Each Friday morning, Brian and I attend a virtual AJS (Active Job Search) Meeting. We are not the group facilitators, we just attend so that we can keep current on things that are discussed in the meeting. (Active Job Search groups are Church-sponsored support groups for anyone actively seeking new or better employment. When you join an Active Job Search group, you’ll participate in daily meetings facilitated by volunteer employment advisors and job search professionals. Online groups meet daily over Zoom for 60 to 90 minutes. Daily meetings consist of job-search skills training, support from other job seekers, job lead sharing, networking, and daily check-ins with peers.) The job seekers who attend AJS are usually professionals and get one-on-one coaching from someone like Brian or me and also attend the AJS meetings each weekday morning. Brian has 3 or 4 job seekers who are currently attending the “Eastern US and Canada” group. One of Brian’s job seekers, Dellon, recently accepted a job and this was the last AJS Meeting that he would attend. He was asked to give the opening prayer and it was very touching…..he “Thanked Heavenly Father for Elder and Sister Brandenburg and for all of the things that they taught him and the things that they did to help him get a job.” He actually started crying during the prayer. It was emotional and a special moment.
I ran a few errands Friday afternoon. One errand was to the bank. The teller, Rolando, who helped me at the bank saw my name tag and said, “Oh, you are a member of the church. Everyone in your church seems so happy and kind. I met some younger missionaries and they invited me to church and told me that if I went that they would give me a Book of Mormon. I wasn’t able to go to church because I live in Yonkers and the church building was too far away.” I told him that I could get him a Book of Mormon and that I would be back in an hour. I hurried back to our apartment and texted the five other Senior Sister Missionaries who live in our building to ask if anyone had a paperback copy of the Book of Mormon that I could give to the bank teller. Sister Wansguard said that she had a copy in Portuguese. Sister Scheuermann said that she had one at the Family History Center on the Upper West Side and could get it for me the next day. Sister Wellings said that she had one in the Manhattan Temple Office and told me to meet her in the apartment lobby in 20 minutes. I met Sister Wellings then and there and she took me to her office which is in the part of the Manhattan Temple that is not currently under construction. She actually took me through the door that connects our apartment building to the temple. (She and her husband are the Senior Missionary Temple Construction Couple.) The first, second, fifth and sixth floors of the building make up the temple, while the third and fourth floors contain a chapel and Church offices. The Wellings keep Book of Mormons and small pictures of the Savior (with missionary contact) info on the back of each picture in their office. She gave me a BOM and let me choose a picture of the Savior. Then she gave me a quick tour of the floor that her office is on. I went straight back to the bank and gave the Book of Mormon to Rolando. He thanked me over and over again and hugged the book to his chest and said, “This is beautiful!”