Mom was up early this morning getting ready for our Sabbath Day. She got me up about 6:00am after she was done getting ready for our day. We had our prayers and devotional and then left for our meetings in Nauvoo at 7:10am. We picked up the Skidmores at their place next door and got to the Stake Center by 7:45am. The attendance was over double what it has been as the temple missionaries for the summer, serving six month missions, have arrived. Over 90 couples from all over are serving in the Nauvoo Temple during the busy summer season that begins in May and goes through September. The temple will even be open on Mondays from 8:00am until 11:00am for morning sessions to accommodate the visitors to Nauvoo. We are hoping we will still get to attend every week under the anticipated load!
Our Sacrament Meeting was, again, wonderful. Elder and Sister Wright spoke as the next senior couple missionaries ending their mission. They are from the Inkom, Idaho, area and will be leaving Nauvoo next week. They have been in our Rendezvous cast and we have enjoyed getting to know them. A big tradition in this mission is for the departing missionaries to perform a skit at the monthly mission breakfast. The Wrights wanted to have all the missionaries from Idaho do a number with them for their farewell back home, so guess who got invited to go on stage with them....on stage again?
There was a young single sister who also spoke with them and she told us of a youth Sunday School Class that she attended when she was about 14 years old that she will never forget. That statement caught my attention since I know how much my daughters put into their lessons. She said that this class started off like every other class with conversation and small talk among 8 or 9 classmates.
The teacher brought the class to order and told them she had received an urgent message from President Thomas S. Monson, that he felt impressed to ask all youth to turn in their cell phones. The message was that the cell phones were taking away and robbing, from the precious youth, their ability to make good choices and that they were becoming a big distraction to their spiritual growth.
A young man in the class said something to the effect that if President Monson wanted them to turn in their phones, he would do it and he handed the teacher his phone. She thanked him and set the phone on the table and took out a hammer and destroyed the phone. She then asked if there were others who had cell phones to turn in..... The young sister said the person sitting next to her echoed her feelings when she whispered that she could not live without her cell phone and that she would not give hers up....
You can imagine the feelings going through the class for those several minutes! The teacher then said that it was interesting to see what things would get in the way of being obedient to a Prophet. This object lesson was very traumatic to this group of youth, but the lesson was taught and the pondering over the message of obedience stuck with this young lady for years! That leads to this question; Where do we draw the line on obedience?
We had a very quiet day at the Visitors Center, but we had some wonderful guests throughout the day. We even had a couple visiting from Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. This was significant because Amy and Josh and Cambry and Isaac and Callie and Courtney are on vacation there!
I had two groups I gave tours to who were marvelous to work with. In one family group, the young single men were visiting from Chicago and one had his mother visiting from Mexico. They were a great group and I suggested to the young men that they return for a day visit with members from their YSA ward in Chicago. I asked them to bring active and less active members of the ward along with friends who were not members, yet, on a day field trip to Carthage for a missionary experience! And I think they might do that!
The other family was relocating to Kentucky. He is in the Army Intelligence and he and his wife brought their family of 5 children under the age of 9. What a treat to work with a family like this. The 4 and 5 year old children were asking me some very deep questions about why Joseph was brought to the jail. It was a sweet experience to answer their questions and to encourage them to tell their Primary Class in Kentucky about their experience in Carthage.
Then, mom and I headed home for a quiet evening. We got to talk to some family members and enjoyed our evening together..... Thank you for checking out the blog tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment