Week 21

 

My companion Sister Sharp and our friend Sister Ward serving in Concordia, Kansas.


Hello Everyone!


How are you all doing? I'm doing well here in Kansas! Things are going well! We have been visiting less active members since I got here in Hiawatha. We are taking one town at a time. I'm not sure how many towns we cover, but it is around 20 I think. anyway it seems as soon as we think we have visited everyone (less active) in one town another one shows up. We have worked in Falls City, Nebraska several different times. We now have names of a couple more people to visit in Falls City.

My companion was asked to speak in church last Sunday. She was asked to speak on 'ministering'. She gave a very touching talk. She referenced Joy Jones' talk on ministering. She was saying that wouldn't it be nice if we ministered to the people we are assigned because we love Jesus Christ? We don't have to love the people we minister to, but we should minister to them because we love Jesus Christ. She gave an example of a home teacher who was assigned to visit an inactive man in his ward. He contacted this man and the man told his home teacher that he didn't want him to visit him. The home teacher asked if he could send a note by mail once a month. The inactive man said that that would be okay. So for 22 years this home teacher sent him a message each month by mail. One day the RS president found out that his wife had cancer. She knocked on his door and when he answered the RS president asked if she could help in some way. The man said no thank you. About 2 weeks later his wife passed away. He didn't know what to do, so after 22 years he called his home teacher. His home teacher helped him with the funeral plans. In the next 5 years this inactive man married an active sister in the temple . He was now fully active in the church. This was a great example of ministering because you love the Lord. I thought this was such a great story! I just hope I can show this kind of love to those inactive people we visit on a daily basis.

This last week we visited Concordia, Kansas. This is where my companion had served the first several months of her mission. She wanted me to see the historical sights there as well as visit with a Senior Sister Missionary, Sister Ward, who is by herself there. We met her at the Orphan Train. This historical site was very interesting. Apparently, back in the late 1800's to early 1900's there were a lot of children left by parents to grow up in the streets of New York. Either both parents worked or they couldn't afford to feed them. Some of these orphans were abandoned at the hospital after they were born.There wasn't enough room at the orphanages for them so they were put on trains and sent across the country. The trains stopped at several places along the way and at each place children were lined up and people would adopt the ones they wanted and the rest got back on the train and waited for the next town. Kansas was one of the states that adopted the highest number of children. Some of them became teachers or doctors. All throughout the town there are statues of children representing this orphan train. It was very interesting to read their stories. 

We also saw a POW camp while in Concordia. This was also very interesting as they had many artifacts and stories of the prisoners, mainly from Germany, that were housed there during the war. After the war they had to return to Germany. Many of these prisoners returned to Kansas because they were treated so well while they were in the POW camps here. I think both of these things tell a little about how friendly and caring the people of Kansas are. We also toured the Brown Theater while in Concordia.

Our landlord, our branch president, tilled up an area in our yard so that we could plant a garden. We got it planted and it is doing pretty well. I was afraid that the seeds were going to get washed away because we had a really big rain storm shortly after the seeds were planted. They seem to be doing pretty well, I'll include a picture of it. We thought that some fresh produce would be a great gift for some of the people in our branch and also some of our less active friends.

That's about all for this week. I really appreciate the emails I have received from you. It's always nice to hear how you are doing!

Love,
Sister Tuha

Picture of the orphan train that the orphans rode on.


Numbers of orphans that were placed in different states.


Picture of children in the streets of New York

Picture POW museum

POW museum

Picture of a jeep at the POW museum.

Our garden!


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