Week Six…Short on Pics.

So what did we learn this week? We learned that sometimes we just don’t think of taking pictures until after something has happened and we’ve “missed the moment”…ugh!!! So not many pics this week.

Mom started something for the Temple Square sister missionaries.

We bought this Costco bag of Reese’s Eggs and have been carrying some of them around in our coat pockets. Whenever we go to the gym on the 7th floor of the Church Office Building (COB) we usually pass by sister missionaries on our walk there, or sometimes on our walk to the Family Search Library we’ll see some, anyway whenever we pass them we stop and pull out some chocolates and say, “Do you need some chocolate today?”. We have had only one companionship tell us no so far…the one sister said, “Sorry, we can’t accept donations.”, what?!?! We thought that was quite odd, but what we keep missing is getting a quick selfie with some of them to add to our blog. So we have learned that we have old brains and can’t remember simple things we really want to do. So sorry, no pics of sister missionaries from all over the world, smiling very happily because mom brought them some chocolate.

We have been busily working on our training at the Family Search Library and mom says she has learned that she really can do this computer stuff. She has passed off her Research Basics course and Family Search Basics…purple tier…and is well into the Guest Interactions course…blue tier. Go mom! I finished the Dutch Beginner course on Thursday, but there was nobody authorized to pass me off there that day, nor the next nor will there be until Tuesday. 😩 So I have to wait until then to move on. 

Meanwhile I did some research on my family tree and learned that my great grandmother (MorMor) was married twice. After her first husband passed away she was remarried, about 15 years later, to a man named Fred. I think I remember knowing about this, but he was not recorded anywhere on my Family Search tree. I did some record searches and found a marriage date and an actual government record source to prove it and was able to add that to my tree. Wahoo! Thanks to Keith for the picture he found in my Dad’s stuff. 

BTW I learned that this family history stuff can get me totally off on a tangent…very quickly! I get looking for something and a couple of hours later I look up and the time has flown by while I have searched for not just one record but others that kind of came up as well, it is a bit addictive. 

We also learned this week that Spring doesn’t come very early here in Salt Lake City. It was kind of a nice day on Tuesday…about 46° and sunny…and I was thinking “hurray, Spring is coming”. Well the next day we got this!

It was coming down so hard that we couldn’t see more than a couple hundred yards. Luckily though it didn’t last long and actually didn’t leave a whole lot of snow on the ground. So maybe I was right, maybe Spring is on its way. I was able to go out yesterday and ride 30 miles on the Jordan River Trail and the Parkway Trail…going north from here and going all the way up to Centerville…and the whole trail was clear of snow, and they don’t plow that trail. It was clear just because the weather was warm enough that it melted.

On Thursday Mom was able to go to a local learning center that is run by the couple that lives across the hall from us. They created this place called the Columbus Adult Education Center and they offer a ton of different classes for adults, mostly focused on refugees from lots of places in the world, most recently from East Burma…Karenni refugees. Here are some of the services and classes they provide. Any guesses what class mom taught? 

Yup…she volunteered to teach a sewing class on Thursday nights until May. I know, you were thinking maybe it was a computer skills class, since she is becoming so good on the computer, but nope…sewing. This last week she taught them the basics of how to use a sewing machine and this coming Thursday she is going to teach them how to cut out and sew a basic grocery bag. She teaches the class along with another sister missionary that lives down the hall from us, Sister Watts from Colorado and of course is loving it. She really loves to teach just like me!

We had a great time meeting up with two couples I used to work with in the California North Area for Seminaries and Institutes…the Bauers and Hansens. The Bauers lived in Hilo for more than 20 years and did the same assignment that I just retired from. They retired back in 2012 and have served a mission in Turkey and now here in the Salt Lake Church Headquarters Mission.They are currently serving in the Training Division of our mission. The Hansens currently live on Oahu, but are serving their 5th mission. They were called to be Mission Leaders (the current terminology for Mission President and his wife) to the Mexico Vera Cruz Mission while he was still working for S&I. When he returned he was assigned to the Saratoga Institute program over in the Bay Area. After retiring there, they went to the South America West Area office in Peru and he served as the Executive Secretary for the Area Presidency there and she served in the office. Then they were called to be the President of the Colombia MTC for two years. They thought they were finished with missions, but were contacted again to see if they were willing to help out in the Church Headquarters Mission serving in the Mission Department. He works with 4 of the MTC presidents around the world as a liaison with them and a missionary’s stake president when a missionary is having a problem while in the MTC. She is part of the missionary reinstatement team. Lots of work that keeps them all very busy. We had a great time bringing everyone up to date with the latest family news and what we were doing in our current assignments. We learned that good friends make it easy to pick right up where you left off, even when you haven’t seen them for years and years.

We ended our week by attending the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble at the Conference Center Theater. We learned that Heavenly Father cares about our recreation as well as our work. I got a text from one of the other missionaries here about a men’s quartet that we are putting together saying that he had tickets to the BYU Folk Dance performance that night and couldn’t come to the practice. When I read that I said to myself, “Wait. Don’t we have tickets to that performance?”. I didn’t have it on our calendar and totally forgot about it. I went and looked and found them in my saved emails. Whew!! It would have been a huge bummer to miss that when we had already paid for them. Sure glad he sent that text and we were reminded we had those tickets. Coincidence or tender blessing from above? Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any pictures during the performance so all I got was this one of the stage before they got started. The performance was great. They did a lot of great dances from all around the world. Mom and I learned that a lot of cultures like to stomp when they dance. That poor stage took a beating! 

We love you all.

BE GOOD.

Mom and Dad