More September Highlights

The highlight of this week was definitely our son Chris’s visit!  He came for a wedding/parent visit/friends visit/business trip, and it was great to see him!!  (Chris is 39, and we had a bit of a rude awakening this week, when Elder Opfar told us that his father is 42.  Sister Williams said, “We like to think of you missionaries as our kids, but I don’t think I want to think of you as our grandkids!”)  On Chris’ one week trip he hits Philadelphia (where he served his mission), NYC and Boston, and we caught him in the middle for a few hours.  Avery didn’t come because of a competing friend’s wedding in Seattle, and we missed seeing her!   Chris came to our apartment via bus for breakfast, and then after a little tour of the mission office, we drove over to Long Island City and caught the East River Ferry for a trip down East River to Governors Island, had lunch there, and then caught the ferry for the trip back up-river.  It was a beautiful 75 degree sunny day, and it was neat to see the New York skyline from many different angles!  This trip has been on our bucket list since we got here, and just like at home, we tend to do more things when we have visitors!  The best part, of course, was talking to Chris and see what’s going on in his life.  He and Avery just bought their first home a couple of weeks ago, so that will fill their lives (and rule their pocketbooks) for the foreseeable future.  We are excited to see it and Avery when we go to Seattle in October for Darci and Jeremy’s wedding!!  We are excited to have more family members visit us, so don’t hesitate to come!  We have lots of blow-up mattresses and bedding for visits!

Looking ahead, transfers and associated work will fill this week! New missionaries come in Monday afternoon, Tuesday everyone (new missionaries and the rest of the mission) gets their area assignments and meets their new companions, and Wednesday the departing missionaries leave for home. Then we spend the rest of the week getting all the systems and records updated with the new information.  Like we’ve said before, everything in the mission field cycles on the six-week transfer cycle, and transfer week is one of the busiest!

I still teach the 12-18 year-old YM & YW for Sunday School, and an awful lot of my spare thoughts seem to go towards finding the best ways to teach the 12 of them.  So often, what would work great for the 17/18 year olds wouldn’t work well for the 12/13 year old students, and I get a little frustrated having to water down the activities to work semi-well for both.  I have gotten to know the kids well enough that I can (with some serious work) get a pretty good discussion going with the older kids, but then the younger kids are a little left out.  I can only hope they will learn from watching and listening to the discussion!  It’s taken me 7 months to get to the beginning discussion point.  Previous teachers (and maybe some culture issues) had let them get so intellectually lazy that they just wanted (and often still do) to sit there and be talked at, so they can zone in and out.  I want to use the ‘Come, Follow Me’ discussion process to teach these wonderful young people, and it’s coming along slowly, but it is coming!  They still have a very difficult time pulling gospel principles out of stories and talks, and seeing how it applies in their lives.  Some of it is vocabulary—the general authorities and the scriptures have pretty advanced vocabularies for second language students… On the other hand, the standard desired for Come, Follow Me is very high (much like the standard in Preach My Gospel, for missionaries), and most adults in the church aren’t there fully either as students!  I love these kids, and will keep working with them until those who are willing catch the vision!  We love our mission!!