Weeks three and four

 

We are here! After a week in Colorado helping my siblings clean out my mother's house, we left for Ohio on August 1st, 2022. We stayed in Kansas City, MO on Monday night with our nephew and his wife, Ben and Courtney Cullen. Tuesday night we arrived in Ohio at our apartment in Columbus.

We are thrilled with our apartment especially compared to what we lived in as young missionaries in Europe.  We have two  bedrooms, and two bathrooms; if you are ever in Columbus, Ohio please let us know so we can put you up.

Wednesday morning we attended our first zone conference in New Albany, Ohio. Here we are, eating lunch, with the senior couples and our mission president and his wife. President Horgesheimer is leaning up against the blackboard on the right. He is full of energy and enthusiasm and continually preaches the "doctrine of Christ" as found in the scriptures. We are so impressed with the young missionaries and these wonderful senior couples. They are full of faith, dedication, and enthusiasm to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Wednesday night we attended our first institute class taught by Spencer Knowles, the institute director. (I took a sneaky picture of half the room from the back). These students are amazing! They have such insights and knowledge that they shared that evening. 

We spent the rest of the week moving into and organizing our office and getting to know some of the students.

Our institute building is a block from the east side of The Ohio State University campus. It is an ideal location for the students here (especially for parking!).

On campus, in the student union building, our first missionary encounter was with Brutus Buckeye, the OSU mascot. The facilities on campus are quite stunning; lots of money makes for beautiful grounds and buildings (thanks to the sports programs).

We went to the 11th floor (top floor) of the library and enjoyed the nooks around the room with the panoramic views of campus and the city.

Coming from drought-ridden California, all the greenery and moisture is welcoming. We were glad to see that all the clouds in the sky were not smoke 😁.

On our way back to the institute those clouds literally burst on us as we waded back through puddles.

Speaking of bursting, The Great Ohio Columbus mission is flourishing! We just picked up part of the Detroit mission which includes the Cleveland, Ohio area - 18 new missionaries. Missionary and member activity is in high gear; especially through social media. We have a Led-to-light initiative that brings in hundreds of referrals every month. Check out our link that we have on a pass-along-card:  led-to-light . There are pictures and videos on that site that I have not seen before. Here is a picture of the pass-along card:

We have had the opportunity to hand these out to people we come in contact with as we have been running errands and getting things setup here. We met our maintenance team for the Marble Cliffs Commons (Elder Perona likes the name), James, Kyle, and Denny. We are working on them and hope to send a referral to our young missionaries. We also met the couple who have their apartment door across from ours. Actually, we opened out downstairs door as we were going to out, and they were there. They looked at us and said, "are you the new missionaries?". With that introduction it made it easy to talk with Lai and Lam.

Meeting people and talking is not a problem for us. We love people and love to talk! The missionaries assigned to the campus and institute are perfect for this responsibility. We hope to get them as many referrals as possible. 

One of our roles is to work with your sons and daughters, to look out for them, help them with their trials and being away from home. We will be visiting with them for apartment checkups (we check-up on more than the apartment). We hope to be a "parent" or "grandparent" for them to come to if needed.

Elder Perona bought some treats to put on our desk at the institute in hopes to make it more inviting for students and young adults to feel comfortable dropping in for a chat. We also have a refrigerator and freezer in our office where the missionaries can store "their" food apart from the students and young adults. With the treats and the fridge, we hope to get lots of traffic. We already have had inspiring discussions with some young adults and missionaries.

The workings of the Lord are very apparent here in this mission. We love the Him, we love the gospel of Jesus Christ, we preach the Atonement, and feel the Spirit almost all the time. Our hearts are full of love and we plan to spill it out to all we meet.