Seven Months on a Mission

It's so hard to believe that we've been on a mission for seven months! We left for Utah to attend the Missionary Training Center exactly seven months ago. Amazing how time flies and all of the experiences that you go through in seven months.

This has been a very interesting week to say the least. We had a District Meeting last week and once again, we were very impressed with the capability of Elder Purcell (our District Leader). He teaches his lessons in a quiet, yet very spiritual manner. He's been a great leader to the other missionaries in his district as they seem to always be late, forget their paperwork or even forget our meetings. He teaches by his example and patience. Each week the District Leader gets about one hour to teach the missionaries in their district about a topic from Preach My Gospel. Elder Purcell's choices have been timely and perfect for our District. Especially when we have a set of missionaries who choose not to work as diligently as most.

We've had requests from the Missionary Training Center to give them feedback on things that they could share with other Senior Couples who are going to be proselyting missionaries and the list keeps growing as the weeks go by. Here's a couple of thoughts for those who are putting in their missionary application:

1) Be sure that you indicate your true desire and ability to learn a language. As a senior couple, we could only receive telephone language training prior to our mission. We only had two weeks notice on our language, so we missed the telephone training. Once you are in the mission field, you are on your own. Teaching yourself everything.

2) Call your Mission Office as soon as you get your call.  Believe me, there is a somebody in the mission office that will be thrilled to give you all of the information you would like about the mission you are going to serve in. The Mission President may even tell you which city you will be living in for your mission. (Our Mission Office sister asked how many passengers we could take in our car and then told us that our main purpose would be to drive people to Church. Needless to say, we discussed the possibility of buying an old bus for the ward and going home.)

3) Use the Internet to find out information about the area you will be serving in. Some things that might be important to you are: apartment locations and rental costs, where are the Walmart and the gas station (we still haven't found a car wash that is in working order - lucky for us we get "Heavenly Washes" a couple of times a week), weather, crime rates and cultural differences. Who would've thought that Walmart would be open on Christmas and closed on Mardi Gras. 

Oh, there's so much more, but we can save it for later.

So you may be wondering, how our Spanish is. Well, seven months is a long time to study a language in small increments. We've heard from other Senior Couples that they too are experiencing great difficulty with the languages of their missions. We were told that we wouldn't really need the language as senior couples. But we have been so restricted in all aspects of our missionary work by it. It's so frustrating to go to Church and not understand anything for three hours. We take pictures and give lots of smiles, but we can only talk to the people that speak English. We don't participate in classes, give talks or even carry on conversations with the investigators, who only speak Spanish.

This week we received a phone call from a new member, she was sobbing and speaking in Spanish. Don told her that we would come over to her house. We had a prayer and went to her home, only to find her very distraught and upset. We couldn't understand what she was telling us and had to call the missionaries to come over and translate for us. She and her husband had an argument and he was threatening to send her back to their home country. Unfortunately, the Bishop was leaving town and couldn't talk to them until sometime this week. We just let her talk and then went over the next day to talk to her husband (he speaks some English). It was so hard for us to not be able to speak/understand her language and have her call us for help. We invited their family to our house for dinner on Friday and took them out to feed the ducks and turtles. Their four year old had a blast. It was fun for all of them to have fun as a family. We usually visit them in the late afternoon, but this week we will try to visit them during the day, when the husband is home from work.

One of the things that we felt that she needed was a Visiting Teacher. Not just a Visiting Teacher, but a listening Visiting Teacher. Sometimes, when visiting teachers and the sister get together they just complain about their problems in life. In the Spanish culture it is no different. We could tell that she needed a visiting teacher who would just listen and then set a good example for her. The need for visiting teaching here is so vital, yet so difficult when they don't have cars and people live so far away from each other. Most women are working very long hours and then trying to care for their families, serve in their callings, do housework, laundry and shopping in three hours in the evenings.

We loved General Conference!  It was nice to watch it in our own home, without distractions. Although it was pretty hot. Our A/C went out on Saturday and so we just had ceiling fans doing the cooling. It was in the 80s in our apartment. We kept telling ourselves that it was just like Hawaii. The only difference is that here we have tornados. Both places get hurricanes, but instead of beaches we have our apartment complex's lakes. (No swimming of course.)

So here's our challenge to everyone - be a listening Visiting Teacher/Home Teacher this month. Prepare your message, but then listen. Listen with the Spirit to know the needs of the person you are visiting right at that moment. Listen and Follow. You will find that the spirit will give you direction and ideas of ways you can help the person you are visiting.

We love the Lord and love serving in the Church. We are grateful for the experiences we are having and know that they are building blocks in our lives. As quoted in Doctrine and Covenants 122:7 "that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."

We love each of you.  We pray for your success in your families and in the gospel. May the Lord be with you and bless you with the righteous desires of your hearts.