Week Fourteen…So Much Green!

 Here is what we learned this week!

Monday morning we went to our assignment in the Family Search Library and when that was finished we headed over to the COB to attend the Mission Devotional. President Holmes spoke about a talk that President Nelson gave in the General Conference Leadership Meeting, March 31, 2022 entitled The Everlasting Covenant. We learned quite a bit about how President Nelson feels about the covenants we make with our Heavenly Father as well as where he started to get the concept for his emphasis on the Covenant Path. One thought stood out to me… 

“All those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy. In the Hebrew language, that covenantal love is called hesed…Hesed has no adequate English equivalent… Hesed is a unique term describing a covenant relationship in which both parties are bound to be loyal and faithful to each other. A celestial marriage is such a covenant relationship. A husband and wife make a covenant with God and with each other to be loyal and faithful to each other…Because God has hesed for those who have covenanted with Him, He will love them. Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Now we are bound together. Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us. Each of us has a special place in God’s heart. He has high hopes for us.” 

This hesed he speaks of, this love and mercy that binds us to our Father, is what this life is really all about. It is about us proving to ourselves that we want to be with and like our Heavenly Father, and that our only real desire is to make and keep that covenant with Him. That is the high hopes He has for us.

Tuesday is our “late going in day” so I did some research Monday night and figured out where that trailhead is for the mountain bike ride I wanted to try. So I headed out on my bike, and Mom headed out on her feet to explore some trails up City Creek Canyon. We both found what we were looking for. Mom found a nice trail that runs up along the creek and I found the entrance to the trail I wanted to ride. Mom’s walk was about 4 miles long and she learned that further up the canyon there are more trails to explore. I learned that my trail was the uphill portion and I climbed a little over 800’ in a little less than 2 miles. Lots of steep climbs where I lost momentum and had to get

off and walk, but I made it to the top of the hill. Then I was a little confused about where the trails went next, so I just chose one and it ended up taking me downhill and dumping me out at the place I had found last week, the downhill only trail. So my ride was shorter than I planned, but sure gave me plenty of exercise. 

Mom and I then went into the library where we had a meeting with President and Sister Faerber, the First Councilor in the Mission Presidency. Our meeting was their two month check-in with us, which we kept having things get in the way of having with them, along with them giving us a new assignment. We have been asked to be assistant zone leaders. Basically we learned that our job is to help with different aspects of the training and leading and rewarding the 129 missionaries in our zone. That’s why there are actually 12 assistant zone leaders because the zone is huge! We are excited to get to know everyone a little bit better than we do now and helping them anyway that we can.

Wednesday was Pday and Mom went out for another walk up the canyon. She found tons of flowers. She says, “Flowers make me happy!” (You can hear her saying that can’t you?). I guess I should have learned by now that I need to buy her more flowers…the living ones of course, not dead ones…because they make her happy.  I went out on my road bike and headed up the Jordan River Trail going north. It was a nice day and I was able to go out in just shorts and a jersey. Wahoo. I learned that my legs got pretty tired on that ride up the mountain, so I only did 30 miles instead of the 40 I was planning. Mom did some shopping and I did some reading and watching tv the rest of the day as well as working on some assignments for the library.

Thursday we got up early and went to the Bountiful temple and learned that there are lots less people who go to the morning sessions. Actually I think I said that in the blog last week, but I was alone last week and now Mom learned that as well. We of course forgot to get a picture of us out in front of the temple so Mom got this one as we were driving by. 

After the temple we hurried back to the apartment to get ready and then we headed into the library. Mom is in cruise mode now when it comes to her intermediate Dutch training. She is doing well. She  has learned to read that crazy old handwriting in the Dutch language and is planning to pass it off the beginning of this next week. I am learning that the Swedish training course is much more in depth and complicated than the Dutch. Each section has these activities that they have you do which are made up of multiple parts and require tons of searching in the Swedish document archives to find records for lots of people, not just one or two to prove you know how to do it. Not only is it more time consuming, but I don’t have as much time to work on it since we have been given more responsibilities in the zone. Oh well, we’ll get there eventually. That night Mom went and did her sewing class and I went and worked out in the gym.

Friday I was going to get up and go for another bike ride, but it rained during the night and I used that as an excuse to wimp out. I was tired from riding and working out the last 3 days. We went into the library at 10 and I was assigned to help some people get started on their family tree. We have learned that this is fun to do. People get so excited to see their family tree growing and people being added to it, and learning how to do the adding for themselves. The rest of the day was pretty normal.

Saturday was a busy day! Mom got up before I did and headed out on another walk. She took a different route than before and of course found more flowers. She also learned there was a Kneaders close by and went there to buy some pastries for breakfast. Yum! I got up with the intention of tackling that hill again on my mountain bike, but got the feeling I ought to 

go for a road bike ride instead. So I headed up City Creek Canyon on the road, like I did quite few weeks ago. It was colder outside so I put my arm warmers on and tucked my ear band in my back pocket just in case. Well I was glad I did that because it was COLD! I had my regular short-fingered gloves on and my fingers froze. However, I was able to ride further than I did the first time I tried this. The road was open all the way up the hill. I wanted to get to the end, but had to turn around at campground 26 because I needed to get back in time to shower and get to the library by 10am. On the way down the hill I learned I should have worn my vest, and my long-fingered gloves and my toe covers. I froze! I did get in a little shy of 16 miles with a little more than 1500’ of climbing, so I was happy with that part. On the way down the hill I learned why I was prompted to ride the road rather than he trail. I passed right by the trailhead on my way down the hill and found that they were having some trail running event. I’m glad I didn’t have to compete with that.

After going into the library mom learned that she was being given the assignment to plan all of the upcoming parties for the zone, especially the Christmas party…which she has to get started on early because she has to secure a venue that will accommodate all of the missionaries in our zone. That’ll be a big job. We did some studying and a bit of helping then we headed up to the 2nd floor to run the Escape Room for a group of youth that were coming in. We headed up about a half hour early, after getting the key from one of the staff member’s desk, but when we got there the doors were already opened and the zone leader from the Main Floor (The Discovery Zone) was there with a couple of his people trying to get the room set up. Apparently the group showed up early and the Discovery Zone people were not told that we were assigned to run the experience for the group. They were relieved to find out that we were ready to go and asked if their two helpers could do it with us so that they could learn how to do it for future groups. We of course said “Sure!” and away we went downstairs to fetch the group. They told us it was going to be about 25 people, but it ended up being 13. So we split them into two groups and since we have two rooms we sent one group to each room, Mom and a helper in one room and me and a helper in the other room. Both groups had a blast, but failed to accomplish the task in the allotted time. We gave them their participation prizes and went about resetting the room for the next time we would have a group. Well, Mom learned a little lesson from that. We got the rooms reset and were leaving when this lady came to the room and asked if she and her family could do the Escape Room. They had been on a tour the day before and saw the room, but didn’t have time to do it then and had come back today to do it. We of course said “Sure!”, so away she went and got the rest of her family. The two helpers went off to other assignments that they had and Mom and I facilitated the escape room for the family. We decided to use the room Mom had been in and learned that it had not been reset correctly. The box for the timer had not been locked, neither had one of the locks on a box that held a clue, and the big one was that the previous group or helper put the wrong microfilm back into the microfilm box that held the answers for the third to the last clue. We were embarrassed that it was the wrong clue, so we gave them extra time and explained the answer sequence to them and they ended up “solving” the room with a few seconds to spare. Mom learned she can’t just assume the other people know what they are doing to set up he room properly and she needs to check each item on the reset list to make sure it is ready to go. We spent the next 45 minutes or so trying to find the correct microfilm to put back in the right box, and finally gave up and were about to leave when the thought entered my mind that I ought to go look at the microfilm in the other escape room to see if it would give me a clue as to what I should look for in the one that was missing. As soon as mom saw it she knew that she had seen that same type of film in the first room and we were able to find it and put it back in the correct box and get it all set back up. Thanks for those little promptings!

After getting back to our assigned floor for the rest of the evening, Mom got put on steward duty. That’s where she sits at the main desk and when guests that come into the library enter in their needs for help into our a WaitWhile system, she then uses the computer to identify library missionary or staff helpers that can fill their specific needs, usually for a specific country. Mom learned she likes that job. It can get a bit difficult sometimes when their are a lot of requests and not enough individuals with the skills they need to help them. That’s when you just send who you feel prompted to send and hope they can help the best they can. It usually works out well.

We ended our week with getting up and going to Music and the Spoken Word. We thought we ought to go because after May 21st we will be going to a new ward for sacrament meeting and it will most likely be at 9am, which will make it so we cannot attend anymore. After that we went to our Leadership Pattern Journey class and then on to church. After church we came back and got everything ready for the Break the Fast dinner for our apartment building. We learned last week that the two couples who started all of the activities for our apartment building have dubbed Mom and I, and another couple in the building, their successors. So we are taking over the planning of the Fast Sunday Break the Fast Dinner,  the FHE lesson assignments for Monday nights and the monthly social activity. Wahoo, more to do! We are very excited to continue on their legacy. Break the Fast went well and we spent some time planning and organizing for future events with the other couple, the Engstroms, and then I got started on this blog post. It is now almost 11:30 and I need to get to bed since we have to get up early tomorrow morning for a mission devotional.

Love you all!

BE GOOD.

Elder and Sister Phillips

PS I know I didn’t mention anything about it, but this week’s post title was inspired by our walks and rides where we saw so much green. Spring green really is so much nicer than Winter white!