More than half of the residents in GCK speak another language natively. The Spanish speakers dominate, but there are also Laotian, Burmese, Thai, Cambodian, Hmong, and others. Many of them don’t speak English very well, but there are very few among them who have no interest in learning. The stereotype in which foreigners are depicted as wishing for America to accommodate their language preference doesn’t fit the foreign population in GCK.
This new assignment might at first seem quite simple since Elder Howlett used to teach English as a foreign language out in the Pacific islands. But the Church program that has been designed for this task is quite different from that, and we are going to have to do a lot of preparation to be able to do this right.
Potentially it could include a lot of non-members who need the help that isn’t elsewhere available in GCK, especially since the Bishop wants to open this class up to the community. This is beginning English conversation.
8. Some of our work is with people who are in hospital or nursing home care.
Many of our visits have been made to the hospitals and nursing homes in support of members receiving medical care. We make regular visits to two different nursing homes. We have two members living in one of them, but one of the two is an Alzheimer’s patient who doesn’t even recognize when we are visiting him. The other one was in their intensive care ward for quite a while as she was recovering from pneumonia. Now that she has been able to get back to her normal room, she is more free to enjoy her life. She actually came to church once, and we have hope she will do so again.
The patient in the other nursing home has come to church often. She has been suffering a lot, but this week she reported finally getting some relief from a new medication. We have seen her at some times when she was severely ill, and it’s good to see her doing so well now. She is one who doesn’t read very well, so we have worked with her to help her read the Book of Mormon. This has helped her, but has also helped us to understand the challenges that many people face here, whether they are native-born Americans, or from a different home land. Reading is a challenge for many.
Our friend Janice Allen is doing much better now. We've seen her at times when she was a surgery patient who had to be taken to Wichita for a few weeks through several phases of recovery, until now when she is more or less free from pain for the first time in many years.
We have also gotten to know the inside of the local hospital as we’ve made visits to others. We've even gotten inside the psychiatric ward behind the locked doors.
One man we home teach has had a serious problem with fluid in his lung cavity, and the diagnosis has varied over a wide range from cancer to a dietary deficiency. They took him to a hospital in Denver a while back, and the diagnosis is now pretty good: no cancer, and the bug is treatable. We got word tonight that he will be allowed to return to Garden City soon. That will really make him happy. It has been wonderful to associate with him and his family through all of this.
There are also a lot of little ailments in the children or other family members where we visit, and it isn’t uncommon for us to be able to help with a little assurance or advice or a priesthood blessing.
9. Other Duties As Assigned and those that just come up.
In our visiting with a lot of people we find ourselves involved in a support role on many fronts, including: marriage counseling, finance counseling, being a general spiritual companion to the downhearted, serving as surrogate grandma and grandpa to a lot of kids who have none of their own, or just being an interested party in general conversation at dinner appointments, etc. One of the more regular projects has been to try to find rides so that people without cars or who don't currently have a driver's license (for legal reasons) can get to church. Last Sunday, however, the Relief Society President began a project to relieve us of that task, so it may go away. Or how about the time the bishop sent us to help a family where a granddaughter disappeared when she was going over to grandma's house to get ready for church. Grandma was the primary president, but hadn't been able to go to church because of the missing child.
10. We have a regular Home-Teaching assignment In the Garden City Kansas Ward.
The bishopric has organized the Home Teaching in a unique way. The local members work only with the less-active members and try to establish permanent social ties with them in order to build a foundation for the long term. The active families in the ward are assigned to be Home taught by the five sets of missionaries.
This is the Michael Holdsworth family that we were home teaching until they moved away.
This plan gives evidence of the maturity of the local members, in that they are willing to take the assignments to visit the less-active members who are sometimes hard to connect with.
This plan makes sense. We were assigned to visit eight families, and these have been rewarding experiences. It is nice that we can easily get appointments, and that these people are there at the scheduled time for our visits. That makes it easier for us to complete our Home Teaching visits in our busy schedule.
So you now have an overview of ten types of activities that are included in our assignment in GCK as senior missionaries, and only number ten is under the heading of visiting the families assigned to us as home teachers. Judge for yourself. Are we just doing a lot of Home Teaching ?
Let's do some Serious Thinking . . .
If you think our mission is something different, something special, you better think again. Every Home or Visiting Teacher should be doing all of these things when necessary. Think about it. Is there anything in our list of things that we do that a good home teacher or visiting teacher isn’t supposed to do?
Go back and consider what we have been doing. Read these postings again. Maybe we can all learn a little more about our own responsibilities and opportunities for doing the Lord’s work.
Yeah ! As senior missionaries we are just doing a lot of good home teaching.
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