Monday, September 8, 2014, Labor Day, Bunker Hill, Mexican Fiesta

We had a great week.  For Labor Day, which was on Monday (p-day) the temple was specially opened and we had a special day for new converts to come and do baptisms for their own family names!  Mike and I got to work in the baptistry all morning and it was incredible.  The Spirit there was so strong and we loved being with those new members and their missionaries!  We will always treasure opportunities like these that we probably wouldn't be able to have anyplace else.  We feel so blessed to be temple ordinance workers as well as full-time missionaries!  That seems like a miracle!

After our temple shift, we tried out another burger place that came highly recommended in our ward's newcomer's guide, bgood burgers in Harvard Square!  There wasn't any parking so we got them to go and went home to eat them!  Since we didn't have a grill or plans for a Labor Day BBQ, we made some chicken and potato salad for dinner!

  

One big difference between us and the younger missionaries is that we can go to movies.  We have seen a couple of really good ones that have given us hope that Hollywood can still produce wholesome films that missionary couples can feel good about seeing!  We went to a movie to end our p-day.  Life is different on a missionary, but it is wonderful!  We love being together and our relationship is just getting better as we are sharing this mission together!

Our nearby "sticky shoe" theater!

Another funny miracle this week was that for our zone meeting on Friday, the sister training leaders wanted to know if we could bring a pinata for our Mexican fiesta?  No problem, except that they asked us after our temple shift on Thursday and it was about 7:30 at night and the meeting was the next morning at 10!!  Well, I had no idea where to get a pinata around here but I asked our sisters and they suggested I Google it.  So I Googled party stores on my phone and there was one 15 minutes away that opened at 9:30 am.  The miracle of it was that on my phone under Party City, it actually said Pinata Suppliers!!  What?  It was crazy.  I felt like that was put there just for me so I wouldn't have to search around and get all stressed over it.  We got up Friday morning, drove 15 minutes, picked out a sombrero shaped pinata, some candy and drove 10 minutes to our zone meeting!  Job well-done!!  Just one little tender mercy that comes from being a missionary!  Yay!

Our Sister Scott is being transferred!  She and Sister Roy both go home on December 5th, so that is probably going to be her last area. We have grown to love her so much and will really miss her a lot! Sister Roy is also going home December 5th.  She is getting a new greenie for our ward and is training for the first time.  She is pretty happy about it.  We are glad that since she's training, the likelihood of  her being here the rest of her mission is high!  We don't like losing our little girls!

One day this week, we were out visiting members and we ended up in Charlestown in a really nice neighborhood.  We found out our guy that we were trying to visit had moved and we also found out that we were steps away from the U.S.S. Constitution, one of the navy ships from the Revolutionary War, so we walked over to see it.  It was after 6 pm so it was closed up but we got some pictures.  Then, we realized we were only about a 10 minute walk to Bunker Hill which is one of the famous battle sites from that war so we walked up there too.  It turned out to be a great little sight-seeing evening that we enjoyed very much!  Boston is definitely filled with some extraordinary places to visit!

A ship from WWII

Some of the beautiful architecture in Charlestown.

 

Bunker Hill

View of the city from Bunker Hill

 Also, this week, we inspected 7 missionary apartments!  They all worked so hard to clean their places and they did a great job!  We were very proud of all of them.  There were a couple of apartments that need some repairs from previous missionaries that had damaged the walls and doors, but mostly the apartments are pretty nice!  It is a fun assignment and we are happy we got to do it!  We get to go out to Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod next week to do 4 more!  Yay!  We can't wait for that.  We are going to get to spend the night out on Martha's Vineyard (island off the coast) so that should be fun!

Happily taking notes during apartment inspections.

This is an example of what a great job these Elders and Sisters did cleaning their apartments!  Well done~!

Our zone meeting this week was awesome!  Our zone leaders and sister training leaders prepared so well for our fiesta of scones for breakfast before and then gave us very valuable training at our meeting including a great video starring Elders Santiago and Welker about losing our faith and then finding it again.  We have wonderful,amazing, and hard-working Elders and Sisters in our zone!  We are truly blessed to work with all of them!

Elder Santiago, our fearless district leader!  He's from Brazil and we love him so much!  He's being transferred this week and we are really going to miss him!  He and Elder Butters were the first ones to greet us when we arrived at our apartment in Cambridge!

Sister Bailey

We didn't have any cups, but we did have pitchers and beverages!  Ole!

Sister Bailey and Sister White, our sister training leaders.

Sister Williamsen and Sister Fernando

Sister Hung and Sister Ng

As part of our "Fiesta" we sang "I am a Child of God" in Spanish!

Elder Butters leading us in our song.

The destroyed pinata!

Sister Scott singing, "Consider The Lilies of the Field."  It was beautiful and so touching as she is being transferred on Wednesday!

It's been another great week!  We have our highs and lows like everyone, but the lows aren't too low and they don't last too long.  We have some disappointments like investigators dropping us and members who no longer want to come to church.  These things break our hearts!  We are lifted up in the fact that our Savior lives and loves us and that this is His work.  People have their free agency to choose whether to listen and accept His word and gospel or not.  We feel joy in being able to share it with those that are willing and have been prepared to listen.  We love serving others around the clock and are always praying and on the lookout for people in need.  We are loving our ward of Harvard and MIT graduate students and their families!  We feel loved and needed and pray every day that we can do the work the Lord has for us to do!

We love the scriptures and are reading them every day with greater purpose and insights.  Our mission president challenged the mission to read the Book of Mormon front to back in two transfers and look for examples of tender mercies of the Lord and underline them.  We have started doing this and His tender mercies are everywhere!  By the time we are done, the book will be more red from underlining than white!  1Nephi 1:20, says "I Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."  I believe we are chosen when we "have desires to serve God." (D&C 4:3) We can all be chosen servants of the Lord!

These are some of the people we have come to love and serve here on our mission.  Janice and Al are wonderful people and have great faith.  Al has kidney problems and has been in the hospital or a rehab center for 3 months.  He looks forward to our visits and loves every message and video the sisters bring to share with him.  

This is Julio and Tina and their darling little girls!  Julio is our awesome ward mission leader.  He is a man of great faith and inspiration.  We are very blessed to be able to work with him. Tina works with the young women in the ward.

That's it for another week!  Stay strong and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost!  He will lead you to the things that will bring you the most joy in your lives!