Behold, are not the things that God had wrought marvelous in our eyes?

Life is good!

We love this courageous group of young people who love sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our days are made brighter when we work with them. As non native English speakers, these missionaries can describe in their wonderfully simple and sincere English what will bring peace to your life, why we need prophets, or tell you about the miracle of the Book of Mormon. We feel so blessed to join them in their lessons with people seeking answers to life's questions.  

 We had the opportunity to visit a cranberry farm on the day they were harvesting the cranberries. The ponds were pink with floating cranberries. They suck the cranberries out of the ponds and we saw them fill two huge truckloads. We even got to get in a pond and play in the cranberries.

 

These beautiful cousins chose to be baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We've been bringing them to church for the last month and we've grown to love them. They are truly young people with a desire to learn and be obedient to God.

Recently we had the opportunity to go to the Boston temple with this wonderful sister for her first time and help her do the baptisms for her parents who are in heaven. When she was four, her parents brought their family to the US from the Azores after a volcano erupted on their island. Life was difficult for them while trying to raise a family, find work, and all without the ability to speak English. During our hour-long drive to the temple, we had good discussions about what life was like after death, how missionaries were teaching her parents the gospel, and about the blessings of baptism this sister was offering her parents. Her parents will be able to choose whether to accept the baptisms we performed for them in the temple. Regardless of her parents choice in heaven, we felt peaceful and joyful performing this work for them. 

 

We had the elders and sisters over to make cookies. Then we played the game Herd Mentality, a game that asks questions and you try to guess what everyone else is going to say. This group of missionaries consists of an El Salvadorean, one who grew up mostly in Mexico, 3 from Brazil, and two from the US. The diversity made for lots of laughing as it was almost impossible sometimes to guess correctly what others would be thinking. 

One day we went to visit a couple but they were not there. The wife's mother invited us in to wait. She is originally from Cape Verde. She asked if Norman and I liked cuscuz and I replied that I loved couscous, thinking she meant couscous the pasta. She was surprised. She said something like, “so you have had cuscuz before?” I replied, “Oh yes, we have it relatively often.” (not realizing my ignorance!) She brought some warmed cuscuz out for us with butter. She was very gracious. I’m sure she knew I had no idea what cuscuz was. It was like a steamed cornbread cake that you put butter on. It was very good. She described how to make it and even pulled out the steaming pots and molds she used to make it. That's just one of many funny things that happen to us as we try to deal with the many languages & cultures around us. It keeps us humble.

Mormon 9:15-16
. . . God has not ceased to be a God of miracles. 
Behold, are not the things that God had wrought marvelous in our eyes? 
Yea, and who can comprehend the marvelous works of God?

Take care and look for God in your life. He is there and he is blessing all of us.