As you may know, one of our assignments is to periodically inspect missionary apartments for cleanliness and repair. And what we have learned from that is……they don’t clean up after themselves! I guess that isn’t a big surprise : ) So here are my suggestions if you have a son/daughter that will soon be serving…..
1) Teach them how
to clean….dishes, dust, toilets, bathroom tile, etc. We have wonderful cleaning products here in
Holland. You only have to spray the shower
tile and it sparkles! It doesn’t take
more than five minutes. Have a cleaning
party and time the different cleaning activities. So they know it really doesn’t take very long to clean up after themselves.
2) Teach them to do what they can to help themselves,
i.e., if the light bulb burns out, replace it!
Don’t wait for us to come inspect the apartment and then ask us to take
care of it : ( . In lots of missions
they need to know how to do simple bike repairs. It makes their lives so much easier if they
can do a quick repair and have transportation.
3) and last but not least, teach them to leave no trace! When missionaries are transferred they leave
behind so much stuff! Books, worn out
clothes, perfectly good clothes, non-functioning bikes, Christmas decorations
sent by their families, etc. It all
piles up transfer after transfer, missionary after missionary until we do a
de-junking project on the apartment! It would
be so nice if they just took care of their own stuff. It would be so great if they disposed of what
they don’t want to take with them.
That’s all my
suggestions : )
There is an upside of all this….we have gotten some cool “hand me ups” as we call the stuff the young missionaries leave that we can use! Here are some of our “hand me ups”…
There is an upside of all this….we have gotten some cool “hand me ups” as we call the stuff the young missionaries leave that we can use! Here are some of our “hand me ups”…
A Gospel Art Kit
that I love having for our institute lessons! And a Liahona centerpage from decades
ago that fits perfectly the theme of our Book of Mormon class.
Joe’s favorite….a French Opinel pocket knife!
A pair of warm ski gloves for Joe and a pair of water
proof outer gloves for me : )
A thin, briefcase sized bag. Just perfect for Joe’s language books and
papers.
Two darling pop up bible story books in Dutch.
And last but not least....a nearly brand new, London Fog,
wool, mid-calf length dress overcoat just Joe’s size!
After some thought, it became perfectly clear why some missionary left this behind when he got transferred. It takes up way too much room in a suitcase when you only have two suitcases to pack everything you own in. It’s not waterproof, thus, not warm enough. And not so practical riding a bike!
It will soon be in
the used clothing donation bin and someone will be so thrilled with their find
at the Kringloopwinkel (the Dutch goodwill store!).
Such great hand me ups.
ReplyDeleteGood tips! And not just for missionaries! Wink wink.
ReplyDeleteBelief is the reason we go on a mission. It is the motive for preaching about Christ and sharing/Proclaiming his love. Faith is understanding we are children of God and our Heavenly Father. May this defined and explained and Meaning of faith bless your life. Faith is defined again and because faith has an inherent joy it gives us a solid foundation that we finally have the peace we have been searching For.
ReplyDelete"Many believer's feed themselves on what God hasn't done. When I dwell on what hasn't happened, I create the atmosphere for the spirit of offense to arise and to thrive. When I dwell on what hasn't happened, I legitimize unbelief. I live with a sense of justification, for not believing God.
Faith in the purest sense is the ceasing of resistance. even when there's no physical evidence, when the other evidence is present. Not feeding ourselves on what God hasn't done Faith in it's purest form is the absence of resistance
Heaven is a place where everyone is celebrated, some are more honored but everyone is celebrated. All men and all women shall be judged on the light which they have received. Heaven is a permissible culture. God's nature is eternally permissible. These statements protect us from credit.
Faith in the purest sense is the ceasing of resistance, even when there's no physical evidence, when the other evidence is present. Not feeding ourselves on what God hasn't done. Faith in it's purest form is the absence of resistance. Faith doesn't deny a problems existence, it denies it's influence. He or she was someone whom aridity and desolation never disturbed for he or she had a deeply rooted, and a vigorous faith.
Now we can act as we have always dreamed. Now we can act as we have always been. Now we can step into the light and gather the sunlight instead of blocking out our possibilities. Instead of blocking out our joy. Variety will bloom in/under the sun. We can show off our best, we can enjoy other people's gifts. We can blossom where we stand upon the joy that faith provides us. Upon the joy that faith inherently has, which blossoms the entire field of flowers"
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDYaxabUfkA - The Definition of Faith