EASTER WEEK

What a wonderful way to celebrate Easter by different activities throughout the month.  We have "Why I Believe" firesides each month at the Washington DC Visitor's Center.  A guest comes and speaks about a certain topic.  This guest was Eva Timothy.  She is a gifted artist/photographer that has amazing pictures about the Savior.  She never paints his face from the front. 

She talked and gave her story about growing up in Bulgaria.  It was a very difficult life.  She came to the United States and is married with a family.  She lives on the east coast.  She has a website and is commissioned for projects for the church and others.  She found the church in her youth.  It was a great fireside reminding us of the freedoms we have and the gospel  truths in our lives.

 The Visitor's Center hosted a Messiah sing along and other concerts throughout the Easter week.  They called it Holy Week and went about inviting friends to come and participate.  We also got to attend Jenny Oaks Baker concert on "The Redeemer"  It was outstanding and many of the missionaries with "friends" were able to attend.

We got a few visitors that we met up with.  My good friend Susan Henshaw came to help with her daughter having surgery and we spent time catching up and sharing about our missionary assignments.  It was such fun!  Tammi Breighner came into town for a trip.  She was our daughter Rachelle's good friend in the state of Washington.  We got to metro in and meet her for dinner.  We're feeling pretty comfortable in riding the metro.    Our granddaughter Raylee was able to meet us at the National Mall with her school field trip for ASL.  It was so fun to meet up with her and her group.  It was very cold and windy that day.  I needed some of the Arizona sunshine.  

Earlier in the week we had our granddaughter Swayzie Hinton baptized.  We got lots of pictures to celebrate her special day.  We also just participated via zoom with our grandson Joseph Stevenson that got baptized.  We love the choices they have made and see the same choices made by new members in our branch.

We opened up our church facilities and had conference on at the building.  We spent 9 hours hosting General Conference with members and friends.  Sunday we held a brunch and then broadcast morning and afternoon sessions.  Our sessions start at 12 ,4 and 8 p.m. her in Washington DC.  How grateful we are for the inspiration and dedication of leaders in the Church and our Prophet.  We loved conference and have enjoyed spending time rereading their messages.

On Saturday last week we spent a little time going down to DC to ride the trolley.  We got to see all the sights and experience the kite festival.  There wasn't hardly a spot on the mall area where people weren't flying kites.  We didn't know this was such a popular festival.

When it rains here it stays for a while.  We headed off to district meeting and it had been pouring all morning.  As we stepped out of the car I was grabbing the umbrella and Rick went ahead.  All of a sudden he was almost knee deep in water.  It had been a little gulley that didn't look like anything but street.  He hollered at me not to come that way.  He walked into the foyer soaking went having to empty out his shoes.  He was soaked..  It was so funny that all of us inside couldn't help but break out into laughter.  It took a couple of days for those shoes to dry out.

We continue to have a steady increase in our branch.  We have had a few more baptisms.  We try to keep contact and encourage them during the week about branch activities or give rides.  Our branch members have really stepped up and started helping with rides so they can get to know the branch members.

We had apartment inspections with transfers coming.  They were awesome and had 4 best ratings and 1 better.  These guys had a broken toilet and were turning off the water every time it was used and then pulling up the chain.  It'd been like two weeks.  They just needed to find time to report it and now they are in good shape.  We inspect all elder's apartments.  The sister's wouldn't have waited.  We leave them treats after inspection encouraging them to keep up the good work.

We love being involved with district meetings where we learn about doctrine and teachings from Preach My Gospel.  It is so amazing to see these missionaries teach with power and authority.  President Holland when he came and spoke to them said, "Remember when you were set apart you have the power to teach and convert".  We have tried to have companion study in the mornings and learn a little more about Preach My Gospel.  It has some amazing suggestions for building your testimony and coming unto Christ. 

 These 3 sisters are in our district but don't serve in our branch.  Their apartment is so small it's like a hallway.  They came over one Sunday afternoon to personal study so they could each have a space on our carpet to study.  It was so fun to provide it for them.  We usually have the elders and sisters rotate coming to eat with us.  We were having transfers and some of them won't be with us.  We had our whole district come eat.  Eleven of us and we had made some wonderful memories together.  

Sisters from our district

The whole district together




We love the challenges and the blessings of our mission.  We find one day we went nonstop from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.  We got home and said, "Aren't we too old for this"?  Somehow the Lord seems to give us the strength and energy for the day.  We sure rolled into bed fast!  We have welcomed 3 new people baptized into our branch.  It's humbling to see them offer a prayer or testimony for the first time.  
#loveourmission