Week Twenty-five…Time to Thrive

 So here we are with another week to share what we learned.

Our week started with a good day in the library. They gave me my Sweden pin to wear on my lanyard. We have learned that these pins are given to signify to the patrons which countries you are certified in to help with family research. Kind of fun. Mom is cruising through her Italy training now and I am enjoying Norway training, so more pins to come. We both got to help some people from The Netherlands with finding some family and we ended our day by going on a walk (for Mom) and working out at the COB (for me) then watching the Elijah Choir performance which was dedicated to our country and our pioneer heritage. We learned about how many of the missionaries here in our mission are pioneers in the Church. Many came from other countries and many were the first in their family, like Mom, who joined the Church. They were inspiring stories. The last one was by our friend, Nancy Watson, and was very inspiring and uplifting. I’ll have to get her to write it out sometime.

Tuesday I went on a 30 mile ride up the bike trail and Mom went on a walk. On her walk she found this fun fountain up inside Memory Grove in City Creek Canyon. We have learned to keep trying new paths and roads when we are out on our walks and rides because they lead us to new and fun discoveries. He rest of the day was in the library where we got to be just regular helpers most of the day…no floor leading or stewarding. We have learned that we enjoy all the different duties that come our way and sometimes we get a week like this one where we get to do them all!

Wednesday was Pday as usual. I decided I needed to ride to the top of City Creek Canyon on my road bike. I have tried twice before to do it. The first time was just after the snow was melting and I learned that the whole road wasn’t open yet. The second time I left too late and had to turn around before I got to the top. Well this time I made it. I learned that I was almost there last time, only about 1.5 miles from the top when I turned around. I’m not sure why, but I actually felt less tired after this ride than I did after my ride the day before which had almost zero climbing. Interesting. Mom had her Emotional Resiliency class where she learned how to re-think unhealthy thoughts. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of what is happening in your life, you look for the positive things that are happening and focus more on those to help you see how you are succeeding and contributing. She says it helps, but she needs to do it more often! While she was in her class I went and did the shopping that we needed to get done and then after she got home we went into the library. Wait, what? Wasn’t it Pday? Yes it was Pday, but we had quite a few people gone and they asked if we could fill some gaps. So we went in for a few hours to be floor leaders and stewards. Fun stuff! 

As I was getting ready to go to bed I heard some booms from outside. I opened our blinds to see what you can see in the video below. Sorry it’s so long, but I wanted you see some things that I learned from watching this little show the last three nights. Number 1, this is the Fireworks and Drone Show from the Days of ‘47 Rodeo. So if you look to the right of the fireworks you will see some vertical colored lights that slowly drop and fade away. Those are the drones. I was able to see them the second night that I watched, but didn’t do any video. Number 2, they shoot off a couple hundred fireworks or more in about 5 minutes. It’s kind of cool to see them just keep coming. Number 3, as you can see at the end of the video we are far enough away from the fairgrounds where they do the rodeo that we see the fireworks go off much sooner than we hear them go off. It was kind of cool to watch that cloud of smoke just hang there for a few seconds with the sound of a bunch of fireworks exploding. Science! 

Thursday was a pretty typical day in the library. We were floor leaders, but I spent most of my day working on training lesson revisions. I have learned that doing revisions is sometimes harder than writing things in the first place. Revisions means trying to keep the original intent of the lesson while bringing things up to date and fixing any problems that have surfaced. It was tough. That night I worked out at the COB and then vegged the rest of the night. 

Friday we usually go to a temple session, but Lindsay was on her way down from BYU-I with the Frazes and we weren’t sure what time she was going to make it here. So we just did things around the apartment waiting for them to arrive. They made it here around 1:30pm and we got to chat a bit with her as well as she and Mom got to try out the princess gloves and crown Mom got for her Halloween costume. We then headed into the library where we got to facilitate the Escape Room for a young women’s group from  Logan. They were fun. Both groups didn’t quite get everything figured out in time, but they were close. We then went down to our floor and learned that our floor leaders needed us to take over because they needed to be somewhere else, so we stayed and closed down the library and cleaned all of the keyboards and mice for the computers…which has been a regular occurrence the last couple of weeks because we are in charge of that for our floor this month and next. Every Friday night.

We then went home and had dinner and watched The Flash. Interesting movie. I’m not sure if I would want to watch it again. Even Lindsay, who is a huge Flash fan wasn’t overly impressed with the movie. I have learned that we aren’t into the DC world as much as we are into the Marvel world, and even the Marvel world doesn’t lure me into watching many of their movies more than once. It was great having Lindsay here to share the movie with, since she was able to explain a lot of the back story of Flash that we didn’t know. It was also great to have her kind spirit here in our apartment to just make everything feel more peaceful.

Saturday morning Mom and Lindsay went for a walk up City Creek Canyon and then up to the capital and then around the neighborhood looking at cool old houses. I went for a mountain bike ride on my usual little loop. Then it was into the library. 

Lindsay went over to the tabernacle where she hoped to find it looking like this picture…empty! You see I have learned that one of her bucket list items is to sing in the Tabernacle, but she doesn’t want to do in front of anyone, she just wants to sing in an empty Tabernacle kind of like she does in the shower. Unfortunately she found that there was an organ recital happening at that time, so instead of singing she just sat and enjoyed the recital along with quite a few others who had come to listen. After she did that she walked around Temple Square to see the construction and other things there, then she came over to meet us at the library. We had been asked to be floor leaders again, so we were pretty busy doing that as well as filling in here and there for other assignments and also being helpers. I was able to sit with a couple from The Netherlands and look for some of the man’s relatives. We found some great records and names for him and then his friends came in and they had to leave to go over to the organ recital. They thanked me and were off. I then had to go downstairs to be usher for the downstairs floor. About 45 minutes later that man from The Netherlands came out of the elevator looking for a restroom. I pointed to where it was and then said, “Hey, you’re back!” He smiled and said, “Yes we are.” When I went upstairs 15 minutes later I learned that he had brought their whole group back over to the library, the couple that was with them and their kids as well as his own teenage kids, and he had them all on computers and was showing them how to look up family names like I had shown him. Pretty cool!

I finished the day trying to help a lady from Virginia, who was originally from The Netherlands, try to sort out a mystery in her family. I learned pretty quickly that she was a character.  She was pretty loud and insistent that someone needed to get a mess sorted out in her family tree, so  I sat down with her and even though we only had about 25 minutes until the library was going to close she started telling me her whole family story. It was pretty wild…a grandma who was the illegitimate child of a Count and his maid, who the Count paid off to keep everything quiet. So we were trying to find records to show where this child may have been born to prove the story true. So into the records we went and found her grandmother’s name listed in her mother and stepfather’s household in a population register, and then the marriage record of those two and the marriage record of her grandmother. She was so excited to see those records she kind of forgot about the whole Count thing.

Then she realized that the library was about to close so she asked, “Where can I go tomorrow to attend the Mormon Church service?”. I told her that there were churches all over the valley and we had a service going on in them almost every hour starting at 9am. But then she said, “So will they all have the choir sing at them?”. I then realized she was wanting to attend Music and the Spoken Word. So I explained where that performance was going to be and what time it started and when she needed to be in her seat, and the clock struck 6pm and the announcement came over the speakers that the library was closed, but she just kept asking more questions. Where could she park? What else was there to do after the performance? Was Monday a holiday? What things were happening on Monday? Mom and the Ewarts, who were the floor leaders the last two hours, were standing there with one of the security personnel motioning that I needed to quit talking with the lady and leave the library. Finally I was able to get a small break in her questions and I stood up and she got the clue. “Oh!” she said, “We need to leave, don’t we?”. I told her that we did need to leave so that they could close the library. So Mom and I walked out with her, while she talked the whole way. She kept asking more questions…Where could she watch the parade? What was going to be open on Monday? Then she told us about how she moved from The Netherlands to Canada to California to Pittsburgh and to Virginia and oh my, so much other stuff. Finally about a half hour later she said, “Well I should let you go. Maybe I’ll come back into the library Tuesday, will you be there?” I told her that we didn’t come in until noon on Tuesday. She said she would need to come in the morning because she had to get on the road before noon to drive to Ontario Canada to pick up her sister. I told but there would be other specialists there in the morning that knew even more than I did and would be able to help her. She said, “Oh I don’t think anyone could help me any more than you.” What a kind thing to say. Even though she made us late getting out of the library, and talked our ear off for a half hour after we left, it was wonderful to be able to see that we had touched her life. That’s what it’s all about!

We got home with just enough time to quickly find something to eat and then head over to the Engstrom’s apartment to have a game night. They wanted to play Five Crowns. It has been awhile since I have played that game, but it came back pretty quickly. I was doing great for the first 6 or 7 rounds…I only had 19 points…but then I had a horrible round and got something like 72 points. I ended up being the biggest loser and Lindsay was the big winner. We then played a hand of Dead Man’s Draw and guess who won again? Lindsay. So we went back to our apartment and watched the fireworks again and headed to bed since we were getting up early to have breakfast with David and Susie Stockton. They are in town snd wanted to see us if possible.

Mom got up early to make scones and eggs and we had a great breakfast with Dave and Susie before they headed over to see Music and the Spoken Word. We learned that they had come home from their mission…serving in the Honolulu Hawaii Mission on Maui, with a Seminaries and Institutes assignment…and felt kind of out of place. They said so many things had changed and it just felt weird to be home. There was tons to do to fix up little problems that had popped up in their home while they were gone and their ward had shrunk and was now more the size of a branch. Wow, lots of things can change in a year. 

Well off they went to the choir broadcast and Mom and Lindsay and I walked to Church. It was nice. The Ames, who just returned from being mission leaders in the Independence Missouri Mission, spoke in sacrament meeting and the place was packed. We learned that a ton of the missionaries that had served in their mission and who lived in the Salt Lake area were there to hear them speak. 

After Church we came home and Mom and Lindsay made cookies and I started this blog. Then the Henkels came over and we chatted for awhile and then Mom invited them to stay for dinner. After dinner we headed off to the Barney’s apartment because they had invited us to come for a game night. We played this game called Trash. The big winner was Lindsay again! So we decided to try one more game, Skull Kimg. Any guesses who won?! Yep…Lindsay. I am learning that you don’t want to play games with Lindsay if you want to win. It’s just not going to happen. She will be the big winner every time. Just way too lucky! 

Well that is what we have learned this week. 

I hope you had a great week as well and that you have been able to thrive in whatever you are doing like Mom and I have been able to thrive here on our mission.

BE GOOD! 

Love you!

Mom and Dad