Week of December 13, 2015

This has been a week like most others but with some interesting twists. We began the week with a stake conference where we were able to hear Elder M. Russell Ballard, one of the apostles of the Church. I was touched by his remarks. He was in Greece three weeks prior and was impressed by the number of refugees there. It struck him that most of them have no idea who Jesus Christ is and no knowledge of His gospel. He reflected that we all know who we are and why we are here. We know where we are going and how to get there. There are so many of Heavenly Father’s children that have no understanding of the purpose of life. It was a sweet talk and I felt like I need to do better about expressing my love to others and letting them know God loves them and has a plan for them. He suggested we reach out to others to invite them to come to Christ during this season as a gift of gratitude to the Savior. I am including a link to a video produced by the Church called A Savior Is Born. ( https://www.mormon.org/christmas ) Please take a minute to watch it and reflect on the joy of the message.

Monday we had a full-blown winter wonderland. It snowed during the night and we had about 6 inches by morning. It was beautiful, but cold and wet! We bundled up and headed out. We worked with another missionary developing a class for our new curriculum. This will be the last class taught and focuses on practical application: How would you help a guest who asks the following? We had some good discussion and it became very apparent that everyone approaches the solutions differently, but that we have several ways to resolve issues. About mid-afternoon we had a lady poke her head into the room we were in to tell us the library was closing in 15 minutes due to weather. It was snowing fairly hard outside and they wanted everyone to get home safely.

The rest of the week we spent either in classes for departing missionaries or working on preparation for classes to be taught. I am learning so much, but I sometimes feel like a fire hose has been unleashed in my direction. I can’t put everything into the classes because of limits on time and course objectives. It’s an interesting position to be in.

Thursday we had a group lunch as a Christmas celebration. After lunch I went back to the computer 

lab to work for a while—Ted wanted to listen to the singers in the foyer of the Joseph Smith Building so he stayed behind for a few minutes. Just as I got into the lab, I heard Ted banging on the door and went to see what was up. He was standing there with Pres. Batt, our mission president from the Farmington New Mexico Mission. He called his wife who was across the street and she came. We had a short but fun visit. Before they left we went into the Family Search Center and had our pictures taken in the setup that depicts Ellis Island. It was so good to see them.

Elder and Sister Roeth -- President and Sister Batt (Farmington New Mexico Mission)

In the evening, we went to the Conference Center across the street for the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Program. We had seats in the Balcony in the very last section next by the wall. We actually sat next to the first aisle and had pretty good seats. A friend we’ve known from the Las Vegas Temple was seated two rows in front of us—it is amazing the number of people we see here. The program was excellent and we enjoyed it. We have really enjoyed the wonderful opportunity to have so many amazing events so close by.