Blessings

We continue to be blessed by Heavenly Father and we feel the support of family and friends. We are blessed to be able to serve a mission for Him. We are amazed at the expense and effort the Church invests to help the individual! Elder and Sister Larson who serve in the office and previously served in the office in Toulouse France were telling us how much the Church spends in that mission to bring the gospel to relatively few and we know this is true of other missions. We see how much is expended to keep the Employment Centre running—computers, supplies, our monthly council tax, the rest of our rent, utilities, etc. We have had an average of 33 people come in to the Centre each month with 3 placements. Last month we had 45 come for help with 6 placements. That’s not a lot of people but the Lord cares about each individual and our circumstances—spiritual and temporal!

We have added more countries to our visitors’ list—France, Senegal, Cameroon, Brazil, Zaire, Zambia—and we’d like to tell you about another of the people who has come to the Centre. Jeanne (not her real name) is from Moldova but has been living in Italy with her mother. She has some emotional problems at times. She is a beautiful girl, 30 years old, and wants very much to be able to support herself and live as an adult, not dependent on her mother. She has been a waitress but wasn’t getting many work hours and wanted something different. She couldn’t qualify for some jobs she had dreamed of and didn’t want to study further. She was constantly praying for help and keeping the commandments, but she was getting desperate for work, emotionally distraught, and about to give up and go back to Italy. As she left the Centre one day, feeling very discouraged, Kaye had the idea to tell her about a part-time cleaning job at the BYU Centre. They were looking for someone with a temple recommend and Jeanne qualified in that regard. It was not the kind of job she had hoped for and at first she seemed put off and perhaps offended at the suggestion. We told her we would tell the employer she might be coming to apply, and she left. Kaye wondered if she even should have told her about it. She evidently applied because we learned that as she was visiting the temple a few days later, she got a call that she had the job! She had made the decision that no job was beneath her and she should try for this job. We learned a few days ago that she loves working there and has been given extra work hours. We realize we were prompted to tell her about this job but, at the time, we did not recognize it as inspiration. 

Jeanne had been blessed an earlier time when she was in the Centre. She told Kaye that she had been living at a hostel but needed a permanent place and she was going to move into a flat with a girl she had met on the underground. This did not seem safe to us and, in talking to Claire, one of our volunteers, we learned that the Hyde Park Stake Relief Society President had an extra room she was about to advertise for rent. She was contacted and took Jeanne in and it was such a blessing—safe, supportive, and homelike. Kaye talked to the RS President last week and she said it has been a blessing for her also. Even though Jeanne has her bad days, she is a good person, clean, pleasant, and they sometimes cook for each other, etc. The Lord watches out for his children!!! He loves us all and blesses us every day, many times without our notice or acknowledgement.

Another great person we have met is the Assistant Ward Mission Leader in the ward we attend. Brother Canaan Kangetsambo, from Nigeria, has taught the last two lessons, on repentance and baptism, in the Gospel Principles class. Sunday, at the end of the lesson on baptism, he bore his testimony saying that before he joined the Church, he was doing bad things. When he repented and was baptized, he felt his sins were washed away. He said because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, he can partake of the Sacrament to renew that baptismal covenant and he can pray and repent daily and, he said, “The Lord forgives me each and every day.” His complete faith in the power of the Atonement and his sweet acceptance of the Lord’s gift is beautiful! He has a kind and peaceful countenance and a quiet, humble confidence. “Oh, it is wonderful!”

Over and over we see how the Gospel blesses people’s lives.

We can't resist putting in a couple of pictures. We recently visited the town of King's Lynn in the north part of the mission.

Kaye's Lynn, too!