Week 11

Tuesday was cold, wet, dreary, and I had the beginnings of a cold.  So imagine our happy surprise to come home to a package from my nephew and his family (Dave, Lynnette, et al).  It was a sunshine box, and every snack, treat, and toy in it was yellow.  What a cheerer upper that was!

A box of sunshine

That evening we had a ward assignment (along with another ward) to clean the temple.  My only frame of reference for that was the heavy cleaning that gets done periodically, but in small temples every night people are assigned to attend the 7:30 pm session, then clean the temple afterward.  With lots of people, it only took about 20 minutes, and we got home at 11 pm. 

Wednesday was transfer day (so glad that doesn't affect us directly--no transfers or companion changes for us!).  Transfers happen every six weeks.  In the previous transfer no one in our district was changed, but this week two sisters went home, our district leader was made a zone leader in OKC, and two other companionships changed, too, so we welcomed five new missionaries to our district.  We enjoyed getting to know Sister Engelbrecht tonight at dinner.

On Friday our district gathered to watch the world wide missionary training meeting--it was done on Wednesday, but since that was transfer day, we watched it via the web on Friday.  What a great meeting.  Most members of the Missionary Committee spoke (or taught through video interaction with a small group of missionaries).  We heard from Elders Andersen, Bednar, Oaks, Clayton, Nielsen, Bishop Waddell, and Sister Oscarson.  Wow--powerful messages addressing the theme: Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts.  I'm sure missionaries all over the world were buoyed by the content and spirit of the meeting.  Elder Bednar pointed out that missionaries can carry the message of the gospel unto the heart of the investigator, but only the Holy Ghost can carry it into the heart, and then only at the invitation of the investigator.  Elder Andersen reminded us that we should carry the name of the Savior on our lips and be ready to testify of Him at any time when prompted to do so.

Now for the wildlife report.  Bennie the Blue Heron made an appearance this week (haven't seen him for a while), as did a cardinal.  Cardinals are something I still miss from my Kansas City days, and I thought we'd see a lot of them around here.  Not so.  However, one appeared and then very kindly stayed in one spot for quite a while so I could carry on about him.  Geese started coming to the pond in our apartment complex several weeks ago. We've learned a couple of things about them. First, they can stand on one leg and tuck the other up like a flamingo.  Here's a picture of some standing on ice --the one in the foreground is doing the flamingo pose.  We saw several doing that on little ice floes in the pond.

Second, they are not nearly as considerate as chickens.  They sometimes carry on honking conversations all night long!  Maybe we need a goose whisperer to see what's troubling them.  It is terribly obnoxious in the middle of the night; especially when they are on our side of the pond.

Our classes remained small (didn't have the Old Testament class on Monday because of the MLK holiday, and we know there are few students who will be joining that class tomorrow).  However, we had wonderful discussions in each one, and we'll just teach tiny classes.  It's been interesting to study the Book of Mormon, the Old Testament, and Teachings of the Living Prophets at the same time. Amazing to see doctrines dovetail, truths tripled, and concepts converge (doing my best Elder Maxwell wordplay there) as we look at these three sacred sources simultaneously.