by Leisa Parsons and Kristen Pack, Area Media Specialists
It’s probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you hear ”temple service,” but it’s effects are enjoyed by all who visit the San Antonio Temple grounds. Twice a year, in the fall and the spring, the grounds of the temple are made ready for volunteer gardeners to plant flowers.
Winter ready plants
Last week all of the temple’s flower beds were turned over in anticipation of the many volunteers who would show up this weekend to plant flowers. 4,990 plants loaded on 251 flats were delivered to the temple grounds. The plants are then placed around the temple grounds to await the volunteers.
Paul Linnemeyer, far right serves with his wife, Paula as the temple’s chief landscaper
Paul and Paula Linnemeyer are Service Missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ currently in their fifth year serving as the temple’s chief landscapers. Paul said, ”When we started, we didn’t have a lot of direction, about an hour of instruction, so we studied on the internet as to what we could use. Since then, I have learned to appreciate design.”
Sarah (l) and Laurie Atanasio (r) from the North Stake
9/11 was a tragic day for our nation, but amid the chaos there were inspiring acts of bravery and service. In conjunction with the federally recognized September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance, approximately 800 volunteers across the city got together Saturday morning to perform acts of kindness and service totaling over 2,700 volunteer hours. Members and friends of the Church of Jesus Christ fanned out around the city and outlying areas providing labor for 14 community projects including trash pick-up, painting, spreading mulch, collecting food donations and a variety of other services.
Members from the North Stake pick up trash at various locations around the cityWorking with the City’s Parks and Recreation department, several areas received a much needed cleaning
Many volunteers donned vests and cleaned up trash in several locations around San Antonio. Some of the wards and stakes worked directly with the City of San Antonio to pick up litter along streets. The volunteers were told to “kick it before you pick it” ensuring there were not any bugs or critters in the trash! Terri Freeman of the San Antonio North Stake had someone drive by as she was picking up trash and inquired about the cleanup. “He asked what we were doing, he told us that it was wonderful and asked ‘How can I find out about helping?’ I told him to check out JustServe.org for ideas.” Members in Uvalde also participated in picking up litter along a stretch of U.S. 90. They worked with Adopt-a-Highway in their cleanup efforts. Other congregations in San Antonio worked with the city’s Parks and Recreation department to help clean up area parks.
Volunteers from the Hill Country Stake clean up trails in the Canyon Lake area
Along with the litter pick-up in the city, folks in the Canyon Lake area cleaned up several parks and hiking trails. They picked up trash and some helped add mulch to hiking trails. In one of the parks volunteers used their weedwackers to help clean up and better define area hiking trails. Continue reading “A Tribute to the Memory of 9/11 Through Service”
By Giles Lambertson, Eagle Pass District Communications
(En español abajo)
Marcia and Michael Hurst
Michael Hurst manages the Church’s 2,000-acre peanuts-growing farm near Pearsall. He also serves as group leader for a congregation of Saints meeting 16 miles away in a Dilley community center under the umbrella of the Uvalde Branch. To say the Church is central in the life of Brother Hurst and his wife Marcia is not an overstatement.
The farm’s cotton fields stretch west toward the farm manager’s home
“We love being on the farm and actively participating in the Church’s welfare program. It’s like being on a mission. We hope to be here a very long time,” says the group leader.
The couple moved to the farm two years ago from San Antonio, where they had lived for eight years. Yet this is not an urban couple transplanted to a rural setting like the old television sitcom, Green Acres. The couple has bona fides as country folk.
The manager was born 50 years ago in Killeen in east-central Texas and has ranched and farmed most of his life. Marcia Hurst is a Portland, Oregon, native who grew up around horses and became a barrel racer, one of the most popular rodeo events.
They are college-trained as well. Eight years ago, Michael Hurst decided to augment his knowledge of ranching and farming by acquiring expertise with the computer: He earned an information technology degree from the University of Colorado.
Marcia Hurst has a similar educational bent. She earned a degree in nursing, which she utilized during a six-year stint in the U.S Air Force including at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. After her military service, she continued her nursing work, mostly caring for children in cancer and transplant units. She then returned to school to become certified as a family nurse practitioner.
JW enjoys ranch life under the Hurst’s care
When the couple moved to the Church farm, they didn’t give up their personal interests. Stabled next to an equipment building on the property is a horse named JW. Marcia Hurst is training it at the request of an area rancher. Continue reading “Farm Life and Service”
By Giles Lambertson, Eagle Pass District Communications
(En español abajo)
While Rene Garza was serving a mission as a young man in the Spanish-speaking California North Sacramento mission, he was called to be a branch president. It was a harbinger of future church service—including in 1996 becoming the first president of Eagle Pass District, which was his calling for 12 years. For four-plus years, the 72-year-old has been president of Del Rio 3rd Branch.
Rene Garza loves to work with his hands to create
The veteran leader is not a lifelong member… but almost. Born in the Texas community of Robstown, President Garza’s extended family began to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was two years old.
While still in his 20s, and as a consequence of his mission experience, Brother Garza was assigned by the First Presidency to help with the transition of the church’s missionary training programs. The plan was for the Spanish language training mission (LTM) program on the Brigham Young University campus to become the missionary training center (MTC) in Provo.
Brother Garza was called to direct the pilot program for the MTC. It proved viable. The missionary training center opened in 1978 as a place for overall training of missionaries, rather than just development of foreign language skills.
While that was a significant leadership role, Provo is a bigger part of President Garza’s story for another reason. It was on the BYU campus—where he served in three bishoprics, by the way—that he met his future wife, Kathryn. They married and moved to Del Rio in 1979. The Garza family eventually swelled to a total of seven with the addition of five sons.
The couple owned a State Farm Insurance agency in Del Rio for nearly 40 years, with Kathryn a licensed agent and office manager. With degrees in education from BYU and the University of New Mexico, she also taught in public schools. “She loves teaching,” says her husband.
Kathryn and Rene Garza
Over the years, the Garzas have served in a host of positions, individually and together. She has been president of both branch and district Relief Society, a seminary teacher, president of branch Young Women and Primary organizations and a stake missionary. Continue reading “A Lifetime of Service: President Rene Garza of Del Rio 3rd Branch”
Missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints get adept at packing up their suitcases. Every six weeks during mission life transfers occur, with about one-third of the missionaries being reassigned to a new area of service each time. A big transfer is occurring in the Texas San Antonio Mission at the end of this month. It will be time for a new Mission President and his companion. President Jason and Sister Stephanie Tveten will be heading home after three years of service in the Alamo City with Steven and Jennifer Fitzgerald arriving to take the reins of the mission.
When missionaries first arrive in San Antonio, they are taken down to the Alamo. They learn a little Texas history and immediately begin street contacting.
The Tveten’s and their children will be returning to Wenatchee in eastern Washington. He will be resuming his dental practice. They are taking with them a deep love of Texas, its people and memories of their unique mission experience. The Tveten’s fully weathered the Covid pandemic during their three years of service. The pandemic brought with it a host of challenges along with wonderful blessings and some changes in how the missionaries reach people.
President Tveten said he was impressed with the resiliency of his young missionaries during Covid. He said: “You read the book The Saints and you get a perspective of some of the challenges of the early Church and world wars and other pandemics…. During Covid the missionaries learned how to adapt and they did remarkably well. It has really prepared them for challenges that will come later in their life.”
The Tveten’s outside of a seafood restaurant
The Tveten’s both said that over the last three years they have learned the power of invitations — normal and natural invitations. Along with member’s opportunity to invite, President Tveten reminds, “…success is not dependent upon the outcome or agency of others. We just invite. In fact the first words of the missionary’s purpose is ‘we invite others to come unto Jesus Christ.’” Sister Tveten said: “I have realized that people want to feel needed. Everyone loves being invited to something and feeling like they are seen. We have a desire to be together. Don’t be afraid to invite — to know the things that you know or share the things that you know, to help them be a part of something.”
Jennifer and Steven Fitzgerald, on vacation in Hawaii, will begin their service in San Antonio on July 1st
Incoming president, Steven Fitzgerald also recognizes the power invitations have and the changes that Covid brought to missionary work. He said: “We want to take all of the good things that are already happening, like the Come Unto Christ Facebook page. We want to be able to allow people to connect with the Church any way they feel comfortable. Whether it is face to face or through different media — that’s great. We want this message to be brought to everybody, however they need to receive it.” Continue reading “TSAM…Anticipating a Big Transfer”
Sam West models his Special Olympics clothes and gold medal
Sam West is a lot of things. He’s a member of the Indian Springs congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a young adult, a son, a brother and he has Down syndrome. Sam West is also an Olympic athlete winning a gold medal in the 25m free style swimming event at the Special Olympics 2022 USA Games in Orlando, FL.
Sam waves just prior to his award winning swim
“When we lived in California we visited San Antonio for the National Down Syndrome Association meetings,” said his father Chuck West. “We were so impressed by the level of support from the local group that we decided if there was ever an opportunity to move to San Antonio we would. In a few years a position opened up and we were able to move.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operates 33 nonprofit farms in the U.S. They supply the Church’s welfare system with foodstuffs of many kinds. Some 50 miles southeast of Uvalde near Pearsall, one of these farms principally raises peanuts.
Eagle Pass District members—and members in eight San Antonio stakes—volunteer at the farm during the growing season, weeding and hoeing fields, clearing fences of brush, and otherwise contributing their sweat equity toward the success of the enterprise. District members are scheduled to work there later in June.
The Church Peanut farm is located in the fertile farmland south of San Antonio
The Church acquired and began to operate the farm more than a half-century ago. Of the farm’s 2,000 acres, 750 are tilled. Again this year, 250 acres of that tilled soil have been leased to a local farmer for raising of cotton. Farm manager Michael Hurst explains that rotating the irrigated land among different crops helps maintain the soil’s fertility.
The farm’s cotton fields stretch west toward the farm manager’s home
Another crop rotation method is to let some fields lay fallow each year, which is to say, to go uncultivated. The downside to doing that are the pernicious plants that take root in the undisturbed soil. “Fallowing is great, but fallow ground can get really wild and weedy.” Weed seeds are not a desired fruit.
This year, the land also is being plowed. “The soil hasn’t been plowed in years,” Hurst says, meaning it hasn’t been turned over so that surface soil is flipped beneath upturned soil. Two six-bottom plows handily accomplish that.
The farm manager knows agriculture. Born in Killeen 49 years ago, he has farmed and ranched for most of his adult life, taking over management of the peanut farm a year and a half ago. In 2014, the manager broadened his professional capacity in a dramatic way: He enrolled at the University of Colorado and earned an information technology degree.
Area leaders of the Church gather to counsel sorrowing Saints
The path to recovery for the wounded Uvalde community was explored Sunday in a special Uvalde Branch sacrament meeting. Speakers emphasized the need for members to respond to the tragic school shootings in ways consistent with what Jesus Christ taught His disciples — forgiving, believing and supporting one another.
Gathering at the Uvalde Branch on Sunday were, from left, Brad Leininger, who is a representative of the San Antonio Chapter of Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), Texas San Antonio Mission President Jason Tveten, Eagle Pass District President Ross Davidson, Area Seventy Jorge Contreras, and San Antonio Region Communications Director Don Larson
“We may never know why some things happen. But God knows what we don’t know, and sees what we do not see,” said Area Seventy Jorge Contreras, who was the concluding speaker during the service. Elder Contreras traveled to Uvalde from Austin for the meetings. In his talk, he specifically addressed the power of forgiveness.
Elder Contreras spoke of a similar tragedy in 2006, when a man entered an Amish school in Pennsylvania, let some students leave and eventually shot 10 girls, ages six to 13, five of whom died from their wounds. The 32-year-old shooter then killed himself.
His point in recounting the earlier shooting was to talk about the response of the Amish community. “They immediately began to reach out to the shooter’s family,” said Elder Contreras. Within hours of the shooting, members of the Mennonite community offered their sympathies to the widow and parents of the assailant and eventually attended his funeral in support of the family. “The Amish see themselves as disciples of Christ and want to follow his example of loving and forgiving everyone.”
Generally considered the southern limit of the Texas Hill Country, Uvalde is usually a quiet city. Before Tuesday, few people outside of south central Texas had probably heard of it. Now, it is on everyone’s lips, minds and hearts. Many across the area are mourning with the people of Uvalde.
Pushed out through social media on Wednesday
Young adults from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wanted to do something. Working with a school administrator from Uvalde and other Church officials in the area, they quickly organized a stuffed animal drive. Through social media the word spread quickly and within hours, hundreds of stuffed animals were showing up at the Church’s Center for Young Adults in San Antonio.
Lilee Pack expresses her love for another child in Uvalde
“It wasn’t much.. but it was something.. and sometimes something is just DOING something” said Kristen Pack, a mother of three young girls from San Antonio, she continued: “Like many of you, my heart has been so heavy these past couple of days. My two girls, both the same ages of the angels that were taken from this world, are feeling it too.” Pack and her girls learned about the stuffed animal drive, and they wanted to be a part of it.
Young adults and other volunteers wrote notes for each stuffed animal. Their notes expressed their love and thoughts, some included testimonies of Christ’s healing power. Neal Jeppson, of the Center said, “We lift burdens with Jesus as we work together.” Continue reading ““Doing Something””
The remnants of the fence that surrounded the Mielec Forced Labor Camp during WWII. Kirkham’s building sits just to the left in this photo. If you look closely, you can see the outlines of the rough boards that formed the fence in the concrete(photo – David Kirkham)
The large stone factory is a fitting metaphor for all the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches — change is not only possible, but that which is unspeakably broken can be made whole. What was once used to imprison and destroy has become a place that is facilitating refuge and safety, and God’s hand can be seen in its reclamation. Charly Risenmay, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from San Antonio, believes that God has indeed had a directing hand in the transformation of a factory in Mielec, Poland.
Jewish candles and memorials on the concentration camp fence (photo – David Kirkham)
Risenmay’s paternal line traces their roots back to Mielec, a Polish town about 140 miles from the Ukrainian border. The land the factory sits on belonged to Risenmay’s family. She said: “The land was taken from us when the Polish government hastily conscripted it in 1938 for a factory to build Polish airplanes. When the Germans invaded Poland the next year, they took it over.” Her family were some of 2,800 Jews out of a population of 5,500 living in Mielec prior to World War II. Mielec has the devastating distinction of being the first town declared “Judenfrei” or “Free of Jews” by the German invaders. Risenmay said: “Most of my family died in the holocaust. Many members were murdered in Mielec, in the synagogue, while they were in ritual baths. The Germans literally locked the doors and burned them to death. The rest were evacuated to this factory until they were sent to a ghetto for ‘liquidation.’”
Risenmay said: “The day my aunt and her family were marched to the train. My Aunt was a child in this picture. She remembers the snow was red by the time they got on the train.”
She continued: “A few died there — having been worked and starved to death in that factory—on their own land.” Risenmay’s aunt, now living in California, was one of about 45 Jewish survivors from Mielec. She was hidden as a child by a Polish family until she was rescued. Risenmay and her aunt are very close and so the details of what is now happening in Mielec have captured her attention. Continue reading “From Ashes to Beauty”
