Weekly disclaimer: Italicized comments are mine.
-karen
May 6, 2013
Today was p-day and we did the usual stuff: emails, shopping, laundry & lunch. In the afternoon we played basketball and ultimate frisbee! (no, mom, I didn't break my foot this time!*) :-) I also did a little stick-handling! After that we had dinner with the Paquette's at a Thai food place. It was pretty good. After that we had a great lesson with Sam & Heather on the Plan of Salvation (pre-earth life & creation). It was a good day!! :-)
This explains the Plan of Salvation: http://www.lds.org/topics/plan-of-salvation
*For those who do not know the story, last summer 3 days before the Hill Cumorah Pageant was over, Chris went to the lake with his cast team (18 kids his age and 4 leaders) and was playing ultimate frisbee barefoot. He collided with another person and his big toe, and second toe, split around the other person's calf. He broke one and hyperextended & torqued the other and spent 9 weeks in a walking boot. Almost 3 months in to the mission and no major injuries is a good thing!
May 7, 2013
AWESOME Tuesday! Got to spend some time at the library on www.mormon.org and www.lds.org. I printed out some quotes and watched Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk about faith and believing. SO GOOD! We visited a TON of people today. We (Elder Frandsen and I) were sitting in the car about to go visit someone and were wanting to decide on where we were going to go tract if she wasn't there, and we both pointed the same way, so that's the way we went not knowing why. The last house at the end of the street were two girls who are extremely solid potentials. We will probably pass them off to the single adult missionaries. It was a great experience to listen to the Spirit tell us where we should go! I relate a lot of things to hockey but this analogy of listening to the Spirit works for any sport. In hockey, when you are on the ice, you can usually pick out your teammates voices pretty well but sometimes it's challenging. If you are skating along and you hear a teammate in the midst of all the screaming & yelling from the fans and the noise going on. The teammate says "Boards!". Now because of all the loudness, you can barely hear your teammate's voice, but you do hear it so you bank the puck off the boards and he gets it, and goes in to score! So what if it happens again? Well, you know what that voice is and you can recognize it even more. Soon you are listening to that voice so well that you can only hear that! But if you didn't listen the first time, it will be harder to hear the next. This is they way it goes with listening to the Spirit. You have to listen carefully to that small whisper, and each time it will get easier and easier to pick it out and do the right thing.
We had a great time with Taitus & Juliana's family doing homework, then dinner with the Snyder's and another good meeting with Reed!
This is the link to Jeffrey R. Holland's talk about faith. He is an excellent speaker and really easy to follow. Many LDS people will tell you that he is one of their favorite speakers at our semi-annual General Conference. I know that he is one of Chris's favorites. You can read the talk or watch the video: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/lord-i-believe?lang=eng#watch=video
May 8, 2013
Today we had a zone meeting which was fun! A zone meeting is where all the missionaries from our zone (which is a geographical area) meet and talk about things going on in the zone: how are we doing? what can we do better? etc. Afterwards, we helped the Assenberg's move their stuff and they introduced us to Ken. Ken is a new investigator who is 83 years old and dating a 90 year old woman in our ward (congregation). He is interested in learning and I would love to help him get baptized before he goes on. He is a great guy! After that we had a lesson with Jason, and we talked about (and read) 1 Nephi chapters 3 & 4. We talked about how the Lord gives us commandments and we need to do them. Some commandments seem crazy or outrageous, but He will ALWAYS provide a way to accomplish them. After Jason's we had an AWESOME dinner with the Tokoma'ata's! We had Palusami (samoan name) or Lapulu (tongan name). At least, I think that's what it was called. I knew I should have written it down. Haha! It had taro leaves and coconut milk with corned beef and rice and IT WAS GOOD! (We had palusami twice when we were in Samoa for Chris's eagle project. It was my favorite! Palusami is coconut milk poured inside taro leaves and cooked in the umu (rocks). The coconut milk becomes cream cheese...so delish!) After dinner we had a lesson with Aaron, his wife Sioban and their friend April. That was a cool lesson on the Spirit World. Afterwards, we met up with Jason and his younger sister Jill at a self-serve frozen yogurt place! YUM!
Scriptures read with Jason:
1 Nephi 3: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/3?lang=eng
1 Nephi 4: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/4?lang=eng
Spirit World definition: http://www.lds.org/search?q=spirit+world&lang=eng&domains=gospel-topics
May 9, 2013
We spent most of the morning "finding". Let me tell you all something very important: If a missionary offers you service...use it! Use them to mow your lawn, wash your car, move furniture! Anything! We can't babysit children but we can help them with homework, and do lots of stuff around the house!
We had a good lesson today with Troy on 3rd Nephi 18, and at the end of our night we had a lesson with Taitus and Juliana's family about tithing and fast offerings! Hopefully we can find a way to get them to a baptism before their own so they can see how it's done. Baptisms are SO awesome! If you have a chance to attend one at an LDS church, and you don't have anything going on, I invite you to go! The Spirit is so strong!
After our time with Taitus & Juliana's family, we spent the rest of the evening with the Moli family! Oh man, i love that family SO MUCH! I hope and pray that I will still be here at the end of this transfer because I want to see them baptized! They are just SO amazing! Well, that's pretty much it. At the end of the night we exchanged with the Mays Pond Elders.
Scriptures talked about with Troy: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/3-ne/18?lang=eng
What is Tithing: http://www.lds.org/topics/tithing?lang=eng
What are Fast Offerings: http://www.lds.org/topics/fasting-and-fast-offerings?lang=eng
May 10, 2013
Fun exchange with the Mays Pond Elders. I stayed here in the Alderwood 1st Ward and Elder Petersen came up to our area with me. We had a ton of finding time, and one lesson with a former investigator who just had a baby. The baby was 5 weeks early and SO tiny!! Well, we reviewed the Restoration of the Gospel with her and she remembers most of it so that was fun. Her name is Shandell, by the way. She has 2 other daughters ages 7 & 4. It will be fun to teach her about the Gospel. Tonight was the first night since being on my mission that I didn't get fed dinner by the members of the ward. Well, technically I still got fed since we ate leftovers from the Moli family.
(Chris expressed on Mother's Day that they have not had to cook dinner once since he's been there! Maybe I need to go on a mission. Ok, that's not true, I don't cook dinner here either!) :-)
May 11, 2013
Our day was fun-filled with service and sunshine! We did our usual studies in the morning and then went to Sheryl's house and did yard work. Then we went to Sister Phillip's house and chopped wood for her! I also got my skates yesterday (with his Mission President's permission) so I rode them this morning on our morning jog, which is now called a jog/skate! Tonight we had dinner with the Bateman's and it was really good. We had mexican again but it was really fresh! :-) We also had a lesson with Kepler and Clayton. Clayton is an 11 year old boy who is Kepler's friend, and wants to learn about the gospel. It's awesome to teach both of them. Kepler is ready for baptism so that's good!
May 12, 2013
GREAT DAY TODAY!! I got to talk to my AWESOME family for a while! We had a great sacrament meeting (church service) and the primary children same Mother's Day songs. We had dinner with the Lammel's and it was breakfast for dinner! Mmmmm!
Karen's commentary:
It was so good to see Chris on Mother's Day! I have to back up and share some history about my joy in seeing Chris so happy. Chris went to college this past fall at Utah Valley Univ, and while he enjoyed the campus and his professors, he did not enjoy the semester. He had some challenges with roommates and it wasn't the fun freshman college experience we were all hoping he'd have. I saw his charisma dwindle as the semester went on, so I was a little nervous about how he'd be on his mission. All of my fears were wiped away the second we saw him. While Chris's letters have been upbeat, positive, happy, informative and filled with good things, seeing him made everything so much sweeter. It is clear that he is truly loving his service in Washington. He genuinely loves the people there and is filled with complete joy in doing what he is doing. A bit of "Chris" came out several times during the conversation.
At the beginning, he was eating and both Tom & I thought they were french fries. We asked what he was eating and while Katy responded (knowingly) Cheetos, Chris decided, in true Chris-style, to show us...
Danny, Stephanie & Brody were on speakerphone so they couldn't see but could hear most of the conversation. Chris asked Brody if he had any questions. Brody's first question: "Why do you have to be gone for two years?" Oh wow...that makes me tear up even as I write this. Danny & Steph tried to tell Brody that wasn't a real question, but Chris said, "I'll answer it". He then told Brody that two years was how long Heavenly Father (God) wanted him to spend teaching people in Washington about who he is. Chris told Brody that he missed his family and friends but that he knew this was a good thing to do and they could write, but that he had to serve God.
At one point during the conversation, we must have said something snarky (probably me) and he turned off the video so we could only hear him. As Katy and I laughed and yelled, turn it on, he did so...but muted it. That only made us laugh more. It's SO great to see his personality and silliness shine through.
Here are some of the many skype faces of Chris:
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| Katy edited this one on her phone! |
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| BY FAR, MY FAVORITE!! |
At the end of the call, Tom asked Chris to please share his testimony with us. At the beginning of the video, Chris is telling us that his companion's mom was crying when she talked to him that morning, which simply justified that I was allowed to cry. If you listen carefully you can hear the conversation between Chris and Danny about me crying. It's not too late to disown them.
Enjoy this 8 minute video...
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