Friday, March 31, 2017

Traynor's update

Dear family and friends,
   This last week was very busy. Saturday the 25th the senior missionaries in the mission went with President and Sister Salisbury to take a three hour tour of the Summit Bechtal Reserve outside of Beckley West Virginia near Mt Hope. This is the site of the BSA national jamboree. In 2019 it will host the International jamboree. It is over 10,000 acres. My goodness what a place. They have put in over four Hundred fifty million dollars in infrastructure alone. They can accommodate up to eighty thousand scouts and leaders. It is quite the facility. After the tour we had lunch with the President as well as some training.
   On Sunday the 26th we left at 7:15 AM to drive and hour to the Gallipolis Ward. Their early morning seminary class can only meet on Sunday morning. So we attended the class their Sacrament meeting and their three hour block. We were hosted by a Senior missionary couple for lunch. We then helped with the ward's self-reliance devotional. We got home at about 9 PM after making the drive back in the rain, kind of scary in the dark on these narrow windy roads.
   Monday was a zone conference here in Huntington. It was a great opportunity to be taught again by the mission President and see all the missionaries in our zone.
   Our self reliance meetings are going well.
   We are loving our Pathway and Gathering classes. These YSA are so dedicated and we are all bonding together and enjoy our time together. It is still taking a lot of time to read and prepare our lessons. We only have one week left to complete this first semester. It's gone by very quickly.
    We have had a ton of rain on and off for weeks and this Arizona girl misses the sunshine. Of course all this West Virginia green and humidity is due to this rain. It's a good thing this little apartment and our car are air conditioned once summer hits.
    We are doing well and finding plenty to keep us busy. I've even had a moment to do some sewing to prepare for a quilt class I'm doing for the ward.
     We love you and miss you but all is well here.
     We love the work and thes good folks herein West Virginia.
Almost Heaven, Traynor missionaries



   

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Our self reliance assignment

Hello family and friends,
   So we've had our training and the Huntington stake had their devotional for the self reliance initiative. Groups have been formed ( personal finance, education, finding or starting a new business  and employment)  and started meeting this week. These groups will meet together for 12 weeks 2 hours each week. What a blessing for the people here in this economically depressed area. Pat and I will be working with a couple one on one that have limited reading and writing skills to help them understand the material. These folks are so anxious to learn and are already filled with hope. It's exciting to see.
   We had our first Seminary and institute inservice luncheon last Saturday. We will be doing this the third Saturday of each month. Here's how it goes. Pat and I show up for our inservice meeting at the Huntington building with a lunch for that group. Then when the two hour meeting is over and they've eaten, we pack up the lunch and drive an hour to the Charleston building and lay out the lunch again for the folks at that building and their meeting. Then pack it up again and drive home and empty the car and put everything away.
   So I,would say it went well only that our target number is 12-15 at each building and this week was the weekend beginning spring break so I had plenty of food had they all come but they didn't. Therefore we had to find folks to give it to. Fortunately it was our stake conference this past week and our General Authority was Elder Echohawk. So we fed our stake guys for lunch that had come for meetings. They were happy because they'd started early that morning.
   With the left over food from the second lunch we fed full time missionaries after the adult conference meeting as well as some senior missionaries today that came into town for the conference.
   Our conference was great and my favorite talks were by President and Sister Cotton of the Louisville, Kentucky Temple. Her talk was on the worth of souls and His talk was on being rock solid on the inside. Elder Echohawk's talk was on following the promptings of the spirit and there are miracles all around us. All three talks touched my heart and soul.
   The gospel of Jesus Christ is true. He is the Saviour and Redeemer of mankind. I urge us all to be prayerful and believing and love each other. We love you all and miss you but we know we are needed here at this time. Love, The Traynor missionaries