We feel this opportunity to serve full time in so many different ways and probably more than we ever have before, is making us become better people; more Christlike, kinder, thoughtful, more aware of other's needs and more unselfish with our time and resources. It really is all about "when you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God". (Mosiah 2:17) We don't like to draw attention to ourselves or talk much about what we're doing and what it may be "costing" us, because we feel if our actions and activities are in secret "thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly". (Matthew 6:4) The rewards come into our lives every hour of every day, and we feel richly blessed to be serving this mission. We hope that those same kinds of blessings will come into the lives of the people we meet and interact with every week.
There are three groups we are trying to serve. First and foremost, we make the focus of our efforts the members of the church. We try to be involved in as many of the ward activities as possible, to get to know the members and to meet those that don't come to church very often. Our goal is to strengthen those who are attending church, and to re-activate those who are not. We are trying to be creative and think of ways to reach out to those who are less active, demonstrate our love for them, become a friend they can trust, and invite them to return. We also serve in the community in a variety of ways. Sister Mundell's background as a recreation therapist has opened many doors for us to share a message of love and hope for many individuals suffering from addiction, mental illness and homelessness. Because we're able and willing to go anywhere we see there's a need, we have a great opportunity to extend the reach of the church on Oahu. Our goal is to share the light of Christ, be a good example of what it means to be a disciple of Christ, and to represent the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a positive way that will have long term benefits in the community. Lastly, we serve to demonstrate to the younger elders and sisters in the mission that we really care about them and their missionary purpose. We love "talking story" with the young missionaries when we see them each week at the food pantry. We serve because want them to see by our actions that we are fully committed to following Jesus Christ, just as much as they are, and we are working together towards the same goal of saving souls and gathering Israel.
The senior missionaries received training this week on how to use facebook to find people, make friends and share the gospel through their mobile devices. We were shown how to filter names and locations in order to initiate contact with new friends and neighbors in our wards and the town we live in, share a brief message about Christ and his restored gospel through a text or video, and create stories to share with our online friends. We also learned steps we need to take to avoid being put into "facebook jail" because the algorithm thinks you are a robot and not a real person. We love the unique Hawaiian term of "Talking Story" which means to sit and talk to each other, and so we intend to "talk story" several times a week by posting a story about Christ on our facebook page.
We finished up the first half of seminary for this semester, it's now spring break, and we asked the kids to do all of their makeup work during their week off. The most difficult part of what we do as seminary teachers is helping the students complete the online classes twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. We're getting very good attendance and participation during our in-person classes the other days of the week, but we're not seeing as much success when they're left on their own to do the online assignments. So we are giving the students an alternate way to get credit, simply by reading the Book of Mormon with their parents. We love our early morning seminary students, they are great kids, they try so hard, and we want to see them succeed. We are so thankful for the blessing and opportunity to teach them!
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