We had a wonderful week that included enjoying participating in the Kingston, Mandeville, and North Coast Zone Conferences. Every Zone Conference we have attended over the course of this mission was extremely enlightening and uplifting, and we continually have come away with renewed commitment to be better personally and to be more diligent in our missionary service. The enthusiasm of the young elders and sisters is contagious and gives us a boost to keep up the momentum.
Kingston Zone
Mandeville Zone
North Coast Zone
Mandeville Zone sisters - "It's a great day in Jamaica. Ya, Mon!"
This being our last time to attend Zone Conferences before we return home, we were invited to share our testimonies at the end of each conference. With emotion, we bore testimonies of our love for our Savior and our gratitude for the inspiration and divine guidance we have felt since joining the Church over forty years ago and during this mission. We know our lives have been richly blessed and will never be the same after the experiences we have had serving God's children here in Jamaica.
On Friday, June 1, the Church held an event at the Conference Center on Temple Square that celebrated, through song, dance and the spoken word, the Church’s June 1978 revelation that extended the blessings of the priesthood and the temple to all of God's children everywhere in the world. The event was titled “Be One,” a reference to Latter-day Saint scripture where Jesus says, “Be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine” (D&C 38:27).
We highly recommend viewing the video of the moving celebration of a historic time in Church history.
We also want to share the link to an article in the recent April 2018, Ensign written by the man who has been called with his wife to serve as the new Jamaica Kingston Mission President and companion. Elder Parker is a convert to the Church and in this article shares a very powerful message about his experiences with racism and how we can all work toward being One in Christ. We look forward to meeting the Parkers when they arrive on June 28th.
Elder Fred A. "Tony" Parker
Of the Seventy, North America Southeast America
"The Savior Heals Our Hurts"
From the "Soon Come" board in the Mission Office:
Our replacements, Elder and Sister Arrington, were scheduled to arrive last Friday after their two weeks in the Missionary Training Center, but unfortunately their visas to come to Jamaica are delayed, so they will wait back in their home city serving as Stake Missionaries. We all were disappointed. This is a fairly common occurrence for missionaries coming here, and many of our young elders and sisters serve in state-side missions for one to several months while visa waiting. We will continue our welfare work as usual and continue to pray for the Arringtons to be able to arrive as soon as possible. Our predecessors actually went home a month before we arrived in Jamaica and kindly gave us training through Skype sessions and phone calls. We were so grateful for their help, but it will be so advantageous if we can have some face-to-face training time.
We attended Church meetings in the Santa Cruz Branch today and loved being with these faithful saints in this small but quickly growing branch. Buddy, as President Stewart, presided and also had the very special opportunity to give a blessing to a baby in the branch.
“Every member of the church of Christ having children is to bring them unto the elders before the church, who are to lay their hands upon them in the name of Jesus Christ, and bless them in his name” (D&C 20:70).
Buddy had not performed this ordinance since blessing our own little Blake over 31 years ago. He has participated in many blessings including for most of our grandchildren, but this is the first time since Blake where he was actually voice for the blessing. He was delighted to be able to exercise the priesthood he righteously holds and honors.
Sweet little Ariya and her beautiful mother -
two more of our new eternal friends
And one more special event of last week...
 
Congratulations to our # 1 grandson, Zach Stewart, on his graduation from Layton High School.
His next adventure: Ghana Kumasi Mission
August 2018
Until next week...all our love.
|
That is just so cool he got to do the blessing. What a neat experience!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your wonderful blog posts; they are always a reminder of whose work we are engaged in. Jamaica has been blessed to have such faithful, dedicated missionaries serve its people.
ReplyDelete