Sister Bassett and Joseph Olson's Sealing - Manti Temple
St. George Marathon
October 2013 MISSIONARY REUNION
It was wonderful to see all of you at our NYNYSM Missionary Reunion. There was a great turnout--bigger than we expected. Some of the members even in came in from New York . Elder Membayar, his wife, who served a mission on Temple Square , and baby daughter were here from Mongolia .
Update. We called President Calderwood for an update that we could pass along to you. He reported that the NYNYSM mission was now up to 268 missionaries—almost 100 more than we had when we left, 90 of them sisters!
In General Conference it was reported that there are now over 80,000 missionaries in the field.
Pilot Program. Our mission has also been designated for the Church’s pilot program—an updated approach to finding investigators. In a month or so, each companionship will be given an i-phone and an i-pad. They are encouraged to use Facebook and Blogs, texting, etc. to reach friends, family, etc – with gospel messages. An hour or so of each day will be dedicated to finding new people to teach using the new tools. Missionaries can teach using this new technology in any part of the world—it’s not only confined to mission boundaries. Another of the Church’s purposes is to train missionaries to use these same tools to continue finding and teaching people after they get home. They want our communications to be more meaningful and far-reaching. They want us to be more open in sharing our feelings about the gospel. You are never released from your calling as a missionary. In the future, we would also like to go on a couples mission.
President and Sister Nelson. Many asked what we were doing. We are currently teaching the Stake Missionary Preparation Class, mostly made up of high school “men” and 19-year-old young women. We love the calling. It helps us feel connected to missionary work. We also have been in and out of town a lot—mostly attending missionary sealings and visiting grandchildren. It was a “wild” weekend. Friday morning we were in Manti , Utah for Sister Bassett and Joseph Olson’s sealing. Afterwards, we drove home for our reunion in Salt Lake , and then the next morning left at 5:30 for St. George to see the marathon. We got just in time to see three of our “children”—our daughter, her husband and our daughter-in-law--cross the finish line. Earlier this year, we even made it to Brazil for Elder Cascardi’s wedding. We now have a greater understanding of the phrase, “party like a Brazilian.” The civil ceremony started at 10:00 at night (to be legal, you have to have a civil ceremony before a temple sealing), the dinner started at midnight and the band played until 4 or 5 in the morning (we left “early” and we got home at 3:00 am). Brazil is a wonderful country. San Paulo is huge. The church is very strong there.
Again, it was great seeing everybody. We’ll see you in April—same time, same place (your friends are always welcome). Remember, please keep reading the Book of Mormon. We love you.
President and Sister Nelson
