Aaron spoke at a fireside in Richmond Sunday night on #LighttheWorld to for the kick off to the stake’s production of Savior of the World. The stake will be performing during the month of April. Along with performances, the stake has planned several activities for families to do in their homes leading up to the Savior of the World performances. Jessie and I also went along to hear Aaron speak, enjoy the music of the fireside and for Jessie, the treats afterward. ;)
We began our December interviews on Tuesday at the mission office for Houston South, on Wednesday we traveled to the League City zone and then to the Friendswood zone on Thursday. Aaron’s focus was on the missionary’s commitment to be profitable servants with their time and resources especially with the roll out of the phones. He discussed how we can all make an offering to the Lord, but the question we can always ask ourselves is if the Lord accepts our offering. We can do so without faith and half-heartedly, or we can go give the best gift we can give, all our effort. While Aaron was interviewing, I was reviewing the new online proselyting videos with each companionship and helping them see how these phones can be utilized to their full potential and bless them in their efforts. The assistants also did some one on one training with the companionships to help them more fully understand how to use the tools we’ve been given in a good and effective way. They also created short little training videos that we posted to help missionaries come up to speed.
Jessie has been participating in the school’s choir this past semester every Monday after school and some practices on Wednesdays. The fifth graders can participate in choir the fall and the fourth graders in the spring. Their practicing culminates into a choir performance. The choir held their Christmas performance of North Pole Musical on Thursday night. Jessie had the part of a Spanish Flamenco dancer for the Nutcracker Suite section of the musical. She loved her costume and now would like a flamenco dress of her own.
Houston, we have SNOW! Hasn’t snow here since December 4th, 2009. It has been seriously freezing for three days and when we all woke up to a blanket of white outside on Friday morning. It was a true Christmas miracle. Aaron got up early and made a small snowman and sent a text of it to all the missionaries. Within minutes he started to receive pictures of their creations and we had one come in that was a good 8 feet tall. It’s snowed three times in Houston the last 17 years. So a rare thing to experience. Thus far, we have had torrential rain that caused flooding, tornados, Hurricane Harvey with more flooding and snow. Who knows what’s next, but we’re getting the full dose of the unlikeliness of weather with our mission experience.
We spoke in the Houston South Stake Conferences on Saturday night on our personal journeys of faith. It was full of others’ experiences of relying on faith in the Savior and His atonement during some difficult trials. It was inspiring to hear other speaker’s testimonies of how their faith in the Savior and His gospel sustains and allows them to move forward with optimism, love, courage and determination. It was a fabulous meeting.
No basketball games for Bode or golf tournaments for Zac this week. All is good in the Great THSM. It is a great blessing to continue learning and growing.