New Zealand: our mission, the more sacred side

Here we are in Feilding, New Zealand. A short time ago we said, 'where?' Now it's home.

Each day we get up at 6:30 (unless the melodious birds wake us earlier) and get ready for the day. Part of that time - usually about an hour to maybe as much as two hours - consists of a prayer together to start the day and the study of scriptures on a given topic.

We use as a guide the marvelous book Preach My Gospel. I particularly like the studies in the chapter called Christ-Like Attributes. I have been transformed in many ways by doing these studies. I can't recommend that book - manual, really - too greatly.

Then we head to the chapel, which is about 5 minutes from our little house.

It's here at the chapel that we can get online, so we check our email and Facebook and so on. Then we open the doors for our Open Chapel program. More on that in another post.

After two hours, it's time to close up and send everyone home. We either stay for a bit to continue online, or walk to lunch a mile or so away, or drive home for lunch.

In the afternoon we visit people, share various gospel-related messages with them, just read the scriptures and pray with them, go for a walk, take a rest or a nap, make supper, or all the above. Or grab some groceries or do the wash.

In the evening we go out and teach, or stay home and write, or take a walk.

Often our work takes us to distant towns. We have four towns under our care: Feilding where we live, Foxton, Levin, and Wanganui. We are getting to know church members in each of them. We share our Open Chapel program with them in hopes that they will find ways to take it up, too. We give talks about the importance of family history, or our journey, or gospel topics.

I'll write separately about what we've discovered in our travels. That will be on Travels with Juan, another blog. (travelswithjuan.blogspot.com).

The real nature of our work depends on an understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I'd like to talk about that, since my understanding has changed so much, but I'll save that for a different post.

What is really meaningful, of course, about what we do is the people. That has been a real eye-opener. So I'll save that for another post too.

For me, these six weeks since we have been on our mission have been transformative. Never have I understood the gospel the way I do now. Study of the scriptures and prayer make a huge difference. On our other missions, we were caught up in a workday that was not in itself immersed in the gospel (and a lot of what we do here is not either), but here we have time to study and make ourselves busy in direct missionary work.

I should say that unlike the young missionaries, we set our own schedule and choose our own activities. It's up to us to make of this experience what we will. As you will see if you continue reading, Open Chapel is a result of that confidence the leadership has in senior missionary couples.

Time is going fast. We are almost a quarter of the way through our time here. Sometimes I want to keep going, other times I know it would be good to go home. But we signed up for 6 months, and that is no doubt what we will do.