17 December 2023 Week #64: We loved Zone Conference
Dear Family and Friends,
One of our highlights this week was attending the Cebu City and Cebu Central combined zone conferences. We were invited to attend with the office senior missionaries. They always attend these. We really enjoyed the instructions by zone leaders, assistants, and the mission president. It was a 3 hour morning with good instruction. In the afternoon it was a party. All the different districts performed a musical number with some dancing. It was their Christmas party. They did a gift exchange between missionaries and President and Sister Fernandez gave them all a gift. It was a good day and one we were grateful to be involved in. The topic of the conference was using the Book of Mormon in teaching. They called on me to share my testimony. It was fun to bear witness of the power of the Book of Mormon and of missionaries sharing a strong testimony of it. I shared with them the story of Elder Frischknecht, one of my companions. He was learning disabled, and had a hard time reading. However, in order to go on a mission he had to read the Book of Mormon. He did so and had a powerful testimony of it. It led to a testimony of Joseph Smith, and all the principles of the gospel. He really couldn’t teach very well the concepts in the discussions, but he always bore testimony of the truths we taught. The Spirit always attended his testimony. We split with stake missionaries every night of the week except Mondays. I would just tell the stake missionaries to read the lessons and let Elder Frischknecht bear testimony. He would and we baptized the people he taught. In my four months with him I was a part of more baptisms than the other 20 months of my mission. The reason was a young missionary with a powerful testimony. It came as a result of reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know it was true. He knew it was TRUE!
On Wednesday morning we were up early to head to the airport to pick up a new MLS couple from Veyo, Utah, just northwest of Saint George. They arrived at 5:00. All of the office missionaries had to leave at 6:30 to go to Toledo for Christmas Zone Conference there. It was our privilege to pick up Elder and Sister Webb. They have been in a FHE group with Leonard Matthews. Of course, Dad, was a counselor to President Matthews for ten years in our stake presidency. That was a fun connection to make.
The Webbs have a returned missionary grandson playing football at the University of Idaho. His brother is on a mission and will play at BYU when he returns. They have a sister swimming for BYU and another sister in high school that is on the Under 18 National Rugby team. She is currently playing in a tournament in New Zealand. They had pictures and she is a slight built beautiful girl that you would never picture as a rugby player. The father of these four kids is from Fiji.
We arrived back at the apartments at 6:00 a.m. They headed to bed for some sleep after spending two nights up on airplanes or in airports. They joined us after about 5 hours sleep for a French Toast lunch. We showed them around Cebu for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was a good time getting to know them.
We attended a temple session on Friday afternoon. We always enjoy that.
On Saturday we spent a big share of the day at the Mandaue Stake Center repacking food kits. They had a big fire on Lapu Lapu, leaving about 1,800 families homeless. We are preparing 1,800 food kits and 1,800 hygiene kits. Supplies started coming to the stake center in the morning and volunteers arrived. That evening we delivered the first 330 food kits to the Government Disaster Center on Lapu Lapu. The government truck was out of commission, so we asked for help from the 7th Forward Service Support Army Unit. We had done a project for them, so they came to help us. We have a lot of kits still to make. We didn’t get home until 8:00, missing the ward Christmas Party. I was crushed. Haha-for those who don’t know me very well. We have a lot of work to do this week to complete all the repackaging for this project.
We hosted a wonderful dinner here at our apartment today with 11 of us. Everyone brought something and it was all delicious. Great company. We are truly blessed to be among so many great senior missionaries. Welches, Heaths, Eppersons, Webbs, Sister Garner and ourselves.
It was a wonderful day at church today. It was fun for me to get to know a couple of young couples. One couple were from Tacloban, didn’t know each other growing up but were in the same stake. They were both baptized the same year as teenagers. They both served missions in neighboring missions in Luzon. They met in YSA. They then found out that the same missionary baptized both of them. He was baptized in June, the Elder was transferred, and baptized her in August.
Another young couple are visiting from Mindanao with a two month old baby. They had come to the temple and decided to wait until Monday to return. He is from Cagayan De Oro and served a mission in Cavite. She is from Cavite and was called to the Ogden Utah Mission. Just then the pandemic hit so she had to serve in the mission she lived in. He was already on his mission there. During the pandemic, all Americans returned home, including his companion and Elder Burton. I forgot the first name, but it sounded familiar and maybe from Star Valley. The Filipino missionaries stayed in the missions they were serving in, but any new missionaries just served in the missions they lived in. The MTC was closed so they couldn’t go learn a different language. There are a lot of different languages spoken here. So, the young sister ended up serving in the same mission as the young Elder. Afterwards they got together. They seem like a great young couple. She has a little brother that will be coming to the Cebu Mission on January 5th.
It was fun to get to know these two young couples. I continue to be so impressed by the strength of these young people. We are in a great war. Satan is powerful and there are a lot of casualties. Former bishops, stake presidents, etc are falling. But like Alma told his son Corianton, “but this was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldst have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted.” Corianton repented and went on to do great things with his missionary team. We need to tend to our duties in the ministry so we can be on the Lord’s side, the WINNING TEAM!!
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
Lift Where You Stand
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
Week #64 12/11-12/17
One of our highlights this week was attending the Cebu City and Cebu Central combined zone conferences. We were invited to attend with the office senior missionaries. They always attend these. We really enjoyed the instructions by zone leaders, assistants, and the mission president. It was a 3 hour morning with good instruction. In the afternoon it was a party. All the different districts performed a musical number with some dancing. It was their Christmas party. They did a gift exchange between missionaries and President and Sister Fernandez gave them all a gift. It was a good day and one we were grateful to be involved in. The topic of the conference was using the Book of Mormon in teaching. They called on me to share my testimony. It was fun to bear witness of the power of the Book of Mormon and of missionaries sharing a strong testimony of it. I shared with them the story of Elder Frischknecht, one of my companions. He was learning disabled, and had a hard time reading. However, in order to go on a mission he had to read the Book of Mormon. He did so and had a powerful testimony of it. It led to a testimony of Joseph Smith, and all the principles of the gospel. He really couldn’t teach very well the concepts in the discussions, but he always bore testimony of the truths we taught. The Spirit always attended his testimony. We split with stake missionaries every night of the week except Mondays. I would just tell the stake missionaries to read the lessons and let Elder Frischknecht bear testimony. He would and we baptized the people he taught. In my four months with him I was a part of more baptisms than the other 20 months of my mission. The reason was a young missionary with a powerful testimony. It came as a result of reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know it was true. He knew it was TRUE!
On Wednesday morning we were up early to head to the airport to pick up a new MLS couple from Veyo, Utah, just northwest of Saint George. They arrived at 5:00. All of the office missionaries had to leave at 6:30 to go to Toledo for Christmas Zone Conference there. It was our privilege to pick up Elder and Sister Webb. They have been in a FHE group with Leonard Matthews. Of course, Dad, was a counselor to President Matthews for ten years in our stake presidency. That was a fun connection to make.
The Webbs have a returned missionary grandson playing football at the University of Idaho. His brother is on a mission and will play at BYU when he returns. They have a sister swimming for BYU and another sister in high school that is on the Under 18 National Rugby team. She is currently playing in a tournament in New Zealand. They had pictures and she is a slight built beautiful girl that you would never picture as a rugby player. The father of these four kids is from Fiji.
We arrived back at the apartments at 6:00 a.m. They headed to bed for some sleep after spending two nights up on airplanes or in airports. They joined us after about 5 hours sleep for a French Toast lunch. We showed them around Cebu for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was a good time getting to know them.
We attended a temple session on Friday afternoon. We always enjoy that.
On Saturday we spent a big share of the day at the Mandaue Stake Center repacking food kits. They had a big fire on Lapu Lapu, leaving about 1,800 families homeless. We are preparing 1,800 food kits and 1,800 hygiene kits. Supplies started coming to the stake center in the morning and volunteers arrived. That evening we delivered the first 330 food kits to the Government Disaster Center on Lapu Lapu. The government truck was out of commission, so we asked for help from the 7th Forward Service Support Army Unit. We had done a project for them, so they came to help us. We have a lot of kits still to make. We didn’t get home until 8:00, missing the ward Christmas Party. I was crushed. Haha-for those who don’t know me very well. We have a lot of work to do this week to complete all the repackaging for this project.
We hosted a wonderful dinner here at our apartment today with 11 of us. Everyone brought something and it was all delicious. Great company. We are truly blessed to be among so many great senior missionaries. Welches, Heaths, Eppersons, Webbs, Sister Garner and ourselves.
It was a wonderful day at church today. It was fun for me to get to know a couple of young couples. One couple were from Tacloban, didn’t know each other growing up but were in the same stake. They were both baptized the same year as teenagers. They both served missions in neighboring missions in Luzon. They met in YSA. They then found out that the same missionary baptized both of them. He was baptized in June, the Elder was transferred, and baptized her in August.
Another young couple are visiting from Mindanao with a two month old baby. They had come to the temple and decided to wait until Monday to return. He is from Cagayan De Oro and served a mission in Cavite. She is from Cavite and was called to the Ogden Utah Mission. Just then the pandemic hit so she had to serve in the mission she lived in. He was already on his mission there. During the pandemic, all Americans returned home, including his companion and Elder Burton. I forgot the first name, but it sounded familiar and maybe from Star Valley. The Filipino missionaries stayed in the missions they were serving in, but any new missionaries just served in the missions they lived in. The MTC was closed so they couldn’t go learn a different language. There are a lot of different languages spoken here. So, the young sister ended up serving in the same mission as the young Elder. Afterwards they got together. They seem like a great young couple. She has a little brother that will be coming to the Cebu Mission on January 5th.
It was fun to get to know these two young couples. I continue to be so impressed by the strength of these young people. We are in a great war. Satan is powerful and there are a lot of casualties. Former bishops, stake presidents, etc are falling. But like Alma told his son Corianton, “but this was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldst have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted.” Corianton repented and went on to do great things with his missionary team. We need to tend to our duties in the ministry so we can be on the Lord’s side, the WINNING TEAM!!
Holy Habits
Righteous Routines
Lift Where You Stand
With love,
Dad and Mom
Grandpa and Grandma
Briant and Clyda
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