Rick and Sherrie Mission Blog

 We had the confirmations of two new members in Church last week that was awesome.  What we didn't mention was that Elder Hinton tutors the new members on "How to give a talk in Church?"  He teaches them what to include and how to begin and end.  They send him a rough draft and then they get together and talk about it.  It's been fun for his interaction with the new converts.   Megan was the champion I'll have to summarize all that's been going on for the past few weeks.  I keep trying to finish this and something takes precedence.  We've had some great activities with our branch during Family Home Evenings and game nights.  We had fencing lessons after FHE and used pool noodles to practice.  It was hilarious and the members really got into it.  Our teacher stepped on another person's foot and tore his ACL.  He was such a good sport and finished the competition.     We found it great to be invited to our district's activities.  The "Sistrict&q

 It's taking me a while to write up this blog.  I originally thought I'd write every week.  Some weeks get filled up really fast.  I take notes on my schedule so I can review the miracles that occur around us everyday.  Tender mercies seem to jump out everywhere here in the mission field.  If it's not with us, we notice the effect that the tender mercy has on a "friend" looking to join the church, or one of our missionaries. Servers for the luncheon Zone Conference is a huge project.  It takes up 3 days out of the week.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and part of Thursday the Elders and Sisters gather together.  Our zone, Silver Springs was assigned on Wednesday.  We were asked to help with the food.  We came at 9 so we could help prep.  Part of the zone was in listening to President Clarke and the AP's and SLS's.  They celebrated Chinese New Year and had so much fun with decorating and authentic food.  We served them and then cleaned up.  We were able to join them a

Our usual day starts with Rick getting up early and then he comes and gets me to read a conference talk together. After breakfast and being ready for the day we have companion study. We take turns doing it and what we are inspired to study that day. We have Preach My Gospel that is amazing and it'll probably take our whole mission to get some of the way through it. It has some great insight to missionary work and studying and improving your own commitment to Jesus Christ and His gospel. We sometimes have meetings during the day with the district, some days we schedule to go to do a Temple session. It's a beautiful, large temple but could be busier. They are only open on Tuesday and Wednesday for the evening. Thursday through Saturday is more like our schedule back at home. It's such a beautiful spirit in the Temple. We end up going at least once a week and twice if we take a new member to do baptisms. Missionaries can only go through with the new member their fir

 It's the start of the new year.  We always watched the New York Ball drop so in Arizona we didn't really have to stay up until midnight.  Oops!  That didn't work for us this year.  We invited the young Sisters and Elders that servicer the YSA branch to breakfast this morning to have waffles with ice cream  We also had blueberries, strawberries, grapes, bacon, buttermilk syrup and orange juice.  They downed the bacon.  We talked for about 30 minutes after we finished eating and asked them what their main goal for this New Year 2024 would be.  That ended our breakfast and let them get on to the rest of their P-day.  It was lots of fun to have them over.   Shenika and Sister Meacham We have Branch FHE every Monday night at 7 p.m.  They have a Come Follow Me lesson by one of the members and then an activity.  This time it was Minute to Win It.  Most of the time we have FHE on Monday night, Institute on Wednesday and Game Night on Friday night.  We are available to give rides t

We had our tiny little tree decorated in our living room.  We got to talk to  all our children during the day and then we had a zoom with almost everyone.  We were able to volunteer to work at the Washington DC Visitor's Center Christmas Day.  We worked from 4 to 9 p.m.  We had a huge crowd visiting tonight.  We recorded over 9600 people during the day.  There were people from all over.  Jamaica asked where their nativity display was located.  They had over 81 countries and 150 nativity displays.  Jamaica was requested for next year. Christmas Day 2023 Our kids had this picture painted for Christmas and we loved the way it turned out. Our district that we meet weekly with for training. They are a great example for us.  We have opportunities for us to see how they are teaching and any help we can be for them.  They are so supportive of us "senior" missionaries.     Some of the wonderful experiences were greeting people as they came in the door of the Visitor's Center.