Still serving in the time of Covid: part 5

#LightTheWorld 2020/Happy New Year 2021

THE NYC MISSION CHRISTMAS VIDEO & VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS CARD

I love these end of the year videos and cards. I know we don’t quite get all the missionaries in as some leave before photos are taken or arrive just after, but this captures all who were in the mission as of Christmastime 2020. We have a lot of missionaries this year so the video goes through them quickly, but here they all are holding still 🤣

Christmas is always a wonderful time in New York City! This year a lot of things were not quite the same because of the ongoing pandemic, but there is still a festive spirit in the air and lights, beautiful trees and seasonal decorations still fill the lobbies and store fronts and Manhattan in particular feels like a magical place. We were sad that we didn’t have the Giving Machines for the #LightTheWorld campaign as that is always a highlight of the season for the missionaries to work at the machines, but we hope they will be back next year. We did have fun taking #LightTheWorld initiatives online. We started a couple of Facebook groups, one in English and one in Spanish so we could have a place to share and encourage others to do the #LightTheWorld service prompts each day and it was a big hit. Within just a few weeks we had a couple thousand people join, so we decided to keep going with the groups and see what happens. So far they continue growing and we hope they will become just one more way the missionaries can find people who are prepared and share the good new of the gospel with them. The mission Instagram account is also doing well. The missionaries we have running it are super creative and super focused on their missionary purpose and they are seeing lots of success. If you don’t follow our Instagram account yet you should go do that and tell any friends you have that live in New York to follow it too! It has really great content and will put some extra light and goodness into your day. The account is @comeuntochristnyc and here is the link: https://www.instagram.com/comeuntochristnyc/

Similar to Thanksgiving, we planned some special activities for Christmas. Below is our schedule for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was so fun to gather on Zoom and hear stories from Sister Lori Mortensen and President Norris Chappell. What a blessing to have the Mortensens and Chappells serving with us! They are the best members, examples, and Mission Presidency counselors! Sister Mortensen introduced us to her friend and former New Yorker, Jenny Richards. Jenny is a graduate of The Juilliard School and a brilliant pianist. She gave us a access to her musical offering of the most peaceful, worshipful Christmas music. We had asked the missionaries families to send letters expressing their testimonies of the Savior and also any blessings they had seen while their missionary had been serving and then we asked the missionaries to read the letters and have some time to reflect on their own testimonies and blessings they had seen while they listened. Then, Christmas morning we were joined by Elder and Sister Bennett. Elder Bennett is our Area President. We are so grateful they took time out of their Christmas Morning to share an inspiring and uplifting message with us.

A little fun out and about with our kids. Adam and Noah came back for 7 weeks and finished up their winter semesters here. There was a lot of Zoom going on between 3 kids in school and all of our missionary meetings.

TRANSFERS

ARRIVALS

DECEMBER 2020-JANUARY 2021

Elder Walton, Elder ROSKELLEY, and Elder Holdon
Elder Hopkins & Elder OLSEN
Elder TRIPLETT
Sister Dewey & Sister CASILLAS
Sister BURKE & Sister Buist
Sister Buckles
Elder Frank
Elder Locke
Sister Sadler
Sister McCurdy
Elder Anjewierden
Sister Erickson
Sister Jobe
Sister Ricks
Sister Jensen
Elder Harlow
Elder Harwood
Sister NIELSON, Sister Larsen
Elder KENNEDY, Elder JORDAN
Elder Larson, Elder FISCHBECK
Elder GARNS, Elder Pauni
Elder Cloward, Elder Steffes, Elder STEPHENSON
Sister Shaw, Sister GREEN, Sister Avondet
Sister Halverson & Sister ADHIKARI

DEPARTURES

DECEMBER 2020-JANUARY 2021

These 16 missionaries finished their mission and returned home during December and early January. We loved hearing each of them share their powerful testimonies and experiences they’ve had while serving their missions. 5 of them were reassigned to NYC after being in overseas missions and were only here since this past summer, but we feel like they’ve been here the whole time and it’s hard to imagine they weren’t always a part of our mission. We feel so blessed to have served with each of these amazing young women and young men and we are grateful for the legacy of hard work, obedience, love, and trust in God that they leave for all of us.

Sister Lines, Sister Froelich, Sister Martial

Elders BIngham, Mendenhall, Lowe, Harrell

ZONE CONFERENCE

We met with each zone over Zoom and then later met with them in person at a church building for a devotional. On the Zoom calls we did role plays where we picked a few different companionships to teach us about The Plan of Salvation in just 2 minutes! Wow they are some powerful teachers. It is amazing to me how the spirit is not restricted by us not being in the same room or anything like that. We could feel their love and the truthfulness of their message. I know the people they are teaching feel the same things. We had one companionship teach simply but powerfully using the lyrics to primary song, another one used a single verse of scripture and another used some artwork and a white board. All bore testimony and expressed how understanding God’s plan of happiness and salvation has blessed their life. We also had several missionaries read their one page personal statement we asked them to write about one of the principles of the plan of salvation. Those are my favorite! I love hearing their personal insights and experiences of coming to more deeply know their Savior and his gospel. In addition to being heartfelt and personal, some of them are just so well written. I think there are several future famous authors and poets in our midst!

SPECIAL GUESTS

We were thrilled to have President and Sister Smith and President and Sister Reynolds join us on morning devotionals. They were the mission leaders of the New York North and New York South Missions just before we arrived and those two missions were combined into the New York City Mission! We love them so much and are grateful for the amazing legacy of faith, work, obedience and love they left. We also had several former missionaries join one morning too and share some of their mission experiences. It was the best! Unfortunately I didn’t take screen shots that morning. We had the former Elders: Thompson, Carlson, Walker, Eastmond and Sisters: Schetselaar, Choi and Franks. We hope to organize a few more of those calls with NYC Mission alumni in the future. There is a great sense of connection and an instant bond we all share to this city and specifically to doing the Lord’s work in this city.

❄️ Nor’easter ❄️

After two fairly mild winters (by East Coast standards) we finally had a big storm! Even though school is mostly online now Grace still got a “snow day” and was pretty happy about that. You can hear her practicing the piano in the background of the video 😊. The missionaries had their preparation day but had to mostly stay home because the mayor said no cars could be on the roads (except for essential travel) and even the above ground trains quit running for part of the day because of the high winds and heavy snow. It is such a blessing that they can still do all their finding and teaching from their apartments if needed, but most of them got out and had some fun in the snow too 💨❄️☃️