Week Twenty-four…Our Hearts did Soar!

 We had a pretty normal week, but had some great visits with some great people which made our hearts soar. Here’s what we learned this week…

We had a devotional Monday morning that ran long. We have learned on this mission that most people are very passionate about what they are doing and when given a chance to talk about it seem to have a difficult time making their talks short. Our devotional was supposed to end by 8:50am and by that time we hadn’t even heard from the last speaker yet. So we left before the last speaker so that we could get to the library on time since it opens at 9:00am, although we have learned that we usually don’t have a huge amount of people that show up on our floor first thing in the morning, but we wanted to be on time. We had a good day and I was able to pass off my Advanced Sweden training. Wahoo! Mom has started on Italy training, since she found out there aren’t many people in the library that know much about that. I decided to keep working on the Nordic countries and am doing Norway now. So far that training is much easier than the Sweden training. Hopefully we will both be able to learn how to help people doing research in these countries so that we can be more valuable in the library and stay busy. 

After we finished at the library we came home and got some dinner then went 

downstairs to our apartment lobby to have FHE with our other apartment missionaries. We had a good lesson and then got to learn about these two new missionaries in our apartment building. They are Elder and Sister Ng. They are from The Netherlands via Hong Kong and England. They have a wonderful story. They met as missionaries in the Hong Kong Mission, but weren’t initially attracted to each other. After his mission Elder Ng went to England for school. Sister Ng decided to go to BYU to get a degree in nursing. On her way to BYU she stopped in England to visit a friend and went to church on Sunday. When she walked in she didn’t see Elder Ng, but he saw her and mentioned to someone that they were missionaries together. That individual then spoke with her and mentioned she had been on a mission with Tim. She said she didn’t know anyone by that name from her mission, so he brought her over to him and she of course recognized him then and said, “Oh you mean Elder Ng.” Since she was leaving for Provo in just 3 days they had a wild 2 of days of dating and he proposed at the end of their time together and they have been happily married since! 

Tuesday I went on a ride, just 30 miles but I haven’t been for awhile and it wiped me out. I was soooo tired when I got finished. We go in at noon on Tuesdays, but mom set up lunch with John Campbell at 11am at the COB before we went in. We got there and had an awesome surprise to see Whitney and Ka’ai! We learned that they had come to the mainland for her niece’s baptism and were having a little vacation as well. It was so fun to have lunch with them and learn about the new things in their lives. John did a great job keeping it quiet so that we were totally surprised when we met them there.

We were sad we had to say goodbye so soon, but we had to get to the library because we were floor leaders. We went about our duties there on the B1floor when in walked more Hawaiians…the Fleming’s. Wahoo, more friends from Hawaii. We couldn’t believe how much their kids have grown in the 10 months that we have been away. That really shouldn’t have surprised us as we’ve seen the same thing with our own grandkids, they all grow so quickly! The rest of our day was pretty boring compared to being with people we love and miss. However, we did get to help some people and were able to have a great day in the library as well.

Wednesday was Pday and we kind of had a lazy day. Mom had an MRI, which went fine. She had the MRI because earlier this month she had some vertigo and told her doctor about it and he decided they ought to rule out any neurological problems. As I said, it went fine and later that day we learned that the scan was negative. No problems in Mom’s head. I watched some Tour de France highlights and then went to get my haircut. I went to the same place that I went to last time and learned that certain barbers have a reputation there. There were 6 people waiting for a haircut, but I got to be the next person to get in a chair because all the others were waiting for two other barbers. I learned they were probably wise to do that. The lady who’s chair I got in took for-e-ver to cut my hair. It turned out ok, but wow long time. So long in fact that I wasn’t able to make it to the class Mom is taking that I was planning to join. It’s called Emotional Resilience and I learned it can be found on the Church’s website in the Self Reliance section. After her class Mom ran into 3 Peruvian sisters, one of whom had fallen and hurt her arm. They were looking for some help, so Mom took them over to the COB and they brought down some medical people to help her. If that doesn’t sound like a lazy day, you’re right. But the rest of the day was spent lounging around the apartment and watching tv and reading.

Thursday we were floor leaders again and had a good day. When I got home I learned that Elder Henkel across the hall wanted to go golfing. I was excited, but nervous because I haven’t been golfing for over 5 years. So we went over to one of his favorite courses that is close by and learned that they were all booked up. So instead we went to another course that had a driving range and decided to hit some balls there. I had Jeff look at my swing and he told me I needed to keep my hands back more through my swing. So I tried doing that, but wasn’t really very successful at it. I think it will take quite a bit more practice. I did get a blister for my efforts! After dinner we had tacos with

the Henkels and then watched His Name Is Green Flake. It was pretty good. It inspired me to look to see how much the movie was actual history or “based on” the story of Green Flake. I am still doing some research, but have learned that some of the movie is not quite like the actual history, but does tell a great story about a previously little-known pioneer of the early Church. Green Flake was a true convert to the Church and remained faithful even though he was a slave to members of the Church. He was later freed and stayed faithful throughout his life. What a great example of someone who knew by the Spirit the truth and didn’t let other things that didn’t make sense remove him from what he knew to be true. 

We got to bed a little later than usual, but that didn’t matter too much since the next day was Friday and we go in later to the library. But what I forgot was that we were going to the temple at 8am. Ugh.

So we got up early and went to the Bountiful temple where I learned Mom had two brothers from her family tree for me to do endowments for. We did back-to-back sessions and then learned when we got out that the lady in Washington who has been looking at our van wants to buy it. Wahoo! But her credit union is requiring us to have Shaunna be our in person representative and they had a document they wanted us to sign and get notarized. We called our credit union and found that they have free notary service. So we hurried home and got ready for the library and then went to the notary. That went smoothly and we were able to make it to the library on time. He rest of the night was business as usual as we were floor leads again.

 

Yesterday we both got up feeling like slugs since we haven’t been doing much exercise. So Mom went for a walk which ended by going to Eva’s Bakery and getting a couple of pastries. I stayed home and learned that I could use our living room as our gym. This chair served as my push-up and military press station. I used Mom’s bag of flour to do my military presses and curls, but since she had used quite a bit of the flour it wasn’t really heavy enough so I just did more reps than usual. It actually turned out to be a quite adequate workout. 

We then went into the library and I decided to take some time to look at my own family line. I looked and saw that Adolf Holmberg was listed as the father of Johanna Sofia Holmberg, but he didn’t have a spouse or any other children listed. So I used what I have learned about searching Swedish records and found a bunch of documents that showed Adolf’s wife’s name and her birthdate as well as 6 other siblings for Johanna, one being her twin brother Pehr. It was really cool to discover this information and put them all into my family tree. Exciting stuff. I wanted to spend more time working on the next generation, but I had lessons that needed revising and I wanted to make sure I had them ready since they are going out on Monday. Plus we were going to lunch at J Dawgs, a little hot dog restaurant that had been recommended to us.

J Dawgs was great. I learned they are a lot like In ‘n’ Out Burger, they have a limited menu…regular or polish dog, French fries and drinks. That’s it. We got the polish dog and the fries and water. We learned pretty quickly that they do really well at both of those things. Their fries are really good and the polish dog was great, although we thought their signature sauce was a little too sweet. It’s a bbq type sauce. I think next time I’ll add some mustard to dampen down the sweetness. 

After lunch we went back to the library and I had a good discussion with our Zone Leader, Max Decker, about the lessons we are working on. I have know for a long time that many times revelation comes when we are moving forward, but yesterday I learned that again for myself. As we spoke about the next phase for the lessons, it was suddenly clear what we must do. We both knew the direction we are to go. It will mean more work for us, but it is the right thing.

Today I went to church. Mom stayed home as she wasn’t feeling well. There was a young man who has recently returned from his mission to Brazil and his mother and grandmother spoke as well. They both spoke about the happiness the gospel has brought into their lives and it reminded me of the happiness I have felt throughout my life as I have been able to teach others about the good news of Jesus Christ. 

I came home and learned that Mom has strawberries already starting to grow on her plants. Her plants are all growing well…tomatoes, cucumbers, flowers and strawberries. She also made some yummy spinach dip to go along with the sourdough bread that she is getting really good at. That was a great dinner. 

Life is good. We are loving what we are learning here and hope you are all having wonderful learning experiences as well.

Love you all!

BE GOOD.

Sister and Elder Phillips