Wishing for WIFI While Serving the Lord

BACK TO BASICS

With this blog, I'm back to basics. I'm not sure what happened on the wordpress site, but I couldn't work with their webpage. So I'm learning my way on blogspot. This blog is a work in progress. But it's an effort to reach out, nonetheless, to let you know what's going on with us.

YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT JANNALEE LOOKS LIKE

Waiting for WIFI has been a hair-raising experience. We always carry with us the thought that we’re not connected to the world; that there’s something “out there” that we’re missing; that if we had WIFI we could do our work better; that if we had WIFI at least our necks wouldn’t be bothering us for sitting on the stairs while robbing the Edwards of connection.

That’s how we’ve been feeling before today. Today we got hooked up! I’m now sitting in the living room, typing this blog, relaxed–except to wonder what happened to the content I wrote two days ago. It was supposed to be saved. I was almost finished with the blog. And now this evening I got into it to finish it off, only to discover that I have to start over. The site says there’s a draft somewhere here. But it’s nowhere to be found. With my luck, I’ll find it after completing a whole new blog. It turns out that I didn't find it. What's more I lost the new one I created late into last night. This is an attempt to see if I can work on this webpage. Well, as the Kiwis say, “No Worries.”

MOTHER’S DAY

It’s been a couple of weeks since M-Day. But I thought I’d report on our celebration here in Dunedin. JannaLee said it was the best Mother’s Day she can remember–that is as far as sacrament meetings go. The program was intensely spiritual, only to be taken to a higher high through Bea’s talk. The talks were honest about how difficult it is to feel like one is the mother that everyone is talking about. It seems that for many mothers, no matter how sincere the compliment, how desirous one is to celebrate the love and care and consideration of their mother, it makes that mother and all other mothers feel guilty: either like they know they were never like that, or that they need to start doing X, Y, and Z to measure up more.

Well thanks to you all, JannaLee felt loved all the way through the day. And what added to her day was the extra day she was able to celebrate your all being mothers, as well. Here’s a bit of what JannaLee’s Mother’s Day was like.

From me:

Then we went to Ryan and Bea’s. Ryan and Olive fixed a wonderful meal. We topped it off with presents for the mothers:

Yea! A Map

Bea was happy with our gifts to her:

I love all things "kitchen."

Earlier in the day, the Sister Missionaries left a surprise for JannaLee to find as she walked out the door to our flat:

Best kind of “heart-attack.”

We got a surprise package from Stephen and Bre. What could be better? A Magnet for the fridge.



There are other pictures of you she holds privately in her heart: pictures of loving you, pictures of gratitude for your being her daughters, pictures of holding you in her imagination and telling you how proud she is of you. Thank you for making her Mother’s Day so memorable.

MEETING FOR MISSIONARIES

We’re learning what meetings we need to attend. So far they have been enjoyable. Our District Meetings are conducted by the District Leader. The presentations and discussions are given and lead by the missionaries. We have enjoyed being a part of the missionaries’ experience. We hear about it when we have them over for dinner. But in our meetings there is a special spirit that moves us all to become candid about our challenges and open in sharing thoughts that inspire and edify.

We finally met President and Sister Hudson.

They are lovely, capable leaders. They were so accommodating to us. It’s obvious that they trust senior couples. This makes us want to live worthy of their trust.

During one Zone Training Meeting we were given the challenge of completing a scripture verse by finding clues throughout the building. 




Our District won, as you can see. That afternoon I taught my basic pattern of insight to help the missionaries study their scriptures more effectively. I was in my element.

THE WORK

We are privileged to serve the Lord in two different Wards: Dunedin 1st and 2nd. Ryan is the Bishop of the Dunedin 1st. He’s asked us to locate missing or unidentified people in the Ward. This is taking courage on JannaLee’s and my part: calling people, not knowing what their response will be, putting ourselves out there to be lambasted. So far no lambasting–just one older brother who said he told the leaders a while back that he didn’t want to be contacted anymore. When I asked him his reason, he said that the church goes totally against his conscience and what he believes. We didn’t get into the particulars.

We’re also going to be putting the Ward sacrament program together and printing it for Sundays. I’m hoping that if they give us a key, I’ll be able to go over to the church earlier in the morning, and fire up the heaters so the chapel is warm come 9 am.

Ryan has asked me to train Kelyn Witehira, the YM President. He feels overwhelmed by his calling. But we’re making strides to help him feel confident in the Lord.

In the Dunedin 2nd Ward, JannaLee and I are serving as Temple Preparation Teachers. It’s been a bit challenging learning how each teaches–especially when one of us feels to expand on some concept we hadn’t anticipated expanding in our preparation. But the Lord is teaching us how to teach together.

We gave talks in Dunedin 1st Ward last Sunday. JannaLee spoke on how her experiences have taught her to trust the Lord. I spoke on how to develop trust in the Lord. It was enjoyable to stand at the pulpit and to experience our personal prophecy of serving missions in Dunedin coming true.

WINTERING AT THE BEACH

One afternoon Bea called. She said their family was going to the beach after Ryan got home from work, would we like to go? We said yes. I assumed we were going to go to Aaromoana Beach. This is the beach we went to last August when Bea was so sick. It takes an hour one-way to get there. So I was preparing to be gone for the rest of the night. Turns out they go to a beach just south of Dunedin. It takes 10 minutes from our flat.

So they picked us up and off we went.

When we got there we realized that it was going to be cold. The wind was blowing quite strongly, and by the blue color of Fern’s lips we knew we had to take cover somewhere else.

We went back down to the playground just below the parking area of the beach. There we played for an hour or so. The wind was still blowing.

I prayed that we wouldn’t get sick like I did last August when we stayed out all afternoon because the sun was shining so brightly that it gave us the impression it should be warm. This time around we all played, talked, swung on the swings, and slide down the slide–well, not all of us.

But we enjoyed the time we had together. And no one got sick!

OTAGO DURING THE RAIN

On another day, we had decided to go to the Eco Sanctuary for a home school activity. There you can see all kinds of exotic birds, and lizards that are older than dirt. We got up. It was raining. Not just raining like Rexburg rain or Boise rain. Buckets. Drops the size of grapes. Sheets of rain blown horizontally, this way then that–sometimes around in a circle. We figured the Kiwis don’t let this kind of rain stop them, so we weren’t going to be stopped either.

JannaLee and I headed to Bea’s, windshield wipers on full. When we got there we began preparing the girls for the rain. The phone rang. It was someone from home school calling to say that the event had been cancelled. We were disappointed–but only for a short while. We decided to go the Otago Museum Discovery Center. There are all sorts of scientific displays that you can interact with: an air canon shot by hitting the bottom of it like you would a drum. There was a machine that measures how active your brain is. One person sits on one side; the other on the other. You put this band around your head then try to quiet your thoughts. The ball at the center of the table moves in the direction of the person whose thoughts are most quiet. JannaLee went up against me. I won. She said that only proves that a woman is always obliged to think–it is in her nature. Olive challenged me. I won. I guess a woman’s brain activity begins early. Either that or my senility is calming things down a bit for me.

At 11 am the workers let the butterflies out. We went into the terrarium center to watch it.

It was underwhelming. No big burst of butterflies. Only a few flying out of a large netted container as the trainer or anyone interested in helping her nudged them into flight.

The time we spent in that enclosure was enjoyable. Large butterflies the size of birds would swoop down at us then change course.

These butterflies are as big as a large hand. Inside the brown one's wings hides a vibrant blue color.

The smaller ones would let us scoop them up carefully. They were content to sit on our finger, as you can see.

LEARNING THE LORD’S MISSION FOR US

That’s all this time around. Each day JannaLee and I serve here, we’re shown our weakness that we might be humble. As we humbly appeal to the Lord to show us what he wants us to do, the mission he has in mind becomes a reality to us. We truly know through our experience here how dear all of us are to God. We are his children, and he loves us with all the feeling of a tender, caring parent. Christ is the center of his plan to get us back. The Plan of Salvation is the means by which we can overcome all obstacles that may threaten to derail us. It is also the plan through which we can experience all ordinances in order to secure our place to live with him and each other as families. These are simplistic seeming truths, things we’sve heard so many times before that they may lose their special quality for us if we’re not careful to treasure them. But when the Spirit witnesses of their truthfulness to one’s heart, they become profound and new.

This is our experience. We love you all. Thanks for your thoughts, your love, and your prayers.

Elder and Sister Ward