Sunday, August 27, 2017 – Sunday Talks by Mortensen’s, Priesthood Lesson by Elder Beecher, District Dinner, Elder Lowe’s Piano Concert

This morning’s sacrament meeting talks were exceptional. All three speakers had the same theme: Testimony. They were all great talks. 

Equally as impressive were the lessons given by Elder and Sister Beecher in Priesthood meeting and Relief Society respectively. Their lessons were both taken from last April’s General Conference talk by Elder Holland: “Songs, Sung and Unsung.” Both Sis. Johnson and I were asked to take a part and speak for five minutes on our experience in the Dominican Republic and how it related to the question: How we can help solve the problem of economic inequality in the world. 

I could have spoken on this subject for an hour but both Sis. Johnson and I managed to keep our comments under 8 minutes. Other class members were also asked to answer questions on mental health, racism and violence. Each one of these topics deserved a full class by itself but everyone did a great job and we managed to stay within the class time period. As I said, today’s lessons were very good.

This evening we had our monthly district meeting and dinner at our house. We had a wonderful dinner with our district members that seem like family to us now. It is so much fun to eat together, talk, relax and enjoy each other’s company, and even conduct a little District business too. Unfortunately Sis. Johnson and I only have two District meetings & dinners left before we go home November first.

After our District dinner and meeting everyone headed over to the theater in the Visitor’s Center to listen to one of our Senior missionaries give a piano concert. I had no idea that Elder Phillip Lowe was a concert pianist! He asked permission to bring out the Steinway Grand Piano.  He played a selection of pieces from the Classical & Romantic eras by Beethoven, Shopin, Bach, etc. I wish you could have heard the music pouring out of that Steinway! It was a great evening of music and entertainment that we will remember and treasure for a long time.