Sunday experiences

After three weeks teaching 15-16 year olds in Sunday School, we are being released. We were just about to leave for Taylorsville Sunday morning where we were to talk about our mission to the Taylorsville Gardens 1st ward, when we got a call from the Executive Secretary, Brother Cook, in our Spanish Fork ward. He said that Bishop Voorhees would like to see us right now. As we met with him, he called Wendy to be a 1st Counselor (education) in our ward Relief Society Presidency. He had two new assignments for me: 1) to be the building scheduler and overseer for our building for 2011 (when he will be agent bishop), and 2) to do some work with scouting advancement for the young men for the ward. We went to the very start of our Sacrament Meeting, long enough to stand and be sustained, and then left for Taylorsville.

It was sweet to be back in the Taylorsville Gardens 1st ward again, and people seemed to really appreciate our coming. We got there in time to attend Loyal Flynn’s Gospel Doctrine class. This caused me to remember the inspiration involved in extending this call about 10 years ago, and to marvel that he is still in that calling, still teaching the scriptures with intensity, in the very same room.

We gave about the same talks we gave in our Spanish Fork ward, with Wendy listing the things she loved and learned about the mission experience–the young elders, their faith, their commitment and sacrifices, and love of service. She was very kind to say how grateful she was to have been invited to be a part of the Lewis family and how much she admires and loves us and especially her “Elder Honey,” which made people giggle.

I introduced my talk by recalling attending zone conference in the NC Kinston Stake House, feeling at home there and then realizing that it was built with the same architectural plan as the TG 1st building. I reminded them that this wardhouse was built on a different construction plan, one in which the ward members did much of the construction and that they labored for a considerable time in all of their spare hours to finish the building. Janet Poore had said that it was such a joy to see this building completed, because they knew that they now had a lovely and convenient facility to teach their children the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We moved into the neighborhood when the building was about 5 years old, and it was also the place for our children to be nourished in the Gospel for all of their growing-up years. As such, it was, and still remains, a Holy place for our family.

The Vietnamese group is still a part of the ward with several of the old-timers, but also with some new faces, and 40 or 50 attending. Thao Tran was still translating the sacrament meeting talks to people with head-phones and still teaching a Vietnamese language Sunday School class. I was happy to see Richard Mascarenas as a counselor to Bishop Powell, apparently now fully embracing Gospel principles and the other counselor, Mark Gull, who served so well with the Young Men when I was Bishop.