Our Come Follow Me studies this summer have often emphasized missionary efforts as we have studied the missionary activities of Alma and the Sons of Mosiah. As we study, inspiration comes to us, and we learn how to better share the gospel with others. This has led us to a few special experiences as follows:
Sharing the gospel with those around us:
Early in our mission, we talked to individuals in Palmyra and found them quite friendly. Most are aware of the Hill Cumorah Pageant which had been performed here for years, but very few know much about what we believe. We tried to find Pass-Along cards to share with those we met, but could not find any available. We finally ordered some Article of Faith cards with the intent to share. To make it a little more personal, we created a small message to add to the cards, "You knew about the pageant. Now you can know what we believe!"
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| Our Article of Faith Pass-along Card, outside and inside |
Now that our cards were prepared, the hardest part is to pass them out as we feel inspired. I remember studying the words of Elder Gary Stevenson in one of our Come Follow Me lessons in early June. He said "Feelings of fear don't come from the Lord but most often from the adversary". I had met an individual at the gym the week previous who had approached me to talk about running, suggesting that I should run a 5K in the community. I had made a brief mention of my running between the Smith Farm and the Hill Cumorah and back. The next week, he was in the gym again. As I ran on the treadmill, I pondered giving him one of our cards. As I made excuses in my mind, the spirit told me that feelings of fear don't come from the Lord, but from the adversary. I finished my workout, went to the car to get a card and went to talk to this man. In the end, I ended up giving my first pass-along card. The very next day, I brought a card with me to the restaurant where we ate. While eating, Debbie noticed that one of the servers was looking at a Book of Mormon. Strengthened by the previous day's experience, I went to talk to her after we ate. The Book of Mormon had been left at the restaurant. I bore my witness of the value of the book and left her our pass-along card.
Since then we have left several of these cards with others. During our Grandchildren retreat I left one with the man who helped us find our gas tank and another with the owners of the home that we rented. Debbie has left one with her hairdresser and we left another with another server. Today we left a few with the people who helped us in a tour of a museum. We don't know if anything will happen with these cards, but we feel that we are trying to help others know what we believe, following the promptings of the Lord.
Helping our friend Peggy to feel God's Love:
When we first arrived at our branch in Penn Yan, we had fasted and prayed for missionary opportunities. On that very fast day we met William, who was attending Church for the first time. We became friends and this relationship has grown. William has never missed a Sunday since then. One day we went with the missionaries to visit William and met his girl friend, Peggy. We invited her to come to Church and she came the next Sunday. We have met her at a few other activities but she has never returned to Church, even though she has seen the missionaries quite frequently as they visit William.
Several weeks ago, we felt prompted in our study to go visit Peggy. We wanted to get to know her individually and see if we could help her feel more comfortable with the Church. That week we had been studying Alma 32 and I felt prompted to share that with her. When we arrived, we asked Peggy how she was doing and she opened up about her life challenges that had resulted in her losing faith or belief in God. She expressed a desire to start trusting God again. We shared the importance of having desire and encouraged her to plant that seed of desire in her heart. We read part of Alma 32 with her and invited her to read the remainder of the chapter. The visit was positive but just a beginning. Since then we have exchanged many text messages with other content for her to listen to or watch.
William mentioned to us that Peggy would like to go to the Sacred Grove, so we scheduled a visit last Friday. This is a one hour drive from her house to the Grove, so we knew we would have time to talk with her without distraction. The following comes from my journal:
I have been planning our interactions with Peggy this week. As I prayed and shared thoughts with God, I have struggled with specific approaches to take. I have received some specific promptings. One was to have her and Debbie sit together in the back seat while driving one hour to the Sacred Grove. I shared with Debbie my desired outcomes of having her feel understood and to have thoughts of Christ’s power and love for her before she went into the Grove.
Yesterday when we picked Peggy up, she had already watched a video that I had sent her about the First Vision. I invited her to sit in the back with Debbie to get to know each other better. As we started driving Debbie was magnificent. She shared a little of “our story” which opened the door for more communication. That followed with Peggy sharing many details of her very difficult life. As I observed and pondered from the front seat I was overcome with gratitude for my missionary companion who was able to accomplish all that we desired with Peggy. I realized that I didn’t need to know exactly what to do. I just needed to follow the prompting that I received and let Debbie be the voice and the ears in this interaction. For the last 12 minutes of the trip, we listened to the talk from Elder Matthew Holland, “The Exquisite Gift of the Son” that we had studied this week.
We decided to take the full tour at the Smith Farm, which felt natural and right when we got there. Peggy listened attentively and gained a little perspective and understanding about the Golden Plates of which she knew nothing previously. After the tour we went to the Sacred Grove. We explained the multiple paths and a general idea of how to get out on the other side. Peggy went deep into the Grove and spent almost 45 minutes alone. I returned and found her and we left the grove together. She said that she felt peace there but we didn’t press for more details.
We still do not know where this will go, but we trust the Lord and His guidance. We know that Peggy desires peace and direction and that God loves her. We trust that she will be blessed according to His timetable and higher understanding. We feel that we followed promptings as God has directed us. Debbie received clear promptings which guided her discussion with Peggy. Our ride home was very positive, not deep but friendly and spontaneous. Peggy was grateful and I believe our relationship was strengthened. We are trusting the Lord!
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| Peggy in the upstairs of the Smith Cabin, where Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith |
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| Peggy and Sister Rueckert listening to the missionary in the newer Smith Home |
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| Peggy, alone in the Sacred Grove, under her umbrella |
This past week, Peggy and William were traveling so they didn't visit our branch, even though William attended at the other location. Peggy had asked me to be her Facebook friend after our visit to the Grove, so we felt pretty good about our relationship. I suggested to Debbie that she invite Peggy to receive her daily inspirational text messages, which she did. After sending the text to Peggy, she received a sweet text of gratitude from Peggy. At the end of the text Peggy said "I also am interested in getting baptized". We were elated and called the missionaries asking them to help prepare Peggy for baptism, giving the lessons specifically to her.
William and Peggy will be getting married right after Peggy's divorce of her previous marriage is finalized, hopefully soon. Then William will be ready for baptism, we hope that Peggy will follow his example. We are elated to be part of this process with such a special lady.
We also have had many meaningful interactions with full-time missionaries, return missionaries, and prospective missionaries.
Exemplary Full-time missionaries as ordinance workers:
At the temple we see several new ordinance workers that are preparing to serve missions. I have been privileged to be involved in part of their training. These young people are inspiring! Recently we have had a few sets of brothers serving. On Tuesday nights, one ordinance worker, Brother Johnson, has two sons who are also serving. One has returned from a mission in Bakersfield California. The other will be leaving later this month to serve in Botswana. It has been great to get to know each member of this family and watch them serve together. One night the three of them were serving in the initiatory ordinances and the two patrons were also Johnsons. They found out that they had a common ancestor. That night, I was a Veil Leader and watched the three of them receive at the veil at the same time. What a wonderful example they are.
On Thursday nights, we have two more brothers serving. Their last name is Ruder. One just returned from the Berlin, Germany mission and his younger brother is preparing to go to the Resistencia, Argentina mission, later this month. I love hearing the older brother Ruder perform initiatory ordinances for some of our German ancestors, pronouncing their names much better than I am able to do. We also have a young sister missionary that will be leaving for Brazil in September, which has inspired some tender discussions between us.
I love seeing these young members serving in the temple. Their excitement to serve the Lord full-time is contagious and inspiring!
Young Sister Missionaries serving at the Church Historic Sites:
Each month are invited to a Family Home Evening with the Site missionaries, which includes as many as 28 Sister Missionaries. It is usually a missionary related movie that we attend in the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center. This past week, we watched the movie "Escape From Germany" about the evacuation of missionaries from Germany as World War II was beginning. The movies are inspiring and the enthusiasm of the young sisters is entertaining and gratifying.
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| Enjoying the movie Escape from Germany with the Site missionaries |
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| Many of the young sister missionaries sit in the first rows |
We recently talked to our granddaughter, McKenzie. She was with us in our teenage cousin retreat. The examples of these sister missionaries got her thinking about serving a mission. As she went to a FSY youth conference the following week, all of the counselors were recently returned missionaries. While singing a medley (Daughters of Zion and Armies of Helaman) at the conference, the spirit spoke to McKenzie and she is now committed to be on a mission in three years. Our prayers have been answered and young sister missionaries had an impact on what she felt.
Today, August 9, we had the privilege to assist in the temple for a special endowment session for the 28 sister missionaries that serve with the sites. These sisters are called to serve in the Palmyra Area with the historical sites for the first four months of their mission. They then finish their remaining 14 months of their missions in specific missions around the world. Several are leaving for their proselyting missions in the coming week, so they arranged this last chance together in the temple. What a joy to be around them.
Converts in the land:
We have found that a high percentage of the strength of the Church in this region are converts to the Church. We love hearing their stories and are inspired by their service. Some of these are our temple president and matron, President and Sister Pitts. Recently they shared a fireside for us about their 7 years as the leadership of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. By itself this was very informative and inspiring. They shared many miracles that occurred on a regular basis during the pageant. They also shared their personal conversion story. I want to share our recollections of what they shared.
Both were raised in the area and had attended the pageant as youth. Sister Pitts said that when she watched the pageant in 1970, she thought that it would be important to have living prophets on the earth. By 1976 they had been married and Neil Pitts begin to feel a need to be baptized , even though he had been sprinkled as a child in the Presbyterian Church. Beverly Pitts had been a Methodist. President Pitts began visiting churches looking for more truth, without success. One day he remembered his youth, when his older sister had joined the “Mormon” church, but his father had not allowed he or his brother to listen to the missionaries. He looked them up in the phone book and underlined the phone number to call. As he prepared to call, he felt restrained and didn’t call. Three days later, two sister missionaries knocked on his door and he told them, “we have been wanting to get a hold of you.” His wife had not been part of this search for a church. However, he asked her to stay for the discussion with the missionaries. About 45 minutes into the discussion, Sister Pitts began crying. Brother Pitts asked her if she was upset. She said “no, I am feeling that their message is true.” He said, in front of the missionaries, “I have felt the same thing.” The missionaries marveled at what they had tracted into. Within weeks they were baptized. Afterwards, President Pitts returned to the phone book. He had underlined a phone number for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ. Before being baptized, President Pitts called his brother and told him what they were doing. His brother told him that they had also encountered missionaries of the same Church and had decided to get baptized.
After the presentation, President Pitts said in a small conversation, if I had known all that I would be asked to do, perhaps I wouldn’t have agreed to be baptized. He has served as a mission president in Provo, Utah, an Area Seventy, President of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, and now as a temple president. We are so blessed to have served with President and Sister Pitts!
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| Sister Pitts sharing their conversion story |
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| President Pitts adding his perspective to the conversion story |
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| President Pitts shared much memorabilia and stories from the different pageants that they participated in |
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| We watched portions of a video of the last pageant with insightful commentary from the Pitts |
The temple missionaries hosted this family home evening and invited the other senior missionaries in the Palmyra Area. It was a special evening for all.
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| Many of those attending in the Visitor Center theater room |
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| Brownies and Ice Cream sundaes were enjoyed by all |
Other memories in the Palmyra Temple:
The following are a few of our recent temple experiences from my journal. We are blessed with continuous opportunities to see the blessings of the temple impact individuals, including us:
- On July 17, the day after our grandchildren went home, we served as Baptistry Coordinators for a 4+ hour shift for the Naples, Florida Stake. They scheduled 20 youth each hour from 4:00, finishing around 8:00 pm. We had worked a few of these youth conference baptistry shifts, but not near as many as the other missionaries and never as the coordinators. However, we went forward in faith. This was a wonderful stake to work with. They were very organized. Each hour we had two groups of 10 youth, each with a husband and wife leader. Only one of the 80 youth had an issue with a recommend. All the others had their recommend with them. This was a miracle all by itself. Most of them had family names. Those who didn’t could do confirmations first, which helped us serve 20 youth per hour. As we were finishing with one group, another would arrive. Thankfully, we were working with two experienced missionary couples, the Bobos and the Lamoreauxs who know the process much better than we. Debbie was able to do her responsibilities well and used the sister leaders to help organize the witnesses and give out the towels. I reminded her to take time to sit down occasionally to pace herself. Everything worked well. As we were beginning the last group, she knew that she was losing her energy but carried on with the coordinating work. At the end of the group, the sister who had been handing out towels stopped doing it and left with some of the youth. Through prayer and the hand of the Lord, Debbie was able to get up and finish the job. As soon as we were finished, Sister Lamoreaux and Sister Bobo, understanding Debbie’s loss of strength, immediately told her to change and they would finish up cleaning and closing the baptistry. They are so good to us and have made it possible for us to have many of the precious experiences that we have had.
- (July 30) "We just got home from going to a morning sealing session at the temple. I took all of our names that I had printed out and not yet completed during our time here. That included six couples and about 14 child to parent sealings. It turned out that there were only two couples for the session, each with a pile of names. The other couple was President Perry, our branch president, and his wife. With the help of two temple workers all of the work that we wanted performed was completed. Most of the couples were direct ancestors of Debbie, often with other spouses who had not previously been sealed to them. Some of the children were direct ancestors, others were siblings of direct ancestors. All of the surnames were very familiar to us. Most of the women have had their endowments performed while we have been here. The Perrys had even more couples to be sealed, but with our help, they were all completed. We had a few child to parent sealings that were siblings. For one, the Perrys were the parents and the other sister and Debbie were the daughters. The daughters' names were Moller and the parents were Moller and Stoll, the same as Debbie’s grandparents. These were not those grandparents but were from the same city, Thamsbruck, that her grandfather Stoll was from. Debbie got quite emotional as these familiar names were part of this sacred ordinance. I was especially pondering the promise to come forth in the first resurrection in “glory, immortality, and eternal life”. As we were proxy for one of our couple sealings, Debbie and I stared into each others eyes while the amazing promises of the sealing were repeated. We both got quite emotional. I am so pleased to enjoy those blessings with my sweet eternal companion! Spending this time with President and Sister Perry was also a special blessing. The sealer was Brother Wozniak, who will be one of the counselors in the new temple presidency on the first of September. What a wonderful sealing session. It doesn’t get much better than this on this earth!"
Other Activities around town:
On July 29, our P-Day, Elder Lamoreaux and I went golfing with Charles Osborne, one of the beloved temple workers at the Palmyra Temple. He is almost 91 years old (he will turn 91 on September 4) and loves golfing. He is also very dedicated to serving in the temple as a worker (twice a week) and a frequent patron every week. Elder Lamoreaux had brought his golf clubs on his mission but had not yet used them. I suggested to him that we go and invite Brother Osborne. Finally we did it. Brother Osborne took us in his car to a lovely mountain golf course and insisted on paying for our round and a hot dog lunch afterwards. Golf was fun. I actually played fairly decent after losing about 6 balls on the first 4 holes. What was most fun was to see how happy Brother Osborne was to have us golf with him. This happiness made the experience so much the better. He hopes that we can do it again before our mission is over. We may try to fit it in on August 19.
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| Elder Lamoreaux and Charles Osborne in the Golf Cart |
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| The three of us on the 9th Green |
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| The three of us overlooking the golf course |
On the 24th of July we enjoyed a visit from my brother Dan and his family. They were coming back to start a baseball tournament that their youngest, Anthony, is playing at Cooperstown, NY, home of the baseball Hall of Fame. We were working in the temple until 3:00 pm that day, which is the exact time that they arrived at the Smith Farm for a tour. After getting home, I met them at the Sacred Grove with mosquito repellant. I also enjoyed a visit with them at the Hill Cumorah, the Palmyra Temple grounds and for ice cream at our home. We are glad that we were on their radar during their family trip. It is always good to have visitors from home.
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| Dan and his family with us in our apartment |
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Dan's son, Adam, in the Sacred Grove pondering. He is almost exactly the same age as Joseph Smith when he saw his First Vision.
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| A selfie with Dan and his family in front of the Palmyra Temple |
Two days later, we had a day without an assignment in the temple, so we decided to make a visit to Corning, New York. We visited the Corning Museum of Glass, an hour and a half from our home. There we saw much about their involvement in glass products of all types, including a 200 inch diameter telescope lens that was built and installed in 1948 at the Palomar Observatory. We learned a lot about glass and watched several exhibits of forming glass vases.
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| At the Corning Museum of Glass |
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| Debbie by the first 200 in. telescope lens that was imperfect and had to be redone |
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| Looking outside of the museum with this periscope |
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| One of the demonstrations, making this glass pitcher |
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| Another demonstration, glass pitcher in the early stages |
Come Follow Me Study Group:
After one of our visits with Peggy, we stopped at the home of the Van Wormers to enjoy a Come Follow Me study group with members of our Branch. They hold this every Tuesday night. However, most Tuesday nights we are serving in the temple. This particular week, we worked in the morning and enjoyed time with these good members who have become our special friends.
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| A Come Follow Me study group with some of the stalwart members of the Penn Yan Branch |
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| One of the roadside vegetable stands that are busy this time of the year. Fresh produce! |
Birthdays with grandchildren:
Debbie still does an excellent job sending books for birthdays to our grandchildren. These are few of the birthday book photos that we received for the July birthdays:
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| Jasper turning 10 |
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| Owen turning five |
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| Grant turning six |
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