I loved all of my companions, but one of them in particular comes to mind when I think of General Conference-- Sister Whitney Sheahan. Ironically, we never actually served together in April or October. While we were companions in Sassari, a city in northern Sardegna (also known as the island of Sardinia of the west coast of Italy), we bought little notebooks and started coming up with things we wanted to do with our future families. One of the ideas as to make Conference an 'event'. Now this is really for when we have kids and are trying to get them excited to sit down and listen to 8-10 hours of church on a weekend. So, once Mark and hopefully a few other siblings get older, there will be a very special biannual event for them involving special meals, games, and whatever else I come up with in the next few years. In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions of things you all did growing up.
For kicks, here are some pictures of Sister Sheahan and me throughout the mission.
Sassari in the summer is HOT! We had to wear closed-toe shoes so the instant we got into our apartment we would drop our bags, pray, and then shed our hot, sweaty shoes for flip-flops. Yes, barefoot would work generally, but since we had no air conditioning, dust and sand would cover the floor faster than our weekly cleaning could keep up with it.
Randomly, we were assigned to be companions a second time in Rome. We were taking pictures with some of the members and investigators before Sister Sheahan got transferred and a member wanted to take some of us. I think she's laughing at my ridiculous expression.
We weren't companions in Florence, but a bunch of missionaries got together to visit Boboli Gardens and play some sports (hence the casual outfit) so Sister Leavitt and I came down from Prato. Sister Sheahan was going home the next week and had just stopped by to say goodbye between some appointments and other errands.
This one is just for kicks for all the Baltimore folk. We're pretty small, but if you look in the right back, you can see me and Tara (Gibbons) Judd. Who knew that 5 years later our husbands would be in the same med school class together. (I could have put the boat picture on here, Tara, but spared both of us from the embarrassment.)
1 comment:
My parents in the last 10 years or so have made Conference weekend a big event. My mom always puts together little activity packets for the kids, lots of stuff coming from the friend. Because it's such a mixed group of ages, she has different levels of activities. The littlest kids color pictures, the next age group does stuff like word searches, and we all make our own cards for conference bingo. We've done tons of different stuff over the years. One of my personal favorites (for the older people) was drawing a picture of one of the speakers and trying to guess who they were at the end. Another was a quiz at the end of a session about who spoke, what their calling was, and what they spoke about. The person with the best notes won a candy bar.
They invite over my 2 older sisters and their families, so it's quite a large group. My dad sets up his own omelette bar, and my mom makes piles and piles of her famous homemade cinnamon rolls.
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