This was a busy week, but it also seemed to fly by quickly. Here’s what we learned this week.
Monday we went into the library and in the afternoon we were joined by Brittany and her kids. We learned last week that they were planning to come visit us for the 4th of July, which worked perfectly because we had the 4th off and our Pday was the next day. They came to see us down on the International Zone floor (B1) and then went up to play on the Discovery Zone floor for awhile until our shift was over. We then went and did the Escape Room with them, which I was late to because I was asked to stop to help read an Afrikaans document for a patron. I learned that her dad was from South Africa and she was finding documents for her family. She is currently awaiting a mission call and is excited to serve. So I finished with her and was heading out when a Dutch couple and their son came in. The floor leaders just looked at me and said, “Can you do it?”. Of course I said yes and so that made me really late for the Escape Room. The grandkids had fun in there and were able to solve the room in the time allotted. Wahoo. Afterwards we went back to the Discovery Zone floor and took this picture together.
Tuesday was the 4th of July, of course, and we started off the day with a walk down to this great bakery that we have been meaning to try…
Eva’s Bakery. It has great reviews and we learned they were right. It was a bit pricey, but the croissants and other pastries we bought were all very very good. We sat out on the sidewalk at some little tables and enjoyed all of the different baked goods. While sitting there the
Trax light rail train came by. The grandkids though that was cool, so I said let’s walk down to the next station and ride it back up to temple square. We learned that it is free to ride in the city center area, so that was a short but fun trip form everyone. Then it was a quick walk through
Temple Square where Mom had fun giving out candy to all of the sister missionaries and into the Conference Center and then back to our apartment to get ready for the apartment BBQ. I went and cooked some polish dogs on the BBQ grill and Mom made potato salad. Brittany made sourdough cinnamon wreaths and we all went down to the apartment lobby (the festivities got moved inside because they thought it was going to rain) and we had a huge meal potluck meal with the other missionaries.
We then enjoyed a 4th of July tradition with the Mangelson kids, watching this movie. I’m sure you all recognized this, right? “We will not go quietly into the night…today we celebrate our Independence Day!” I learned that Brittany is just about as emotional a movie watcher as Melissa. I peeked over and saw her tearing up just before this speech started. She knew it was coming and was already starting to cry. I have to admit, it started my tear ducts going as well. Independence, what a marvelous blessing!
After the movie we went out on our balcony and watched fireworks go off allover the place. We learned from the other missionaries in the building that we had a great spot to view the different firework shows out west of us. Yep, they were right…yep, yep yep!
Wednesday was our Pday and we all decided to go to
The Hogle Zoo. It was a lot of fun. Mom and I learned that it has grown and changed quite a bit since we last came, probably over 30 years ago. They had some great exhibits and fun animals. Most of the kids said they loved the giraffes and the otters, but their most favorite was the polar bear. He was having fun swimming around in his pool. Check him out in the video below. We also liked the Colobus monkeys and the sea lions and playing in the splash pad area, which was nice to have for a hot day. After the zoo we went to dinner at Crown Burger and then home to watch more movies. Fun day!!
Thursday we went in to work in the library and Brittany and her kids went over to the
Church History Museum to see the new Minerva Teichert exhibit. Unfortunately they learned that the news stations were there doing a story on the opening of the exhibit and so they had it closed down to the public. Bummer. So they headed back to Las Vegas and we just worked in the library the rest of the day.
Friday morning we went to the Bountiful Temple. We did an endowment session and then afterwards went in to do sealings. Mom was hoping to seal 4 siblings, 3 girls and 1 boy, all together. We went into the sealing room and Mom told the sealer what she was hoping to do. He looked around the room and said, “We are one lady short. We won’t be able to do them all at once. Sorry”. Well we started the session and then the door opened. In walked a sister who asked if it was ok to join our session. Little miracle! We now had enough people to seal all four siblings to their parents at the same time. When we got to that point, Mom and I went to kneel at the altar and immediately I felt the Spirit and looked up at Mom who I could tell was also feeling the same thing. I mouthed to her, “They’re here.” She nodded through her tears. It was such a wonderful experience knowing that we were able to help their family be an eternal family. The sealer did a great job and we were able to get all of the sealings done for the names of the people we brought into the temple that day. Afterwards we went and got our car washed and then got lunch at a Greek place, which was pretty good. The rest of the day was working in the library and then home to get some rest.
Saturday morning we went out for a walk. We felt like slugs because we really hadn’t been able to get out and exercise all week. We learned that the creek is still flowing well. Not as high as it did earlier on this spring, but still well. We got in a good walk and then went into the library. It was a busy day for me. I had a family come in to do the Escape Room and we learned that the cassette tape that is part of the clues wasn’t working. So after they left I went about trying to get a new one. I went to our
Memories floor and was going to use one of the cassette copying machines when I discovered that the tape was just fine. So I went back to the Escape Room and learned that the cassette player that they had in the room also played from a usb. On the side of the player was a switch that changed it from
tape source to
usb source. Someone had inadvertently pushed it to usb source. I switched it back. Problem solved. Then I worked on my Swedish final project and Mom took care of our floor leader responsibilities and suddenly it was time to go home. Wow, that went fast.
After a quick dinner we went downstairs to the Engstrom’s apartment to play
Mah Jongg with them and the Barney’s. I teamed up with Sister Engstrom and we won the first game. Wahoo. Mom won the second one and Brother Engstrom the last game. Mom had brought with us the chocolate covered raisins that Brittany bought us when she went to Costco and we learned that those babies are lethal. Nobody could stop eating them. Everyone kept pushing them away to the other side of the table and when they came to that side, instead of pushing them away we all ate them until we were feeling sugar overload and pushed them away to the other side of the table. That kept happening all night.
This last week the
Tour de France started so I had to wear one of my cycling ties to church. Mom had been asked to teach a lesson for the
Young Women class. She of course had been stressing about it all week, but did great and was happy when it was finished. After church the bishop asked to meet with us to find out if we would be willing to receive a calling and help out with the ward. We of course said we would love to, but also explained our schedule as full time missionaries. We learned as he explained his thoughts that he has some ideas of things we can do to help the ward, but we’ll wait until those callings are official until we let you all know what they are.
Well that was our week. I hope you all had a great week like ours and learned lots. It was so fun having grandkids and Brittany here visiting.
BE GOOD!
Love Sister Grammie and Elder Paka
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