Today dad walked to Orem to see an opthomologist about his eye. It was 10 miles round trip and by the time he got back, he had 2 inch blisters on the bottoms of both of his feet. He is not a happy camper. The doctor said he scratched his eye and it is now infected so he has drops to put in 3 times a day.
We had a wonderful talk today from a couple who have been on 4 missions . Three of them have been to Tahiti and one to New Zeland. He told us a very interesting story. He said the people in the islands don't wear any clothes when it gets really hot but they stay near their homes. If you approach a home you are to holler out. If they want you to come in they will holler back. He said when they got there they went to visit every one on the island asking if they knew anyone who was Mormon. They said they visited with a little old woman who said I am a member but I want you to visit my granddaughter who lives on the other side of the island. They found the granddaughter who said she wanted her husband and her 19 children to be baptized. She said to them. "How did you know we needed the missionaries here? and the couple said, "Your grandma asked us to come visit with you." She answered, "My grandma has been dead 10 years." They went back to where they saw the little old lady and no one knew who they were talking about. That is proof that our loved ones look after us even after death.
Gene and I are into our German heavily now. Dad studies constantly. I can put sentences together but he knows all the words so I think we will make out alright. Our German tutor had another Elder with him tonight. He said he was there to witness for himself how well we were doing. They are amazed. We don't think we are doing that great but I guess someone does. We do love the language. It's great to remember that the original bible was first translated by the German people. We are both proud of our heritage.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
04-2010 Learning the Decussions
Another eventful day. We have been busy learning the first dicussion which is all about the Restoration of the Gospel. Today we learned to give the second dicussion about the Plan of Salvation. In German that would be Der Erlosergsplan. We had to give it to another pretend investigator who actually turned out to be an ex Mission President. He was a hard cookie to crack but he said we did great.
Tonight we went to our first devotional. Our guest speaker was Glen L. Pace who is a 70. He is a special witness for Christ. He requested that it not be televised because he had something very sacred to tell us. We will record it and let you know all about it when we get back from our mission.
Tomorrow is another busy day, we will meet with our German tutor. We met him in the cafeteria for the first time. He is such a good teacher. He told us we were going to be speaking German in no time. signing off for now. The gospel is true. Read your scriptures and say your prayers every day and night your life will go a lot smoother.
Tonight we went to our first devotional. Our guest speaker was Glen L. Pace who is a 70. He is a special witness for Christ. He requested that it not be televised because he had something very sacred to tell us. We will record it and let you know all about it when we get back from our mission.
Tomorrow is another busy day, we will meet with our German tutor. We met him in the cafeteria for the first time. He is such a good teacher. He told us we were going to be speaking German in no time. signing off for now. The gospel is true. Read your scriptures and say your prayers every day and night your life will go a lot smoother.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
04-2010 Missionary Training Center
We are busy and happy at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. We have met some wonderful couples here. Our first day they asked if anyone could play the piano, only one sister raised her hand. I was not about to show how well I could play. Then they asked if anyone could lead the music. I was the only one that raised their hand, so guess who is now the permanent chorister? I can't believe that out of 60 couples only one person could play the Piano or lead the music. I thought these were Mormon women? I really enjoyed it. Everyone already knows I am crazy. I make them laugh all the time.
Dad says hes so emotional. All the talks, videos and music are so inspiring. He said he might even join the choir. He loved looking at all the beautiful paintings hanging in the foyer. They are all of different people being baptized in different parts of the world. One especially was awe inspiring. Cutting the ice to baptize someone in Russia. The Church is true we are sure of that.
They keep us so busy here we only had time to drop our bags off and go to class. We study all day long. We didn't get to put our clothes away until 10:00 PM. By then we were both ready to drop. But guess what the Lord gives you strength for another day of the same. The food here is endless. Dad finds the chocolate chip cookies irresistible. We are both going to have to be rolled on the plane to Germany.
By the way we are staying at the MTC for an additional week for computer training. Since we will be working in the Mission home we have to know the latest computer programs dealing with transfers of Missionaries, Finances and maintaining the missionary cars and apartments. I think we will both be busy. Some of the couples who have been on missions before and have worked in the Mission offices say we are going to be doing everything the Mission President does not have time to do. I guess there's no rest for the wicked.
Our second day was just as full. We gave our first discussion to a little old couple who dropped by our apartment pretending to be investigators. I gave part of the discussion and dad gave the rest on the apostacy and restoration. We were only suppose to spend 5 min. finding out about them personally, but it turned out to be a 25 min. discussion. I can't tell you what a delight it was, it went something like this.
First of all they were a married couple. She was 87 yrs old and he was 79. They met after she served a mission in her homeland of Leeds, England which is about 30 miles from Preston, England, which is the birth place of Peter Maughan who was converted to the gospel by Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimbal in 1860. This is where an entire church of England congregation was converted to the gospel. She said that when Brigham Young wrote to Joseph Smith about feeling like he was walking on sacred ground when they arrived in Preston, Eng. to preach the gospel, Joseph Smith wrote back that indeed it was hallowed ground. that after the crucifiction of Christ some of his apostles actually walked that ground and dedicated it to the preaching of the gospel.
That was just the beginning of her life. Her name was Nancy Tenney and she lived in England during WWII. She said there was only 15 or so members. In her town of Leeds, there was a POW camp for captured German soldiers. In that group was a member of the church who wrote to the Mission President and asked if members of the church could visit him and preach the gospel to three other German soldiers. Permission was granted and after the War ended all three were baptized. During the time they were incarcerated. The ladies in the Relief Society would share their sugar, butter, mayonaise and flour with the Germans prisoners. It is true, the church is the same no matter where you go.
We enjoyed their visit and she said to me, I can tell you are English. You have that look about you. Funny, someone else told me today I looked like I was German. I like that. I will tell you another wonderful story tomorrow so stay tuned.
Dad says hes so emotional. All the talks, videos and music are so inspiring. He said he might even join the choir. He loved looking at all the beautiful paintings hanging in the foyer. They are all of different people being baptized in different parts of the world. One especially was awe inspiring. Cutting the ice to baptize someone in Russia. The Church is true we are sure of that.
They keep us so busy here we only had time to drop our bags off and go to class. We study all day long. We didn't get to put our clothes away until 10:00 PM. By then we were both ready to drop. But guess what the Lord gives you strength for another day of the same. The food here is endless. Dad finds the chocolate chip cookies irresistible. We are both going to have to be rolled on the plane to Germany.
By the way we are staying at the MTC for an additional week for computer training. Since we will be working in the Mission home we have to know the latest computer programs dealing with transfers of Missionaries, Finances and maintaining the missionary cars and apartments. I think we will both be busy. Some of the couples who have been on missions before and have worked in the Mission offices say we are going to be doing everything the Mission President does not have time to do. I guess there's no rest for the wicked.
Our second day was just as full. We gave our first discussion to a little old couple who dropped by our apartment pretending to be investigators. I gave part of the discussion and dad gave the rest on the apostacy and restoration. We were only suppose to spend 5 min. finding out about them personally, but it turned out to be a 25 min. discussion. I can't tell you what a delight it was, it went something like this.
First of all they were a married couple. She was 87 yrs old and he was 79. They met after she served a mission in her homeland of Leeds, England which is about 30 miles from Preston, England, which is the birth place of Peter Maughan who was converted to the gospel by Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimbal in 1860. This is where an entire church of England congregation was converted to the gospel. She said that when Brigham Young wrote to Joseph Smith about feeling like he was walking on sacred ground when they arrived in Preston, Eng. to preach the gospel, Joseph Smith wrote back that indeed it was hallowed ground. that after the crucifiction of Christ some of his apostles actually walked that ground and dedicated it to the preaching of the gospel.
That was just the beginning of her life. Her name was Nancy Tenney and she lived in England during WWII. She said there was only 15 or so members. In her town of Leeds, there was a POW camp for captured German soldiers. In that group was a member of the church who wrote to the Mission President and asked if members of the church could visit him and preach the gospel to three other German soldiers. Permission was granted and after the War ended all three were baptized. During the time they were incarcerated. The ladies in the Relief Society would share their sugar, butter, mayonaise and flour with the Germans prisoners. It is true, the church is the same no matter where you go.
We enjoyed their visit and she said to me, I can tell you are English. You have that look about you. Funny, someone else told me today I looked like I was German. I like that. I will tell you another wonderful story tomorrow so stay tuned.
Friday, April 9, 2010
03.10.2010 Preparing tp Leave
These have been progressing around the Walters compound. Gene has finally finished what he wanted to do. It has always wanted to have a concrete driveway on the property and he was able to pour three sections with help from Josh and his friend Adam. Landscaping the property has been another priority. Trees and shrubs and flowers have been planted between the houses .
We have had plenty of rain this season and hope to have more which has been a great blesing to the plants around here.
On March 28th we had our farewell talks in Sacrament meeting. Gene spoke on Temples and I spoke on Family History work. Later that day we got together with the entire family. It was wonderful to see everyone there. We missed having Adam there as he is in Texas getting ready to go to Chili to help rebuilt bridges that were destroyed by the big earthquake.
The time is fast approaching that we will bid our family adieu and go to Germany to serve the Lord. Kim will be taking care of the property and Josh and Brad will be overseeing the Guest house. I really am going to miss this house but not as much as I am the family. I was just thinking. I will be missing Court's graduation from USC. Dawn and Sam being sealed in the Temple. Jake going on his Mission, Rachel's graduation from Woodbury,and a new great grandchild being born .
We leave for the MTC on Monday the 12th at 4:30 AM. I know this is going to be a busy day. We will be there for 2 weeks to study missionary lessons and to improve on our German. We can actually speak a little German now, thanks to our tutor Elder Meister. We hope to be working more with the German people and helping them learn about the gospel. I'll write more when we get to the MTC,
We have had plenty of rain this season and hope to have more which has been a great blesing to the plants around here.
On March 28th we had our farewell talks in Sacrament meeting. Gene spoke on Temples and I spoke on Family History work. Later that day we got together with the entire family. It was wonderful to see everyone there. We missed having Adam there as he is in Texas getting ready to go to Chili to help rebuilt bridges that were destroyed by the big earthquake.
The time is fast approaching that we will bid our family adieu and go to Germany to serve the Lord. Kim will be taking care of the property and Josh and Brad will be overseeing the Guest house. I really am going to miss this house but not as much as I am the family. I was just thinking. I will be missing Court's graduation from USC. Dawn and Sam being sealed in the Temple. Jake going on his Mission, Rachel's graduation from Woodbury,and a new great grandchild being born .
We leave for the MTC on Monday the 12th at 4:30 AM. I know this is going to be a busy day. We will be there for 2 weeks to study missionary lessons and to improve on our German. We can actually speak a little German now, thanks to our tutor Elder Meister. We hope to be working more with the German people and helping them learn about the gospel. I'll write more when we get to the MTC,
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Laying the Concrete Driveway
Things have really been moving forward in preparation for our Mission.
Gene has completed most of the projects he wanted to get done before he left. Most of the landscaping has been done and a partial concrete drive-way was installed. Josh and Adam helped out alot. See photos.
We had a wonderful farewell program at church. Gene spoke on Temples and I spoke on Family history work, my favorite subject. NEWS FLASH. Our Mission was changed from the Family History Library to the Mission Home. We can't imagine what that would be, but we will still have time to do some searching for our ancestors who lived in Germany. I think the Lord has a hand in our being assigned to the Mission Home.
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