Hi Everybody,
This
may be the shortest of all time emails since we left Utah! Shall we say
that it’s what happens when we do missionary work and play at the same
time? How fun it is! It has been great to be surrounded by family and
get to show them where we live and what we do and have our little
apartment be wall to wall makeshift beds at night-time. But now the top
shelf that was once full of cookie and peanut butter cereal and XXXbags
of M and M's, and a freezer full of ice cream is gone and we’re going to
have to start eating healthy again. But wait-----round two starts
tomorrow with Annette and Barb and it’s fun all over again…..probably
just a little bit more sedate. We’ve walked trails and seen waterfalls
and gorges (the saying “Ithaca is Gorges” is on lots of license plates
and t-shirts), we’ve gone to family home evening where luckily the
activity was soccer, went to Church where we doubled the attendance at
the branch, and just had a great time being together.
But
some of the best of all times was when we all met together in Palmyra
for the Church sites and the Hill Cumorah Pageant. We did temple work in
our beautiful little temple overlooking the Sacred Grove, sang “Joseph
Smith’s First Prayer” in that same grove, saw where the Book of Mormon
was printed, wondered how 9 people could possibly sleep in the upstairs
of the Smith Log home (makes our apartment look like a palace), rode in
an elevator with Sister Holland, raised the roof on the hotel swimming
pool, had a bar-b-que with our amazing Brother Baker (all 15 of us), and
marveled again at the amazing Hill Cumorah Pageant. And we were
literally surrounded by people driving cars with Utah license plates. We
“ran into” people that we haven’t seen for years such as a
used-to-be-little boy that the last time we saw him was when he played
on Dad’s Colts baseball team in the 1970’s. He recognized “Coach
Jolley.” Imagine that after 30 years! We met someone who knows someone
who is going to the MTC the same day as Zac and then to the same
mission, someone who used to run cross country and play soccer the same
time in high school as Bryce, a young man who is from Orem but being
offered a football scholarship to Cornell (we tried to recruit him), and
many other people we knew from Utah or who knows somebody that we know.
Would you say it’s a small world in the Church!
Isn’t
it just the best to know that we can go all over the country, even all
over the world and meet people with whom we share our faith. And these
last few days, we’ve loved seeing people just like us….senior
missionaries and volunteers; people who wear our same name tag….just
different names. There were missionaries and volunteers all over the
place in Palmyra. The work is “rolling forth” just as the scriptures
say. Our testimonies were strengthened our spirits were lifted by the
amazing work done by people who do it simply because they want to serve
and they love Jesus Christ.
Well…..it’s
11:30 at night and nothing beyond this point will make any sense so
it’s time to quit writing this bitty little thing. We promise better
next week. We love you all! Thanks for the text messages as you travel,
for the messages and the pictures from home from those getting ready for
the next missionary to leave (in less than 10 days….yikes!). Soon there
will be 5 of us full time missionaries and we’ve remembered even more
how important the work is of member missionaries. Thanks for your great
examples to all of us and for being “true to the faith that your parents
have cherished.”
XOXOXOXO Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma and Elder and Sister Jolley
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