February 7, 2016

Hello from Kansas,

We hope everyone is doing well today and had a great day at church. Life for us is busy here in Pratt. The Branch President gave us some more assignments today, and that always helps to keep us engaged. This little branch is very missionary oriented and that is exciting.
The sister missionaries met with us tonight at our house for a coordination meeting. (Dad is the Branch Mission Leader.) Mom made a chocolate fudge pie, and they loved it. We have noticed that missionaries are always hungry (for some reason), and it is fun to feed them.
We enjoyed our visit back to Rogers and Memphis two weeks ago. It is always great to be with the family and visit our mothers (and eat some real barbeque). Three sweet new babies are growing and will be joining the family soon. We are very excited to say the least.

No matter how you spell it, Grandpa loves his Suzies.

We have a true investigator that we are teaching. Her name is Julie Reed. She is soaking up all the lessons and receiving answers to her prayers to confirm that what she is learning is true. It is a wonderful thing that people do not have to take our word for it - they can pray to know if it is of God. Julie wants to be baptized on February 27! It has been very rewarding to see her progress. She is planning on coming to Wichita Saturday night for the adult session of Stake Conference. Then on Sunday she will join us for the morning conference broadcast in our building in Pratt. Next week will be the first Sunday since we have known her that she will not have to work. She is a cook at Sonic in a very small town called Medicine Lodge south of Pratt. She has started asking her boss for Sundays off, and hopes it will be permanent. 

Julie drove into Pratt Thursday evening for a tour of our church building, and she seems to be comfortable and excited about all we are teaching her. Please keep her in your prayers as she prepares for baptism. We have given her two “insulation” lessons to help her be on guard when Satan tries to interfere. Isn’t it interesting that only this church gets so many attacks to prevent someone from becoming a member or from going to the temple for the first time or from being sealed together as husband and wife for all eternity? We certainly had our share of that kind of adversity back in 1982 when we were baptized and later went to the temple. Julie will be an asset to this little branch, and it will be nice to watch her as she continues to learn and become truly converted unto the Lord.

District Meetings are fun, and sometimes we go out to eat afterwards. 

The sister missionaries are teaching a man named Tommy, and they have included us in some of the lessons. He is asking great questions and learning as much as he can. Tommy attended Elder Gorden’s Sunday School class today about the Fall (of Adam and Eve).  He was marveling at the doctrine and soaking it up like a sponge. We really like him. It is so fun to see the joy that comes to people when they discover eternal truths.

Sometimes we visit people who have dogs and cats! 

We have another general authority coming to the mission. Elder David F. Evans of the First Quorum of the Seventy will be spending the day with the missionaries on Thursday and Friday this week. Friday is our day, and we will drive to Wichita for a meeting from 9:00 to 4:30pm. Then on Saturday and Sunday he will preside at the Wichita Stake Conference. It has been a rare treat to have so many General Authorities come to speak to us and shake our hands. This mission has had three Apostles visit in the last two years. With the enormous growth of this worldwide church it is almost “statistically impossible” for that to happen. Elder Evans is currently serving as Executive Director of the church’s Missionary Department.

Sister Gorden & Lisa Schmidt enjoyed serving chili at the Red Cross Blood Drive

We continue to volunteer in the Pratt community, but everyone seems to be so well-staffed that opportunities are more scarce than we expected. We are still delivering meals to shut-ins, and next week we will start helping with the food preparation, too. There was an all-day blood drive recently, and our church was in charge of feeding everyone that participated. 
At testimony meeting in church today one of the elderly sisters told about how reading the Book of Mormon for the first time many years ago had brought about a change in her behavior. She noticed that she was not angry with people anymore. She was no longer yelling at her children. She was more peaceful and much happier. We close this letter with our testimony that the Book of Mormon is true. It changes lives. It changed ours.  

We love you all, and we thank you for your prayers. Take care of each other, and let us hear from you.

Mom and Dad