Elder and Sister Struempler: In Memorium

At lot has happened since my last blog, some of it very good, and some of it very sad. I'll start with the good.

We got a new missionary on Jun 15th. Elder Namoa came to us from Australia, though originally from New Zealand. Sunday night I was thinking about what I could do to make him feel welcome so I went on Facebook to the Iwakuni Classified site and posted, "ISO Vegemite. Does anyone know where I can get some Vegemite here in Iwakuni?" After a few minutes I got a response that someone who said they had a jar of Marmite (British brand of Vegemite) and she would be happy to let me have it since they didn't like it. We made arrangements to meet her in front of the base theater the next afternoon. I thought, "Cool", this will make Elder Namoa happy.

We met at 3 PM and she gave me the jar of Marmite, and I shared with her who it was for and why. She then asked me a question that blew me off my feet. She wanted to know what she needed to do to be able to join our church. She had seen our badges and knew we were missionaries from the Church. She told me she had been reading the Book of Mormon and she had some questions. She was in the middle of Alma already. Blew us away! I exclaimed to her, "You even made it through the Isaiah chapters! Good for you!

I told her that we certainly could get in touch with the Sister missionaries and have them contact her. She gave us her phone number. She actually pulled out her B of M and I asked her where she got it from. She said that about a year and a half ago she had gone through some discussions with the missionaries, but felt that things were going too fast so she stopped. She said she was ready to move forward now! I showed her Moroni 10:4-5 and read it to her. I then bore my testimony of the promise of the Book of Mormon. We were so excited.

When we got home I called the Sisters and they too were blown away. I told them that by next week I wanted to see a baptism calendar. :-)

Tender mercies when you consider the events:

1. I decided to try and find some Vegemite for our new missionary.

2. I posted a request on a local Facebook site.

3. A person responded and offered give me some Marmite.

4. We met this person at the base theater and got the Marmite

5. She recognized our name tags indicating we were missionaries.

6. Told us she has been reading the Book of Mormon and wants to join the Church!

7. Turned the contact information over to the Sister missionaries.

It just doesn't get any better than this!

Every day when we say our prayers, we pray that we might have a missionary experience and would act on those experiences. Proof again that God hears and answers prayers!

We knew when we left for our mission that there was a high chance we would not see Geri's brother Ski, again, at least not in this world. He had been fighting a brave battle against cancer for 4 years. We hoped and prayed for the best, but prepared for the worst.

On June 15th at about 2 PM while at the train station picking up a new missionary, we received the call that Ski was gone. It was a hard call to take, but we also knew that his suffering had ended and that he was now in our loving Heavenly Father's arms.