Happy Easter!

Sunday April 17, 2022   

Email #29

 

Aloha and HAPPY EASTER family and friends!

 

We miss you all!  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday.  We got to have dinner with four other senior missionary couples.  Scott and I went a little late however because of a ward baptism that was in the afternoon at the same time.  I’m not sure if we will get to witness many baptisms while here so we were excited to attend this one. Iris is in the married student ward we attend and is married to a member but was not a member herself. 

 

Our Sunday morning began with being able to listen to Kellie speak in her ward’s sacrament meeting.  She bore a strong testimony of choosing to believe, which is something that Scott and I have had many conversations about while being here.  It was a very uplifting, sincere and beautiful testimony.  Thanks Kellie! 

 

Just before uploading the Scoville book to send to the company for printing, Scott lost his computer (again).  It shut off and wouldn’t re-boot.  He had been having problems with it and a senior missionary here helped him get it up and running and we thought that it was fixed. We couldn’t afford to wait to send the book in- even the next day. We each had prayers individually and it started up again long enough to get the order taken care of.  Sooo thankful!

 

The credit card readers were down at the PCC this week.  We had to tell the customers that they had to use cash to purchase something.  It was embarrassing in today’s world of using cards, especially when traveling.  I’m sure that the PCC lost a lot of money this week.  Everyday we thought that they would be up and running again, but it wasn’t until Friday that the problem was fixed.  And I am very glad it was fixed that day because I sold a $2300.00 ukulele!  Not that it matters—I don’t get commission (haha)! But it was still kind of fun.  And no—I’m not a great salesman—unlike my sons.  I just happen to be in the right place at the right time. 

 

I have been opening the three registers each day in preparation for the Scoville’s leaving in two weeks.  Each register needs to go through a process of entering information and passwords before it finally gets to the point you can put the money in.  On Thursday, a weird window I had never seen before kept popping up on one of the registers. I asked Wink for help and he also tried to get it to open properly with no luck.  Our manager doesn’t come in that day so I texted Jamie—a manager of another store to see if she could help me.  She didn’t respond and we decided just to not use that register for the beginning of the day.  Later, I knew that I had to get it up and running so I called Jamie and left a message.  Soon after I hung up, she walked in our door and I thanked her for coming to help.  She didn’t know what I was talking about.  She left her phone home that day and didn’t know I had called her. She was just there to see I we needed anything.  She got the register running properly.  It was a tender mercy.  

 

Scott and I have volunteered to work at the visitor’s center each Sunday for a couple of hours. The visitor’s center gets very busy on Sundays and they need extra help.  Five senior missionaries volunteered to help.  We had some initial training on Tuesday evening.  I love the spirit there and we are so excited to help out even though we don’t know what we are doing. This may be the closest thing to real missionary work that we have here.  However, at our training we found out that 75 percent of the people who come to the center on Sundays are LDS.  So, who knows? 

 

We had a special event Thursday evening.  We had been asked by Mark and Jean Messick (mission president for the Vanuatu mission and neighbors in our Bountiful ward) to zoom with 23 of their missionaries. Each of them is from one of the Vanuatu Islands and have very little education.  It was an incredible experience, and we were so thankful to have had it.  See Scott’s journal entry at the end of the letter for more details.

 

I have been so grateful to have had this Easter Season to reflect on Jesus Christ and His great atoning sacrifice.  But more importantly, I want to keep reflecting, learning, loving and appreciating it all through the year.  I am grateful to belong to a church that teaches me how to become more like Him.  Christ lives and loves us!  I choose to believe. 

 

 

Much love,

Sister Bleak, mom, grandma

 

How I have seen the hand of the Lord in my life this week:

*Scott’s computer started back up after praying to have it work. 

*I put a shirt in the back room of our store for Scott but ended up needing it for a senior missionary who wanted to buy it.  It most likely would have sold if I hadn’t have put it in the back room.

*I felt the spirit in the temple and I felt great love for the other missionaries.

*We felt blessed to be able to have the zoom meeting with the missionaries from Vanuatu.

*Jamie showed up at our store right when we needed some help bringing up our register that wouldn’t work.  She was able to get it working again. 

 

 

FROM SCOTT’s JOURNAL:

Tonight, we had a zoom call with President and Sister Mark and Jean Messick along with 23 of their missionaries who were all from the islands of Vanuatu. We began the call by having all the missionaries tell us their names and what island they are from. I don’t think either Gayle or I understood hardly a word they said, but they all spoke English and were soooo sweet. They were excited to be talking with us. The zone leader, Elder Philip, called us Elder and Sister Blink, which was cute and confused a few of the other missionaries, some who called us Bleak and some Blink. Mark introduced us and then Gayle spoke and bore her testimony of and love for the Savior and that we are serving a mission just like them. Mark told us of one young new missionary who came on his mission just yesterday from the bush. He had no white shirt and tie. He is barely speaking some English. He lives on the island that has the world’s largest active volcano on it. They get used to the thunderous booms from its frequent eruptions. After Gayle’s comments, I spoke. I told them I was from a small town in Oregon, received my patriarchal blessing that guided me. I told them about my education and work for the church. I showed a few slides of temples, the same as I showed in our devotional talk last November. Then they asked questions. One asking why all temples don’t have angels on them. They are so excited about the new temple in their country. I told them about developing the core plans that I was involved in which will be used on their temple. They were so happy and filled with light. It took a while before everyone hung up. Mark and Jean called us just after the zoom call and we talked for another 15 plus minutes. They seem very very happy in their service. Mark said he asked one missionary in his interview with him about pornography. The missionary had never heard of it and didn’t know the meaning of the word. The young people on the islands don’t have anything and are not distracted by the stuff of the world - No Disney, Harry Potter, movies, etc. it was a joyous evening. We love our service here too!