Our Farewell and Mission Update

This past Sunday,March 22nd, our Missionary Farewell was held in our ward.  It was a great meeting, the Spirit was strong and filled the building.  The attendance was also good, the chapel was filled to capacity and overflowed in 1/2 of the cultural hall.  In attendance were members of our ward and stake as well as many family members and close friends. 

My two daughters gave the opening and closing prayers, our grandchildren sang an intermediate song and Kay's daughters sang the closing song.  The remarks by those attending were very complimentary of the program. 

We had a small get together afterwards called, "A Linger Longer".  As we met with friends and family we sensed a strong feeling of love and support.  This past Sunday was a very wonderful day.  I again would like to thank all those who travelled from far distances to attend with us and show their love and support.

This morning, March 24th, we enjoyed another Skype call with President Thomas, a counselor to our Mission President.  He introduced us to Elder Stapley, who we will be replacing in Queenstown, SA. 

We received information about our new assigned area, what assignments we may be involved with, and what will be taking place our first few days in the mission.  It seems like we better get all the rest we can get before we leave, because we're going to be very busy as soon as we arrive.  The work is progressing and the church is growing very fast in South Africa. 

We are so excited for our mission to begin and look forward to this new chapter in our life.

Area of Assignment

We were asked by the Cape Town Mission office on March 13, 2015, to forward them a copy of our passports so that they could make airline reservations from Cape Town to East London, South Africa. We are going to be assigned to "Queenstown, South Africa!"  We'll arrive at the East London airport, obtain a rental car, and drive to Queenstown.

Today was a special day for us.  We started off early this morning by attending a session at the Ogden Temple.  We went an hour earlier than we have in the past.  One hour made a big difference, the session was a little smaller and the spirit seemed to be felt more than usual.  We will also be attending Saturday evening with out ward for our monthly ward temple night.  The session will be the last one we can attend before the Ogden Temple closes for cleaning.  Fortunately the Temple will re-open again after cleaning so that we may attend one more time before we leave on our mission.

The other event which was special for us was we had two young men from our ward's young men's organization came to dinner and afterwards presented one of the missionary lessons.  This is missionary month for the Young Men and Young Young Women, and on nights like tonight they go to a members home, have a dinner with the family and present a lesson out of "Preach My Gospel."   It so refreshing to have young men like Kendall and Judd, who have such strong testimonies and wonderful spirits, come to our home.

Tonight I found a video about the Book of Mormon I would like to share, which bears testimony of the power of this book.  Please follow the link and share your feelings with us.   https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2009-03-11-a-book-with-a-promise?lang=eng

May the Lord in his wisdom bless you and your families.

The Beginning

To all our family and friends, we have started this blog to help document or time serving as Senior Missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints, in the South Africa Cape Town Mission.

We will be posting to this blog as much as time will permit us to hopefully keep everyone up to date on our activities and to share our testimonies of the gospel and our work in the mission field. We hope that everyone who follows this blog will be able to catch the spirit of what we are experiencing.

As of today, we have 28 days left before we enter the Provo MTC.  We are at that point in time when we feel like we have so much left to get done prior to leaving and so little time to do it.  I guess this is the way it goes for right now.