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| Elder & Sister Gorden & Bishop Anderson |
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| The Lamar, CO Elders! Elder Lott & Elder Blaylock helping Elder Gorden make chili on Preparation Day. |
Monday, January 26, 2015
Week 2 - Pictures
Week 1
17 January 2015
Hello family and friends,
We hope everyone is doing well back at home.
Tuesday night we arrived in Lamar about 6:30 and unpacked the car. The car was so full that Dad said he couldn’t take off his hat until we arrived because there was nowhere to put it! After we put a few things away we headed to the local Walmart for a few groceries. It is a small Supercenter, and they don’t have as much selection as we are used to, but it is new and nice and we are very grateful to have it.
This town is very old. There has not been any new home construction at all in many years because the population has been shrinking rather than growing. It is unusual that every part of town only has very old homes. It reminds Mom of Atlanta, TX where Grandma and Granddaddy Jackson lived. We hear a train go by several times a day. There is an old steam train engine at the Lamar visitors center. The kids would enjoy seeing it. Dad is disappointed that it is rusting badly, though.
We live in a 4-plex apartment. We live upstairs, but the downstairs is more than halfway underground so we aren’t really on the second floor. It is at least 50 years old, but it has tons of storage areas. Mom told Rifka she would have a ball playing hide-n-seek with the kids in here. Downstairs is a young couple that got married in December and they are members of the ward. We meet them at the church Wednesday night. They meet at “Especially For Youth” when they were about 15 years old. It was fun to hear their story. We haven’t met the other neighbors yet.
We had our first dinner appointment last night at the Young Mens President’s home. He has been married about three years and is from Lamar. His wife is a ward missionary. They are both really sweet and dinner was delicious. They also had the sister missionaries and the young missionary elders over. It was a fun dinner appointment.
We meet the bishop Wednesday evening. He invited us to ward council meeting Sunday morning, then we will meet with him after church to go over the ward roster to become familiar with those that need contacting. I think we have our work cut out for us. We have discovered there are 165 households and 105 are not active! Our ward boundaries are larger than our stake boundaries at home - before we split the stake! We identified that 89 families live in Lamar and 76 families live in other areas. Many members live at least 50 miles from Lamar, and some people are as far as 80 miles from here. How is that for an obstacle to being active?
Wednesday we drove the young missionary elders to Holly, Colorado and Syracuse, Kansas to visit some families. We also traveled out of town a ways today and talked to an inactive lady and tried to locate some others on the rolls. We made an appointment to go back Monday afternoon to teach her about the Plan of Salvation. Hopefully she will remember why she was baptized so many years ago, and she will want to come back. We shall see...
This Thursday is the Zone Conference in Garden City. It is about two hours away (100 miles). Maybe we can finally meet and talk to out Mission President. We haven’t heard anything from him so far.
We don’t have any internet here at the house yet. Dad has been working on that problem all week seems like. This place is so old I don’t know what we’ll be able to get here. But we are doing okay, and we are adjusting to a new town, new people and new schedule. This is a very friendly town. We talk to people and make friends everywhere we go - so that is good.
We want to hear from you all. We can do face time with any of you. The best times for that will be Mondays and after church on Sundays. Take care, we miss you and love you all!
Elder and Sister Gorden
Monday, January 12, 2015
Missionary Training Center (MTC) Week
Hello kids,
I was hoping to send you all a note before now. Guess I didn't realize how busy it would be here this week! We have been sleeping great. I don't know if it is because the bed is so comfortable or we are just exhausted! Probably a little of both. Either way going to bed on time isn't going to be a problem if this place is any indication of what the next 18 months will be like:)
It has been a great week. Monday after several stations of orientation we were sent to the book store to order extra name badges then to the General Services for security badges, and on to the travel department to confirm travel plans for home on Saturday.
We've discovered the chocolate milk. It is as good as many of you have warned! Yesterday the BYU Creamery was here with lots of ice cream and toppings. There were a lot of happy elders- the young and the old.
This is an amazing place. The spirit is in abundant and these young return missionaries do a fantastic job teaching. Our District is 4 couples. We have two different teachers each day. A Brother Bellingham in the morning and a Sister Brown in the afternoon. Many of these senior couples are from Gilbert, Arizona or will be going there to serve. That was kind of interesting. There are about three or four couples going over seas on medical missions. And this is the second and third missions for several couples. I almost feel like the 'granddaughter' because most of these couples are older than me and dad.
The role play we do daily has been very helpful, even though you think it is going to be really hard it has been very interesting and insightful. Tomorrow morning we will do it again. We play the role of the investigator and then switch to play the role of the missionaries.
It has been a great week and we have learned a lot. Last night a small group of us were able watch a private MTC video with Elder Bednar talking about some things that happened when he was stake president to us. He was talking about the 'Character of Christ'. The group was really amazed when we told them we personally knew Elder Bednar and the family he was talking about. That word got around pretty fast :). We tried to get a copy of that talk but found out any talk given at the MTC stays at the MTC. Apparently these particular clips and videos are not to be found outside the MTC.
But it was an amazing talk and he is very clear when he teaches, as you all know.
We have been told to check the mailroom often to see if we have any thing from our mission presidents. On Tuesday there was a beautiful red rose (from dad) for my birthday! He wanted me to have it a few days before since I couldn't take it home. That was really a big surprise. He is very good at doing little things like that. How he thought of that with everything else we have been doing is pretty awesome.
Well thank you kids for all your support and love. We are happy to be here. Sad to not see you as often as we would like. But you can rest assured I think of you and pray for you everyday. Don't let the babies grow up too much.
We leave the MTC at 4:30am Saturday morning and should arrive back in Arkansas about 2:30pm. Sure glad church doesn't start at 9:00 right now. We need some rest somewhere. All of our classes start at 8:00am. So sleeping in has not been an option.
Take care, know we love you and can't wait to see you.
Love, Mom
I was hoping to send you all a note before now. Guess I didn't realize how busy it would be here this week! We have been sleeping great. I don't know if it is because the bed is so comfortable or we are just exhausted! Probably a little of both. Either way going to bed on time isn't going to be a problem if this place is any indication of what the next 18 months will be like:)
It has been a great week. Monday after several stations of orientation we were sent to the book store to order extra name badges then to the General Services for security badges, and on to the travel department to confirm travel plans for home on Saturday.
We've discovered the chocolate milk. It is as good as many of you have warned! Yesterday the BYU Creamery was here with lots of ice cream and toppings. There were a lot of happy elders- the young and the old.
This is an amazing place. The spirit is in abundant and these young return missionaries do a fantastic job teaching. Our District is 4 couples. We have two different teachers each day. A Brother Bellingham in the morning and a Sister Brown in the afternoon. Many of these senior couples are from Gilbert, Arizona or will be going there to serve. That was kind of interesting. There are about three or four couples going over seas on medical missions. And this is the second and third missions for several couples. I almost feel like the 'granddaughter' because most of these couples are older than me and dad.
The role play we do daily has been very helpful, even though you think it is going to be really hard it has been very interesting and insightful. Tomorrow morning we will do it again. We play the role of the investigator and then switch to play the role of the missionaries.
It has been a great week and we have learned a lot. Last night a small group of us were able watch a private MTC video with Elder Bednar talking about some things that happened when he was stake president to us. He was talking about the 'Character of Christ'. The group was really amazed when we told them we personally knew Elder Bednar and the family he was talking about. That word got around pretty fast :). We tried to get a copy of that talk but found out any talk given at the MTC stays at the MTC. Apparently these particular clips and videos are not to be found outside the MTC.
But it was an amazing talk and he is very clear when he teaches, as you all know.
We have been told to check the mailroom often to see if we have any thing from our mission presidents. On Tuesday there was a beautiful red rose (from dad) for my birthday! He wanted me to have it a few days before since I couldn't take it home. That was really a big surprise. He is very good at doing little things like that. How he thought of that with everything else we have been doing is pretty awesome.
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Some friends we met at the MTC. This is Brother and Sister Patrick from Canada. They are headed to Alaska!
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We leave the MTC at 4:30am Saturday morning and should arrive back in Arkansas about 2:30pm. Sure glad church doesn't start at 9:00 right now. We need some rest somewhere. All of our classes start at 8:00am. So sleeping in has not been an option.
Take care, know we love you and can't wait to see you.
Love, Mom
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| Rifka greeted us like this when we got home from the MTC |
Christmas Day Setting Apart
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| Here we are with President Chandler |
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