Tuesday, September 16, 2014, Museum of Science, Transfer Meeting and Moore

We had another good week last week!  I have been fighting a cold all week, so I haven't been at the top of my game, but I have tried to keep going.  One of the biggest miracles this week is that I felt completely well for our whole temple shift.  Dad got to officiate and I got to be the sister follower for the endowment session with all the missionaries who were going home on Friday.  It was so awesome.  They are all so sweet, happy, sad, scared, (every emotion possible) at the thought of having their missions end and going home.  It was a very special experience.  I'm so happy that I wasn't sick and could be there to be a part of that.  Our mission president and his wife and their missionary daughter were in the session as well which made it even more special. 

We have a baptism next Sunday!  Mark Anthony DiLaura is getting baptized!  Mike and I have been teaching him along with the sisters and our zone leaders.  Mike gets to baptize him and Mike and I are singing "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."  It's going to be a wonderful baptism.  We are so happy for him.  We also have Kyle who is going to be baptized in a couple of weeks!  He is a miracle and we are thrilled with his progress.  His countenance in the past couple of weeks has truly changed and you can see the light of Christ coming through bright and strong.  He seems to always be smiling!  It's so amazing to see the transformation that letting Christ into your life has on a person.  Beautiful! He and his beautiful wife, Evie, have a beautiful little family.  We are so happy and excited for them.

 


Last Monday for P-day, we went with our whole zone (22 young missionaries and us) to the Museum of Science.  It was a lot of fun. We were supposed to go with our temple worker group up to Maine to ride on a ferry mail boat out to some islands off the coast of Portland, but I wasn't feeling well enough to make the trip so we opted for this fun outing more close to home.  It's amazing to us how many things there are to do around here that are within walking distance from our apartment.  The museum was about a 20 minute walk, just past our mall where we stopped and I got a Taco Bell fix!  Sometimes you just have to have a cheesy Gordita crunch with a Doritos taco shell inside.  It was delicious even with my cold!

Our sisters got us all free passes to the museum from our local library!  We love our little library that is just up the street from us.  I'll try to remember to take a picture to post next week.  It's tiny and it's just so nostalgic and perfect!  We love it!

The spectacular view of the Charles River out the back window of the Museum of Science!

We got to see a wonderful presentation on lightning and electricity!

Sister Fernando was selected as the volunteer for the presentation on static electricity!

She was a good sport!

A couple of the sisters and I had a contest who could make a bead sculpture of President Gordon B. Hinckley.  This was mine!  Which one do you choose?  I tried to get the twinkle in his eye!

Elders playing with some of the experiments.  Elder Butters expression is priceless!  We sure love these guys! (Elder Reeve, Elder Tait, Elder Kerr, Elder Butters, and Elder Santiago)

Cute Sisters--Platt, Hung, Klecker, and Ng

Part of our great zone!  Three of these missionaries were transferred on Wednesday, Elder Santiago, Sister Scott, and Sister White.  We miss them so much already!!

On Wednesday, we had transfer meeting at the Boston Stake Center in Weston.  We arrived early so that Sister Roy could receive her trainer training.  Then we all met in the chapel and the President Packard introduced all the new "greenies" (new missionaries who just arrived from the mission training center MTC in Provo, Utah) and then announced who their trainers are going to be for the next 12 weeks.  Everyone was super excited and so happy for all these new missionaries.  It was fun to be there with all of that excitement and love.

Our new sister is Sister Jones, from Lehi, Utah.  We are thrilled to have her with us and think that Sister Roy will be a great trainer for her.  It will be fun for us to be a part of that training a little bit and to see her grow in learning how to be an effective missionary.  We love her already!

Sister Jones and Sister Roy

 Saying good bye is always hard!  It's fun though to say hello to new faces and welcome them into the mission!

Elder Santiago helped us move in and he will always have a special place in our hearts.  He's from Brazil and when he heard Elder Moore speaking Portuguese when we first met him, his face just broke into the biggest grin and he was so happy!  We instantly felt at home in the mission and were so blessed to have him and Elder Butters welcome us here!

Sister Scott will always have a special place in our hearts as well.  She was our fearless leader and we love her for always keeping us on track and for being so kind and good to us!  It's amazing how quickly these kids get into our hearts and I'm sure they will stay in there forever! 

We have a little Chinese group that is part of our ward, the Cambridge 1st Ward.  They have these three great Elders and our two sweet sisters serving them.  The Elder on the right just arrived from mainland China!~  So excited to serve with these amazing people!

Sister Scott with her new companion, Sister Harris.  They will be serving in Scituate, Rhode Island.  Sister Harris was Sister Roy's companion before she came to us.  It's a small world in the mission field!

We taught our first marriage workshop class last night.  We had 8 couples come to it and it was really fun.  I think we shared a lot of great ideas and started with having Christ be the starting building block of your relationship.  We encouraged temple attendance, prayer and scripture study and one of the key things we are stressing is putting the needs of your companion above your own needs.  The root of most problems comes from selfishness.  It's going to run for 6 weeks and we should be able to share a lot of really great stuff with them.  They all seem to like us and seemed pleased with the first class!  Yay!  I was a little stressed about doing it, but it was actually a lot of fun.  It turns out that Mike and I are a pretty good teaching team!

 This quote is one of the basic principles we are stressing in our class!  Pres. Hinckley goes on to say that "any man who will make his wife's comfort his first concern and any woman who will make her husband's comfort her first concern will stay in love throughout their lives and through the eternity yet to come."

That's a simple and yet profound statement and one which we are working on every day.  Our mission has helped us to be a little gentler and a little kinder with each other since we are pretty much together 24/7.  We have been so blessed and our relationship continues to get better each day!  Instead of getting tired of being together, we truly enjoy each other's company.  The Lord has blessed us so much.  Just one of the many tender mercies He has poured out on us as we seek to serve Him daily.

Friday night, our sister's came over for dinner.  Sister Jones is a little bit homesick for her parents and we've been helping her by spending a lot of time with them and she's had a couple of "counseling" sessions with Elder Moore which seem to have really helped.  We think she's doing better each day and that she is going to be an amazing missionary.  She and Sister Roy taught a beautiful lesson on the Restoration to one of our investigators, Al, on Saturday.  She's a natural teacher and she's going to be awesome.  They make a great team.  On Saturday, they came to use our computers to update their finding pool.  They are such good, hard workers and we are very proud of both of them!

Yesterday, was Sister Williamsen, our Sister Training Leader's, birthday.  Her companion, Sister Fernando, planned a surprise party for her and the whole zone turned up for it!  She was truly surprised!  Happy Birthday to you!!

Another week has come and gone!  The work of the Lord continues to move forward and we are so happy and blessed to be a part of the missionary force that is moving it!  Everyone should be part of this and you don't have to be a full-time missionary to do your part!  Open your mouths and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone around you.  Let them know that you have a very special message to share with them that can bring them more happiness than anything else in this world!

We love you all, friends and family, members of our faith or not!  You are all special to us and precious in the sight of God!  Have a great week!