Week Seventy-four…Acting That Our Fans Can Adore.

This week had a few different twists in it. Here’s what we learned…

Monday began with our new Mission Presidency introducing themselves. The Browns, who we already know, started off. They actually told us a lot of stuff about their history. They were followed up by a video of the Howes, because they are still in Australia waiting for a visa to come through. They hope to be here by July 18th. The Cravens ended the devotional. We learned that Sister Craven is really short. I noticed when I met President Craven a few weeks ago that he wasn’t a tall man, but seeing him standing next to his wife you’d think he was. After the devotional we went to the library. We are still what I would call consistently busy. It’s not like we are slammed and overwhelmed, but we have at least 6 or 7 or more guests that we are serving on our floor on a consistent

basis, as well as helping out on other floors. In the afternoon I was asked to help a guest with Netherlands research. She was a young middle school teacher, who is switching to 4th grade next year…she’s done with middle schoolers…and she wanted to find some of her family in the Netherlands. We found them and then she wanted to come forward and find their descendants in New Jersey. So instead of passing her off to a US/Canada missionary I just showed her how to do research in the US. She caught on very quickly and was loving it, so I told her to put all the people into her tree and add the sources, and I would come back and check on her after my meeting. So I made it to the meeting, a little late, and afterwards

came back to check on her and found that she had left. Sadness. Except really not sadness because I know we found what she was looking for and she had learned for herself how to do the research. Wahoo. I was then asked to help read a French document, but they were having difficulty finding the document they wanted, because they had to figure out the Republican Calendar date and find it in the records. When we had mostly finished with that, I was asked to go to the next row back and help a French couple and their son, who was about 11 or 12. They just wanted to see what we had in our system, so I showed them how to search records and set up a tree and then how to use Geneanet and the Archives en Ligne. They were intrigued, especially the boy. He wanted to jump in and do “detective work” as he called it. They were very fun and gave me multiple thank yous when we were finished. We then closed down the library and headed home for a quick dinner and off to our apartment FHE. This one was led by the Clarksons and their lesson was sharing what we had learned from our

Come Follow Me study. We had only had Monday for our study so far so I hadn’t read a lot, but I know these chapters from having taught them many times. It was interesting that one of the other missionaries mentioned something that I also had observed many years ago and someday I hope to find out if I am right. At the end of Alma 15 it says that Alma took Amulek “to his own house, and did administer unto him in his tribulations,”. I think this is an interesting statement as I seem to think that both of them had

experienced the same tribulations. But there is also a mention in verse 16 that Amulek had been “rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred.” It makes no mention of his wife and his children as it had back in Alma 10:11 where he states that Alma had blessed “ my women, and my children, and my father and my kinsfolk.” From this I wonder if his own wife and children were some of those that were brought out and cast into the fire and burned. If so, no wonder Amulek had turned to Alma and said, “ How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.” We also celebrated Leslie’s 60th birthday. She is a service missionary that has been helping at the library for over 35 years even though she is  physically and mentally disabled. She works in the Library Services zone and her main job is to re-shelve books after guests have used them. 

Tuesday was Pday. I headed out rather leisurely in the morning for my 30 mile ride, not worrying about when I needed to be back as I didn’t think I had anything to do until 10am when I had agreed to come in to help with the filming that was being done…more on that later. But at the halfway point in my ride a little message popped up on my watch saying that one of our missionaries had accepted the invitation to view our DNA class online. I suddenly remembered that we had rescheduled our DNA class for that day at 9am and I was supposed to be there to get the online Teams meeting set up. Ugh. I was 15 miles away and it was 8:05. There was no way I could get back, change and make it into the library in time to do that. So I called Mom and asked her to bail me out. She agreed, and went in and got everything set up. Thanks

Mom. After I got home Mom decided to go shopping. She came back about 15 minutes later saying that the low tire pressure light came on in the car, so she turned around and came home. I went down to the car and learned that there was a screw in the tire. So I put on the spare and told Mom she could take it to the dentist and then drop it at Big O Tires to get the flat fixed. She didn’t want to take it to the tire shop, but I was supposed to be at the library in about half an hour to help with a video project. So Mom went to her appointment and then to Big O where she learned that the tire wasn’t salvageable and because we have an all wheel drive vehicle they would need to find the exact tire and shave some of the tread off to get an exact match, otherwise the drivetrain could be messed up. I was skeptical and Mom said that was why she didn’t want to take it in, she doesn’t think automotive places treat men and women the same. So I looked online real quick and learned that they were telling her the truth. So I told her to tell them to do it and she drove home. I then headed up to the 3rd floor of the library where they were filming for a new 360° Library Virtual Tour. Debbie Gurtler had asked for some volunteers to be willing to be in the videos posing as guests or staff so I came dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. They put me into a

couple of different shots acting like I was a guest. Then Mom and I went to lunch and after lunch they asked if we could come back. So we did and they put Mom and I front and center in the next shot on the 2nd floor. They even put makeup on Mom and a bit of powder on me, just like people in the movies. Real movie stars! We just had to sit and look at a book that had genealogy info in it and pretend we were putting that info into a laptop. We then had to sit for a closeup shot because they said it looked like a great shot. I am pretty sure that much of the footage they shot will go on the cutting room floor, but odds are that we will be in at least one of the scenes. When it is available on the website I will let you know and you can witness for yourselves our amazing acting skills. We were then let go and we headed home. I got a call from the tire guys saying that they had scoured the entire state and couldn’t find a tire like the ones we had on the car. Our only option was to replace all four tires, just like it said in that online notice that I found. Ouch! So I drove the car in and then walked over to

Deseret Book to exchange my white shirt for a better size and then went to T-Mobile to find out why our phones are suddenly unable to make phone calls from the B1 floor. They had no answer. So I walked back to the tire place and paid for my four new tires and drove home. I got home in time to help Mom get set up for dinner with Sharon Pruner and Sami who Mom had invited to come to dinner and then play mah jongg. I then learned that Sam had also invited two of her YSA guys to come as well…Sterling and Miles. Miles was late, but Sterling came with her. We had tacos and then taught them to play mah jongg. They enjoyed it, especially Sterling. I just ran around and helped Sharon and Sterling as they were just learning. They didn’t win, but they enjoyed it, especially Sterling, he loved it. Sam won twice. Then Sharon left and so I sat in for the last game and of course won, as seems to be normal lately. Mom says she doesn’t like playing with me anymore. Sadness.

Wednesday I was planning on going to the gym and then Mom reminded me that we had a morning meeting with Savannah, one of the staff specialists. So I missed my workout. After our meeting we came to our floor and the film crew was there. They asked us to bring some changes of clothes in case they wanted to use us again, but we learned when we got there that they had recruited plenty of people on our floor. So we just went to work, Mom successfully helping someone with their family tree and me working on my own tree, unsuccessfully. We went to the COB for lunch and then Mom was asked to help with Italy. Again success! But because she was doing

that I had to help Doris with a Spanish Ward tour. They were a YM/YW group and a lot of fun. I ended the tour showing them the green screen where they could take pictures of their group. We ended up staying a little later than usual and got home to a late dinner and waited for Matt to get here from the airport. He took the Trax in and then walked on over. He was here to help Caroline drive home with her boys on Saturday, but the Wednesday flight was much cheaper. So Mom fed him and Sam and Carolyn came over and we sat up chatting with them. Carolyn was staying at Sam’s so they took off after awhile, but we stayed up until very late talking with Matt. Mom finally started yawning and that was the signal that we couldn’t stay up any later so we headed to bed.

Thursday Mom went walking with Matt up around the Capital and into City Creek Canyon. They saw “perty flowers”. I went for another ride. When we got home Matt took off to spend the day with Caroline and we went into the library. We started the day with another meeting, this one via videoconference because President Brown wasn’t feeling well. After our meeting it was pretty much status quo for the rest of the day. No new guests or issues. No new experiences at lunch. Just same ol’ same ol’. When we finished we gathered up Sister Docherty and Sister Pruner and headed to the Bountiful Temple where we were going to meet Sister Hirama. We got there and dressed and into the chapel and no Sister Hirama. Mom went looking for her and couldn’t find her. So she asked if I would run down and text her because she was worried that she might have thought we were going to the new Layton Temple that day. So I went to my locker and got my phone and sent her a text asking if she was at the Bountiful Temple. She texted back right away saying, “No, I am now at Manti.” So I went back to the chapel and told Mom and she was relieved as well as remembered that she had told her she was going there with another Sister missionary friend. After the temple we did a Costco run then dropped off the Sisters and came home to find Matt and the girls chatting in the living room. 

Friday was our T/R day. Mom got up and went walking, I went to the gym. Matt said he was going to meet the girls for breakfast. We got ready and went into the library about 9:45 and found the girls outside waiting for Matt. I told them he had left over an hour ago to go to breakfast with them. Didn’t they meet up? They said no, he was coming shortly to go to breakfast. Funny. We went in and since it was a short day didn’t have a lot to do. A couple of zone leader HR issues and Mom working on Italy training and then off to the COB for lunch. We came home to find Matt and Carolyn here. She was tired so she went in for a nap and Mom went off shopping at Walmart. After she woke up they went off to dinner with Sam and we just relaxed the rest of the evening and actually got an early bedtime. I did take a moment to find out exactly where Blacksmith Ice Cream is in Bountiful so that I could use the money Brittany and Shaun sent me for ice cream and the Dad’s Ice Cream Shovel that Zoë and Aaron sent me to eat ice cream with. They were both Father’s Day gifts. Mahalo!

Saturday morning I got up and headed up Emigration Canyon again. I decided to do that ride because there were signs along the normal bike route that I ride saying there was going to be a walk/run event this Saturday. I did not want to have to negotiate a bunch of walkers and runners on the path, so I headed up the canyon. As I started out I was feeling a bit tired and was a little worried that I didn’t have the energy to do the climb, so I told myself I would just get to 8th south and then decide how I felt. When I got there I was feeling pretty good so up I went. I actually made better time than the last time I did it, even though there was a headwind blowing down the canyon. I did remember to stop and get a picture at the top, even though I was getting worried that I was going to make it back in time for the primary activity that Mom and I had been asked to participate in. I kept asking myself why it was later than I had expected, because last time I had gotten home just before 9am. Then I realized that last time I got up earlier, at 6am and left just before 6:30. This time I woke up at 6:30, so I had a later start. Anyway I made it home in time and took a quick shower and got dressed and we were off to the primary activity. They asked us to take 10 minutes

and tell about our temple marriage. The theme of the activity was Staying on the Covenant Path and they had people talking about their baptism and getting the priesthood and going on a mission and then ending with us about getting married in the temple. We learned that there were quite a few families who were away on vacation, but still there were about 15 kids that came. We told them a little about our covenant path…Mom getting baptized at 17 and me at 8, and then about our day in the temple. We showed them some pictures of that day and they seemed to enjoy our story.

When we were finished we ran down to the library because we were scheduled to be there at 10am and the primary activity had started at 10 and we were last on the program. We walked in and almost immediately they needed someone for Italy. So off Mom went to help that guest. I was an usher so I helped seat a bunch of guests. Again we were consistently busy. We hadn’t stopped for lunch, so about 12:30 we ran home and grabbed something. We got back and I was usher again, but then needed to fill in for the steward because he was needed for Switzerland help, even though he actually only does German help, but we had no Swiss options. After

awhile a family of Chinese guests came in and we had nobody, so I got to go help show them what was available. We were almost finished with the day when a missionary came to the floor and said she need help reading a Swedish record. So I went with her up to the second floor to read the record. I could read most of it, but there were two words I couldn’t quite get. Then Forrest, the new Nordic specialist came up and

asked if we needed help. We were just going to call for him. So he looked at it and figured out the one word and as he did that, suddenly the other word came clear to me. I said it and everyone said, “yes, that’s it!”. Funny how sometimes it takes multiple eyes to see it clearly. We came home and Mom made cookies. Wahoo. I think it was because I was complaining that I didn’t have any cookie dough. Yum! Then I watched the last episode of Last Man Standing. I guess I will need to pick another tv series to binge watch.  MASH is always a great one, but I have done that multiple times. Any suggestions?

So today we got up and got dressed for church. Mom wore her new top. You like?

I wore my peloton tie in honor of the Tour de France which began yesterday.

Church was great. We did a fifth Sunday lesson about music and the new hymnbook and sang some of the new hymns that will be in it. It was nice. Then home for some lunch and to work on this blog post. Then the Barneys came over to play mah jongg. I won twice, Mom once and Sandy once. Larry was the only non-winner today. I have learned that non-winner is nice than loser. 

So now we are trying to call back Wynne and Johnathan, but they are busy on another call. So Mom tried a few others of you and it looks like you are all on a call together. We shall wait and try again later.

Hope you had a great week. 

Love you all. 

BE GOOD!

Sister and Elder Phillips