Went to Costco and besides getting what we needed I bought the traditional poinsettia and a non-traditional live Christmas tree. It is a Norfolk pine that is about 2 feet tall and came with some gold ornaments. Mary brought some South African ornaments and the nativity ornament we bought in Santa Fe earlier this year. We still need some small lights and a few more balls but I had to take pictures and post them so everyone could see we are going to have a very, merry Christmas.

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On the 19th I wrote about Zone Conference and mentioned a program that President started here called ‘Harvesting the Field” where the missionaries offer to come in and leave a blessing on the home. It has been much more successful than just tracting but the missionaries need to be bold and bear testimony if they really want to get in and bless the home. President Anderson taught this and told the missionaries if they would prayerfully and with authority bear testimony of the blessings that the home would receive that people would invite them in.

In this week’s letter from the President he shared a number of experiences that missionaries had written to him. This is just one:

“This last week after Zone Conference, we had District Meeting the next day. We talked a lot about Harvesting with testimony. After District Meeting we went out and Harvested. We used that energy and excitement that we had just learned about and used our testimony as well. The first door that we knocked they let us in and we blessed them. After that we went to another door and they let us in as well. It was really cool. We haven’t seen success with harvesting like this in a long time. The next day we were out harvesting and the first 3 people that talked to us, we were able to bless. And yesterday we went back to one of the houses and they let us teach them and the lesson was really good. We are now teaching the others. We have seen so much success these last 3 days with harvesting. It is so cool to be able to see how open people become when you testify with the spirit.

It really is cool…we are winning!

 

The other day Cindy asked if I had started growing plants yet and I told her all I so far was a house plant that I bought at a local supermarket. But on Saturday when we were out driving around in the far country – an hour or so away – we came across some nurseries and I had to stop and get something. I ended up with a beautiful hanging basket of New Guinea Impatiens and a nice bougainvillea. So the plant life around the Piers homestead is growing. Plants here are very reasonable – about 50 – 75% of what we pay in Utah. At least they are when you get them directly from a nursery. I am sure I will add more plants as we go along.

I spend much of my time in the office helping Elder Beagley who is the fleet manager and has the joyful job of trying to keep the cars in the mission in running condition. Most accident damage repairs are done by a local firm called 2nd Generation which was one of the place we went to yesterday. They are mounting bike racks on the new cars that we recently received to replace some old ones. When the cars read about 50,000 miles they are replaced and then the old ones are sold off to members or sent back to Salt Lake to be sold. I do not think most members realize how much work is involved in just keeping a mission running from day to day. It can often feel like it is not very spiritual but the truth is that the army of Israel would not function very well with out the support troops keeping thing flowing. After just a couple of weeks in the office I have much greater respect for all those who helped us as we served in Indonesia and South Africa.

Mary and I spoke on Sunday in the Weston ward. As with the talk I gave in our ward before we started in at the MTC mine was focused on Elder Hollands talk in October conference. I really did not want to use the introduction to the ward where we will be serving for the next 17 months to be about senior missionary work so I tried to write a number of other talks that were less missionary centered. I ended up writing 3 1/2 other talks but I never felt good until I just trusted the Lord and outlined a talk about couple missionary work.

When we got on the stand and I looked over the members of the two wards…Weston and Pembroke Pines wards are meeting together while their building is being repaired…I realized that from where I sat there did not appear to be more than 4 couples who are of the age that the bishops could call to immediately go on a mission. I immediately started thinking of how I could use one of the other talks to be centered on member missionary work and not couples.

I was never nervous but as I ran through ideas, nothing really jelled so I decided I really had to trust the Lord and get up and start talking. So that is what I did and ideas and words just started flowing into my mind. I can not really remember most of what I said or what triggered me to share some of the stories but I do know that the Lord kept his end of the bargain and that at least one person and perhaps more had the opportunity to hear what they needed to hear.

The Lord does bless his missionaries.