Week Twenty…We Had Plenty!

 So what did we have plenty of this week? I’ll tell you, along with what we learned.

We got up very early…3:45am…to drive back to the Ontario airport to catch our 6am flight to Salt Lake City. The black Audi we had as our rental car—they didn’t have any cars in their Emerald Club aisle so I was able to take one from the Executive Club aisle—performed wonderfully. I learned why people will pay more for some types of cars. It was quiet and powerful and comfy. I also learned that even though we were on the road at an insane hour in the morning, there were tons of other people needing to be on the road at that time as well, but we made it to the airport with plenty of time to catch the rental car shuttle and get through security and to our gate. They said our

flight was on time, but we started boarding late, and sat at the gate a little longer than I thought we would, so we didn’t get back to Salt Lake City as soon as planned. So I sent a text and let our floor leaders know we were going to be late and off we went. After landing we took Trax back to town and went straight into the library, where we learned that they were not very busy yet and we had not remembered to bring our folders and other study items with us, so we headed to the apartment and grabbed that stuff and went back to the library…good thing out apartment is close by.

We had a pretty normal day in the library, then came home to unpack and start laundry and go to FHE. The couple in charge taught us about the Deseret Alphabet. It was an experimental alphabet, based on phonetics that the University of Deseret developed to try to help unify the saints who were coming from many different cultures and languages. We learned that President Brigham Young hoped it would allow these new saints to learn English quicker, because the current spellings of English words made no sense. I certainly agree with him on many words. 

Tuesday morning I spent some time studying in the New Testament (this week’s Come Follow Me lesson…Luke 22 and John 18) and I learned that it was Luke who added the information about Peter and his denying knowing the Savior three times, that lead to this painting by Carl Heinrich Bloch. I knew the story, but always wondered about this painting because it doesn’t say in Matthew or Mark or John that the Savior looked at Peter when he cock crew. I wondered where Bloch got his inspiration for the painting. Well I learned where. Luke 22:61-62 says, “And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.” I was trying to add this painting to my footnotes in my Gospel Library app, but couldn’t figure it out, so I just added a link to this picture that I saved in my OneDrive files.

We went into the library at noon and had a great day helping and learning and serving. I spent part of my afternoon training some other missionaries about how to facilitate our Escape Room. That was fun. 

That night I did not sleep well. I woke up a number of times coughing and just not feeling good. Well in the morning I learned that I had a full on cold settling into my chest and throat. Ugh! I think it may have come because of this picture right here. Tyler was coughing quite a bit when we were there visiting this last weekend, and I did plenty of holding him. I think he felt the need to share and I willingly received. So I spent our Pday laying around the apartment, and taking naps and doing plenty of coughing in between. Mom went and did some necessary shopping and spent some time helping Sonya, but we both just kind of hung out doing mostly nothing all day.

The next morning my throat was very sore and I was still coughing plenty, so I texted in sick to our zone leaders. Mom was feeling ok so she went in, since Thursday is our day to be floor leaders. Mom handles that assignment like a pro, so she was able to get everything organized fine without me. She’s really good at keeping things running smoothly.

Friday morning Mom woke up coughing plenty My coughing had pretty much stopped, but my throat was still a little sore so we both texted in that we were sick and wouldn’t be coming in. Friday is our usual day to go to the temple in the morning and then we just work a half day, 2-6, in the library so they wouldn’t miss us much. Friday was also a great day because Kimberly and Scott came to visit. We learned a couple weeks ago that they were coming to go on a trip with Katherine and her in-laws down to Bryce Canyon. So they had the morning free and Alex drove them part way up to us and we met them and brought them back to see our apartment. Then we went to lunch with them at the COB and wandered through Temple Square and hoped to show them our place of work, but we ran out of time. We then drove them out to the airport and came back to crash and sleep the rest of the evening. It was great to see them!

Saturday I felt fine and Mom was in full blown cold mode. Plenty of coughing. Bummer. So I went into the library and had a great day. I was very busy ushering and working on the training lessons that need editing and helping people in between. I was able to help two separate families from the Netherlands and we found some great links and records for their ancestors. The one gentleman kept grabbing my arm and kind of squealing every time a new name came up. The other family I was able to find original marriage records for their grandparents and they were so excited. The other couple I helped were from South Africa. I learned pretty quickly that I can indeed still hold a fairly good conversation in Afrikaans. They were so excited to speak their language with me and talked quite a bit about the changes in their country. It was so fun to talk with them. It was even more fun that I found some ancestors for them and they were very happy, so much so that they wanted to take a picture with me to remember their visit to the library. 

I hurried home from the library because I was in charge of our apartment activity that started at 6:30. I learned last week that sunset is around 9pm now so our outdoor movie night that we had planned wasn’t really going to work. We would have to wait too long for it to get dark and we really can’t be noisy outside after 10pm, so movie night would be postponed. Instead we decided to do a Salt Lake City Cemetery tour. Many of the notable people from early Church history are buried up there. Mom and I did this tour many moons ago when I was teaching seminary at Taylorsville seminary. Our guide was Cal Stevens, a VERY knowledgeable man when it came to Church history. We would be walking towards a grave of someone like Joseph F Smith and he would glance down and say, “Oh, here’s Janice Woods. She came from England….” and he would tell a little story about them. He knew sooooo many stories, it was awesome. I don’t know that many stories, so I just asked those who came what stories or quotes they remembered from the different people whose grave we saw. David O McKay was the prophet when I was born and partly influenced my parents to name me David, so I got a pic with his headstone. 

Mom was still coughing like crazy this morning so I went to church alone. Our sacrament meeting speakers spoke about coming to love their Father in Heaven and did a great job. Right after the meeting the counselor in the bishopric came up to me and I thought he was going to ask Mom and I to speak, but instead he asked me to attend the new 18-35 year old Sunday School class and give the teacher some feedback on his teaching, That was fun. I learned that the teacher is a BYU English professor and in the former stake presidency of this stake. He did a great job, so I didn’t need to say much. After church I went to our Leadership Pattern Journey class.  Mom joined via videoconference. I learned that they used this picture as an example for our topic this week, Render an Account, because it depicts the Savior “rendering an account” of His mission to the people in the ancient Americas. I thought that was interesting. I have always thought that the Savior’s visit to this continent was all about Him teaching them what they needed to know from His teachings while on this earth, but the idea that part of His purpose was to let them know that He had fulfilled His mission hadn’t entered my mind before. It should have since the first thing He said when He appeared at the temple in Bountiful was, “ Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world. And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.” That sounds like a reporting of what He was asked to do and that He had done it. Kind of cool.

Well today is Father’s Day and I got some cool pictures and videos and presents from my kids and grandkids. Thank you all so much. I have learned that there isn’t anything else in this world that can bring me as much happiness and joy as my family. I love you all very much!

BE GOOD.

Dad and Mom