The End

It's been quite a while since we've posted our "weekly" updates on our mission, and there's a reason for that.  Immediately after seeing our seminary seniors graduate in mid-May, Sister Mundell returned to Utah again to help her daughter and their family - with what seemed to be critical, life-threatening issues.  She initially wanted to just leave the mission altogether and focus on the crisis with her daughter, but after talking it over, she also had a visit from Chloe's family planned for the last week of June, so she decided to fly back to Hawaii on the same day Elder Mundell would be returning from Japan to witness the baptism of his grandson.  This meant that Elder Mundell would all alone for five weeks from May 18th to June 23rd.  Without a mission companion, he declined to continue doing their usual weekly service and ministering visits to the various community organizations we've been working with for over 18 months.

As a result, his mission activities were reduced to attending both wards and supporting the young missionaries at their district councils and zone conference.  With all this free time, Dan devoted himself to temple work, scripture study, and highlighting chapters in the Book of Mormon for the elders and sisters to hand out to their friends.

Dan captured this beautiful photo of a rainbow as he was walking to the Laie Temple
The missionaries, the members of our wards, and the friends we've made in Hawaii (such as the Pantry) were all very sad to see us go back home to Florida.  The last weekend they had a pot-luck dinner in our honor and we shared our testimonies in the Waimanalo ward.  After sacrament meeting the members sang the traditional farewell hymn "Aloha Oe" and showered us with dozens of beautiful handmade leis. Each lei symbolizes their love for us, a warm fragrant embrace of flowers. 

Lots and lots of leis, lots and lots of love.

We met the missionary couple who will be replacing us, Elder and Sister Conrad from Utah, and they literallly moved in as we were moving out.  Very efficient!  We stopped in Salt Lake City on our flight to Florida so we could accompany two of our granddaughters on the next part of our journey.  These two girls will be spending part of their summer with us in Florida until early August.  We plan to visit Legoland, Busch Gardens, Fun Spot and Gator Spot as well as spend many days on the beach.

Family from Utah and Hawaii went to Japan for a grandson's baptism

We were released from full-time missionary service on Thursday, and had a very nice visit with our stake president, who asked us lots of questions about our mission experiences.  We've enjoyed this special opportunity to serve our Heavenly Father as missionaries these past 23 months.  We plan to submit an application to return to the mission field within the next 6-9 months, and do something a little different in a new location next time.  Aloha everyone! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Together

Image
It's not easy being a full-time missionary, even for retired senior couples. We're away from our family and friends, we miss our homes and familiar surroundings, and adjusting to a new routine can be stressful, especially if we start having health issues. But the greatest blessings in life come to us by doing things that we may find difficult or unpleasant, and it's the growing and stretching required to accomplish our mission that molds us into the kind of disciple of Christ our Savior wants us to be. This week we had the difficult task of helping a sister in our ward with the funeral for her husband, who passed away at the early age of 47, leaving her with three young children and one on the way. Funerals are never fun, you feel awkward and don't know what to say to comfort those left behind. This particular funeral was especially hard for us because we had met the deceased only briefly one day, and we weren't close friends with his widowed wife. But we persevered...
Read more

Aloha Hawaii !!!

Image
     We arrived at our missionary assignment to the island of Oahu Saturday night, August 12th. We so excited, so blessed to be here, and willing to serve in any capacity, consecrating our time, energy and talents in a full time effort to bless the lives of God's children.       The MTC experience the past two weeks was unforgettable. What stood out the most to us during our time there was how close the ideal of Zion can be if we are unified in our purpose to serve Heavenly Father and His children with an eye single to the glory of God. "And the Lord called his people ZION, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness, and there were no poor among them." That is an apt description of the MTC.      Our departure to Honolulu was delayed for five hours, but we used our time wisely to engage the people near us in meaningful conversations, and really listen to them. Elder Mundell is making huge p...
Read more

Grateful, Thankful, Blessed

Image
At this special time of year, we wanted to express our gratitude for all of the blessings our Heavenly Father gives us.  Elder Mundell: I am grateful for my family; parents who loved and taught me, sisters who have been there to support me, Marquita who was a rock of faith with unbelievable talents and abilities, Cathy who brings love and joy into my life, children who were easy to raise and continue to bless my life by the choices they make; for the Savior Jesus Christ; for his perfect example of love and kindness to all, and his infinite atonement for me, and for all of us; for a testimony of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in these latter days; for the prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I am thankful for each day that I am allowed to live, thankful for the opportunity to be a missionary and share my testimony with the people I meet, either by words or through my actions, and to know deep inside that I am doing what I should be doing at this time of my lif...
Read more