Good Bye and Hello, Temple presentation and Lessons Shared

Sisters: Judd, Turley, Peterson, Poulter, Lewis, Anderson, & Warne. Sisters in Zion, 2023.08.16

         Another wonderful week of missionary work. I enjoyed MLT "Missionary Leadership Training" with the Sisters, discussing the strength and influence of womanhood. We enjoyed a lovely meal and talked about the impact of faithful women in the scriptures and history. Women who love God have an amazing impact on their children and the world. We are strengthened by their examples. Thursday, Bruce and I presented a temple devotional to all the missionaries in leadership. We hope we helped the young missionaries know of its importance. We talked about the construction of the temple and some errors which have been made due to not following the blueprints. This has caused added time and work in tearing down walls and redoing work. It must be done right and perfect for the Lord's House. As missionaries, we need to follow our "plan" which is in "Preach My Gospel" our "Missionary Handbook" and our scriptures. By following the "plan" we tend to make fewer mistakes and stay on the covenant path that leads us back to our Father in Heaven. Of course, if we do get "off the plan" or make errors, we have the redeeming love of our Savior, Jesus Christ to help us repent and be forgiven.

Elder and Sister Anderson teach about the temple at Thursday night's Missionary Leadership Training devotional. We are trying to increase their understanding of the importance of the temple and the covenants they've made therein. 2023.08.17

Photos from Sister Judd of MLT

        Friday, we taught a new investigator, Richwell, in our new visitor's center on-site. It's so nice to finally have a private place to teach the gospel one on one on the temple site. Persuade lives in the same area, Chitungwiza, as Richwell and has befriended him on the temple site. He's brought him to our Thursday lunch devotionals. We stayed after work on Friday to teach him. Richwell loved learning about the "Plan of Salvation" or Happiness as we like to call it. Persuade Arimoni, our newest convert on the site, also attended and bore his testimony and challenged him to baptism. We informed Persuade he could perform the baptism of his friend since he held the Aaronic Priesthood. He said, "Really?" with his eyes wide and a big Zimbabwean smile. He said he has never been happier now he's a "child of the letterday saints". We love Persuade and the joy and light he brings into our lives. We enjoyed dinner at Persuade's very first restaurant experience. We took Persuade and Richwell to Cafe Nush. He told us it was his very first time and "It was like a dream". It was so fun to see the excitement and happiness in his eyes! Our family may find we've adopted a few more sons. Persuade texted me, "Wow great...Thank you so much, yesterday I enjoy my day and I'm really happy for the first time to "ate" food in the restaurant...Thank you so much!" We were so excited to buy their meal then a nice man came up to us and had heard us talking about God and saw our missionary tags. He said, "I would like to pay for your meal." We were a little confused and asked him why he'd want to do that. He said "I see you are preaching God's word." He handed us a $50.00 bill and Bruce followed him out to the parking lot to give him a Book of Mormon. He found out he was a contractor and had actually built the apartment complex we are living in. Small world! We will pass his contact information on to the proselyting missionaries. We plan on giving Persuade the $50.00 bill to help him when he takes a week off work to attend the Johannesburg temple in September with the YSA. Wow, miracles and blessings abound!

First times: Persuade had his first taste of Pizza last week. This is his first restaurant experience and he was" sooooo happy as in a dream."

This is Kamoni, our cute 10-year-old neighbor boy. He is our new friend and neighbor, Leo's son. He comes over when he's alone to put our temple puzzle together or play "SkyJo" a card game with us. He's so cute; I've adopted him as his "Go-go" (Grandma in Shona).

    We are planning another wedding for our investigators, the Muchenjes. Lolly found Fortunate the perfect dress. I had her try it on last Thursday when she came to clean the Elder's apartment. It fit her perfectly and she twirled like she was "Cinderella". What a beautiful bride and even more beautiful family to enter the waters of baptism. We've helped them to obtain passport photos and work out the logistics of the legal marriage certificate they need to obtain before baptism. Cephas and Fortunate have 3 beautiful children and the oldest two can be baptized along with their parents. The Elders in Eastview continue to teach them the discussions after we taught them the first three lessons. They are an amazing family of faith. Sister Judd even found a donated tux for Cephas. It also fits perfectly. I took their passport photos for their marriage license. We are keeping these photos as a surprise for the bride and groom. Don't they look sharp?

Beautiful Fortuanate Vhopo, calls me "mom". She is so excited to get officially married to Cephas; but even more excited to join the waters of baptism and become a new member of Jesus Christ's church. 2023.08.16

       We had a farewell dinner for Sister LaNae Poulter from Menan, Idaho. She actually knows Tee and Dee Andrews. Tee is my parent's foster daughter; she lived with the Boud family after she joined the church back east. My Uncle Bill and Aunt Dorthy Burton were serving as mission presidents at the time. When Tee and her brother, Lou Downing, joined the church their parents disowned them and kicked them out. As young adults, they came and stayed with our family and Tee helped be a nanny to me and my many siblings for several years. My parents had 13 young children at the time under one roof. Tee died of cancer several years ago but always loved my parents. Lou went on a mission to Mexico and married a faithful LDS girl and settled in Salt Lake. Anyway, LaNae Poulter, served as mission secretary and has remarkable faith and an unwavering testimony. One day she surprised me and took her wig off in the office, showing me a bald head with sparse hair patches. She suffers from alopecia and I never would have guessed! She also shared this with our Relief Society sisters when the lesson was on not judging or being jealous of others. She left a remarkable impression on me to never judge others or have self-pity when comparing myself to others. We will never be able to walk in someone else's shoes. We will miss her! I put together another PowerPoint slide show to the music of many photos collected by Sister Judd, and videos of the team all saying goodbye. We had an Aloha night with Hawaiian haystacks. We also said, "Hello" to our newest senior sister missionary, Lori Salizar, who arrived on Thursday from Sugar House, Utah. She worked in the Family History Library in downtown Salt Lake City with Bruce's cousin, Gerrolyn Anderson. She also is a cousin to Susan Stromberg, a friend I went to High School and danced with. Always a small world with church acquaintances.

Another two beautiful convert baptisms at Highland Ward with Sister Delamark and Nicols, 2023.08.20

Sister Lori Salizar attends her first African Sabbath Day Meeting at Highlands Ward with the Andersons, 2023.08.20