Focus Temples

 

Dear Friends,

Our mission goes forward with a few shifts. One of the wonderful shifts is our emphasis on the temple. The Los Angeles Temple is open now. Some frustration was felt as phase three took effect and the next week the temple closed for two months for maintenance projects. We all asked about better timing, but the crews that do the projects are scheduled far in advance. Who would of thought a pandemic would get in the way? Enthusiasm for the attending the temple is growing. With President Nelson's encouragement to get endowed, we are on a campaign to reach out and encourage the many Young Single Adults who have yet to receive those blessings.

For starters, we are holding Temple Workshops. These are not the official Temple Preparation Class lessons. Rather they are discussions on topics to help understand more about the temple. Anyone is invited to come and learn. We have two classes going and are adding a third. Brother Anderson, our full time institute director that we work with is doing a class on a similar topic. Lots of temple classes!!! Ours are held after church on Sunday. We enjoy a quick bite of food together - of course, and then enjoy learning about the covenants that we make in the temple. The more we understand the better prepared we will be.

One of our groups of students attending are from a regular Spanish speaking ward. We have invited them to attend the YSA activities even though they are not attending the YSA ward. We had them come to our Santa Monica building to play games, then to the sports night.

Now they are comfortable with coming to the classes we hold near the USC campus. One of our assignments is to help YSAs understand that all institute buildings and activities are available for all YSAs not just the students of the university close by. We've made progress with this group and we are excited to strengthen their connections with other YSAs.

The Los Angeles Temple is close by and we are taking advantage of it and attending baptism and sealing sessions with our young people. We have several sisters who will be taking out their endowments in the coming weeks and we looking forward to sweet times escorting them. We also have had two full time senior sister missionaries join us. We are orienting Sister Schroeder and Sister Kakuda to help with the activities. They are falling in love with these wonderful saints just as we have.

General Conference has been a time for gathering to listen to the prophet and other church leaders so, we helped organize some conference watching parties. These young people are still suffering from being confined to their own little screens and putting conference on the big screen with waffles and burgers brought lots of us together.

We also had a Face to Face broadcast with Elder Bednar. It was scheduled for mid afternoon on Sunday and we realized it was right after one of the wards dismissal. What a great opportunity we thought. But our thinking was a little slow to get the wards organized to get food served between church and the broadcast. We just pulled food together ourselves at the last minute serving baked potatoes and nachos (easy peasy). Had a group of about 70 join us for the spiritual feast.

Beach time still keeps us entertained. We've had sunset walks, beach trail bike rides, bonfires, cleanup projects and giving boogie boarding lessons. Love this mission.

We also rode our bikes to “The Getty” art museum. It was only 7.5 miles but the last three miles are ALL uphill. Julie's electric bike paid for itself and Mel had a major workout. The views from the top were marvelous and the architecture is a work of art in itself. Oh yes, Julie got a flat tire on the way home and Mel ended up driving in circles trying to rescue her. GPS fail.

Our FHE at the sports field has suffered from inclement weather. Lightning and a down poor of rain had everyone thinking we would cancel. What??? The Jefferys don't cancel. The next week had some wind, okay the weather app called them gale warnings. But we're from New Mexico. Wind doesn't stop us until it hits about 40-50 mph. We just huddled under the pavilion and played a little less softball. It is still sweet to look up from the field and see the Angel Moroni statue from the top of the temple standing nearby even through the rain.

What a joy it is to serve here in the shadow of the temple. It is the House of our Lord Jesus Christ. We feel His spirit as we do His work here and are grateful for the opportunities we have to serve Him. We will be returning to Albuquerque on December 10. It will be hard to say goodbye.