Mission Update  February 2014

 

While we are still here in the Salt Lake Valley, we are trying to see some of our friends and family, who live in the area.  Our daughter-in-law Cathy’s parents, the Carlsons, live not too far away, so we called them and they invited us over to lunch and to visit.  We had a great time with them as we shared experiences.  They have served a number of missions and are constantly helping others out in many different ways.  What wonderful examples of the Gospel they are.

 

Sterling and Jeanie surprised us and came to visit us.  We had such fun just being together.  We took a tour of the Church Office Building, with it’s beautiful view.  Then, we took them to Scheels sports store and acted like kids again.  What a neat family we have.

   

Church Office Bldg. lobby           View from top floor of COB

 

      

    Fun at the sports store                              Sis and Bro. hugs forever

 

 

Snowboarder statue at Scheels store

 

When Gerald was at UCLA, when we were first married, we became acquainted with John Carmack, who was in the Stake Presidency.  He gave us some good, young married advice. Years later, he became a member of the 70’s and was in charge of the Church Perpetual Education Fund.  He has since retired, and we were able to go visit him and his lovely wife at their beautiful home near the University of Utah.  It was such fun to recall many of our mutual friends and get caught up 50 years later. 

        

                    Sister and Elder John Carmack

 

The Salt Lake City temple is closed for cleaning, so we went to the Jordan River Temple, the other day.  It was packed full of people at 8AM!  We mentioned it, and they said it is the busiest temple in the world.  We didn’t realize that there is a new temple film out, so that was special.  The new film is fabulous and so is the sweet spirit in the Temple.

 

We are trying to attend any lectures or programs that are available to us, while we are still in the area.  We attended a lecture on the life of Neil A. Maxwell, at the

Assembly Hall and Temple Square.  We bumped into old friends from Sequim, Bill & Paula Jefferies.  That was fun to see them.  They are visiting family in the area and attended the lecture too.

 

We also had tickets to the Young Ambassadors music and dance troupe for Valentine’s Day.  We went out to dinner at the mall across the street from the theater at the Conference Center.  As we finished dinner and were walking across the mall to the theater, low and behold there were some old friends from our Renton Washington days, Ron and Joanne Larsen.  They now live in Logan and had just decided to come to the mall for fun.  We had a few minutes to catch up on our families.  Another one of those un-coincidences.  

                                   

Joanne and Ron Larsen

 

We regularly found coincidences where we met people on our mission who were friends with people we had known previously.  In the example below, Bob Langman on the left is a High Priest in our 14th ward in Salt Lake.  He grew up most of his youth life with Arnold Miller,  who served as a missionary with me in Nancy, France, in 1962.  Arnold is pictured with me on the right when we coincidently re-met in the MTC when we were preparing to serve in our Caribbean mission in 2007, and he was going on a mission to southern France.

      

 

 

When Gerald was starting to get active in the Church as a senior in high school, his stake had a youth chorus that was excellent.  They were asked to come to Salt Lake City to perform in the Tabernacle.  The director got him interested in learning to sing and he has loved being in choirs ever since.  The choir director’s name was Sister Joyce Summerhays.  Gerald was able to contact her here and we were invited to dinner with her and her husband.  They live in a beautiful home that is on the hill overlooking Provo.  We had a lot of fun hearing the stories of those good old days.

 

     View of Provo

 

We attended a Root’s Magic conference at the Salt Palace.  It is the first time we had been inside that interesting building.  Here is a view from the hallway.  It was full of thousands of people attending the Family History convention.       

Salt Palace Interior

 

We joined the 14th ward choir, while we are here.  We have really enjoyed these good people.  Not only that, they are very talented too and that’s even more fun.  We were asked to sing in a duet in our sacrament meeting recently.  It was a nice experience.                        

       

        14th Ward quartette

 

We can’t believe how mild this winter has been.  The weather is cold, but very little snow, except on the mountains.  Recently, it has warmed up and all the snow in the valley and on the foothills is gone.  It feels like spring.  We took a drive up behind the Capitol to view Ensign Peak and took some pictures from up there.

 

    

Ensign Peak to the north                                        Mountain View to the east

 

   

Looking south behind Capitol                                            Temple view south

 

Gerald was able to track down a 2nd cousin and her family.  She invited us over to meet her sister and share family stories.  She has a wonderful picture of the family that they share, so we took a picture of them and the picture.

 

My friends at work wanted to do something outside of work, before we head home in April.  They got tickets to a dinner theater and we, along with our spouses, spent the evening together, just having fun.  It was a hoot and will be added to our memories of these wonderful friends we have made.