Wednesday, June 8, 2016 – Mopping, Cleaning, Tours, Police, Sisters for Dinner

Normally Sis. Johnson and I go to Nauvoo on Wednesday morning for our Mission-wide training at 7:30am, but its been postponed till tomorrow. That meant we had extra time to do our work on the grounds at Carthage this morning. Sis. Johnson used her extra time to pick up tree litter everywhere on the grounds. No small task. 

I used the extra time to fix test the sprinkler system and repair or replace broken sprinkler heads. It was not a small task, it took me most of the day. I had to replace the internal working parts of about 15 different sprinkler heads. That’s when I ran out of spare parts so I still have to repair another 6 heads that are broken. I’ll get the parts when we go in for our Mission-wide training tomorrow morning.

Working on the grounds in close proximity to the guests today was a bonus experience I don’t get to have very often. At least three times today people stopped and asked me questions before they made it into the visitor’s center. I enjoyed talking with them and of course talking our picture together. I get to find out who they are and where they’re from. This happens to Sis. Johnson all the time but I’m usually on the mower or I’m at the Bushnell House so it doesn’t happen to me very often.

Sometimes, like today when a policeman drove up to me and chatted, the person doesn’t even intend to go through the visitor’s center. I must have talked to Officer Mark Church of the Carthage Police Dept. for fifteen minutes or so and during our conversation I had the opportunity to invite him in to come in and take the tour, learn about Joseph Smith and why this place is so important to members of our faith.

 

Tonight we fed the Sister Missionaries again. Since transfers were last week we have all new YSSM’s (Young Single Sister Missionaries) here in Carthage, except Sis. Goble, she’s the only YSSM that stayed. Our dinner guests tonight were Sis Garrison from Herriman, UT. She’s been serving for 14 months. Her companion is Sis. Barahona. She is from Orem, UT, but she was raised in El Salvador and considers herself an El Salvadorian. She came on her mission about the same time as Sis. Johnson & I, she’s been serving for only 3 months.

 

As usual the Sister Missionaries left our home with a spiritual message, which was to ask the question, “What do missionaries do?” They quoted a couple of scriptures to answer the question. And of course the answer is: “Missionaries bring people to Christ.”  Then they asked Sis. Johnson and I a thought provoking question, How did your last mission change your life? Well, the flood of answers came to our minds but time constraints only allowed us to touch on the highlights.  Sis. Johnson answered first and the spirit was very strong as she told moving and poignant stories of our service in the Dominican Republic. Had time allowed we both could have talked about the answer for hours. It was a very good dinner, very good spiritual message and of course with great company.