August 18, 2011

Elder and Sister Blattman’s Missionary Weekly Journal
August 18, 2011

Summer Seminary is completed this week. It kept us hopping and the summer went by very quickly as a result. At the end two of the boys got up and thanked Sister Blattman for the excellent lunches. We know they liked that part. We had a lot of fun with them, memorizing scriptures, playing games, and eating Sister Blatman’s fine lunches. Tuesday, this week, we went downtown to the State Historical Society where the kids each got to read from an 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon and learn about Thomas Kane who befriended the Saints and who lived nearby in Philly.

Then we went to the Independence Mall where we stood near the place where the church rented a carpet store and held services. The actual spot is now occupied by the Independence Visitors Center where you get tickets to go see the Liberty Bell. On that corner, in 1840, Orson Hyde preached and requested help to send him to Palestine to dedicate it for the return of the Jews. A man came forward and gave him a purse containing gold coins for his trip, requesting only that he be remembered in his prayer. In his prayer, Orson Hyde said:
“Do Thou also look with favor upon all those through whose liberality I have been enabled to come to this land. Particularly do Thou bless the stranger in Philadelphia, whom I never saw, but who sent me gold, with a request that I should pray for him in Jerusalem. Now, O Lord, let blessings come upon him from an unexpected quarter, and let his basket be filled, and his storehouse abound with plenty.”
After that we went by a chapel where Joseph Smith delivered a sermon to 3,000 people in January of 1840. The building is now a Jewish Synagogue and we just looked at it as we drove by.
As part of our final class we had ‘Brother Joseph,’ speak. He was the first member to join the Church in Haiti, the first missionary from Haiti, and then the first mission president to Haiti. He worked for the Church for a number of years as a CES director for the Caribbean area. Before he came we expected an older man but he turned out to be about 10 years younger than us. (It seems like everyone is younger than us nowadays.) A humble man, he now works for Target and spoke gently with the kids about their goals.
There is a lot of brown in the photo. Perhaps we should have chosen a lighter background. The old white guy really stands out.