Week Thirty-three…Time to Party!

Aloha! We learned some fun things this week. Here’s some of them.

We had a Mission Devotional Monday morning and the Elijah Choir sang Let the Mountains Shout for Joy. I remember singing it when I was in our ward choir in the Sacramento Stake. I thought I remembered that the words were inspired by scripture from somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where. So I went looking and learned it was in D&C 128:23. This was part of Joseph Smith’s grand declaration of the great things God had done in bringing about His marvelous plan here in the latter-days. I have to confess I was singing along with them.

It was also September 11th and we were all remembering the horrible events of 22 years ago. We then went into the library and found it to be a pretty light day as far as guests go. We helped some folks with simple things and then headed home. We needed to go shopping for the next day’s zone social, but Mom had a walking date with Sister Barney, so I got to go to Costco. I was fine with that except the reward I was hoping to get of Costco soft serve ice cream didn’t happen because their machine was down. Sadness! I was able to buy some more chocolate milk though, so that was nice. That night we had FHE and the Winders were in charge of the lesson. Elder Winder taught about the importance of ordinances and Elder Last asked the question about why ordinances? My mind started going and people started answering and I was taken on a journey from a quote to some scriptures and finally had my thoughts kind of come all together and here is what I learned.

I read in the Gospel Topics article about ordinances, that they are given to help us remember our covenants with God. Then I thought of the verses in Helaman 12 which say, “1 And thus we can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him.

2 Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people…then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity. 3 And thus we see that except the

Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him.” Then I remembered and found in my notes this quote from President Kimball, "When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? It could be remember. Because all of you have made covenants - you know what to do and you know how to do it - our greatest need is to remember. That is why everyone goes to sacrament meeting every Sabbath day - to take the sacrament and listen to the

priests pray that 'they may always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them.' Remember is the word. Remember is the program." (Kimball, Spencer W. "Circles of Exaltation," Address to Seminary and Institute Personnel, BYU, June 28, 1968.) I concluded that for many of our Father’s children they need the death (like how people reacted after 9/11) and famines and pestilence to get them to remember Him, but for those of us that strive each day to do His will we really don’t need those things so instead He  gives us ordinances, like the sacrament and temple ordinances, to help us remember Him. What marvelous blessings those are.

Tuesday was our first day of zone socials. The 11 o’clock hour wasn’t too busy, maybe 16 or 18 people. There was plenty of soups and salads and breads and desserts. The little game, Fun Facts that Tori recommended, worked well. Everyone seemed to have fun and enjoyed it. The next hour had about 40 show up. I think all of the staff that serve as specialist on our floor came. Unfortunately those numbers overwhelmed our food and we got down to just one soup left and very little salad. Fortunately there was bread and dessert. Anyway, everyone that hour seemed to have a great time and they liked the game enjoyed being together. 

After the social we worked for the next 8 hours in the library then headed home. We were tired! We came home and learned that our dishwasher which was supposedly fixed the day before is not fixed. They told us the problem, but can’t figure out how to solve it. There is a drain hose that is kinked and won’t allow the dishwasher to drain. So I found that they didn’t screw the brackets back in and I was able to slide out the dishwasher. I decided to try an experiment, I left the dishwasher sitting in the middle of the floor so that the hose was straight and started it. Voila, it worked perfectly. Somehow they need to find a way to keep that hose from kinking when the dishwasher gets pushed all the way in. I forgot to mention that I had done my 30 mile ride that morning and by the time we got to the end of the day I was pretty tired. Bed felt good. 

We slept in a bit the next morning, then went in for day two of our zone Fall social and had a great time. The lunches were great and

the game went well. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning things about their fellow missionaries. After it was finished and since it was our Pday, we went home to get some things done.  I decided to go ride again and did a 36 mile ride. It was getting a bit windy out there, but I had time so I went a little further than normal, even though the wind was making it hard to ride. I had learned at the beginning of the week that today was Donation Match day. Every dollar that would be donated to sponsor me as I helped raise money to beat childhood cancer today was going to be matched by some generous donors. So I put this picture on my Facebook page and put in a few extra miles towards my pledges amount. That night Mom worked on soup and brownies and I looked for a bed for our room in Chris and Julie’s house so that we can have somewhere to sleep when we visit for Halloween.

Thursday is always our floor lead day, so we did that while also doing the lunch social with its game. Every day has been great for the social. We learned that we have some great people in our zone and they are fun and passionate. I got pulled away from the social because there were some people out on the main floor from South Africa that needed some help and apparently I was the best option. I learned from watching one of the specialists one time that there are some records available to search on the FamilySearch site so I took them there. We were able to find a couple of records that helped us. Identify their relatives. Fun stuff! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get

back in to do the game. Mom had to do it. I was then asked to help a lady who was looking for records for family from he Netherlands. That one was more difficult. We found some records, but weren’t sure if they were definitely her ancestor, but she was grateful that I had shown her how to search and said she would continue on her own. Right after our shift we took Sister Docherty and Sister Pruner to the Jordan River Temple to do two sealing sessions. While I was waiting afterwards up walked Janie Homer. Right behind her was her husband and my former colleague, Don. He was a coordinator in Reno while I was Area Director. I spent some long days with him traveling to some remote seminary classes all over northern Nevada. Fun times. He and Janie were there with their grandson who was going through the temple in preparation to serve his mission to Montreal Canada. We were able to introduce him to Sister Pruner who resides in the Montreal Canada mission. No coincidences.

That night I was sniffling a bit, but thought it was because of the wind I dealt with on my Wednesday ride. But in the morning I was coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose quite a bit… I had a cold. So I stayed home while Mom went in to run the last day of our Fall zone socials and be steward AND floor lead for the last 3 hours of the night. She said that things went smoothly, which I never doubted for a minute. I have learned over the years to just give her a task and a bit of training and she can handle anything. She doesn’t think sometimes that she has those kinds of abilities but she does. She didn’t get much done on her Italy training this week, but she put on some great parties, kept things organized in the library, helped some fellow missionaries enjoy the blessings of the temple and gave me a kiss to make sure we had a great ending to a great day. That’s a great lady and I am lucky to be sealed to her for eternity. Maybe her only fault is that she thinks Pride and Prejudice  is a good movie. She came home from working in the library and felt like she needed a movie to watch to just decompress. Somehow she chose that one. Actually, I’m just kidding. It’s not a bad movie. Nothing like She’s the Man. Ugh.

Saturday I was still blowing my nose and coughing, so I stayed home another day. Mom went in to the library on her own. The only benefit for me was that it was Saturday and there were tons of college football games for me to watch. Wahoo! I got to see some pretty great football, including a game winning 61 yard field goal in the Mizzou vs Kansas St. game and the great catches made by BYU players to help them beat Arkansas. The only negative was that the last game, Colorado vs Colorado St. started late and I didn’t get to bed until after midnight. But I was feeling better!

I guess the late night and getting over the cold took a toll on my body, because when I woke up and looked at my watch I learned it was a little after 10am. I haven’t slept in that late since I can’t remember when. I jumped up and showered and got ready and learned that Mom was now showing symptoms of having a cold. Bummer. So I went to Stake Conference without her. Our conference was scheduled to begin at 11am so I was planning to leave at 12:30 so I could get to our Leadership Pattern Journey class which begins at 1pm. But the stake president got up to speak at about 12:10pm and I was correct in assuming that he would be the last speaker. Conference ended at 12:30pm…perfect. But when I got to the NOB I learned that the mission presidency was doing interviews and since President Holmes wasn’t feeling well he was doing the interviews via videoconference and they were using the conference room we use. Luckily there were some other rooms, smaller but good enough. We had a great class. 

So now it is time to finish this and get some dinner. I hope you had a wonderful sabbath.

Love you all.

BE GOOD!

Dad and Mom