Missionary Work Mixed With A Little Fun!

      This week, we shared our time supporting both the zone leaders and the sister missionaries, which added more time to our service clock. It made our week certainly go by much faster and gave us both greater joy. Our two young missionary companionships here in Limerick are so amazing! They work so well with their companions, always looking out for their needs first, and each has such a powerful testimony of Jesus Christ. Each of theirs hearts only desire to bring souls unto Christ! Limerick is very blessed!

     On Monday of this week, we drove ourselves and the sister missionaries to the grocery store. Elder and I did our shopping and the sisters did their shopping. Because the sisters have only been to that store once before, we had to wait a short time for them to finish. We were just happy that we could help them again. After dinner, the sisters and us gathered at our flat and we had a FHE just by ourselves. We talked about the restoration of the church, Joseph Smith and the many miracles that happened at that time. It made my heart feel so good to discuss the events that occurred in Palmyra, New York 200 years ago. The sisters loved it too, because they were able to learn more than they knew before.

     On Tuesday, the sisters and us drove down to Cork for our weekly district council training meeting. We were joined by the Cork elders and the Waterford elders. Since our district changed, Cork will be the site of all of our weekly meetings. We discussed each friend that these missionaries have and how to learn to give our ALL to Jesus Christ and His gospel. This coming week, each of us have been invited to become more like Him by choosing one of His attributes, researching more about that attribute and then reporting our findings to the others in the district. I am looking forward to that! Elder Botos, our district leader will also provide us a lunch that day after meetings. Everyone had only good things to tell us about his cooking skills. The sisters and us had a wonderful fish and chips lunch Irish style before we drove back to Limerick.

We went to Jackie Lennox's fish shop which is renown in that part of Ireland, They claim that "fish and chips" started there.

Not typically my kind of meal, but with so little time left in Ireland, I gave myself permission to indulge one more time! Fortunately, Elder M ate more than half of this

     Wednesday, once again, found us helping the sisters teach Suzann more of the gospel. We continued our discussion about the plan of salvation. Suzann got excited when we taught her about the 3 different degrees of glory. She said that it never made sense to her that other churches only give someone 2 choices...heaven or hell. She also learned more about Adam and Eve and their part of God's plan. It was amazing!! The sisters wanted to stay in the same location as our chapel to look for new friends. Elder and I had an auto repair that needed our attention, so we left to do that. Later that evening, we joined the sisters again to help teach the English class and the 3 students that came that night. It was another fun night of learning and enjoying each other's company.

With all the traveling we are asked to do for the next few weeks, checking the tires is always good!

     On Thursday, Elder and I went with one of our branch members, Sister Potts, to help her minister to 2 of her sisters. One of the sisters lives just 15 minutes away and the other sister lived one hour away. When we got to the first house where Joy lives, her husband had just gotten off of his night shift work and so we all sat down at their table and enjoyed, what was for me, a brunch. I wish I had known we were going to eat there, before I ate my own breakfast. Oh well, I ate a partial plate of food and then Sister Potts gave her and her husband a wonderful lesson on each of our potential of becoming "glorious and eternal"! 

     The funny thing that happened next was when we arrived at the second where Olive lives, she too, had a meal for us. I literally ate 3 meals in 3 hours. That was crazy, but crazy good. I had one meal of oatmeal, one meal of lasagna and the last meal of homemade vegetable soup with assorted meats and breads. Later that night, I had a little snack before I went to bed. Olive loved Sister Potts lesson too. My closing remarks of this blog will include Sister Pott's lesson. I hope that I can type it for you as well as she was able to teach it!

So this is why we check our tires often. You can plainly see that this road only has the ability for one car to be driving on it. Should another car in the opposite direction appear, both cars have to drive up onto their edge of the road (burm) and SLOWLY pass each other. This is one of the scary situations in Ireland that I will never miss when I return home!

Sister Potts and I

We passed by this castle on our hour long drive on Thursday. Do you know how many castles are in Ireland? Ready???? Over 3,000! 1,400 lie in ruin acrosst the island. 

Now if this is not the sweetest picture, I don't know what is!!! On our way back to our flat Thursday, we drove by the old Irish phone booth. It was so cute and it just screamed to me to stop and take a picture of hubby. Well, he kindly turned around, took his place in front of the booth and then struck this pose! Amazing!!!

     On Friday of this past week, we invited the zone leaders over for lunch. I have been very faithful to feed the elders once a month. It certainly was a blessing to have fed both the sisters and the elders within the last 10 days. That never happens in Utah. In our ward, we are lucky to even be able to put your name on the sign-up sheet before all the slots are filled! After lunch, the elders gave us a beautiful gospel message. We ended our evening attending the branch missionary correlation meeting and then hurried home to join an all mission zoom for Come Follow Me. Here is a picture of Elder M and myself with both sets of missionaries.

Sisters always come first...

And then the elders!

This is a picture of us participating in the weekly missionary correlation meeting. We also had 2 members on a zoom with us that night. We had a great discussion and discussed many ideas for branch unity and bringing others to Christ.

     Saturday was a fun day for us. Limerick yearly puts on an event called the Shannon Riverfest. It is 3 days of entertainment for all. On Saturday, Elder and I walked across the river from us for a BBQ. After that, we walked over to an Irish car show. For all of you that know Elder M, he LOVES old cars. This car show will be his one and only chance to see European old cars, so while he went to the car show, I went to saw the water show in the river. Here are lots of pictures of that day.

This was the largest celebration that we saw while here. It made me think that maybe this event is their big summer kickoff!

They had lots of amazement park rides. This was the tallest Ferris wheel

You could pay extra and take a kayaking tour of the city via the river

This is a large crowd enjoying music and dinner on the waterfront

These are sisters posing for me in the largest lounging chair I have ever seen

The young kids were going nuts over the face painting artists there. The artists were incredibly good!

This man is doing the free fall tower that landed him on a large safety stunt bag

Fireworks at night over the river!

This poor Irish man got the task of slaving over Elder M's BBQ meal!

It looks like that poor Irish man did ok because Elder is smiling!

Here are several of Elder's favorite cars in the car show. This is a Lamborghini

This is a custom Jaguar. This is the type of car he dreams of!

This is a very rare Mercedes which is the companies open-wing edition. You literally have to climb into and out of this car. Elder said, "Nice car, but poor design!" It is worth over one million dollars today

This is a 1914 Renault

No car show in Europe should ever be without at least one Ferrari!

This car from the 1930's is a Bugatti. Elder really liked this one up close and personal

Now it's my turn with the water show. Here we go!

This is a man skiing off the back of a jet ski. When the jet ski went fast enough, the skier would do some amazing aerials!

Now I thought that this was so cool! This also is a jet ski that looks like a miniature race car. It held 2 passages and really had a lot of speed behind it. I loved it!

The best part of the water show for me, and I'm sure for most people was when the water fly boards came out. I saw these fly once before in Arizona with my son Richard, but this time they had some incredible professionals!

There were 3 professionals fly boarding for the crowd, and they really put on a huge show for us.

It was amazing to me of how many angles they could direct they flight path. If you have never seen these professionals do their thing, they do most of it at top speed. The hose that you can clearly see attached to him and also jet ski that uplifts the water and gives him the power to do his stunts

Not only are the professional close together, but they each have a girl in their arms and they are dancing with them. Wow!!!

This fly boarder is holding a green flare. Minutes before, he was holding an orange flare...you know, for the colors of the Irish flag

This fly boarder is like 30-40 feet in the air holding the Riverfest flag. All the crowd starting cheering!

Doing a synchronized move together

Literally moving sideways!

He literally was right over my head! I could not believe it!

A close-up of dancing done while on a fly board

Ready for more! I am!! Wait til you see what else my camera captured! It is totally amazing!

Wow, look at that form. He must have the strongest thigh muscles ever

Then he moved right into this...totally sideways!

Here is a great picture to show you how high they could get!

Now I have saved my very best photos of this event for the last. GET READY!!

Amazing trick, amazing photo!

Okay! I can't top this fly board picture ever again. Talk about perfect timing, right? Super, duper incredible!!

     Then, finally on Sunday, our branch did their last munch and mingle with Sister Muirhead's encouragement and help. It has been so wonderful to see how these munch and mingles for the past year has done so much good for, not only branch unity, but for deepening friendships and showing greater love one to another. I hope that they will continue to make this a vital part of the branch mission goal!

The munch and mingle here is so wonderful because of all the diversity of the branch members and the cultural food that they bring

          As I close this evening, I'd like to try to teach the lesson that Sister Potts taught the 2 sisters we visited earlier this week. Sister Potts took her lesson for the LDS resource manual containing emotional resilience, then under the title of "God's Greatest Creations".  She read part of the Hans Christian Anderson story of the "Ugly Ducking". If you will remember, that duckling was born very large and very ugly. All the other ducklings always picked on him. At one point, feeling entirely overwhelmed, this ugly ducking decided to fly away. He would later see the most majestic creatures he had ever seen fly overhead and decided to fly to try and catch up with them. When he landed nearby where those beautiful creatures were, he looked into the water's reflection and could not believe what he was looking at. He realized at that very moment of who he was! I have always loved that story. I feel that we all have a little ugly ducking inside us at certain times.

     Then Sister Potts read that we all, both sons and daughters, come from the "greatest, most glorious being in the universe". He loves each of us infinitely and wants only the best for each of us. And then this lesson reads, "THIS KNOWLEDGE CHANGES EVERYTHING!" How true that is!! It can change our present circumstances and our future. It literally can change the world, if we choose to accept it and trust in God! "If we only understood who we are and what is in store for us", then "our hearts would overflow with such gratitude and happiness". "You are no ordinary beings. You are glorious and eternal." 

     How often do we remember that...that we ARE glorious and eternal. President Kimball stated that "the whole intent of the gospel plan is to provide an opportunity for each of you to reach your fullest potential".  Hugh Nibley wrote once about a truth that he read while reading a non-canonized statement by Jesus. It read, "If you could see your real image which came into being before you, then you would be willing to endure anything!" And then I'd like to also quote one of my favorite LDS quotes. This one comes from President Benson. He said, " Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives that they can. He can deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls and pour out peace. 

     May we never forget who we really are and where we really came from, is my hope and prayer for us all , now and through our endurance to the end!

 

      

 

 

     

     

     

Ready For Some Fantastic News???

      Are you ready for some fantastic news?? I sure am! It sounds like this might be the huge missionary blessing that could help Limerick advance to the next phase of ward, then stake. So, what am I talking about? Well, let me tell you! Limerick, this transfer, officially got 2 new young missionaries to double the missionary effort here. And even more fantastic, they are sister missionaries!! And, Elder M and I could not be happier. These 2 young sister missionaries will be such a blessing to not only double the missionary efforts, but while our zone leaders are away on church business, the sisters can take over their teaching appointments, so there will not be any pauses in the work here any more. That is truly an answer to prayers.

These aren't really the new sisters, but I think that they still look pretty cute!

Now that's better! May I introduce to you Sister Carrus from Italy and Sister Bakkland from Norway. 

     They are both loving, caring, wonderful missionaries who each has a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and desire, more than anything, to bring others unto Christ! It has been such a pleasure for Elder M and I to greet them this week and to spend time serving with them. They are going to be amazing. Here's a cool fact about the Scotland/Ireland Mission today, out of the only 3 young missionaries here from Italy, all 3 are serving right here in Limerick! That's pretty amazing too! Bring on the pasta!!!

     For a report of this past week, let's start off with Monday, April 17th. Knowing that we would be getting these new sisters, Elder and I took the time to clean our flat a little better than we usually do. Essentially, we wanted to treat these new sisters like they were queens! Sister Carrus has only been in Ireland for 6 weeks, so we wanted to show her how it is done. We picked them up that evening from the train station, dropped off their luggage, brought them to our flat and fed them dinner and then took them grocery shopping. We literally were with them for almost 4 hours that night. It was so great!

     Little did I know that when our weekly YSA FHE and the Book of Mormon class ended last week, that we would immediately be used to help service the missionaries at a higher level. I remember waking up Monday morning and having that realization dawn on me! It was an eye opening experience that brought my heart so much joy. It is so wonderful to feel so needed and so loved. Talking about love, when I reminded Elder Giugliarelli of how short our time in Ireland is left, he said, "No! No, Sister! Don't say that! Please!!" Then, he wiped a tear away. Boy, did that touch the very core of my heart strings! It is so wonderful to be loved and appreciated!

     On Tuesday morning, the new sisters and I walked a few of the streets of Limerick. I wanted to show them where good places were to meet new friends and show them where several stores were. We actually ended up walking quite a ways, seeing more of Limerick than what I had planned, but they wanted to see more, so I accommodated them. As we crossed onto a pathway by the River Shannon, we saw a dog carrying a very huge stick. The dog looked very happy and so did his owner. I couldn't figure out where the dog would even be able to find a stick here that big. We have trees here, but 2 weeks ago, they were all pruned by the city. Lucky dog! While walking back to my flat after, I found 2 graffiti artist professionally painting the outside of a local educational facility, Here's a picture of one of them working. 

Now that's a mouthful! 

I would consider this a pretty fun occupation! I was amazed because he was only using can pray paint

     By the afternoon, Elder M and I, along with the young sisters, met the zone leaders at the church to do a planning session. It was wonderful to hear their discussion about many of the elders friends and how the sisters could help teach them. These sisters said "yes" to every request. I loved it. By that evening, the sisters and us zoomed with our branch presidency and other auxiliary members to report and plan events to allow the branch grow more in love and unity. 

     Wednesday, we helped the sisters to meet with and teach a lesson with our friend, Susann. It was so awesome to watch the expressions on these young sisters faces as their hearts became knitted with Susann. That was such a blessing for me. I was very touched! At the end of the lesson, the sisters asked Susann if she would like to come to church on Sunday and she said yes. Before these sisters asked her to come to church, anytime the elders would ask her, she said that she wasn't sure. This week, with an invitation from the sisters, she immediately said yes.  Remember, I said a few paragraphs ago that I knew something good was going to happen in Limerick because of these sisters! Let's go!! Later that evening, the sisters taught the English Connect class, as the zone leaders where up in Dublin on assignment. Once again, I saw 2 amazing missionaries do their magic in the way they taught and in the way they loved.

     On Thursday, the sisters asked if they could come over to our flat to give us a doctrinal message. They stated that they had walked around the city a little bit and talked to some of the people they ran into, but was not able to make any teaching appointments. So, in knowing that, Elder M and I were very happy to have them come over and teach us that day. We don't want them to get rusty now, do we??? After reading 3 Nephi 11:1-17, Sister Carrus gave us a tender teaching moment of how she imaged those Nephite saints must have felt to have really seen Him, felt His wounds and knew of assurity, one by one, that it was He whom the ancients had prophesied of.  She certainly has a very sweet spirit. 

     After she concluded, we watched one of the new Book of Mormon videos that highlights Christ's appearance to the Nephites. We specifically watched when the angels came down from heaven and blessed the little ones. Never seeing that video before, sweet Sister Carrus had tears just running down her face. It, again, testified to me of their love for the Savior. Once again I found myself being so blessed for the experience. As we walked the sisters back to their flat, the sky on the other side of the River Shannon filled with black smoke. We had never seen any fires while here and really didn't even hear any fire trucks. Within 10 minutes or so, the smoke began to clear. We never found out where the fire was or any other information about it. Elder M even asked several Limerick citizens and they didn't even have a clue that there even was a recent fire. Very interesting.

The mystery fire

     On Friday morning, the whole district met over a zoom meeting. Instead of Elder M and I being in the Limerick district, as we have been since we got here, we are now in the Cork district. The meeting this morning was so good, as we not only got to be re-introduced to one another and find out a few more facts about each other. that we didn't know before. We even got to zoom with one of the senior couples here, the Adcock's, who will be going home on Monday (April 24). This is the first couple that we met in the Provo MTC on the first day of this mission and we have been great friends ever since. It truly was a privilege to serve with them in the same area of Ireland. They will be greatly missed! Our main training lesson was given by Elder Botos, who was once a Catholic priest before he was baptized a member of the church. His lesson was "trust in the Lord". He gave us a great lesson to ponder about. 

     Later, that same afternoon, we joined the sisters at the church to teach Collette. This was a missionary lesson that I will never forget. Why, you might ask? Because this lesson was totally lead by me! Really! I.m not pulling your leg! On that afternoon, I was the lead missionary. After all this time, almost 30 months of serving as a missionary, it was me that conducted and directed the discussion. IT FELT SO AMAZING!!!! After the opening prayer was said by one of the young sisters who Collette chose, I started that afternoon's teaching lesson. I had not even planned on doing that! I was amazed how the spirit guided me to say the words that were said. 

     I had asked Collette to describe to the new sister missionaries her religious background. After she completed and witnessing how she loves Jesus, we turned our focus to 3 Nephi chapter 11, the same chapter that Sister Carrus used the day before in her doctrinal message. I realized during this part of the discussion that that exact scripture block was the most natural place to go to in the Book of Mormon. We read the verses together and discussed how Jesus loves all of God's children and desires that all come unto Him. We had a great lesson, talking about priesthood, authority, the plan of happiness and families. The room was filled with the spirit and full of true witness bearing. Sister Bakkland asked Collette what she thought about the verses that we had read. Her answer was, "It's all true! It's all true!" After Collette left the building, I apologized to the sisters for totally taking over, but in return, they both said how amazing the whole lesson was. Wow!!! That was music to my ears. That will be a moment for me never to be forgotten!

     Later that evening, the sister missionaries, Brother Bedi (the missionary correlation leader) and Elder and I, met for one hour to discuss upcoming missionary activities and to give our missionary reports to the branch leadership. We solidified that the Limerick branch will be holding a dance and possible karaoke singing on May 26th for all members 14 and up. This will be the first official branch activity of the year. After discussing what needs there might be with this upcoming activity, all the missionaries gave their personal teaching report. It was again discussed how more branch members need to have callings related to the branch's missionary correlation goals. The sister missionaries also stated their desire to work more closely with the youth of the branch. One branch youth activity that the young sisters would like to do is to use some older YWs to go with the sisters on a teaching/finding assignments to get the youth involved in missionary work. This request will be relayed to those who need to know. 

     Saturday was a fun day. Elder M and I went over to the sisters flat and tried to set up a water filtering system for them. Though we weren't successful in setting the system up today, we will be able to do in the near future. By lunchtime, the sister missionaries and I went for another walk through the city to see a few more areas for them to be familiar with. We ended up being near the Milk Market, so we went inside to get lunch. The sisters stated that they loved the market and the food. We all bought hot sandwiches and then shared a dessert together. It was good to spend more time with them. The more I am with them, the more impressed I am. Here are a few photos of our lunch.

This is my lunch bagel. It had veggies, beetroot coleslaw, cheese and pretty mixed greens on top. Yum, Yum!

After lunch, I treated the sisters to share a dessert or 2 with me. Boy, their eyes were huge as they could not decide on which 2 desserts to pick out of 30 different, amazing looking options. This is what we got. On your left is a chocolate Oreo fluff something or other and on the right is a chocolate peanut butter brownie. Oh yeah!!!

I'd say that is 3 happy sister missionaries!!

     Before I end this week's blog, I thought that I would spend a minute talking about the recent weather and daylight conditions here. This past week, we had several sunny days. After all the cold, dark, damp. cloudy days, I almost forgot how nice it is to have the sun shine. It seems so funny to say, but true. Most of the sunny days this past week were still somewhat windy and cold. Saturday it rained again, first as a drizzle, then as real rain, then back to a drizzle. This continued all the rest of the day. Since we have had daylight savings the first Sunday in April, our daylight has extended to 14.5 hours, from 6:15 am to 8:45 pm. Last summer the daylight went from 6:00 am to 10:30pm, up to 16.5 hours of light. I had such a hard time adjusting to that. I will not miss the extra hours of sunlight that they have here. It's almost tooooo much. I do have one other photo that I took last fall that I would like to include in this blog. I found the most beautiful mushrooms that I have ever seen on a walk that day. It was nature at its very best. 

I don't know what kind of mushroom this is, but oh, how pretty it looked. I don't think that I would eat them though. Maybe too pretty to even eat!

     As I end this week's blog, I would like to testify of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I testify that the atoning power of Jesus Christ is REAL! I have felt it. He wants us to apply His sacrifice daily in our lives to help us overcome the things that we face. Knowing that Jesus suffered pain for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane and then again on the cross, I testify that He not only paid the price of our sins, but that He atone for all our problems, whether they be physical, mental, spiritual or anything else. The atonement truly is infinite in every aspect of life and in all levels. Though some of us may have to suffer in this life, through Christ's atonement, in the end if we are faithful, He will restore us in all things. Though there be times that we all suffer, we need to accept God's will and His timing. We must never forget that many times our sufferings are given to us to teach us more about ourselves than we would ever have learned without the effort that suffering affords. 

     An unknown author once made this statement, "If all suffering and unhappiness could be removed from our lives, what kind of people would we be? I believe it would be impossible to produce strong, noble, generous, compassionate human beings, if suffering were eliminated from our lives," I testify that God's plan for each of us is real. His plan is individually and tailored made for each of us. In reality, He is helping us achieve that great potential He saw in each of us before we came to this earth. He certainly wants us to return back to His presence, not only successfully, but as the celestial, eternal beings we can be. Thank God for His precious Son, who never gave in, never shrank, always looking outward and showing us the way. May we be ever blessed in this, our journey of life!