Week Sixteen…Part of the Disney Team!

 Aloha everyone. We hope your week was great. Here’s what we learned this week…

We started the week going to a new class. It is affectionately called Disney Training by the library staff, because it is based on the training that Disney does for their employees as well as the training they do for any company that would like them to teach their employees about what makes Disney so successful, when it comes to their exceptional customer service. They have allowed the Family Search Library to add to the training, so there are of course quotes from general authorities as well as scriptures added to the lessons from the book, Be Our Guest. We are being taught how to fulfill our purpose statement, which is…

We create inspiring experiences that bring joy to all people as they discover, gather and connect their family - past, present, and future. 

So we are learning how to be great customer service agents to bring joy to everyone that we come in contact with. Fun times!

Tuesday Mom and I went out walking in the morning. We planned to go for a nice long walk up City Creek Canyon but my stomach was still feeling a bit queasy and suddenly I needed a restroom. We learned that there are no restrooms in City Creek Canyon. Not even a porta-potty! Ugh. So we turned around and headed back to our apartment as fast as I could go without filling up my pants with 💩 (I think that is he first time I have ever used that emoji). You will be happy to know that I made it with no unfortunate consequences. 

We then went into the library for our noon to 8pm shift. It went well. We got to help some great folks that came into the library as well as fulfill assignments as usher and steward and Memories Lane tech helper. Mom is almost finished with intermediate Dutch and I’m almost finished with intermediate Swedish. 

Wednesday was Pday, but half of our day was taken up with an All Hands video meeting at 8am and our Disney Training from 11:30-3:30. Between the morning meeting and the Disney training we went out shopping. We bought some potting soil, and tomatoes and cucumber and herb plants, and then headed back home where we learned that one of Mom’s Mothers Day gifts had arrived…See’s Chocolate (thanks Zoë and Tori!). She snagged a piece and off we went to our training. When we got back Mom went after getting her “garden” planted. We learned that there are some brackets that are screwed into the concrete on the covering of our balcony, so Mom told Melissa about that and Melissa bought her some upside down tomato planters. They worked perfect 

out on the balcony and Mom learned that she could also use the pots the tomatoes came in to divide up her herbs as well as the cucumbers. So we have an urban garden growing on our balcony. The only thing we forgot to buy was a water bottle. When I worked as assistant area director with Paul Watkins he had some plants in his office and he had this really nifty water bottle that had a long spout that went up then did a u-turn so you could hold it up and squirt water in your pots. I think I need to find one of those for Mom so she doesn’t have to climb on a chair and pour water in with a pitcher. We will keep you updated on the garden’s growth in the weeks to come.

Thursday is now our “go in at 8am and be Floor Leaders” day. We are in charge of making sure all the assignments are filled and run the prayer meetings at 8:30am and 3pm. We have learned that so far it is a pretty great assignment. It’s pretty easy to do because everyone is so flexible and willing to jump in and do whatever assignment needs to be done. We have learned we work with some pretty awesome people!

In the afternoon I had my Training Support Team meeting. I think I told you about this before, but this is a team I am part of to help write and rewrite the beginning training that all of the missionaries do when they start at the library. Mom was part of the control group when we started back in February and we learned from her experience, as well as many others, that the training needed some work. So that’s our job. We’re trying to make then Tier 3 Training become Tear Free Training. 

That night Mom had her sewing class and she was so excited that one of her students was able to make it (they haven’t been showing up lately) and she was able to help her finish her apron. She asked if she could get a picture with her and she said it would be ok. Another great looking apron!

Friday was our Temple/Research day so we got up early and drove up to Brigham City to attend an endowment session there. Luckily our car was still in the parking lot this time and we actually got to go. It was a nice drive up to Brigham

City, about 50 minutes north of here. The temple is not a huge one, which was a little surprising since all of the temples we have been to here in Utah have been rather large. This one was set up like the Sacramento Temple, with two presentation rooms and then the Celestial Room. Kind of cool. They even had a mural on the wall in the first presentation room.

After our session we decided to look for a bakery. Mom learned that there was a Mexican bakery near downtown so we headed that way. We went to a Mexican bakery in Omaha when we visited Tori last December and it was pretty good, so we were hoping for similar results with his one. We were not disappointed, they had some yummy pastries. We got a pumpkin filled turnover kind of thingy, a cream cheese filled bread roll shaped like a rolled croissant and a raspberry hand cake kind of thing covered in coconut (sorry no pics…fail!). The whole lot cost us a whopping $2.16. Not a whole lot of sugar in any of the items, but all very tasty. Then Mom saw there was another bakery that we could stop at on our way out of town, so of course we did. This one was more about breads, but they did have a couple of pastry offerings as well. We bought

an apricot scone and a raspberry roll, kind of a cinnamon roll but with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting. They cost twice as much as the other pastries, but were very tasty as well. What a great breakfast, right!? I guess I’m going to have to get back on my bike and Mom will have to continue her walks up City Creek Canyon in order to burn off those extra pounds. But they were yummy extra pounds. 

We got back to the library in plenty of time to fulfill our shift assignment until 6pm and then we headed off to the symphony. One of the sister missionaries here gets free tickets from somewhere and asked if we would like some. We said “sure!”.

Well we got there early and were able to watch as the orchestra members came in and began to get warmed up. I’m not sure if you have experienced that before, everyone playing their own little parts of the symphony, nothing matching or harmonizing with anyone else? It’s kind of chaotic and just a jumble of noise. Well we learned that we ought to get used to that Friday night, because that is exactly what the whole symphony piece was like. It is called Messiaen’s Turangalila. According to the write up this “symphony” (they actually put that word in quotation marks in their program) is “discernible through manipulations of duration, dynamics and rhythm.” Everything was discordant and syncopated and noisy, much like the warm up at the beginning, but more in rhythm with everyone else, not just playing on top of each other. If you would like a little taste of what we heard, click on this link. https://youtu.be/nKrWlorJDr8

We learned that we like more traditional pieces, not “kaleidoscopic orchestral coloration”.

Yesterday morning Mom went out for a walk and learned that the warmer weather we are having here must be spreading up to the mountains because the creek is running much higher. High enough that they needed to put out some sandbags down here where it flows under the road and off to who-knows-where. Mom’s walk was great and I wimped out and didn’t get on my bike and ride. I just snoozed on the couch. What a slug!

We went into the library at 10am and worked until 6pm, doing the normal library things and also trying to figure out where we can have a zone social. Mom is in charge and we learned that we don’t have a lot of options as to rooms we can use. Her first two ideas were shot down and we are waiting to hear back on her latest idea. We hope that it will work and we can have a little gathering/appreciation lunch with the members of our zone sometime next month. 

This morning we didn’t make it to the Music and the Spoken Word broadcast. Bummer, because we learned at our Sunday meeting where and when we will be attending meetings from now on. More on that in a bit.

We did make it to our Leadership Pattern Journey meeting and enjoyed what we learned there. Here is one of my favorite quotes from this week…”A person that rarely gives input has greater weight attached to their opinions than a person that has something to say on everything.” 

We enjoyed being able to go out after our meeting to look out the west-facing windows and see the latest developments on the Salt 

Lake Temple. They announced that he first base isolators were placed this week and the rest of the some 97 I think they said, would be placed in the next year and a half. Slow process.

After our meeting we went to church and it was a different meeting. We learned last week that we would only have he sacrament this week, then receive our assignments as to what local ward we would be attending from here on out, then have a linger longer with refreshments. Well it mostly went as previously described, with the sacrament and then some added testimonies and finally receiving our assignment. We learned that we will now be attending the Salt Lake 20th Ward with 2 other couples and 6 sister missionaries. We will be meeting at 10am from now on, thus no more Music and the Spoken Word. But we are excited to get to know our new ward family and see how we can serve.

Well, that was our week and what we learned. We hope you are learning much every day.

Love you all!

BE GOOD.

Sister Mom and Elder Dad

PS We also learned something this week from Chris and Julie, but I think you will have to learn about that from them.