What Does MLS Look Like?

 People wonder, and sometimes ask what an MLS missionary does.  What do our days look like?  Well, to tell you the truth, each of our days look a little different.  This past week was a really good week to show you what a MLS mission is for us. When we were in Ward Council, our Primary President had her hand all wrapped up and it was swollen and bruised.  Asking her what had happened she told us that she had a cyst removed but this was worse than she thought it would be.  It's her right hand and she is right handed so you can imagine.  I texted her Monday to see how she was doing and she was a mess.  I asked if we could come mow or weed or bring her dinner.  She told me that she had tomatoes that needed to be made into sauce.  I told her we would come Tuesday morning and help her.  Tuesday morning she was in a bit of a panic.  She was worried that her house was a mess and she wasn't ready for us to spend the day in her kitchen. (I totally get that).  We told her we would just pick up the tomatoes and take them to our house and make the sauce there-that way she could get some rest.  The tomatoes she had were Roma tomatoes and didn't look to be very many.  So, I suggested to Mike that we buy some extra tomatoes and make a big pot of sauce.  We found a cute little Amish farm down the street from her and stopped by.

It was so pristine.  We could buy 6 tomatoes for $4 or we could buy a big old box for the same amount of money. (go figure???). So we took the bigger box and we bought an extra onion and we had a green pepper.  She had given us a yellow, orange, and red pepper and an onion.  Well, off we went to make the spaghetti sauce.  I love cooking but when I'm doing something this big for someone else, I really get nervous.  We blanched and peeled, cut up and stewed.  Mike cut peppers, I added herbs and spices, we stirred it down and let it thicken.  We had so much sauce that we had it in three different pans.  As it cooked down we were able to put it all together.  It actually turned out really yummy and she ended up with 12 pints of sauce.  She was very thankful.  That is called member support (the M in MLS).

We were tired after a full day on our feet.  But it felt good to help out our friend.  We had our District Council on Thursday instead of Wednesday so we used Wednesday to work on our lesson.  It was a slower day but good.  We needed a little break from the day before.

Thursday was an awesome day.  I actually made cinnamon rolls that morning to take to the missionaries.  I made enough that we could have some at our Book of Mormon class that evening.  We had a great discussion with the missionaries.  We have been working our way through the new Preach My Gospel.  And needless to say, the missionaries loved the cinnamon rolls.  Our Book of Mormon lesson was Alma 33 and we talked about prayer.  Many of our new members don't really understand the importance of closing in the name of Jesus Christ and so we went through the steps and had a great discussion of how we pray and why we pray.  We always have the most incredible participation.  We love it.

Friday morning is always our service day. We enjoy helping pack boxes of food each week for people who are in need.  The food is donated from a local grocery store and some days we get a lot and some days not so much.  Everybody gets a dessert, sometimes more than one, some dairy, some fruit, some veggies, sometimes lunch meat, and usually two to three kinds of bread.  The people are appreciative for the most part.  The guy in charge gets yelled at once in a while but he's such a great guy he just smiles and says, "God Bless".  

After service, we head home for our mission wide zoom training.  It is always such an uplifting 30-50 minutes and of course, we love learning from President and Sister Gentry.

This day we were heading out to our favorite Amish Farm to buy green beans.  We love their beans.  The cute lady comes out of her house when she sees us just to chat.  I really wanted to get a picture with her but she told me that they don't do pictures.  She did let me take a picture of their stand.

And then, of course, we found some more things along the way.  Farms! One of my favorite things about the country roads of New York.

In the evening, I took some photos of our YW President and her husband.  He has just been diagnosed with early dementia.  She just loves him so much.  I thought if I took some photos of them together, she would have a treasure to hold onto through the hard times.  We had such a great time but ended up getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. 

Saturday morning found us heading to the temple to do baptisms with Robert.  We had such a wonderful time and it is a little sad that it was our last time in the Palmyra Temple.  We have loved this beautiful little temple with its Sacred Grove stained glass windows.  We will most definitely miss Palmyra.

After the temple we met up with Elder and Sister Connolly so that we could meet their daughter, Becky.  Becky is a delightful gal.  She is an author and has written several-actually lots of novels.  She writes historic novels and we can't wait to read some of them.  She has kindly offered to let us crash at her place one of the nights on our way home.  It was fun to meet her.  Afterwards, we ran to Bouckville to meet up with the Morgan's and the Jones's. We love these people.  This is maybe stretching the Leader Support part of MLS but these people have become our friends as we have served shoulder to shoulder with them in our little Oneida Branch and now our little bit bigger Rome Ward.  We had dinner with them at Ray Brother's BBQ.  Super good food.  Better company.  We played some games afterwards at the Morgan's home.  

L-R Us, David and Joanne Morgan, Rod and LoriAnne Jones

Sunday morning was quite a morning.  If you like miracles, you will love this story! As I was walking into church today a young man, maybe in late twenties was walking in and I held the door for him. He said thanks and that he was just visiting. I said welcome to church! I asked where he was visiting from and he said that he lives here in Rome. He said he has read the Book of Mormon and wanted to come see what it was all about! I said, “ well let me introduce you to these ladies!” And grabbed our Sisters! He told us he was raised Catholic and bought the Book of Mormon on Amazon. He has read it, is reading the Doctrine of Covenants, and has visited all the sites! I can’t tell you the spirit of excitement. We can’t stop smiling! He stayed through both hours  and spent another hour talking with the Sisters and some members. That's what it's all about! 

We love the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are so thankful to be part of the work of gathering Israel on both sides of the veil. (Yes, I do indexing in spare moments). We have loved being missionaries and feeling the excitement when people choose to enter the waters of baptism.  We are so very blessed.  We hope you feel our love.