Shumway Family Oklahoma Mission

MARCH 2015
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Ours was especially great because our grandson Preston came to visit!

SATURDAY MARCH 7,2015

We traveled to Springdale AR for their Stake Conference. This was a very special Stake Conference. The Stake President, ______ has served for many years and will be released tomorrow. We have loved getting to know him and his wonderful wife. There were two visiting general authorities to reorganize the stake. We have been with Elder _____ several times before in meetings and have grown to love him.

Abby and Preston came along with us. While President attended the afternoon Priesthood session, I took them to get a bite to eat, then we all attended the evening Adult Session. One thing I love and will never forget about the Springdale Stake Conferences is their remarkable choir from the Marshallese Branch. This time they sang “The Spirit of God” in Marshallese with no accompaniment. It’s an inspiring, touching sound. It always makes me cry. These are humble people who love the Lord- we can feel that.

President and I spoke in this session. Afterwards Abby and Preston had an opportunity to visit with Elder ______ for a few minutes. That was a special experience for all of us.

Got home about 12:00- which was really 1:00am because of the time change! But we were so grateful to have gone.

SUNDAY MARCH 8, 2015

I love Sunday. I love knowing it’s the Lord’s day, and even though in the mission field all our days belong to the Lord, this day is different. We have the great blessing of taking the sacrament, of remembering the atonement and remembering our covenants. It’s a sacred day.

We were in our home ward for sacrament meeting and then President left for a meeting in Bartlesville, OK, and I stayed in our ward to teach another Temple Preparation Class. That has been a great experience for me. Most of the people in the class are recent converts. I realized today as I was sharing Doctrine and Covenants 109- the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple- that most of these people didn’t even know about the Kirtland Temple. I shared a little history. We take so much for granted, but I’m grateful to see the expressions of eagerness and joy in learning about the history of temples, and in coming to understand the sacredness of the temple and the eternal blessings that await. Sometimes, in this class, I almost feel like we are in the temple. Just talking about it brings the Spirit.

Tonight we had a special Sunday dinner. In attendance:

President Shumway, Myself, Abby, Taylor, _Elders________ (our assistants), Elders__________(from the Cedar Ridge area), Elder ______!! (a returned missionary- so much fun to have him here!), our Senior Missionaries from the office- and one of their daughters who came to visit.

Our great Cedar Ridge Elders shared a missionary message with us after dinner. I love these missionaries. I love their messages, their invitations to us. I love this work. I love feeling the Spirit many times in a day.

I will miss this!

The gospel is true- I don’t have any doubt of it! Following the Savior in all things is the way for all of us to have real happiness in this life and eternal joy in the life to come! As President Hinckley said, “The best is yet to come!” I believe that!