We had a great week and learned some great things. Here they are…
Monday we got into the library at 8:30 and just after 9am, when the library officially opens, I was summoned to do a tour up on the main floor. So up I went, but when I got there there was no group waiting for me. So I talked to the host there and they informed me that some other young lady came along and introduced herself to the group and took them away on their tour. So it seemed a bit like
from last week…tour/no tour…except this time I learned that the group was actually a group that had prearranged
their visit to the library and the young lady that came and snatched them away was one of the staff members who had been previously assigned to meet them and do and orientation and tour. So all was well. I then had a meeting and zone leader stuff, and was off to my pacemaker appointment. This was my first one in over a year. When I got there I learned that someone didn’t orient me very well when I first arrived and met with the cardiologist last year. They sent me, shortly after that first visit, one of the remote sending devices where I can send to the office a readout of my current pacemaker vitals, but nobody told me I was supposed to send them a readout every three months. With Kaiser they had always sent me a text or email telling me it was time to send them a readout. Well, they put the little monitor thingy on me and did a readout. The Medtronic technician let me know that my lower
heart electronic signal was virtually completely blocked. The pacemaker had kicked in more than 95% of the time to tell my heart to beat down there. The upper part was only 54%, which is about 15% more than the last time they checked. So I am relying on my pacemaker more and more. Odds are if I didn’t have it I wouldn’t still be here. It used to be that my heart still got the signal to beat from its regular source most of the time, now it is getting the signal from the pacemaker most of the time. Hurrah for pacemakers.
I got back to the library in time to catch the last half of our zone council meeting and then headed back to
our floor to help some people with printing and various items like that, but no actual helping with a particular research problem. We closed down at 6pm and went to the mission fireside. This one featured the mission presidency counselors and their wives, President and Sister Jackson and President and Sister Faerber. They spoke about some of the great things they have learned while serving in this assignment as well as some doctrinal principles they feel very strongly about. I think I mentioned before that we will be getting a new mission presidency. They take over June 24th. This was the chance for the counselors and wives to say goodbye, President and Sister Holmes will do that on June 17th. Then we will hear from our new mission leaders on the 24th. So that is how our Monday ended.
Tuesday, Pday, began with a bike ride. I forgot to mention that I have committed myself to more exercise and less sweets in an effort to lose some weight, so I got up Monday morning at 6:30am and went to the gym. Tuesday I also got up at 6:30am and got on my bike and went for a 26 mile ride. While I was riding I decided to listen to conference talks from this last conference. The first one I started with was Elder Stevenson’s talk
Bridging the Two Great Commandments. As I listened to that talk I learned something about myself. The first great commandment is to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” The second is to “love thy neighbour as thyself.” I learned that my focus throughout my life has been mostly on that first commandment. The Lord said in John 14:15 that “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” I have been somewhat obsessed with striving to keep His commandments. As I listened to the second part of his talk about the second commandment I realized that Mom is more
focused on that commandment. Her first thoughts are about how to do something for, or care for those around her, and she is good at it. What I then learned was that both of us have learned to live the other commandment more as we have worked on living the one we have focused on. I have seen how striving to follow the Lord’s commands have nudged me more to care about others around me and soften my judgements and interactions with them. Mom has had her desires to serve and love others teach her more about our Savior and bring her into a closer relationship with Him which has nudged her more to wanting to follow all of His commandments. These two commandments truly are the sum total of all the rest.
When I got back I found Mom in the kitchen with one of the sisters from our zone, Sister Carlson, teaching her how to make sourdough bread. She has offered that to just about everyone, but so far only a handful have taken her up on it. I showered and when they were finished we sat and talked for awhile. We thought about going to Costco, but the image of the afternoon crowd made us change our mind. So we just hung around and read and watched tv until it was time for me to head off to give platelets. The car needed washing so I took off a little early to do that first. I have learned that I can do a very nice car wash job for under $6 by going to the DYI car wash, so that is where I went. When I finished I drove on down to give platelets. All went well and I was able to watch about 3/4 of the movie
The Theory of Everything about the life of Stephen Hawking starring Eddie Redmayne. It was very informative and I thought that Eddie Redmayne did a great job, which apparently the Academy agreed with because I learned that he got an academy award for his role. When I got home I watched the end of the movie. His life ends sadly.
Wednesday I got up at 6:30am and went to the gym to work out. We then went into the library and did our little presentation for the new missionary orientation. There were about 25 new senior missionaries. We were hoping to get one or two. We also saw this brother who came in and sat on the side of the room who I assumed was someone from one of the departments coming to observe the new missionary orientation. You’ll find out in a minute who he was. After going down to our floor we found it to be moderately busy. We had our meeting at 1pm with the library staff and then were off not long after that to the Mission Leadership Council meeting with all the zone leaders in the mission. This month they decided
to hold it on the 26th floor of the COB and have dinner afterwards…another goodbye thingy for the mission presidency. Well we got there and found a place on the back row. Then that brother who I had seen in the orientation earlier in the day came in. He said, “Nice presentation this morning.” I told him “Thanks.” Then Mom came and sat down and shook his hand and said hello. Then she paused a second and turned back to him and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are.” He said, “Thank you for asking. I’m Brother Craven.” He’s going to be our new mission president. So we chatted a little with him and then the meeting got started. We had some
announcements and went through the calendar and then we were joined by Elder Bassett, the Executive Director of the Missionary Department and two of his leadership associates. They gave us a great presentation about the current state and focus of missionary work in the world. One thing we learned was that about 20% of people joining the Church right now first heard of and asked to be taught about the Church through social media. Wow, social media is making an impact everywhere and in everything. They also showed us a video about a girl named Sarah who told about how the Church was “following” her around. Everywhere she seemed to go she kept
running into Church buildings and members of the Church until finally she just blurted out to a person she met that she needed to be told about this Church. She is a member today. One other thing we learned was that mission leaders are told that their number one priority as mission leaders is to help deepen the conversion of their missionaries, everything else that needs to be done the Lord will be able to do if He has converted missionaries. After the meeting we had a very nice dinner and got to hear short farewells from all of the presidency. They have been wonderful servants and very easy to work with and we love them.
Thursday morning I got up for another ride. I was a bit weary from not being in the riding mode, so I set out, with no wind, at about a 16mph pace. I went 14 miles and turned around to learn that a slight tailwind had started and now was going to be a headwind all the way home. Ugh. But I did it and got in 28 miles. Mom went for a walk up City Creek Canyon where they have this lovely building. Looks like a nice place to do some meditation. After getting to the library we weren’t there for very long when I was asked to go up to the 2nd floor to help a guest with Netherlands research. When I got there I found Julia who was trying to find out where her grandfather, who had immigrated to the U.S. as a young man, had been born in the Netherlands. His “Americanized” surname was Gardine, but she had found a passenger list that said his Dutch surname was de Gardyn, which sounds more French than Dutch. Well we started searching, and everything we found gave us another little clue until finally we found his real surname, de Gardijn, and we were able to find him on FamilySearch and his line went back multiple generations. She got very emotional and started crying and then asked if she could give me a hug. As I left her she said she couldn’t wait to show her Mom, this man’s daughter, what she had learned about her father. That’s payment for all of the work I put in to learn how to do this research!
We then went for lunch where I got a chicken wrap that was humongous. I only ate half of it and saved the other half for a future dinner or lunch. After lunch I got to help a couple from France which was fun. I finished just in time for us to head off to the temple. We went to the West Jordan Temple because Mom wanted to go to
JCW’s:Burger Boys for dinner. It did not disappoint. We all got burgers and fries and I couldn’t resist a milkshake. I got a raspberry one this
time because Mom got to pick what the flavor was. I would have gone for marshmallow or peanut butter or mint, but the raspberry was still very yummy. Mom got a huge burger. We have learned that our metabolism has slowed down so much that we can’t eat a whole one of those all by ourselves so we just get one to share between us. She eats more of the burger and I eat more of the fries. And of course I usually eat/drink more of the milkshake. So when we were finished with dinner we took our sisters home and then looked for a movie to watch. I watched a documentary on
Disney+ about Jim Henson and his creation of the Muppets. It was pretty amazing to see all of the different things he was involved in. He wasn’t satisfied with just creating the Muppet characters, he wanted to do movies and Broadway musicals and have his own variety show. What is amazing is that I learned that he did them all. I didn’t realize how many things he created that I knew about but hadn’t remembered he had done.
Friday morning we didn’t have any new missionaries coming to our zone so we didn’t have to attend the
Go Forth meeting. I got up and worked out at the gym. Mom was tired so she decided to not go walking. When we got to the library we had to deal with a little personnel issue where a full time missionary felt she needed to go home to take care of her ailing mother for the next maybe 4 months. Yikes. We decided to pass that decision on to the mission presidency. Shortly after talking with that missionary I got a phone call from Burley telling us that our lot division had been officially approved. He should have the
paperwork by Monday and all we needed to do was put our signatures on it using a notary and then get it filed in the city registry and we could start the process of getting our building permit. Wahoo! I can’t believe it has taken so long, but it is finally here. We helped out a bit more here and here in the library and got to come home early because it was our half day. When I got home I was falling asleep reading on the couch so I decided to just go take a nap. That’s the first time in many months that I have gone in and napped on our bed. I guess all of the exercise this week was getting to me. After my nap we got a call from the mission office housing coordinator saying that one of the new missionary couples in our building was wanting a parking spot closer to the building because the elder uses a cane and needs to not have to walk so far. So they were wondering if we would be willing to swap
our spot for theirs. I said we could do that and then got ready to go to the first of the
Concerts in the Park series that we missed last year. They are free concerts on Friday nights throughout the summer that are performed in the Brigham Young Park which is just across the street from the COB. So we got over there and learned that they were worried about a possible thunderstorm so they moved it to the Tabernacle. When we got there we found a seat and then Kevin Hallstrom came over. He and Melanie were there after dropping off their son for a concert date and decided to come to his concert while they were waiting for his to finish. So we sat by them. The concert was
Kenneth Cope and Tyler Casleton doing a bunch of Kenneth’s songs. It was very nice. The two that we really recognized were
Never a Better Hero and
His Hands. When the concert was over we walked out with Kevin and Melanie and had a very nice chat. They were so kind saying that there were quite a few ways that they were trying to be like us. They are a wonderful couple. They were saying we need to get together with some of our other Hawaii friends and have dinner together. Sounds like a wonderful plan to me. The Matsunagas are here in Utah now as well as the Hansens. We also talked about some of the old California North colleagues that are living here in Utah as well. Friends are fun!
Saturday morning I got up early again and did another ride. I was surprised that I felt pretty good and was able to ride at a little quicker pace of about 17mph and ride for 30 miles. We then went into the library where as soon as I signed in I was assigned to a lady who needed help with Haiti research. I actually learned that she was wanting to know how to do research to help her ministering sister who is from Haiti and is a recent convert and wants to take a family name to the temple. So I showed her probably way more than she needed to know and will probably remember, but told her to bring the sister into the library and we can help her moving forward. I finished with her and was assigned a couple from the Netherlands, up on the main floor, who was looking for WWII POW records to see if they could find out
the camp that her grandfather was in. We searched all over the place, but found nothing that was available to the public. I did find a notice that looked like they might be able to go to a place in the Netherlands where they may be able to share with them that info if they could prove relationship to the person. They were happy. I got back to our floor and was asked to help another couple from the Netherlands. They just wanted to see what we had and it was very easy to find some things for them. We then did a quick lunch and came back just in time to help a group of French young men. They also were just curious about what we had and how to do research, so I showed them some things and found the grandfather for one of the young men and showed them how to get to the department websites to search for records. They thought it was pretty cool and were especially impressed that they could do this from home and it was all free. I wasn’t
finished with them for very long when I was asked to help another couple from the Netherlands. Wow, lots of Dutch people today! This couple was actually wanting to find some records or information about an American. They had adopted the grave of an American Air Force pilot that had been shot down and killed in 1945 and buried in a cemetery in the Netherlands. They said that many Dutch people wait 5 years or more to get to adopt these graves. What a wonderful service. Well we were able to find the man they were looking for in
FamilySearch and there was a census record attached to his sources that showed that he and his mom and two siblings were living with a stepfather and his 7 children. He had two stepbrothers that were a year older and a year younger than him, which I am sure was wonderful for those boys. They were excited to learn a little more about this great young man who died in the service of his country. We finally closed down the library at 6pm and walked over to
Deseret Book to exchange the shirt that I bought because I picked the wrong
size. Afterwards we came home and mom made us shrimp tacos which were very good, but very messy. I would have to say they were
finger licking good, because that is what I did after eating them. Yum! I finished off the night by watching some episodes of
Last Man Standing and Mom went into the bedroom and fell asleep reading her book. She came out a bit later and went after finishing her sourdough bread. She has that down to a science now, and whips out two loaves at a time most of the time and brings it into the library for our floor to snack on. They love it.
Today we had a great day at church. It was a bit warm and we got a little sweaty walking to church, but it was ok. We had some great talks in sacrament meeting which were about Elder Stevenson’s talk about the bridges, which was pretty coincidental since that was what I just listened to on my bike ride the beginning of this week. They were both pretty good talks and reminded me again about what I had learned about the relationship of hese two great commandments. After church we walked home and I got to work on this blog post, but was interrupted when we had to go to the
One Heart gathering. That lasted until 5:30 or so with the little snack gathering afterwards. Mom says it has become too predictable and boring and she wants to do bread and dips when it is our turn next time. We were home for just about an hour when we then went downstairs to play games with the Barneys. I lost every game. Ugh! Then it was back here for the last bit of this blog post. And I am finally done and it’s not even midnight yet!
So that has been our week. It has been a good and busy one. I hope you had a great week as well.
Love you all.
BE GOOD!
Sister and Elder Phillips
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