We have been having such trouble with our Nissan Pathfinder that we purchased right before we left for our mission in Utah.
We felt so good about our purchase; we felt strongly that we bought the right vehicle but this has been a bit of a challenge because there was a recall on this kind of transmission. But after many trips to Columbus and using a loaner car multiple times, by the time we are all finished with the repair, we should have a complete rebuilt transmission, which will be a great blessing for us on our mission.
And we believe strongly that we would not have been able to get this level of care or service had we tried to do this in Utah. Another blessing!
Plus Elder Blanchard has become very close friends with the people in the repair department and one of the service managers will even be coming to Utah to visit in the next year or so!
Our week included:
Moving a single sister with the young Elders and providing lunch for the moving crew
Several trips to Columbus for the car
Lots of study and teaching Institute on Wednesday night and Self Reliance Personal Finance on Thursday night
Feeding Elders dinner with a missionary correlation meeting
Preparing food (bread sticks, corn bread, and buying lots of donuts)
Plus creating games (pumpkin tic tac toe, pumpkin golf, donuts on a string) and decorations and treat bags for the Halloween party
Assisting with the Trunk or Treat
Attending a baptism in Cambridge with the Elders - Elder LaFleur helped find this sister who was baptized
The Air force Museum - incredible
Driving through miles and miles of exquisite fall foliage and colors on our way to visits and service projects! Ohio is beautiful!
Hosting R. and Susie for lunch
Speaking in church and hosting Elder and Sister Dabb (visiting senior missionaries who also spoke in our branch) for Sunday dinner
And a fun little addition: having an apple tasting deciding which of all the different local apples was top- that was fun!
We need to share about a wonderful woman we know.
Susie is a woman who has been visiting our branch on an off for a year and is an amazing example of faith! She has visited Relief Society and church several times, but this last September signed up for our Personal Finance Group on Thursday nights. She is not a member, but when she learned about tithing asked if she could pay so that she could receive the blessings! Talk about faith! And she has been blessed with more overtime and learning to budget better.
D & C 130: 20 & 21
20 There is a law,
irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which
all blessings are predicated—
21 And when we
obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is
predicated.
She was introduced to the church years ago but remembers nothing. Her connection now is a woman in our branch and they come together.
She also re-arranged her schedule so that she could come to Institute (we teach New Testament- which she loves) and last week was her first time attending, and she is loving it.
Also every Wednesday at one pm she and her friend come over and we have lunch and a gospel discussion to try to answer some of her amazing and fabulous questions.
We have recently invited her to have the missionary discussions and she is thinking about it, but she has already had many of the concepts, just without the formal teaching.
Last week, for example, we discussed the "two Jesuses" in the picture of the first vision, and we got to bear testimony to her of the Godhead, the first Vision and living prophets.
We can't post photos of her on the internet because of her job position, but she had a blast helping at our Halloween activity.
Our Wednesday lunch dates take about 3 hours and are so fun!
Another incredible thing about her is that when President Stratford came, he gave her a Priesthood blessing to help her with some of the pain that she has been having in her hip and knees. In the middle of the blessing, he stopped and rebuked the power of the adversary out of her life, which is something that she said that she has been battling with, not knowing how to get rid of this feeling that she has had. President Stratford didn't know anything about her, but it was a miraculous blessing for her faith and her healing.
Not a dry eye in the room!
So many blessings we get to witness and experience in the lives of our branch members and our own lives!
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We are so grateful to be missionaries serving here in Coshocton, Ohio!!
