The people you serve will call you blessed forever…get a glimpse into the heart of the Messiah
Beach Chairs and a Haleakala Sunset
Our weekly experience gives us repeating reasons to glory as Alma did, “that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.” (Alma 29:9). In our regular service to members and leaders, youth, and especially the addicted, “when [we] see many of [our] brethren [and sisters] truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is [our] soul filled with joy…” (Alma 29:10)
Recently we were told by the Honolulu Mission President that Senior Missionary applications are frustratingly few. A senior couple we love completed their extended service here last week to return home after several missions. Two other couples complete their assignments next month. This week we plead with our senior brothers and sisters to serve. Shared in one of our previous letters, our Pleasant Grove friend Blaine Greenhalgh expressed the amazing experience he and Janet had serving as a couple.
“You do not want to miss this! The experiences of senior missionary service are so sweet, so delightful, so incandescently good that you do not want to pass them by. Nothing that can happen at home will compare—absolutely nothing! You are able to talk and facetime with your family back home more than you realize… The Spirit will make them closer to you than you can imagine.”
Elder Greenhalgh continues, “Sure, serving is hard. We were tired. We were going nearly all day but it was such fun…It is only 6 months, or one year or 18 months or 23 months. What are you stewing about? Go! … It is not forever…the people you serve will call you blessed forever!
More than that you will have the deep inner joy that will bring tears to your eyes for the rest of mortality and beyond. You walked by the Lord’s side, you learned from Him in a personal way that is beyond my ability to express. He loves senior missionaries more than you and I can imagine but while you serve you get a glimpse into the heart of the Messiah.
There are so many ways to serve…Choose what the Lord would have you do and then go. Be a missionary.” (Ref. https://ancestorclips.com/2026/03/07/you-do-not-want-to-miss-senior-missionary-service/)
Sister Hardman and I add our witness of the fulfillment and joy we feel in serving real people each day here in Hawai’i. One sister that we have known for a year broke our hearts as we heard her story and felt of her heart ache. Now, a year later we can witness the light that has returned to her countenance and that Jesus Christ is the grace and source of power that has kindled and is sustaining her light. It is a joy to see and to feel her faith now in a good and hopeful place.
Sinai or Haleakala?
We could mention the daily gratitude expressed to us by strangers, by our bishopric, our stake leaders, spouses or family members of persons struggling in recovery. Instead let us share how much Sister Hardman and I have grown, emotionally and spiritually, individually and as a couple. The Lord is blessing our relationship, our marriage, and our family.
Our shadow on the clouds
A few days ago we treated ourselves to a ten-thousand-foot sunset. We drove up Haleakala in late afternoon, enjoyed a brief hike at the summit, then joined a hundred other people spread out across a west-facing ridge to experience natures masterpiece. That night the deep blue horizon was bounded bellow, not by the sea, but by billowy cumulus cloud tops of infinite shapes and texture, and bounded above by thin flowing cirrus clouds slowly drifting across the sky. The air cooled much faster than the volcanic rock which had been heated by the sun. As the Earth rolled, moving us backwards hundreds of miles per hour in our beach chairs, the sun didn’t really ‘set,’ we simply rolled with the Earth out of view of the Sun. The breeze was cold. Most on that ridge were wrapped in beach towels for warmth. We had remembered our jackets. The clouds below faded through various shades of gray. The cirrus above radiated through various shades of orange.
Haleakala Sunset
Before it was totally dark, a young couple, Grace and Justin from Wisconsin stepped toward us and held out a smart phone showing a picture of us sitting close to each other in our beach chairs, huddled on the side of a darkened dormant volcano gazing away to the west. “You are so charming,” she said. (Now, the only other person who has ever called me charming was Joan’s Grandma Hansen, forty-seven years ago before Joan and I were married.) Well, if in our (young) senior years, a young couple can deem us charming, then the same can be true for all seniors. We exchanged contact information.
The next day we wrote, “Dear Grace, Thank you very much for taking these pictures on top of Haleakala. It was very kind of you to share them. We agree, the experience was beautiful and inspiring. Attached are a couple pictures we took. We have worked and played on Maui part time for years. Presently we are Service Missionaries for Addiction Recovery. We are grateful to be able to serve those in recovery. We wish you and your loved ones the very best. Mahalo.”
To which she replied, “Thank you! The view was gorgeous and that is amazing you’re serving with that program. I’m sure many benefit from it!”Grace is correct. Many are benefiting. And her first name is fitting to our experience. The ‘Grace’ of Christ is a powerful blessing. Whether at home or abroad, whether at sea level or on mountain top, may each of you feel the ‘incandescently good’ blessings of serving as senior missionaries.
AncestorClips 