Another great transfer week has come and gone here in the Great THSM. We started the week with a departure dinner and FHE on Sunday with the five elders leaving. Monday morning, we met for a small breakfast, traveled to the mission office for transfers and goodbyes, took pictures at the temple, enjoyed lunch at Paul’s Pizza and dropped them off at their terminals to catch their flights home. We then welcomed the eight new missionaries within an hour dropping off our returning missionaries. It’s a whirlwind of a morning. We have a great group of missionaries. They all shared great testimonies and are excited to get to work.
Bode, spent time with the dentist and the orthodontist this week. He got a couple of fillings and still needs to get two more filled next week. The bright side is that his teeth are looking great! His straightening treatment is nearing the finish. Zac was selected to play in the JV district championship with his golf team. He did well, tied for fourth and his team came out on top as the JV District Champs! So glad he got to be apart of that. Golf has helped Zac grow in so many ways. He made new friendships, developed skills in a new sport, and made memories that will last a lifetime. I appreciate Coach Jeziak, seeing potential in Zac and having such a positive coaching style. It's been a great experience for Zac.
As always, we had a wonderful training on the Savior’s Atonement and held it on Thursday, the same day the Savior would have been in the Garden of Gethsemane some 2000+ year ago. Aaron loves teaching the fruits of the Atonement and helping them recognize how the Savior blesses them every day through His infinite sacrifice. I am grateful to share my testimony of how his infinite Atonement has blessed me personally. I also share my desire for them to know for themselves as well. Aaron emphasizes that the more we come to understand and know how the Savior’s Atonement applies in our own lives, the more we want to share it.
With it being the end of the month we also needed to squeeze in our monthly MLC. With the recent transfers, we have eight new leaders we’re bringing up to speed and so I taught on the importance of councils and what they do for us. The scriptures in Proverbs are an awesome way to help them understand that we do it for safety, to help the work progress, and to arm ourselves for battle. We spent a large majority of our time reviewing the survey results we recently received from the Church. It was a blind survey that we didn’t know about that hits on several topics that our missionaries need to focus on. Overall, the survey demonstrated our mission is doing well across most of the major categories missionaries are engaged in. One of the topics, however, that gave Aaron the greatest concern was that missionaries are not really focused on baptizing. It is hard for us to believe that this is the case as we talk about it constantly, but somehow there are those that do a lot of missionary things, but don’t seem to remember why they’re doing it. We counseled as an MLC on how we will continue to help the missionaries keep this top of mind. We’ll also spend some good time on it in our April zone conferences.
We also had a new senior couple arrive to the mission this week, the Shelley’s. They’re on their third mission and it will be great to have them; they’ve served in Kentucky and Iowa prior to Houston. She’ll be our office secretary and he’ll be our vehicle coordinator. We have a new housing coordinator that started with us, Elder Palmer. He was our vehicle coordinator when we arrived and he’s super organized. The Davis’, who currently are serving with us, will return home mid-April and will be missed. An incredibly talented couple and they’ve been awesome to work with. Our senior couples are a great example to us and we’re so glad they come to serve.
Friday night, we joined our senior missionary couples and brought Jessie with us to see Shrek the Musical. It was performed by a local theater and performing arts high school and they were amazing for how old they are. We are really excited about receiving an invitation from President M. Russell Ballard this week to attend the rededication of the Houston Temple. It will be on April 22nd and they’ll only do one session. A great blessing to be a part of it but mostly I look forward to having the temple up and going again. It is so awesome to have general conference in the mission field. We love watching every session and hang on every word.
Happy Easter! He lives and we know it!