering if someone was going to confront us. But all was well and it was a great experience!