Week 10

Sep 11 -17

Sunday we attended our regular two YSA wards. We had a linger-longer at the first one and then both Cliff and I spoke in the next one. Cliff spoke on the value of true identity while I spoke on overcoming contention. Then we came back and prepared the building, the technology, and the refreshments for the Church Young Adult devotional with Elder and sister Renlund. We had "root beer floats with the Renlunds". We had missionaries and new members to drive to and from the meetings.

We were so impressed with the devotional and how it impacted us spiritually. There is so much value in knowing who we are, where our ancestors came from, how the church was gathered, and biographical stories and testimonies of those who lived through the times. It makes you wonder what people will say about us in the future. Will we be recognized as one of the valiant saints or for someone who just went along for the ride?

On Tuesday we were asked by President Horgesheimer, our mission president, to provide a workshop on how to study the gospel and the scriptures.  

Elder Perona and I put together a workshop that taught a learning pattern called CIUFA. It is a model that we use in Institute for teaching. We adjusted it to be applied for all learning, including studying the scriptures.  We used the "tell, show, do" method for the workshop. We told them what the learning pattern was and how it worked. Next, we demonstrated it for them. Then we had them do it for themselves. Here is a link to the handout materials that were supplemental to our workshop.

Zone Conf Preso resource materials

SharePoint Presentation

The zone conference was held at a farm called 22 Acre farm, in Newark, OH. This is a picture of inside the barn. It is mostly a wedding venue, but they have gorgeous sunflowers to purchase, take pictures in, etc. It is owned by members of the church. It was a wonderful facility for the conference. It is actually near some mounds that contain many archeological findings that correspond with the time when some of the peoples from The Book of Mormon timeframe, from around 600BC to about 200AD, were living here in the Americas. We hope to visit these and other "mounds" while we are here in Ohio. 

In the photo above, the missionaries are blind folded. In this part of the learning experience, they had to find their way to "the iron rod" while blind folded. It was both a fun and spiritual event. We were really blessed with good weather and with a great Spirit of the Lord.

Here is a picture of everyone at the zone conference at the end of the day. 

Here is a view from the farm just as the sun is beginning to set. I still marvel how green everything is in Ohio during the summer. 

On Saturday, p-day, we went to visit Elder Perona's first cousin Robert Perona and his wife Patty. They live up by Cleaveland, OH. We had a great reunion with them. We visited for over 6 hours. It was fun catching up and making connections and finding out the "rest of the story" on lives of certain family members. 

Elder Perona's father was one of 15 children. He had an older brother, John, pictured above, who died in 1937, at age 24 of a rare blood poisoning. Fast forward to several years ago. Elder Perona's cousin, Robert got a job in Cleaveland and his name and picture were in the newspaper. The widow of his Uncle John saw the newspaper article and recognized him immediately as family. She had lost contact with the Perona family after her husband's death, but she looked up Robert. She was in her 90's by then and Robert and Patty became great friends with "Aunt Lucy" and helped care for her until she passed away. They were able to make some wonderful memories with her.

This was another amazing week of miracles, visits with missionaries, teaching lessons, teaching investigator lessons, connections, feeling the Spirit, helping students, loving people, and knowing that we are in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. It is so comforting to be in a mission at this time of our lives.

Week 9

This week our institute director and his family went on vacation. Both Elder Perona and I had the full run of the institute and taught all the classes!  Attempting to take the place of Brother Knowles was daunting. He is such a professional, so loved by the students, and an amazing teacher. We prayed a lot that we wouldn’t scare off students while he was gone. It was a busy, busy week, but we were blessed  with many tender mercies just when we needed the help. 

The Lord blessed us to teach and to work together. Elder Perona and I have such different teaching style, but we found that when we use the learning and teaching pattern as taught in our Institute training manuals, it makes it easier to blend our styles. The Lord blessed us and we were able to deliver powerful and spiritually uplifting testimony and discussion for the classes we had this week.

My birthday was on Thursday, September 8th, so we made some extra yummy snacks for after class that night. The students loved the charcuterie tray and the two flavors of cupcakes we made to celebrate not only mine, but one of the students whose birthday was also that day. 

Here's what it looks like after a class at the institute. There is a ping pong and pool table, piano, amazing young people and food! All this adds up to a great place to gather and feel a sense of belonging. 

On Friday night, for my birthday, Elder Perona found a very nice restaurant in the town of Dublin, just a few miles north of our apartment. It has a cute main street with a lot of great restaurants. It was such a beautiful evening that we decided to eat out on the patio. There was live music and a surreal ambiance that made the night special…not to mention the delicious food.

On Saturday, September 10th, we went to the Indianapolis, Indiana temple with some of the young adults. We drove several of them in our car and enjoyed getting to know them. You learn a lot about someone when you are with them for six hours of driving (3 hours each way). Our temple here in Columbus has been closed for renovations and it is anticipated to open next spring. It is only about 5 minutes from our apartment!

Our focus is on gathering Israel (meaning those who will let God prevail). We are working to make the institute a gathering place for our youth and missionaries. We want it to be a safe place where they can gather in from the world and find respite.  This week, one of the students asked sister Perona if he could adopt her as his grandmother. That was a highly paid compliment. This is what we are trying to accomplish here; provide a place where the Spirit can help heal, make safe, and inspire our youth.

We love the gospel, we love this mission, we love this area where we serve and we love you all.

Week 8

 Aug 28 - Sep 3

Institute classes began this week! So that means food prep for us - lunch on Tuesday for the BYU Devotional class and refreshments on Tuesday and Thursday nights. We absolutely love the youth that come to the classes here at the institute! It has taken us a while to get to know all their names, but we am getting better. We have over 40 Young Adults that attend the Tuesday and Thursday night classes. Then they love to stay after to eat food and visit with each other. Elder Perona and I keep "Young Adult hours". We usually get home around 11:00 PM on Monday through Thursday nights. 

The highlight of this week was being able to hear from an apostle of the Lord, Quentin L. Cook, during Stake Conference on August 28th. In his counsel he told the saints that they can live anywhere if: 

1. You build Zion in your hearts and home. We need homes that are sanctuaries of faith. We prepare to meet God by how we live in our homes. The third hour on Sunday was given to us for that purpose. 

2. Be an example where you live. There is protection in that. When people know you are a member of the church, they don't invite you to drink, etc.

 3. Make you goals and principles those that relate to the temple.  Live worthy of that, focus on Jesus Christ, build faith in Him, stay on the covenant path, do family history work.

On our preparation day, September 3rd, we went to Kirtland, OH.  We stopped first at the John Johnson farm. This is the original home that Joseph and Emma Smith lived in for a year, from September 1831-1832. Joseph was dragged down these steps in the middle of the night and tarred and feathered. After Emma and several friends cleaned all the tar off his body, he stood on these steps the next morning, being a Sunday, and preached a sermon. Many of the men who had carried out the vile act the night before were in the crowd of onlookers. His sermon was on the topic of forgiveness.

These sister missionaries were fabulous! It was such a joy to have them take us through this home. They helped us feel the Spirit as we toured this sacred space. 

The Johnson's were a prosperous family. This is the kitchen in the home.

Joseph was able to use this upstairs room as the office for the Church. Many revelations from the Doctrine and Covenants were received here. Over 60 of the revelations found in this book of scripture were given to the Church in Ohio. 

In Kirtland we toured the temple and the Church's visitor center. The last time I was in Kirtland was the summer of 1977. The Church has since done an amazing job with the restoration of the Newell K. Whitney Store, several homes, the old hotel, which has pictures and artifacts, and something we both really enjoyed; the sawmill and ? .  These were heavily used in the building of the temple and local homes. Again, the sister missionaries did an awesome job teaching us about all these historical sights. 

The Church bought the public street which used to run in front of the Whitney store. Now you can safely walk to all these sights with no traffic zooming by. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and felt such a deep love and debt of gratitude for the early Saints. 

Inside the Newell K. Whitney Store

We loved the artwork in the visitor's center. Here is Walter Raines painting of Christ appearing in the Kirtland Temple. 

Painting of Moses, Elias and Elijah appearing in the Kirtland temple.

Another Walter Raines - The ordaining of the apostles. (I think)

The missionaries who have served in Kirtland told us we had to eat here! It was an excellent recommendation! Yummy sandwiches, salads, and Mimi's meatballs were amazing!

We were only 10 minutes from Lake Erie so we drove there right at sunset. We will definitely come back to this area and spend some time at the lake.  

Another highlight of our week was finding a young man for the missionaries to teach while we were walking on campus. We stopped to talk to  some members of another church who had a display to attract people passing by. As we talked to them, a young man came and stood behind me to listen. I turned to him and asked him if he believed in Jesus Christ and if he had ever heard about The Book of Mormon. I explained what it was and he agreed to walk with us back to the institute building where we gave him one and we had a delightful 3 hour conversation with him.  The missionaries have been teaching him and he is coming to church this Sunday!

Having an apostle of the Lord in our presence who speaks for God is truly awesome. The Spirit has been so strong with us this week as we saw and heard a living prophet of God and visited the sites of the restoration. We heard testimonies of prophets, people, places, and history that the Church is true and that this is the Lord's kingdom here on earth.

We love you all and bear testimony with the numerous testimonies that we have heard, and witnessed this week, that angels and ancient prophets visited the earth, that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, he is the prophet of the restoration and that Jesus Christ stands at the head of His church here on earth today.

Week 7

 AUG 21 -27

We found an amazing Farmer's Market at The Bridges in Dublin, Ohio. We bought a lot of heirloom tomatoes, garlic, tomatillos, and peppers to go into a salsa that 

Elder Perona made the first week of institute classes. 

When we go for our walks in the morning we "have to" touch the fence at the end of the trail! 

We kicked off the institute semester with a barbeque. We fed about 100 potential institute students. (When they sign up for a class they get a coveted parking pass since we are a block off OSU campus.) We had hamburgers, hot dogs, and all the trimmings, chips, watermelon, homemade potato salad and baked beans. For dessert we had Costco ice cream bars. 

Every six weeks we have new young missionary Elders and Sisters come to the mission fresh from the Missionary Training Center. We had 19 new missionaries come this week. The energy they bring with them is palpable. 

It's a small world in the church! This is Becky Christofferson. She is the secretary and the glue that holds the seminary and institute programs together in a lot of the eastern United States. In our conversations I have mentioned several times that I grew up in a small town in Colorado. One day she asked me the name of my hometown and when I said Manassa, we made the connection that she has not one, but two aunts from there and I'm related to one aunt through her husband and the other aunt through her niece. 

We enjoy our walks on The Ohio State University Campus. With all the rain and humidity in this area plants grow really well!

We also enjoy finding yummy places to eat! When people were protesting the fact that Columbus, Ohio was named after "The Christopher Columbus", they wanted to change the name of the city to Food Town, Ohio. That tells you a lot about the "food climate" here.  

Here sits the "heart and soul" of the institute program here in Columbus. This is Spencer Knowles and we feel so very blessed to work under his direction. He is an excellent teacher, is loved greatly by the young adults, and has built the institute program into a vibrant, energized place of belonging. 

We are finally getting to know the people, the places, our apartment, our neighborhood, where the stores are, how to get around without GPS, our responsibilities, and our missionaries. We are still working on the names but have most of them down. We have about 108 students enrolled and hope to gather more.

The semester classes start next week and we will be teaching with Brother Knowles on Tuesday nights, the Teachings and Doctrine of the Book of Mormon. The three of us will have to figure out the best way to work together. We hope that it works out okay. Our mission at the Institute is to help each other understand and rely on the teachings and atonement of Jesus Christ, qualify for the blessings of the temple, and prepare ourselves, our families, and others for eternal life with our Father in Heaven. 

We know that we are doing the work of the Lord and everyday we find reasons for why we were specially called to this mission to serve. May the Lord bless you and your families and the senior missionaries that are watching over your missionaries and your sons and daughters out in the world.