Sunday January 23, 2022

 

We followed our GPS to a chapel location where we were to meet with leadership.  Of course, GPS had the wrong location.  The church had another address so we went there but there was no church.  Time to pray we decided so we did and immediately two men in white shirts walked up behind us. Nope – not missionaries.  They were two brethren walking to church which was a few hundred yards away, around a corner. Not where the GPS or the church website said the building was.  But we found it on time and were warmly welcomed.  It was a lovely building to!  Most buildings here are rented.  They range in all sizes and shapes and conditions.  The only universal thing is the church sign at the entrance. 

After Sacrament meeting, we met Brian Mathews.   He was there to attend a baptism for a worker at his orphanage compound.   This young brother found the gospel through one of his fellow workers. He felt the spirit and asked for baptism. The sisters also had a baptism today. There are two sets of missionaries in this ward. Within the next two years the Mathews’ orphanage will have their own ward. This orphanage is very organized. They are setting up homes parented by an LDS couples who will foster twelve to fifteen orphans. They have three homes presently completed and 12 more planned. The compound farm is functioning and producing enough food to feed all the workers and residents. The main building was completed two years ago which presently acts as a dining hall and sleeping quarters for the workers. As other buildings come along, these workers will sleep elsewhere so the main building will become a church on Sunday, a dining hall and a school room until the school is constructed.  Elder Bird says Brother Mathews is building an orphan city.  Actually, it is an orphanage farm. He has several major investors and many minor investors. Amazing what the vision of one man can accomplish. “You can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”  Someone famous, like Ardis Bird, gave us that quote.   

It was hard to visit two water sites this week where there were springs. Both had previously been tapped by someone else but both were nonfunctional due to lack of maintenance. In both cases the people could get clean water by simply cleaning the ditches and laying a

small piece of 4” pvc. But the people do not think “how can we fix this or improve our situation.” Instead they wonder when someone will come save them. Too much enabling and not enough training and self motivation.  Even the brethren visiting the sites with us did not know how or where to begin to improve the issue.  This spring has fresh clean water but the steps to the capture have collapsed and the bottom has filled in with sand and debris.  We sent them photos of a good repair and suggested two Elders Quorum projects.

Daily scripture reading has helped me this week. I had become lax with the overload of the work since coming on this mission. This week we received a challenge from President Chatora to reread the BOM in the next three months.  I am now starting Alma and have been so inspired. Did you know you can read the book of Mormon in 16 hours?  I’ve done it several times.  Having said that – you gain so much more if you read it a little bite at a time and ponder the messages it holds.  I ask myself – “What is so important in this verse that an ancient prophet laboriously formed a metal plate and then took the time to engrave it just so I could learn from it a thousand plus years later?” 

I wish all our grandchildren would ponder the scriptures that way.  And as you do – ask for a witness of the message.  I know you would each like to receive a grandiose angelic visitation proving the gospel is true, so would I, but quite frankly none of us are worthy of such.  Our faith has to be tested first.  Are we willing to just be a good person all the time?  Do we think kind thoughts all the time?  (I haven’t been thinking very good thoughts about our landlord lately – she is quite a unique charm.  I am repenting.)  I have learned that if we just do our best every day and move forward with faith, little witnesses come.  You will often have “AH Ha” moments when you hear the spirit say “That did not happen by chance.  I am in the details of your life.”  That has happened so many times.  For instance, Here we are in a medical world wide pandemic and who has the Lord placed as prophet to lead his church through it?  A doctor.  Our prophet set in place a study program of personal at home learning which preceded this quarantine by only months.  Do you think that was just a lucky guess?  Not at all.  When I was a young mother, President Ezra T. Benson was our prophet.  He told us we would see the day when we would hold church in our homes.  That prophecy came true this last year.  I know our prophets lead us by inspiration.  I also know we will only recognize that prophetic leadership is we open our hearts to receive a witness of the spirit.  If we put forth a little effort, the Lord magnifies that effort when seeking truth. 

You may ask why we are serving another mission when we could be living at home in comfort.  It is because the Lord has blessed us so abundantly.  When we married, we asked Heavenly Father for direction in our life together.  We followed that request with a promise to him that if we were financially capable, we would serve him as long as our health would allow us.  We did everything we possibly could to teach our children righteous principles of self-reliance and I think they found happy lives as they followed our counsel.  We admonish you grandchildren to do the same.  Listen to your parents.  It is actually quite a “cool thing” to have a good relationship with parents (and even cooler with grandparents).  It will buy you a lot of happiness and disobedience will lead you into a life of misery. 

Make you life a happy one.  We love you! 

Elder and Sister Bird