HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024!

 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 to the missionaries "friends" aka Investigators on those nights.  We picked up a brand new friend of the sisters Shanika.  She had no idea who we were or the sisters.  Her mom had seen an ad on Facebook and told her about it.  She was so quiet but they made her feel welcome and I think everyone had a good time.  They always have lots of treats and we played for about an hour and a half.  By the time we take our "friends" home since the missionaries can't transport them it was 9:30 p.m.  Getting late for us "Senior Missionaries".

We have some flexibility as to when we take our P-day.  We didn't have anything on Tuesday so we found the Metro and rode it to D.C.  We went to the Holocaust Museum.  It is just across from the Washington Monument.  It's a little tricky finding what train to take.  We almost went back the wrong way.  We found the Metro office in D.C and were able to get our Senior discount for the Metro.  The museum was kind of a downer.  We had previously been to Hiroshima but the Holocaust was a brutal display of how people were treated.  We felt after we got out that we would always value and cherish life even if the person is different from us.  We had not anticipated how long it would take and we went without lunch.  We stopped at IHOP on our way home.  We felt it was unusually cold and Rick (Elder Hinton) is going to wear the 32 degree leggings and shirt we brought with us.  It's been unusually nice weather except when the wind blows.  BRRR!

Holocaust museum

Metro station challenges

On Wednesday mornings we usually meet in our District Meeting.  It consists of 3 sets of sisters, 1 set of Elders who are the District leaders and us.  It usually lasts two hours with standards training,   spiritual thought, handbook training, and doctrinal teaching.  It's amazing how prepared these young missionaries are in our district.  We have one set of sisters that are spanish speaking.  The meeting got over and they wanted to go to lunch.  They took us to Olive Garden and we had a bonding time with the group.  It was at the Prince George Mall.  This is a busy mall and sometimes the missionaries will go there to proselyte.

Elder Langi - District Leader

Left to right around table:
Elder Johnson, Sister Jamison, Sister Holm, Sister 

             Robbins, Sister Vance, Elder Hinton, Sister Hinton, 

             Sister D'Eon, Sister Mecham and Elder Langi.

To finish the night off we met two members of the branch and elders to teach them how to set up their account on Family Search and find baptismal names.  Most of the members or newly baptized need rides.  We brought Jon and Andrew who was just baptized last Saturday to train them .  The branch turned out to support them last Saturday.  We had another baptism that same day which was Kivon.  Two in one day was awesome.  I provided light refreshments for it.  We had our branch members, two people interested in church, Mission President, Stake YSA President, his counselor and our Branch President.  Elder Vincent and Fleming did a wonderful job of teaching and fellowshipping them to activities and church.  #loveourmission