Pioneers

When Marcia and I were in the MTC one of the couples that was in our district had previously served two other missions. They were with us during the Preach My Gospel portion of the MTC and then the following week at the Church Office Building in Salt Lake as we received special training as some type of medical missionaries. As most know Marcia is serving as the Philippines Area Mental Health Adviser. Sister Wallace and her husband were called to serve in the Vanuatu mission as the Vanuatu mission nurse. Elder Wallace was called to serve as her assistant.

Sister Akram and Rex (Rex is the tech guy for the medical department)

The first mission that they were called to as a couple was to Pakistan. That was exciting just to hear that they had missionaries in Pakistan. I'm not sure if they were the first missionaries to serve in Pakistan but I would imagine that they were among those who were first to serve. I bring this up because this afternoon I had the opportunity to pick up a sister missionary from one of the local hospitals. From my understanding she had been in the hospital for about two weeks fighting and recovering from pneumonia. Her name is Sister Akram and she is from Pakistan serving a full time mission in the Manila mission.

As we were waiting for her to be discharged she was able to tell me some of her conversion and that of some of her family. She has been a member of the Church for 4 years. Her uncle and 'auntie' were the ones that introduced her to the Church. She called them pioneers. Her uncle's and aunt's names are Malcolm and Nasrene King. From our short conversation she informed me that, if she remembered correctly, that her uncle had been baptized in England. When they returned to Pakistan they taught Sunday school. They did so by translating the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants a chapter at a time. The chapter that they translated would be the one that they taught that week. Truly this is a pioneer family and a pioneer sister missionary. As we continued to talk she told me that she had an older sister that was also a member of the Church and also had served in the Philippines in 2006.

I was very impressed with Sister Akram. Her goal is to have the rest of her family join the Church at some point. She told me that her family is Catholic (a surprise to me as she is from Pakistan) and she would love to  see them all as members of the Church. What a great goal for a worthy Sister missionary...

jsf