Sunday, May 22, 2016

Work - Church - Travel = Our Mission

It has been an eventful couple of weeks since our last post.  We would like to take this opportunity to share a few of the highlights with you.

Work

Many days we feel like we're doing more for Internet Archive and the University of Florida then we are doing for Family Search but then there are exceptions.  During the last few weeks we've digitized records dealing with each person who has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as bibliographic sketches of over 300 army generals.  We're also working on a series of memorials given in the United States Congress for colleagues who have died.  The work continues to move rapidly.  By month's end, we anticipate setting a new record for our site regarding the number of items uploaded onto Internet Archive's website in one month.

Church

Sunday, May 14 was a historic day for the Gainesville 5th ward. Bishop Thomas was released after serving as the Bishop of this ward for nearly eight years.  He has been the Bishop since the ward was created.  Our Ward Mission Leader was called to be the new president of the Young Single Adults branch. The sacrament service included a missionary farewell as one of our young men has been called to serve in Texas.  A sister was confirmed a new member of the church following her baptism the day before and we had five investigators in attendance, as well as an inactive member who returned after a two year absence. This was the tenth convert baptism that has occurred in the two wards we've attended since arriving in Florida. It is amazing to watch the Gospel at work in the lives of both members, investigators and missionaries.  

Travels

We enjoy spending our free time seeing the sights within our mission.  During the past few weeks, we visited the Appleton Museum of Art located in Ocala and affiliated with the College of Central Florida.  We were very surprised at the extensive collection of art and artifacts found in the museum.


We were unable to take pictures of the beautiful paintings, but we did get a few pictures of items in their Asian collection.



We were surprised to find this statue of a horse during our stop in Ocala.  Ogden, Utah isn't the only place with decorated horse statues along its' streets.


We enjoy taking walks and riding our bikes in the neighborhoods surrounding our apartment.  You never know what you'll see!  Yesterday, these four Sandhill cranes were taking a stroll through a neighboring apartment complex.


During the past year, we've had membership in the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens located in Gainesville.  A couple of weeks ago, we made our last trip there during our stay in Florida.


Their collection of bamboo is amazing as is the different form trees take in the gardens.



We've been surprised to see how many types of cactus grow in Florida.

During the upcoming week, our good friends Elder and Sister Martin will be returning to their Utah home.  It has been great serving with them and enjoying many activities and some great restaurants together.


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