Nearly Spring

March 21, 2023

Nearly Spring

At Buffalo Rock state park.

It’s now the middle of March and only a few days away from the official start of spring. Winter here has been pretty mild. We haven’t had very much snow, but we have had a few cold snaps and a lot of rain and gray days. The last few days have been cold and windy. I think we can claim that we have survived two northern Illinois winters without much complaining.

We love our mission and especially the opportunity to serve in one small ward the whole time. We have gotten to know the members (both active and less active) very well as we have visited and served them. You learn to love those you serve. We are working with a number of recent converts, including a young man who joined the church two months ago in Zimbabwe. He and three of his friends are here on tennis scholarships at a local community college. We have been teaching this young man and helping him prepare to receive the priesthood.

We also enjoy spending time with the young missionaries. We continue to be impressed with their dedication. Although there are no young missionaries in our ward, we do participate in district and zone meetings. We also inspect the apartments for all the missionaries in our zone once each six weeks. We participated in a district P-day last week a little over an hour away in Frankfort, by providing lunch of Chicago dogs.

So far, we have put 60,000 miles on our car since we left home driving around our large ward area as well as driving in to district and zone meetings. Although some of these miles are on the Interstate Highways, we try to go as many places as we can on the beautiful country roads.

There are 20 senior missionaries in our mission, including four who work in the office. We have gotten to know each of them through monthly zoom meetings as well as visiting them and having group activities. A couple of weeks ago we participated with 14 of the senior missionaries by going to lunch and then going to a performance of a Broadway play (Into the Woods) in the Chicago suburb of Aurora. Each of the senior missionaries is having a different experience. All of the other senior missionaries serve in wards that also have young missionaries. The instructions we were given was just go and do good, so we have tried to figure that out our way.

One of the ways we have tried to serve is with the local food bank in Ottawa. We help on a shift each Wednesday afternoon and evening by helping customers one at a time go through the store and fill a basket. We have gotten to know and serve many people here in the community. We always wear our name badges and often have religious conversations as we walk them through the store. Once a month we also help at an outside food distribution held in the parking lot at the hospital. We have a semitruck load of food brought in and a then load boxes of food into about 200 cars as they drive through. We really enjoy this community service.

We love and miss all of you. We pray for you daily that you will have peace in your lives.

Love,

Elder and Sister Curtis