New York, New York City Mission

We had the honor of having Elder & Sister Bennett and Elder & Sister Johnson come and spend a couple of days with us here in New York City. They call it a mission tour, but this time rather than actually tour the different areas of our mission we brought all the missionaries to Manhattan. Half came on one day and half on the next day and we all enjoyed hearing from these wonderful leaders. It was particularly engaging and exciting to have Elder Johnson share his experiences growing up right here in Queens! Some of the sisters have been teaching in the exact neighborhood he grew up in so they thought that was pretty cool! As a teenager in NYC he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, then he moved to Hawaii and ended up playing basketball for BYU Hawaii where he first met the missionaries. He has a remarkable story of faith and devotion to the restored gospel. Of course we loved hearing from Sister Johnson and Elder and Sister Bennett too. They taught us about receiving personal revelation and how we can improve our ability to recognize and receive it. Here are a few highlights:

• Revelation comes when we ask questions, this is the pattern for the prophets too, learn to ask the right questions
• “How do I best apply what I am learning?” is a really good question to ask
• In order to receive revelation we need to be living obediently and have pure thoughts and intents
• If we don’t receive specific guidance we should act using our best judgement and act according to what we know to be right according to the truths taught in the scriptures and by prophets
• The scriptures are like our textbook–the answers are in it!
• In the process of helping others the Lord often piggy-backs direction for our own lives

Departures and Arrivals ✈️ ✈️ ✈️

We had lots of trips to the airport this past transfer. The departing missionaries left in small groups or one by one on different days throughout the transfer as several of them had to get back for school, orientation or sports teams started up. Thankfully we had some help from senior couples to make the extra airport runs, but that means we didn’t get photos with each of the departing missionaries. Just to keep things exciting the new missionaries arrived on different days too! We also threw in a few extra airport trips for our kids (Adam, Noah and Grace) who took trips back to California to see family and friends, to Texas for a job, to Iceland & Norway for a fun vacation and then back to Provo (Adam) and Atlanta (Noah) for school!

Heading Home…

It’s always tough to lose some of the best and the brightest, but we haven’t really lost them…we know where they are 😊 and they they are still doing great things. They will always be part of our NYC Mission Family!

New Missionaries

We love picking up the new missionaries! It was an extra crazy-busy day at JFK this time, especially for our missionaries arriving from Mexico City. They took over 2 hours to clear customs and the group from the Provo MTC waited so patiently for them even though they were tired from their own flight. The extra delays meant that there wasn’t actually time to do our traditional first day “dive-in-the-deep-end” activity of street contacting on Jamaica Ave. in Queens. I have never seen a group as a whole be so excited about the prospect of going out street contacting, nor more genuinely disappointed that we’d run out of time to do it! This is one big group of ready-to-get-to-work missionaries! I love it and love them!

…and here they are with their trainers…

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Transfers

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Zone Conference (August 2019)

President Teuscher talked about the principle of fasting and how it can be a spiritual tool that when used properly can bring great strength and blessings into our lives. Here are some quotes and scriptures he shared:

“We observe that in the scriptures, fasting almost always is linked with prayer. Without prayer, fasting is not complete fasting; it’s simply going hungry. If we want our fasting to be more than just going without eating, we must lift our hearts, our minds, and our voices in communion with our Heavenly Father. Fasting, coupled with mighty prayer, is powerful.”

Joseph B. Wirthlin, The Power of the Fast, Apr 2001 General Conference

Through his prophet Isaiah, the Lord promises great blessings from fasting. “Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am….The Lord shall guide thee continually…and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”

Isaiah 58: 8-11)

Elder Wirthlin promises at least ten specific blessings from fasting:

1. Fill our minds with revelation
2. Fortify us against temptation
3. Prepare us for adversity
4. Develop within us courage and confidence
5. Strengthen our character and build self-restraint and discipline
6. Lighten our hearts with joy
7. Our righteous prayers and petitions will have greater power
8. Mature us spiritually and emotionally
9. Sanctify our souls
10. Open the windows of heaven

One blessing that we want for our missionaries is for each of them to have the spiritual strength and inner commitment to use technology and social media in a healthy way. We asked them to choose one of the specific blessing listed above and pray for that blessing as they embark on a “Social Media Fast” which is really just a break from using the Facebook app on their phones for a period of time. The vast majority of them are thrilled to be doing this as Facebook tends to be a big distraction for them.

Which blessing do you want?

For my devotional, we discussed how we can “bridge the gap” between our personal spiritual development and all the other things we have to do in life. For missionaries there are a lot of “non-spiritual skills” they have to develop to be effective missionaries; things like like scheduling, planning & organizing, learning to teach more effectively, finding (talking to people on the bus, train, street etc), setting goals, and following-up just to name a few. Sometimes it feels like we have these different areas of our life and one doesn’t have a lot to do with the other, but in reality all aspects of our lives are intertwined and “all things are spiritual.”

Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created.

Doctrine & Covenants 29:34

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

We listened to an incredible story about a surgery President Nelson (Dr. Nelson) performed in 1960 on a man who had a severely damaged tricuspid valve. At the time it was considered an inoperable condition and Dr Nelson refused the surgery more than once saying it wouldn’t be right to do it since he was going to die anyhow. But the man and his family fasted and prayed and felt directed to ask again and tell him that the Lord would reveal to him what to do. This time President Nelson agreed to do it and prayed for help but went into the operating room not knowing what to do to fix the problem. As he is contemplating the situation he has the thought come to his mind “reduce the circumference of the ring” and then he sees in his mind how to do that: a diagram of sorts including where he needs to place the stitches. He performs the surgery according to the revelation he received and the man recovers. He tells the story as part of a conference talk called “Sweet Power of Prayer” linked here  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2003/04/sweet-power-of-prayer?lang=eng and more detail about the experience can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282279727_Discovering_a_surgical_first_Russell_M_Nelson_and_Tricuspid_valve_annuloplasty

Was this miracle brought about by faith or works? Spirit or skill? Obviously it was both! President Nelson had to work hard to develop the skills necessary to qualify himself to even be in a position to operate–years of schooling and study and practice. He also had to be spiritually in tune and worthy to receive the revelation God sent. We need to develop both spirit and skill to be a truly effective instrument in the Lord’s hands to bless the lives of others!

I really love this story of the surgery. Decades after Dr. Nelson performed this groundbreaking procedure I worked in a Cardiac Rehab center and it was not at all uncommon to have patients who had undergone the same surgery–now considered completely operable and fixable. The Lord could have performed a miracle and just healed this man’s heart without the need for surgery–he healed lepers and blindness and issues of blood with just his word. But instead he performed a “bread and fishes miracle” healing thousands over the years by working through a servant who was prepared both intellectually and spiritually. He truly is a God of abundance! If we work to prepare ourselves spiritually to be able to receive revelation and inspiration and also work to develop our skills and capabilities in other areas of our lives we too will be better instruments in His hands.

We talked about preparing ourselves to be those instruments and what that preparation might look like in regards to righteous technology use. I shared a fable with them called “I Can Sleep When the Wind Blows” found in this talk: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/shayne-m-bowen/i-can-sleep-when-wind-blows/ and challenged them to spend time during the Facebook fast to prepare themselves for when they start using it again. There are so many potential storms brewing online, pornography being a huge one that can do a lot of damage. With reference to the fable we challenged them to learn where the “chinks” in your walls are and fill them so the storm doesn’t do damage. Tighten up the hinges and locks. Develop such a strong sense of purpose when using social media or technology that your internal filter allows you to “sleep when the wind (or temptations) blow.”

Learning to use technology in a righteous way is not heart surgery, but if we follow the pattern President Nelson set and put in the time and effort to learn and understand all we can about the technologies of our day and we work to strengthen our faith and personal capacity to receive revelation, the Lord can instruct us. We can learn to use these technologies in the way he directs and I believe we too can save lives. I know we can at least strengthen and save a lot of heartache in personal lives as well as in relationships, marriages and families.

Now here is a look at them … preparing, learning, trying, growing and singing! 🎵🎶🎵

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