Senior Missionaries Come, and Senior Missionaries Go

 


This week has been a week of change. First thing on Monday, President Heckmann asked Sister Musser and I to go to take his car to the Airport to pick up a new couple, Elder and Sister Evans. They are going to be working with the Young Single Adults in Terrassa and Barcelona. They are taking the place of the Hammonds who are going home next week. After they talked to the President, and got their residency paperwork started, we drove them to Terrassa which is about a half hour away by car. There they met the Hammonds. It is interesting to see one couple arrive all nervous and full of desire to serve, and see another couple who has worked so hard and is gearing up to go home. It makes me think about where I am in this whole process and how will I be feeling when that times comes.

We have loved the Hammonds, and will dearly miss them. On Friday they came down for their last time at Institute and it was so touching to see how much the Young Single Adults love them and how they will miss them. There were lots of tears, and the kids put on a little program for them after the classes were done. They cooked and served the meal for them as well. It is amazing to see the lives that have been touched by this wonderful couple, and it makes me hope that we can have a similar impact by the time it is time for us to come home. It is the Lord's work, and it is an honor to be part of it.

Tomorrow morning early we are going to get on a plane to Mallorka (one of the islands that is part of our mission). There is going to be a Senior Missionary conference there. It will be a lot of fun, and we will get back on Wednesday. The Hammonds will then stay with us that night, and fly out early Thursday morning. 

Today in Priesthood meeting we were talking about Elder Kearon's talk from General Conference. It was a good lesson, and it was one of those times when my mind was tracking the Spanish good enough for me to feel like I could participate. One of the comments that was made during the meeting though really made me think. We were talking about the difference between Nephi and Laman. The comment was made that Nephi was motivated by his faith. Laman and Lemuel were only motivated by fear. I have always looked at the story of Nephi, Laman, and Lemuel as the contrast between the man of faith vs. the Natural man. I had never looked at it as Faith vs. Fear. It is a true principle. Nephi was edified and felt joy because of the source of his motivation was his Faith in the Savior. Laman and Lemuel felt put upon even when they were actually being obedient, and complained constantly. We can, and will, feel joy in work that Heavenly Father asks us to do when we do it out of Faith in, and love for, our Savior.

It was really cool to see our friend Leon pass the sacrament for the first time today. It's great to see the gospel work in the life of a brand new member.

Anyway, we love you all and hope that you have a great week. The pictures today are mostly from Institute on Friday. These kids are wonderful.

Click for Pics.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crazy Transfer Week!

Image
  What a wild week! There were very long days, and a ton of excitement. We received 21 new missionaries! Along with all of that we saw two of our office elders moved into other assignments. We have a brand new Assistant to the President, Elder Bernabeu, and a new technology secretary, Elder Olmsted. They were thrown right into the fire with this huge transfer. We also said goodbye to 5 missionaries who finished their missions.  Wednesday was the real crazy day for us. Not only was it transfer day, we also were saying goodbye to Brenda's sister Carla and her friend Misti. The plan was for President Heckmann to take one missionary to the airport and pick up two who arrived super early. He was then going to take them back to the office, I was going to trade cars with him so that I had a bigger car to help pick up a group of 15. However, what happened was that as President was hurrying to get to the airport someone cut him off. This caused him to swerve into the curb which blew tw...
Read more

Russell M. Nelson 1924 - 2025

Image
  It almost seems wrong to talk about the happenings here in Spain when I have lost someone who has impacted my life in a very personal way. However, this is supposed to be a blog about out missionary experience, so here goes.  This week has been pretty exciting. Gerald and Tammy were here again, and we put them to work. Monday, they came into the office to help us. We were grateful to have them finally get to meet President and Sister Heckmann, and then, of course, go with us to eat Sushi! We ended up staying kind of late getting everything ready to go to the zone conferences which is always a chore. Tuesday and Wednesday were zone conferences here in Barcelona and they graciously jumped right in to help us make them successful. They claim to have enjoyed themselves, and we are very grateful for their selfless service. On Tuesday after the Zone Conferences, we went down to the Rambla where there was a surprise parade that went on. It was really fun to watch complete with fire...
Read more

Catching Up

Image
 When thinking about this week the phrase "no good vacation goes unpunished" comes to mind. We had an amazing experience in Rome and surprise, surprise no one did our jobs for us while we were gone! How rude! Add to that the fact that Brenda's sister Carla and her friend Misti came to visit and we were busy! Monday morning we picked up Carla and Misti from the airport and dropped them off at the piso. We then went to the office to try to dig through all of the stuff that had stacked itself up in our absence. After Carla and Misti got settled, they walked to the office to see where we worked. I'm afraid that we haven't been as good of hosts as we would have liked, as they had to just hang out and wait for us to get done. At least they were able to catch cat naps on the couches while they waited. We tried to get done at a good hour so we could take them down the Rambla to get a taste of Spain, and get a bite to eat. Unfortunately, we weren't able to break away u...
Read more