Blessings

We are so excited to report our activities during the past week. Thanksgiving is upon us and we have so much to be grateful for.

The Blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
We have the opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ every day and yet it seems that we never run out of people that we come in contact with. We love talking to people about the Church and sharing what we know about Jesus Christ. Serving for two years here in New Orleans is a great blessing for us. We know that this is what we are supposed to do right now and we are grateful for the opportunity to serve.

The Blessing of Family
We are truly blessed to have a great family. We love to hear from family via email and appreciate all of the support that we get in your letters. We love hearing from our children about their triumphs, as well as their trials. We are so grateful that they keep us posted on the happenings in their families and the growth of our grandchildren. It's hard to watch your posterity grow up with out you there, but we know the promised blessings to our Grandchildren will be there as we continue to serve diligently.

The Blessing of Marriage
Yes, we are still very much in love. Each week brings us closer together and closer to our Savior. We love spending 24/7 with each other. It has been great to be together for various meetings as well as to be together all day. We don't run errands alone, like shopping, etc. Everything is done together which is great and we know that it is wonderful for our marriage. That brings us to transfers.

The Blessing of No Transfers and No New Companion
We have been extremely busy as it was transfer week and Zone Preparation Day. We are the only companionship that remained the same in our Ward and our building. Out of the fourteen Elders assigned to our building (two wards, one English and one Spanish) only 5 missionaries stayed. Three of the seven companionships were completely "white washed" -
changed with no overlap of missionaries for continuity of teaching.

We've thought about what a transfer would be like for one of these missionaries. Some of them have been in the mission field for almost a year and have moved to a new area every six weeks.

So you get to have a new companion (if you didn't like the last companion, this can be a great blessing.) Especially if you're a neat freak and they are messy. If you're a spender and they are thrifty. If you are a talker and they are shy. We can see that the missionaries are resilient and have learned how to make six week relationships. We hope it will be helpful for them as they choose their eternal companions, when they make the "marriage" decision later. They will have an idea of what to look for in a companion that they like and what they don't want in a companion.

I can't imagine packing my stuff up every six weeks and going to the Stake Center, riding in a van for an hour or two and being dropped off at another Stake Center. Only to be handed keys to a car, the area cell phone and the address of where your apartment is. The challenges are finding the last missionary's investigators, where your apartment is, where the grocery store is, where the laundromat is, and most importantly it seems - where's Walmart. Each companionship has an Area Book that gives them vital information on the investigators and new converts in their area. Hopefully, the previous companionship
kept good records and they can just pick up right where the last missionaries left off.

The Blessing of French for Don :-)
This has been a GREAT week for Don. While we were at the Aquarium he had the opportunity to have conversations with two different men in French. It was awesome to watch him talk in French and see these men excited to find someone who spoke their language. He was able to tell them that we were on a mission here with the Church and find out about them.

He also had the opportunity to speak with two of the Bishop's children who speak French this week. Megan Garcia came home from her French speaking mission in Belgium and their oldest son also went to Don's mission area. Needless to say, the French comes easily for him and I'm grateful that Heavenly Father has provided the blessings.

The Blessing of Spanish Scriptures
Unfortunately, our Spanish is not progressing like we had hoped. Six hours of language training didn't give us what we need in order to carry on a conversation. We have been reading the scriptures in Spanish everyday, never the less, we are SOOOOO grateful that we live in an English society. Michelle learns well in a classroom setting and Don learns well anywhere there is a good teacher. Unfortunately right now we don't have either one. Let's just say that Spanish is coming "poco a poco". Little by little.

These are just a few of the many blessings that we are grateful for. It's Thanksgiving this week and we express our gratitude for all of the blessings we receive.