Sep 10th -16th

I have now had my first week as a trainer and have been learning a lot as I have been training someone else. They were very nice to me and gave me someone that knew a lot of information about her family and her daughter-in-law has done a lot of research and documented all the information that she has found. It made my work a lot easier. I still have a lot of research to get caught up to all the work that Grandma Danielson did and source the information.

Salt Lake Temple with the fountion.

This week on Wednesday after work we went to the temple to do sealings. Our branch has an assignment each week to do sealings. There were 17 from the Branch this week that showed up for the sealing, so they put us in two rooms. It was nice to walk to the temple, do a sealing session and then have dinner in the cafeteria and be back in our apartment in 2 hours. Not like the old days when it would take 2 hours just to get to the temple in Los Angeles, or 20 hours from Oklahoma to Utah. It is wonderful that temples are now within a few hours of most people in the world.

Friday evening we went to the Freedom Foundation of Valley Forge concert in the tabernacle. It was celebrating the 225 anniversary of the signing of the constitution. We arrived a few minutes early and ended up sitting on the side, one row away from the orchestra. The music was by the Tabernacle Choir and Temple Square orchestra. We were surprised when the audience went quiet and all stood up. We looked around and saw that President Monson had just entered and was escorted to a reserved row in the middle of the tabernacle. They presented him with a painting during the evening. It was a wonderful concert and program. 

This week I did receive the bike I ordered and I was able to get it put together. I took it out for a couple of rides in the evening. On Saturday I met up with 6 other senior missionaries and drove to the start of the road to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. We rode to the ranch on the island and back which was 38 miles round trip. I am afraid that it has been a few weeks since I have been on a bike and the others really kept me going, considering that I am probably the youngest in the group. The oldest was 73 and I had a hard time keeping up with him. None of the bison that are on the island paid any attention to us even when we were within about 30 feet from them, thank goodness. 

While I was riding, Brenda went to the Riverton Family History Library and took a couple of classes, one on British research and one on Blogging for family history. I guess I really should be going with her to learn, but I was having too much fun.

Guiding our Children

This is one of my favorite pictures. Whenever I walk by this statue I can't help but think of the many years in my life that I spent influencing young children. I hope that I made deep impressions on their little minds. Those years of teaching I hold dear to my heart. I have now moved on to another chapter in my life. I am thankful that I can continue to influence my grandchildren and be an example for them.

Sep 3rd- 9th

This week we had Labor Day on Monday. We spent the morning cleaning, since we did not do it on Saturday. We then went to visit Liz, Preston and Lauren. Liz has done a wonderful job with their new house. I know that it took a lot of work on her part, since Randy is in Idaho on a fire there. We were able to take them out for lunch and stopped and had Hawaiian shaved ice. Liz had to get back for an appointment, so we spent a little time in fixing her dryer, which I had dropped a screw inside the back and there was no way to get it out, so we took the kids to go buy a new screw. We really enjoyed our visit and are sure glad that they live close were we can get to know them better. 

Another highlight of the week was that a couple that are members of our social group in the mission were good friends with Clay Christianson (the tabernacle organist). They arranged for us to meet him at the tabernacle and he showed us the organ and told us about its history. He then played a couple of numbers that he had arranged. After the short concert, he took us behind the organ and we were able to see the pipes and the workings of the organ. 

 Brenda and I have been working on getting certified as trainers. I was able to pass off the first core part of the training. Brenda is finished with the core part, but they were too busy to test her on the information that she has completed. One of the trainers has not returned from a knee surgery, so they asked me to take a new trainee for the next two weeks. I do not know when I will get to finish the next two parts of the training because I will be training instead. 

 

Dad with his trainer Elder Peck

  This is Sister Jordan.

 Here we are with President Peterson and his wife.  

This was a very happy moment for us to finally be here in Salt Lake.

This weekend was our stake conference. The Saturday adult session was in the stake center, which is a whole one block from our house. I was a very great meeting with the concentration of the meeting on Christ. On Sunday it was a regional conference that was broadcast from the conference center. We had L. Tom Perry as the presiding authority. Our stake was assigned to go to the conference center for the meeting. It was wonderful to be able to walk to a regional meeting and be in the presence of an apostle of the Lord. 

 I did have one disappointment this week. I found a group of missionaries that like to bike ride together. They set up a ride for Saturday. I did not bring my bike with me, so I order a bike to ride with them. It arrived on Friday and UPS tried to deliver it, but of course I was at the mission office when they came, so they left the note that they made their first attempt to deliver. I called UPS and had them hold it so I could pick it up and still get in the ride on Saturday. I went to the pickup point and waited for about 1 ½ hours while they tried to find my bike. They could not find it anywhere and even tried to get in touch with the drive to see where the bike was. They ended up telling me that I would have to wait till Monday to get the bike. Well, for some reason the Lord did not want me to ride on Saturday and I will probably never know why but that is OK with me. Hopefully I will get it on Monday and have to get in some rides before it gets too cold and the snow comes.