Our Mission Is Finished!

Visiting many of the wonderful people we worked with in Garden City, Kansas took up much of our time the last four days of our mission. 

At left is Deanne Peat, a recent convert who was always helping the missionaries or involved in any service project.  At right is Dinora Becerril with her new baby daughter.  She is a Returned Missionary who is married to the Garden City Ward mission leader, Roberto Becerril. 

We were also asked to speak in church.  Sister Howlett spoke on the need to help us all to continually be “re-baptized” by partaking of the Sacrament weekly to recommit ourselves to follow all God’s commandments the rest of our lives. 

 Emma Curnette at left here is a recent convert whom we helped a lot with her Family History and other things.  Emma is a grandma who's always helping her family.  She was called to work in the Primary just before we left.

A plea was made to the active members to continue the important work of finding and ministering to the less-active members and recent converts.  Elder Howlett filled the assignment to encourage all parents, teachers and members to help others learn by unlocking “The Lesson (which is) Inside the Learner”, taken from an article in the July Ensign given by Russell T. Osguthorpe.   This is a way to teach as the Savior would do.  It was very good to give talks to our friends we had made there, even though many were out of town on vacations that week-end.  Nevertheless, it was a choice way to say good-bye. 

Cassie Bribriesca, pictured at left with her daughter, was a recent convert we taught new member lessons to.  She was a joy to work with as she was so excited to learn everything she could about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His restored Church.

We also had the "graduation" of the English class that we, Elder and Sister Howlett, had been teaching.  The class had many different students attending at different times in the year and a half that we had taught it, some of whom were non-members.  We used the "Daily Dose" program but we also added 10-15 minutes of reading the Book of Mormon, with each student taking turns reading each verse of the three to ten verses we read that day. 

Our graduating English Class, from left to right:  Cristina Aguilar, Jasmine Ramirez, Sister Howlett, Bernadina Benitez, Miguel Benitez, Elder Howlett and Daniel Gonzales.

We eventually had four days a week for the class so some who worked during the week could attend on the week-ends.  All of our students were Hispanic and it was so wonderful to see the progress they were making.  At the graduation we only had 5 students complete the course, but those five had learned so much, some of them already understanding a lot of English when they started, but improving their speaking and reading skills tremendously.  It was a joy to work with these very special people. 

President Miguel Benitez was the former president of the Spanish Branch which was merged with the Garden City Ward just before we arrived, because of lack of Spanish Priesthood leadership.  Pres. Benitez couldn't do it all.  He began attending the English class to help support some of the other Spanish brethren who wanted to come and eventually he and his wife,Bernadina, became some of our best students.  They really learned a lot.  Also Cristina Aguilar came a lot toward the end of the last 7 months.  She understood English, but needed help learning to speak it better.  Her 10 year old granddaughter, Jasmine Ramirez, often came with her.  Jasmine spoke very good English and could read it quite well, but she helped a lot in the example reading of the Book of Mormon.  Also Daniel Gonzales, a new convert attended a lot the last 4 months.  He actually began attending before he got baptized and we like to think our Book of Mormon reading and fellowshipping in the class helped him want to join the Church.  He also had great missionaries who found, taught and baptized him.  So our class was a great success. 

Elder Howlett standing next to our car with the small U-Haul trailer attached to it. 

In order to take home a desk and an exercise bike we had purchased there to help us, we needed to rent a U-haul trailer to pull our stuff home.  However, the closest place to find the small trailer we needed was in Ulysses, a town about 50 miles south of Garden City, Kansas.  So Monday morning, 9 July, we traveled down to get the trailer.  It followed very nicely behind our Saturn sedan as we drove back to Garden City and we were able to finish loading it all that afternoon.   Thanks to the Zone Leader, Elder Toolson and his temporary companion, Elder Silva, we got the things loaded into the trailer. (Elder Franklin was the other Zone Leader and he was finishing his mission too and going home the week of our Senior Missionary conference.  There was a delicious breakfast scheduled at the IHOP in GC for some of his contacts and all the missionaries the day he left.  It was fun to meet together.)  

At left is a photo of having breakfast together at IHOP in Garden City just before Elder Franklin and Elder Williams left to go home from their missions. Pictured from left to right: Elder Howlett, Elder Williams, Elder Buys, Elder Anderson, Elizabeth Santiago(a new convert), Shauna Santiago (Elizabeth's mother and an investigator), Adrian (Elizabeth's brother and new convert), Elder Jesmer, Elder Toolson, and Elder Silva.

It wasn’t until 9 pm that we finished packing and cleaning the apartment, but we finally were able to get into bed by 10:30 pm so we weren’t too tired to drive all day the next day.  We left Garden City about 8 a.m. on 10 July 2012 saying good-bye to our wonderful friends.   Since it was our 48^th wedding anniversary we enjoyed being together and reminiscing about lots of things we had done during our many years of marriage.  When we think of all the different things that we have done during these years we ask ourselves, “Did we really do all that stuff?”   It is wonderful to be married when we are willing to totally sacrifice things for each other.  True joy comes when we forgive and forget all the little things that can irritate each other.  We just try not to get upset at little things.  D&C 121:41-48 is Godly advice.

Below and to the right you can see lots of trees which began showing up when we reached the Eastern side of the state of Kansas, and grew thicker as we crossed Missouri and into the state of Illinois, where we spent the night.

Tuesday night we stopped, celebrated our anniversary with a delicious steak dinner and spent the night at a motel in Pontoon, Illinois which is just east of St. Louis, Missouri.  Our room had a wonderful king-size bed which gave lots of room to stretch out.  After a tasty and hot complimentary breakfast the next morning we drove on the rest of the way into Columbus, Ohio arriving home about 4:30 pm on 11 July2012.  We really began to see the trees and green everywhere along the highways in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio and we remembered how green it always was there.  But also we remembered how humid the air is, which makes  it so verdant.  Thank the Lord we can afford good air conditioning in this very humid part of the country! 

Our journey was finished, and that evening we would head up to the stake center near our stake president’s home so we could be released as full-time missionaries.  We really enjoyed visiting with him and recapping some of the great experiences of our mission.  However, it was very final when he told us we should now take off our missionary name tags.  Our mission truly is finished!

We are done with our mission, but not with our traveling, as we are leaving next week to drive to Utah for a Howlett Family Reunion of Grant’s brothers, sisters and all our families who can come.  But this will be a personal mission to enjoy!