MARCH 21-27, 2022
How can we top last week with Cooney’s baptism and Johnson’s visit? We can’t….yet missionary work day in and day out, week in and week out has its highs and lows. We’ve been here four months and the highs have been so high - and the lows rare and tolerable. Our continual challenge? Find new friends to invite and teach, help build and unite our ward, inspire young adults to keep on the covenant path, love the youth, encourage and minister to members who struggle (which are many), visit the elderly who are unable to attend church and receive the sacrament. We work hard gaining trust and developing friendships with lapsing members. Then one week - one returns to church. We are so excited! The next week another one returns, but the last one drops off. It seems most need a personal ‘invite’ and ‘push’ weekly.
Then our daily missionary work just REPEATS. Missionary work is constant and sometimes can feel a little mundane - but we are learning how to find JOY even in the mundane.
A highlight this week was the arrival of two Elders joining our district and assigned to our Gaerwen ward! They have a really nice flat in Bangor, on the other side of the Menai Strait, located close to Bangor University. They arrived with Covid, but are doing much better. One of the elders was called to labor in Russia. He served there for 2 months and then had to evacuate within 24 hours because of the war between Russia and Ukraine. He had to wear normal street clothes, a cap, no missionary tag, talk to no one, and get himself by taxi to the airport, where the mission President met him and he boarded a plane to leave Russia. Can you imagine what his parents were thinking and praying for? (I was telling Elder Urey’s experience to Matthew and he said….’yeh mom - that happened to me 3 different times, except I didn’t actually have to leave Colombia! The big difference for Chichi and me is that Matt didn’t tell us those stories until AFTER he had returned home!).
Elders Urey and Jensen are going to be wonderful missionaries here. We look forward to working alongside them.
We enjoyed our weekly hour with Kev and Alisha, teaching Philippa, teaching institute and feeding ysa and missionaries!
Sunday evening we had a mission wide devotional in the Chorley Chapel, located next to the Preston Temple. It began at 6:30pm. We left at 2:30pm to pick up a set of elders in another city and returned home just before midnight! Was it worth it? YES! We had not been part of an entire mission gathering since arriving. There is absolute power when assembled all together. The music was stirring, departing elders/sisters testimonies were heartfelt, the messages from President and Sister Johnson were motivating, loving and inspirational, including an ‘apostolic’ blessing for all of us.
The energy and commitment to missionary work from the young elders and sisters is so infectious and they LOVE all the senior couples and tell us all the time - which feels so good!
A GREAT WEEK.
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