I’m not feeling well today, nor yesterday, but we’ll see if my head is clear enough to write what we learned this week. Just gitter dun…no whining.
Monday we didn’t have a devotional so we just went to the library at 8:30am. It was busy again, just like last week. We have learned that conference indeed does attract more visitors to Salt Lake City and those visitors often make the library one of their stops. We weren’t in the library long when we were asked to meet with Debbie Gurtler and Jason Harrison. We found out from them that a guest, who is friends with one of the VIP hosts in the COB, came to the library on Friday and had a horrible experience with one of our missionaries. The guest said that the missionary asked about her ancestry and when she mentioned that her father was from Syria the missionary said, “I
hate Muslims!” She reported this interaction to their friend who passed it on to Jason, our VIP host. She also mentioned that the missionary said she was born in Germany, and that she had missing teeth. We wracked our brains and determined it could only be one or two of our sisters and we were positive that neither of them would ever say something like that. Ugh. Well the day went on and I checked the past Friday’s schedule to verify when it had happened and found that it was in the afternoon and Rob Carpenter had been the helper there. So we decided we would ask him if he saw
anything happen. The rest of the day I was busy helping. In fact Mom had to go to lunch without me because I was helping a guest. When I was finished I was able to go up to the 3rd floor break room and have a quick lunch that Mom brought back from the COB. I then got to help a fun couple from France who were visiting a bunch of National Parks in a rented motor home. I have learned that there are a lot of Europeans that come to the U.S. to see our National Parks. I then was asked to help a sister from Switzerland with a microfilm. It was odd because the film she was looking for was part of a collection, but
some films were there and others were not. So I asked Raymon, one of our specialists, about it and he was surprised as well. It didn’t make sense that this collection, which was an alphabetical list of people who immigrated to Germany after the 2nd World War, would have some of the names available but not others. I still haven’t learned why that is the case. After helping her I helped a Spanish speaking family that was having problems in
FamilySearch. It was difficult to understand them at first, but finally I figured out that they were concerned that one of their ancestors had a notation that said they had “no children” but they knew he had many children. I didn’t know how you could designate in
FamilySearch that someone had no children, so I asked a more seasoned missionary. He taught me that it was a designation when you create a “marriage event” and I could just go in and uncheck a box. Sure enough, there was the box and when I unchecked it all was well. They were very happy. We closed down our floor at 6pm and came home for a little dinner and then Mom was off to pickleball. I watched
Monday Night Football.
Tuesday was Pday. I went for a ride and Mom for a walk. When I got home Mom was teaching one of the girls in our apartments how to make a frittata. I got showered and dressed to go to the mission office because President Craven had requested to meet with us. When we got there we learned he was just formally asking us to be the speakers at the October 28th mission devotional, and he gave me a topic. He asked if I would speak about coming to the Savior and using His atonement to make repentance a daily
practice in our lives. We then went to meet the Carpenters at the COB for lunch, which afforded us the opportunity to ask Rob if he remembered anything about the incident that happened last Friday. At first he couldn’t remember the interaction with the guest, but then Kay remembered the couple, she had helped the husband. As we spoke they suddenly figured out who the woman from Germany with missing teeth was. She is a guest that sits near the back of our floor and is “not all there”. Sometimes she swears or goes off on something and we have to remind her to act
appropriately in the library. Immediately I texted Debbie Gurtler, who almost at the same time messaged me, that it was this woman. She and Geoff, another specialist had also come to the same conclusion. Whew! We were sick inside thinking that one of our missionaries had done that. We were so glad to learn that they hadn’t. After lunch we came to the apartment with the Carpenters and played mahjong. We were on our last game when Sami knocked on the door and shortly after her Sharon knocked. Mom had also invited them to play mahjong and we were overlapping. So we played more mahjong and Sharon and Rob both got their first wins. Wahoo for them. We finished up just in time for me to drive down and give platelets, which worked this time.
Wednesday I was tired, so no working out at the gym. We got into the library and it was still pretty busy, but not quite as bad as before. I didn’t write down who I helped this day, but I know that I was helping on and off and Mom was busy with her
Fun Food Day. This month was “Anything Pumpkin or Halloween” (that last part was added later and most people brought only pumpkin items.) There was a nice variety and Mom grabbed a couple of things at lunchtime while we did our LPJ class. After lunch I went upstairs and snagged a couple more items. Yum! One other thing that I remember happening on Wednesday was beginning to work on my devotional talk. I usually just look up quotes and ponder scriptures and things like that and try to assemble a semi-logical beginning middle and end to my talk. As I was doing that I had a personal experience come to mind that I felt prompted ought to be in the talk, so I pulled out my phone and added it to my list of quotes and thoughts. We’ll see how it fits into the talk. We were busy enough that I didn’t get to work on my own family history stuff and we headed home at 6pm to relax the rest of the evening.
Thursday we had an International Zone Staff meeting at 9am, so no ride. We went from that meeting to a
Just Us meeting with the other zone leaders in the library and then Mom went to another meeting for our zone in service team. Meeting, meeting, meeting! We did our LPJ class at lunch and then finally out on the floor to help. Mom got to help with Italy and I got to help with the Netherlands. Then it was off to the temple with Sharon and Yoriko. We did sealings and an endowment. At the end of our sealings session the sealer told us that when he was set apart as a sealer President (then Elder) Nelson told him that if he
couldn’t pronounce the peoples’ names correctly not to worry, they would hear them as if their own mother was speaking with them. I have heard something akin to this before, but this is the only first-hand account I have heard. I think it’s a nice thought, but I also think that the individual who has his or her name mispronounced is not really going to care that much if they have been waiting and wanting their temple work to be done. That will be the most important thing at the time. Afterwards we did shopping at Costco and then home. I got here in time to watch the second half of the 49ers game. Wahoo! They bounced back and have two wins in a row now. The only problem was that it ended kind of late and it made me tired the next morning.
Friday we were in early and slated to work until 1pm. The library was again pretty busy in the morning. I worked on some ZL stuff and then was asked to help a couple from the Netherlands. I learned that they were on their honeymoon, although they weren’t a young couple, definitely middle aged, but they were doing the same thing that the French couple earlier in the week was doing…rented a motor home and visiting as many National Parks as they could get to. He was wearing a
Yellowstone T shirt. They were fun to work with because they wanted to learn how to search more than actually finding a name, although we were successful at that as well. Mom had finished successfully helping a guest with Italy research and headed to the COB for lunch before they closed. I finished and just met her at home and we ate lunch together. I was planning to go for a ride or to the gym, but didn’t feel quite up to it. As the afternoon went on my stomach started feeling very queasy and I was glad I wasn’t on my bike. I spent the rest of the night just watching tv. Mom went to play pickleball.
Saturday morning I awoke still feeling crummy. So Mom went into the library without me and I just sat on the couch and watched college football all day. It was an exciting day of more upsets and almost upsets. Mom got home and went off to play pickleball again. Three times this week for her! I just vegged and went to bed late after the Ohio St. vs Oregon game. Super exciting finish to that one.
Today, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was still not feeling well, so I stayed home from church and started on this post. Mom went to church and it was the first meeting of our new combined family ward. It was also the Primary Program. Mom said it was hard to hear because there were so many crying babies. Her exact words were, “It was loud!”.
Well another week is done. No “lasts” this week that I can think of, except I hope this is my last time being sick on my mission.
Love you all.
BE GOOD!
Dad and Mom
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