We Truly Have Been Rewarded

This is looking back at our four months at The Family and Church History Headquarters Mission (FCHHM) in Salt Lake City, Utah. We began our mission in Provo at the Missionary Training Center on July 6, 2015.  We loved it there and we were ready to fly away to Finland but our visas didn't arrive.

 So we were given a temporary assignment to FCHHM.  We have truly enjoyed it here and learned so much about the Family Search program.  We have met and made many new dear friends. They come from all walks of life. We want to take you on a memory tour of our four months as missionaries for our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We love our mission and we look forward to serving in the Finland Helsinki Mission.  We are cleaning our apartment and returning things we have borrowed.  We will leave on Monday morning from the Salt Lake Airport.

The explanation of each picture is under the pictures. Some captions are combined for two pictures or the whole row.

    
We finally have visas to Finland.    Saying goodbye to all.  Our dear friends at Family Search Center.

      

The rest of our zone with Zone Leaders The Serrao's. The middle and right pictures are Hale & Farewell dinner.  Hale & Farwell dinner is held each month for all incoming new missionaries and outgoing missionaries who have finished their mission.  It is a happy and sad event with lots of food. Old friends leave and we make new ones. The first picture below are the new missionaries and those who are going home.  There are more new ones than those going home. It has been fun to get to know them.

       

We came to this mission as trainees in Family Search program and after two weeks we became teachers and instructors to our guests searching for their ancestors. Other missionaries got assigned to other places in the mission like Family History Library, museum, church history library, or the granite vault. There are other places besides that where missionaries serve.

            

It has been a real treat to have family come and visit.  We are grateful to belong to a wonderful and eternal family.  Thank you for your visits and memorable moments.

We thank our Friends, so many to name so we show only a few, who came from near and far to add to our mission's spiritual experience.

       

We had other unforgettable friends who also came on the scene that made it fun for us. The stick figure lizard above is a unique-shaped natural tip of a tree branch that fell with the autumn leaves from a tree next to the temple.  It just lacked a head so we installed a pencil eraser.

      

We truly love our Mission Presidency and we will miss them.  They have been so loving and kind to us.  We were orphans and they adopted us right from the beginning.  We are very grateful to them.

L-R Mission President Tate & Sister Tate, First Counselor President Oliver & Sister Oliver, Second Counselor President Larson & Sister Larson

We love our mission.  We enjoyed our training and working here at The Family and Church History Headquarters Mission.  Now we leave to a beginning of another mission in Finland.  We are excited and happy to go where we can serve further in what the Lord wants us to do. We will continue to serve with honor under our new mission president President Wayne Watson.  We will continue blogging from Finland.  Thank you for your love, prayers, and support in every way.  May the Lord bless you and protect you.  We love you all.