We have been busy!
With the onset of winter weather, we thought that things might slow
down, but we just keep having new and different missionary experiences!
We had a wonderful zone conference where our young
missionaries were issued smart phones and trained on how to use them for
their missionary work. Lots of
guidelines but so many opportunities for sharing the gospel!
We had 2 great institute lessons these past two weeks 1) on
the price of discipleship and 2) things lost and found: coins, sheep and
sons. We love teaching in the Savior’s
way and learn so much from these wonderful members of our branch! We have
several non-members attend and that brings a wonderful perspective to our
learning together!
We used to call the learning format “Share Learn Live and now we have
followed the new RS and Priesthood direction of “Share Learn and Act”.
We got to attend the temple and even took a family name that was suggested to us on Family Search! Yea for Family Search!
We have had many lessons with the sister missionaries over
these past weeks. They often teach in
our home and that is fun to help them teach some of the lesson and bear our
testimonies. We also provide the treats or dinner and it makes for a nice
hour. They are so obedient, one hour for
a meal and one hour for a lesson, and then they are off again to teach another
discussion. They are teaching all the time!
When schedule permits, Sister Blanchard continues to serve
at the Thursday community meals at the various churches in Coshocton throughout the
month. This past week, the second
Thursday, was at the Grade Methodist Church and they are getting to know her
there, she loves these wonderful groups of people!
When people in the community saw Sisters Hall and Humpherys
article in the Beacon, the local free newspaper, the sisters got a phone call
asking Sister Hall (BYU tennis player) to play with a group of women for a few
weeks at Kids America, our local gym while one of their team members was out of
the country. And then Sister Humpheries
(U of SF soccer player) was asked to help coach a youth league on Monday
evenings. After getting permission from
our mission president, they went to both last week, and it was great exposure
for the church, and the sisters were fabulous! Typically missionaries are not allowed to go to gyms.
A really fun thing is that Dustin Klein, one of our favorite
people that we have met here in Coshocton (and his family) who works for Hathaway
construction has invited us to watch a project he is doing. He and his team are just finishing up adding a planetarium to the
high school. Dustin has invited us up
multiple times to watch the progress while they have been doing the remodel of the high school and installation
of the planetarium equipment. He has
done a marvelous job and it has been fun to see the progress. Plus we have been able to have some great
discussions with him about his family. This past week the project was finished
and he texted us to come and see the final product, and it is incredible! We even got to see part of one of the shows,
it is totally Imax quality! They will open it up for public shows probably this
summer.
Dustin and Amanda also invited us to watch their daughters’
dance at the local high school basketball game half time performances. That has been a very fun thing and we went
two weeks, once with the sister missionaries and once with President and Becky
Jacobs, who are their aunt and uncle. We even got to meet Amanda’s mother, the
woman who runs the domestic abuse shelter and for whom we did the service
project at Christmas. She was wonderful,
and invited Sister Blanchard to go to lunch with her sometime!
That was a huge step!
We had another baptism today, an 8 year old child of the
Chad and Heather Stokey family who are from the New Philadelphia Ward, that will
now be attending our branch. And how
blessed we are to have them! A miracle happened today with little Lucas. He was very sick and we were not sure if he
would be able to be baptized, but he wanted to be baptized and we had all
prayed that he would be well enough. Last night he rallied and said that he would be
baptized, and then he woke up with a low fever, but still was determined. When they got to church today (he and his mom
came late so he could rest) he was still sick, but was given a priesthood blessing
by Elder Blanchard, who had a remarkable experience. During the blessing, he felt impressed to
bless him to be healed immediately and he did so. The photos of him show how well he felt and
what a miracle it was for him to remember on his baptismal date! It reminded us
of our son Gregg who had had a very bad allergic reaction to something and his eyes were swollen
shut the day before he was scheduled to be baptized, and because of a Priesthood
blessing, was able to be baptized as scheduled!
We had a linger longer after church and fed about 45
people! We do much less cooking than we
used to (thankfully), because President Jacobs has now done away with all
Linger Longers, except for special occasions, and this was a very special
occasion. Not only has the time we spent
cooking gone down, but so has our grocery bill!
No complaints there!
We had a miracle happen today! We have several families and
people that we are praying for and decided to have a branch presidency and
missionary fast. One of the people that
we fasted for was Susan that she can have more learning opportunities, and help
with overcoming some of her trials. Well
tonight she stopped by to pick up the plate of dinner that we made for her at
the linger longer and she told us that just today, she looked at her schedule and
one of her ladies that she gives care to was completely changed, and now she
had Sundays free! She can come to
church! She has never been able to do
that until today. And we told her that
this was because of our fast!! Now we have to pray that she will sell her car
so that she can catch up on her bills that she will have because of not having
this client.
In our branch council, President Jacobs has helped us create
a branch statement that we will add to the two standards of the stake.
So besides daily:
1-
Have meaningful prayer morning and night
2-
Read the Book of Mormon daily
We will add a third standard:
3-
Pray for, recognize and act on missionary
opportunities!
This is what our branch needs to grow, it sounds wonderful!
We love our mission, in February, we will be half finished,
and it is just flying by! We love being
able to serve as missionaries and pray that we can be and do what the Lord
wants and needs here in Coshocton!
