Week Four

We’ve been getting feedback all week from missionaries around the Orlando area to identify Portuguese speaking people in their wards and the reports continue to come in. Kirk has continued to work on changing the pdf stake & ward boundary maps to the same size scale so we can merge them like a puzzle to get a mission-wide map of ward and stake boundaries. It’s progressing, but it's been slow to find time to work on it.

Jan talking to Sisters during a break in training.

Jan put together a powerpoint presentation about stress management for the trainers meeting on Friday, and Kirk helped with the powerpoint formatting & slide advance. The picture at the left shows Jan talking to some sisters during a break at the meeting. 

The whole group of trainers gathered at noon for a picture with the Mission President & his wife just before lunch (below).  

Experienced missionaries who will help train the new missionaries who arrive next week.

The senior couples serving at the FOM office with us.

This week we’ll welcome more than 20 new missionaries and we’ll say goodbye to 15 who are finishing their missions and 2 who got their visas to other countries. One has been our neighbor, and we’ll miss him so much, as he now goes to Brazil.

This picture shows us with the other senior couples in the mission office, whom we have really enjoyed getting to know and work with. They have helped us so much in getting settled here.

Friday we had a great evening going to the Orlando Temple and seeing a family of five get sealed together for eternity. Their two sons were about 8 and 15 years old, their daughter was about 12, and they were able to understand much of the divine and eternal nature of the sealing ceremony that was performed to link them together as an eternal family, even after this life is over. One of the elders who taught and baptized them a year ago was there to witness the ceremony. He finishes his mission this coming week and will return home then.

Spanish moss on roadside trees

Spanish moss grows on many of the older trees alongside the roadways and adds its beauty to the dense foliage. We’ve enjoyed the beauty of so much green vegetation here.

Sister B with a Mexican hat 

Our senior district went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Saturday, celebrating Sister B’s birthday and bidding farewell to another couple who finishes this coming week and will return to their home. We love them !