Week 37 Sept. 13-19

Together again!

Sunday:  Testoach and one of his friends were going to church today with me so I would have a second person when I picked up Karen.  He cancelled at the last minute.  That made it a little awkward for me but I had no choice with the late notice.  It all worked out okay in the end.   Reymark and Eleazar were both ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood today and they even had a Young Mens class.  Most of the Acostas and Bacus were there but didn’t stay passed Sunday School.  Brother Valdez was confirmed so that was good. Everyone wants to know when Joyce is coming back, even President McKinney called me.  A lady called Joyce as she was driving from Idaho to Utah, requesting a blessing in the morning.  We had left our card with Joyce’s # on it at her home when we were knocking on doors doing our “quadrants”.  Joyce called to tell me so I made arrangements to take care of it Monday morning with the Skyway B Elders.

Joyce went to church at Fair winds with her Mom and Dad.  Dad had fed Mom breakfast and she is eating better.  He had dressed her in a pretty dress and they both looked so nice!  Mom and Dad were waiting with Donna Denning when I got there.  Jody Denning’s mom, Viola, is living at Fair winds and Jody was up getting his mom ready for church.  It was so good to visit with Jody and Donna to talk about everything.  Donna said that growing old is a refining process and I can see it refining Mom and Dad.  Mom has always been the care giver, and now, sweet Dad is being so thoughtful, kind, and compassionate each and every day as he takes care of her every need, feeding her, dressing her, and getting up with her all night long.  After church I visited with Mom and Dad, Allison’s family, Phyllis, John’s family, the Rockwoods, and then to the Woodward’s before I left town.  Ron has been in the hospital and it was so good to see Ron and Karla and catch up with their lives.  Then, I left for AnJ’s home in Chubbuck and told them good bye, then I stopped at Christie’s new beautiful home in Bountiful with deliveries, so by the time I got to Joshua’s home in Heber it was late and the kids were in bed.  I missed telling them good bye, as Joshua and I had to leave for the airport by 4:30 a.m. on Monday morning.  They will have to come and visit!

 

Monday p-day:  Art took care of the blessing with the Skyway B elders first thing in the morning with Ethel Skipps.  Sister Skipps was very nice and we got to meet her non-member husband also.  She had told us that he probably wouldn’t be around, but he came into the house and was very nice to us.  After the blessing I took the Elders to breakfast at McDonalds.  The only eating places close to us are all fast food or Oriental, so we didn’t have a big choice.  Joyce came home around 2:00 so I met her at the airport.  Happy day!!!!  We came home and unpacked and needed to drop off some clothes to Joyce Johnson that Joyce had hemmed for her, but she was at work.  At 7:00 we met the Elders (B) at the Acostas and had FHE.  It was pretty fun.  They asked some very good questions. Mary Ann was there.  It is the first time we have seen her in months.  As usual, after the lesson they brought out the food; pizza, sticky rice, some kind of noodles and chicken and chomporado.  When we tried to help clean up we were informed that in their culture they served us and we were not to help.  After the lesson we walked home in the dark and the cold.  Notes from Joyce.  When I flew out last Monday, Labor Day, it was clear and we flew right over Mt. Rainier.  It was so beautiful from the plane, all snowcapped!  Then, a week later, I am flying back to Seattle and sitting by a window seat.  I had to fly to Phoenix from Salt Lake (where I met our Bishop’s sister in law) and had a layover.  Anyway, the flight from Phoenix to Seattle was incredible because we flew right over the Grand Canyon!  Oh, what gorgeous colors of all the rock layers from way up there!  Heavenly Father does love us, he made a most beautiful world!  Interestingly, all the women that I sat by on the planes coming and going were going home to take care of their mothers, or just had a grandmother pass away that had been being taken care of by a dedicated husband.  Do you thing that this was coincidence, or a tender mercy.  I call it a tender mercy.  Each of the women were so strong in their beliefs in God and in family.  They each gave me advice, hope, and courage in their own way.  Needless to say, we had good conversations on the flights going and coming and I am thankful to have made their acquaintances.

 

Tuesday district meeting:  Before we could go to our meeting we needed to deliver the clothes to Joyce Johnson.  She gave Joyce more clothes (pants) to hem for little Eric.  He is growing so fast!  Our meeting was good with more role playing.  Art even had to role play with the APs watching. All the missionaries were glad to have Joyce back. Elder Goodel was especially glad to have Joyce back so we would have someone to play the piano.  Since Art hadn’t done any shopping while Joyce was gone, we needed to go get things to eat.  Tesloach and his friend, J.B., stopped by as we were carrying in the groceries, so we fed them lunch. In the evening we had our classes.  No one showed to the English class again so we will probable drop it and we had a new person show up to ARP.  A lot of people are hit and miss with this class so we are happy to have people show up. 

Wednesday Northwest Harvest:  We always start our Wednesday with service at Northwest Harvest.  We always pick up the elder sisters.  Today we also needed to pick up the Benson Hill Elders that are on bikes.  We packed apples which are not fun.  There were lots of bad ones to sort through.  Now that school has started the # of volunteers has dropped. .  The Seattle teachers have settled their strike so all the local districts are finally all back in school. They wanted us to stay and do the afternoon shift but everyone had appointments.  The graduation (for Karen Vargis it was here first phase) was tonight so we spent from 6:00 to 9:30 at the Seattle Union Gospel Mission (Hope Place).  The Elder sisters covered our English class and our Bishops meeting for us.  Lots of singing and clapping at the graduation (all before they announced who was graduating) as you can imagine with a name like Union Gospel Mission.  It really is a good program for drug and alcohol abuse (Oaks Program).  It is Christ centered and they are very strict. This is the first time we have been able to get inside and we have a member there we have been trying to contact.  Karen tried to introduce us to her but she doesn’t want anything to do with us.  There is a graduation every three months, so we have four more graduations to go through for Karen before she is done there.    There were six women that were honored, as they had completed the program and will be going out on their own now. 

Thursday W W:  We went and weighted in first thing in the morning except Art wouldn’t weigh, he thinks he may have gained weight, so we just stayed for the lecture.  We stopped at the grocery store before we went to the museum for indexing.  They haven’t fixed the computers yet so we didn’t stay there very long.  At 3:00 we taught English at the Acostas.  Reymark was supposed to go do Baptism for the Dead, but we couldn’t get him to commit.  We took Michele and Joshua to the church with us to help Sister Foster set up for Travis’s wedding reception tomorrow night. We finished early so we took Joshua and Michel home then came back for our meeting.  We desperately need a new Ward Mission Leader, but we did have lots to report and the elders coordinated teaching appointments with us for Saturday, so we are booked solid.  We still managed to make it a late night.

Friday:  This is the day we try to do good companion study.  We have been studying the Book of Mormon. There are a few people in the ward that are having problems so we made soup so we can visit them.  That means a few more trips to the grocery store.  We stopped at an Asian store, not too far from us.  It is interesting to shop when you can’t read any of the labels.  We did find what we were looking for but it took some time.  We were planning on visiting Sister Skipps but she was at the doctors so we will go tomorrow. Most of the afternoon Joyce spent hemming the pants for Joyce Johnson.  Tesloach and J.B. stopped by again for a visit, so we gave them the leftover shrimp and fries we had for dinner.  In the evening we went to the church to help with the reception.  They had plenty of help so we walked up and down the hill with a breath taking view of Lake Washington and then came home.  Karen was with us and she wanted to use our computer so she stayed for a while to visit. 

Saturday:   We rode the train to Columbia City and then walked to Sister Skipps house to deliver the soup to her. We had a good visit with her and are going to start going there once a month as HT and VT (we kind of assigned ourselves), if her husband approves.  We learned so much about her Samoan background and the history of the church in her country.  From her house we walked to the Women’s Clinic where we have been doing service.  They finally got it done and are having the open house today.  Tara wanted to give recognition to all the missionaries that have helped there, but many of them have already gone home or been transferred since to has taken so long to complete.  The open house went well with lots of people there.  They even delivered a baby there this morning.  Our plan was to leave after the awards ceremony and then come back later to help clean up.  The Elder Sisters wanted us to take them to a Buddhist Temple so we waked across the street to a Vietnamese one and walked around for a bit.

  Art talked to the Monks to make sure it was okay.  They did see us when we walked in because they pointed at us. None of them could speak English, but there was a man there that could, so he helped us out and told us to walk around and take all the pictures we wanted.  This was Vietnamese, so it was a little different than the Cambodian one that we visit, yet still much the same.  The man Art talked to explained it was more of a cultural difference than a belief difference. We walked home after our visit and ate lunch.  The Sisters called to tell us not to come back to clean up since the clinic folks had done most of it.  This made it so we could make it to our 3:00 appointment on time.  We met the Skyway A Elders at the Freylinger’s and taught the daughter, Crystal Silverhorn and her children, Mhina, Joanna, and Daniel.  Sister Freylinger is the mom and grandmother.  The whole family is less active and Mhina hasn’t been baptized yet.  There are a couple of daughters that do come to Young Women’s and church once in a while.  This is the family we did the service for last Saturday.   We hope that we can pick them up for church on Sunday.  Joyce is supposed to call them around 12:00.  After that lesson we had to hurry to the other end of the ward to teach with the Skyway B Elders.  They were teaching Annie Dubaw and a couple of her friends.  It was very crowded so we just invited them all to dinner this coming Monday and left.  We were going to walk to Seward Park with Karen, but she went to Federal Way so no walking.  This was okay since we were pretty tired.

 

Our preaching for the week:  We got this for one of our grandkids.  Guess which one.  “Life will always throw you curves, just keep fouling them off….. The right pitch will come but when it does, be prepared to run the bases.”   Rick Maksian (thanks Caden and all the Christensen’s for all the thoughts on our pillowcasesJ)  Love ya Joyce and Art

                                      Week 36 Sept. 6-12

                    Leaving on a jet plane

Sunday:  Another interesting day at church.  We gave Joyce J. and Karen a ride there and then home plus Clarine a ride home. It was also a frustrating day.  They announced that the Gospel Doctrine and Principles class would be combined because of no teacher for Gospel Principles.  Members never get subs, they just don’t show up.  Art had had enough so he told them to announce there would be a Gospel Principles class and he went in and taught it.  He should have prepared a Young Men’s lesson also because the two young men that we have worked so hard to get them stay for Priesthood Meeting, had to go in with the Elders and High Priest. The High Priest and Elders were combined because the elders had no teacher even though members of the Presidency were there and the Young Mens President just didn’t want to teach and cancelled Young Men’s class.  This is the second week in a row that we have gotten Reymark, and Eleazar to stay and no lesson for them.  On a positive note, Ruth, Rubi, and Princess Joy were in their new dresses that Joyce had bought them.  All the

Acostas (and Bacus) stayed and went to Joyce’s primary class.  She also had Kenzie stay for her class even though her grandpa wanted to leave. She begged to stay and he let her.  We did find out that Estrela’s older girls, (Sunshine, Michel, Richel,) go by Bacus which is Estrela’s maiden name.  It is a Pilipino tradition of some sort to take the mother’s name.  And Eleazar, Reymark, Princess Joy and Eldrix, have the Acosta last name for their father, Ric Acosta.  It is very interesting.  Joshua, Ruth and Rubi’s family go by Acosta.  We have always told them apart by the green house and the Holly St. house.  This should make it easier.  After church, we had Skyway A, Skyway B, Elder Sisters, Karen, Joyce J. and little Eric over for dinner and a short message from the elders.  Joyce Johnson wanted Joyce to hem some pants for little Eric, but she will have to take them to Idaho because with packing, “Sister Knowles” ran out of time. 

Monday Labor Day:  We are having Zone Meeting on Wednesday so we work today and have p-day on Tuesday.  Plus with the holiday the elders catch more people at home.  Joyce flew home so the airport was our first stop.  After she got on the plane and it took off, (the ticket counter said that she wouldn’t make the boarding time, so I waited to make sure she got on the plane okay) I rode the train back to Rainier Beach.  Joyce though she may have left her I-pad at the church so I rode the bus as close as I could then walked to the church.  Her I-pad was in the primary room, thank goodness.  I walked back to the bus stop, rode the bus to Rainier Station for the train, but decided to walk home since I had lots of time on my hands.  I worked on what we use for an area book until time for FHE.  I would have stayed home except I had to teach the lesson.  We have been thinking that the lessons need to be spiced up a bit so we played a church version of pass word for the lesson.  Josh picked up “Sister Knowles” from the SLC airport and took her to dinner and to ride the Ferris wheel.  It’s a good thing that the grand kids needed their grandma to ride with them!

Roland Valdez baptism

Tuesday p-day:  The pick-up needed an oil change and the cover needed to be treated so I took care of that in the morning.  I stopped at the church to see the Elders and they wanted me to run to the mission office for them.  Not much going on so I was glad for something to do that was worthwhile (verses taking a nap).  The English class had no one show up and we have though we may drop it, then one of the ladies called to say she had to work and would come next week.  We will see.  Two showed up for ARP and we had a good lesson there.  The elder sisters helped me so I wouldn’t be alone.  “Sister Knowles” spent Monday night with Joshua, Rachel, Maddox, and Haley in Heber City. Josh and Rachel are building a new home, so after a quick walk through of their new home Tuesday morning before school, Rachel mapped me out a route to the Draper Temple.  I thought I needed a little calming and peace before driving to Idaho.  On the way to Idaho Falls, I got to watch Lexi play volleyball and cheer for her with Beau, AnJ, and Braeden.  I got to I.F. and I offered to help Dad with Mom. Mom is pretty much in a wheel chair, though she can walk with her walker a little.  She also has tremors in both of her hands, and other problems.  I invited them to come and live at our home and have the top floor and Art and I would settle in the basement so that I could help, but Dad said they felt really good about moving into Fair Winds Retirement Center.  At Fair Winds, they serve 3 meals a day, and everything is wheel chair accessible, which is perfect for them right now.  Plus, they have activities and church right there. 

    

Wednesday:  Zone meeting all morning.  We talked about having lessons in member’s homes, contacting as always, and developing greater faith.  We had an activity the last hour, which is just another name for role playing.  Two sets of biking elders needed a ride home so I took them home after a stop at Jack-in-the-Box.  At 5:00 the missionaries met at Salvation Army to serve dinner.  This is always an interesting experience.  I had to hurry form there to teach English at the church, but I did take time to talk to two men and a lady and give each one a Book of Mormon.  I only had two so I gave the third one a Bible.  This made me late, but the lady was also late so it worked out.  The elder sisters helped again.  After the class we had our meeting with the Bishop.   Allison packed the kitchen cupboards for Mom and Dad.  Dad packed and cleaned, and “Sister Knowles” had an organ lesson with Mom.  It was delightful!  Then, Joyce, Allison, and Mom put labels on the bottoms of all of Mom and Dad’s china sets and antiques, so that all kids, grandkids, and great grandkids will have a memento from Grandma and Grandpa Allen.  It was fun to put all the treasures in boxes and we hope everyone will cherish their keepsakes. 

 Thursday:  I wasn’t going to go to WW until Joyce sent me a text telling me to go.  She has her flight booked to come back so that was good news. It has been a long three days since she left.  Glad I went to WW since I had lost weight.  The missionaries need leather gloves for the service project this Saturday so I went to Lowes and picked those up.  I have been wanting to build a frame so the groceries won’t slide to the front of the pickup bed so while I was at Lowes I picked up some 2x4s and built it out in there parking lot.  They cut the 2x4s to the size I needed.  Most of the afternoon was spent working on the area book (may have been a short nap somewhere in that time frame).  I can’t do much else because I was told to keep a low profile.  In the evening I went out with the Skyway B elders to three different places but nobody let us in.  We did go to the wrong house once and the man there was very friendly and we talked to him a lot.  They were from Vietnam and both husband and wife were Buddhist.  After the visits we went to our missionary meeting and I rode home with the Elder Sisters.  AnJ and Beau both came up to help today.  So, while Gary Adams (my cousin,) and Dad took a big load to the Deseret Industries, Beau and AnJ moved the three China Cupboards to my front room, so that the three girls will each get one.  They also moved a ton of stuff to our shop to store.  Lexi had another Volleyball game, so we went to that and had fun.

Friday: The pick-up needed new tires and some brake work so I took it back to Firestone and then rode the bus as far as Henderson and walked the rest of the way home, then did the same route to go back and pick it up.  In between times I worked on the area book some more. The Dangs had invited us to dinner in the evening so I went by myself.  Sister Dang’s Aunt and Uncle were there for a visit and wanted to talk about a mission.  They have put papers in and are waiting for their call to come. She is a retired school teacher so we talked a lot about the teachers strike in Seattle.  I was going with the Elders at 7:30 but dinner was longer than planned and their appointment didn’t work out so it all worked out for me.  I had rode the train and walked to the Dangs, planning on having the Elders pick me up there.  I forgot they were on exchanges and were riding bikes.  It all worked out since their appointment fell through.  I had to walk to the train station in the dark.  I keep forgetting the days are getting shorter.  It wasn’t a problem since the firetrucks were out all over the neighborhood so lots of flashing light plus they live in one of the nicer neighborhoods here.  On Friday, we had Ryan, Allison, Beau and AnJ to help us.  First, more loads went out to our shop.  Then, we packed up all that we could and put it all in the garage to store for the night, so we could just load it on Saturday, moving day!  I got to visit with Phyllis, Rod, John, and SanDee, and they fixed the best stew ever! 

Day of Service Skyway Ward

Saturday:  Today was the Renton service day.  The ward had a few people that needed some help and then lots of community projects going on.  I went with the Skyway A elders and several other members to a part member family and did some yard work.  Mostly we cut down blackberry bushes.  They are a mess to deal with.  They should have been sprayed and then burned but you can’t do that in the city.  We worked for three hours and made a small dent in them.  We did get a T-shirt for working.   After dropping my car load off, I went home, showered, ate lunch and took a nap.  My back was so stiff I thought maybe walking would help so I walked to Henderson and caught a bus to the church for Brother Valdes baptism at 6:00.  I thought that Skyway B elders would be there and they could give me a ride to our 7:30 appointment, but they never showed up and the appointment cancelled anyway.  The church needed to be cleaned so I stayed and helped and the Elder Sisters clean and they gave me a ride home.  I was glad to stay and help because it is scary riding the bus

Sister Heiner, Bro. Valdez, Sister Lucky

after dark.  The walked helped some but it will still be Advil for a few days. Josh’s family was planning on coming to help on moving day, but Rachel, Maddox, and Haley all got very sick on Friday, so Joyce made a call to Ann Rockwood Friday night and explained that she desperately needed a “Joshua” to help with the moving. Well, to her wonderful surprise, she got three Rockwood brothers that were sent from heaven to move Mom and Dad.  We had Allison, Ryan, AnJ, Reed, Rod and Scottie, plus they brought over the snow mobile trailer to load! Needless to say, by the time we loaded the trailer, my pickup, Allison and Ryan’s van, and AnJ’s car, we only had to make one trip!  It was amazing how strong they were, how quick to help out, and willing to do service for loved ones!  Rod even brought Mia, and Macey and Tyson had so much fun with her riding on all the carts!  We unloaded and put things away. Thanks Ryan for changing your schedule.  AnJ and I even helped hang some pictures and picked up a few things that Mom and Dad needed from the store.  AnJ and I then, made it to part of Macey’s softball game and got to visit with Darla and the Petersons.  Ann got some friends together for dinner in the evening and it was nice to see the Rockwoods, the Belnaps and the Wheelers!  Thanks, Jeff, for the delicious food!  Love Joyce and Art

Week 35 Aug 30-Sept 5
It’s easy to miss what you are not looking for
Sunday: Karen was the only one that we gave a ride to church. We invited several others but nobody took us up on the offer. Rubi, Eleazar and Reymark Acosta were all confirmed with Elder Knowles confirming Reymark. Joyce spoke in Sacrament meeting on the Priesthood and she did a great job. Ruth and Rubi stayed for primary, but it took lots of coaxing. In the end, Joyce ended up with Ruth and Rubi and their mom, Jennifer, Estrella and Michel and Tesloach in her class. There was a joint meeting with the R.S. and Priesthood so there was no Young Men lesson. We did get Joshua, Eleazar and Reymark to stay, but they weren’t very happy.

Reymark thought he was starving to death. We are having trouble getting them to stay for priesthood because there is never a lesson for them. We can’t get the youth leaders to step up. Ezekiel and Tesloach were coming over for dinner, until Ezekiel decided he needed to go to bed, (he needed to go to work early) so we only had the elder sisters, Tesloach, and Karen. We had lots of left overs. Joshua face timed us, which he does every Sunday and Karen didn’t know we could do that, so we let her face time her daughter in Minnesota. She was pretty excited.
Monday p-day sort of: First a quick stop at the elder sisters so Sister Chamberlin could cut Joyce’s hair. Then, we went with the elder sisters to Enumclaw with a member of our ward that is moving there. She (Margaret Foster) is elderly and can’t live alone anymore, so she is moving in with her son’s family. She wanted us to know where she was moving to so we could come
and visit her. After the visit we stopped at a little diner along the road and had lunch. Enumclaw is a nice little town with lots of farms around it and a nice view of Mount Rainier. We could live there if forced to live in Washington. We came home and Joyce worked on the area records while Art took a nap. We took all the leftovers from Sunday, to FHE, where they were all eaten. We were glad to get them used up, then came home and found another container full, so guess we will still be eating leftovers this week.
Tuesday: We had District meeting in the morning.

Sister Missionaries At Northwest Harvest

Elder Walters was sick so we combined with his
district which gave us a few more missionaries to role play with. We worked on contacting.
Something that we do very little of. We had a fun lesson teaching English at the Acostas. Estrella, Eleazar, Eldrix, Princes Joy and sometimes Reymark (you have to love Reymark, her has the attention span of a flea) were all there. On the way home we stopped at a Filipino market to buy some banana leaves. It’s a pretty interesting place. Lots of things that we have never heard of, or thought of eating. The English class, at the church, was a bust but we had several at the APR class. We showed an awareness test on u-tube and talked about it. If you haven’t seen it, google moonwalking bear and watch it. Karen went to the ARP class with us so we were able to visit with her a bit.
Wednesday: All the senior missionaries are supposed to meet with President McKinney the first Wed. of each month. We haven’t met since April and he canceled again for this month. It’s not the meeting we feel bad about missing, it’s going to lunch after the meeting that we miss. We had Northwest Harvest with the sister missionaries in the morning doing frozen beans. Since we didn’t have our meeting with President McKinney, we rode into West Seattle with the Elder Sisters and visited Kathy Pang in the hospital, then went to lunch. Most of the afternoon was spent getting our report for the Bishop typed up and getting ready for another English class. We had one person show up. A lady from Vietnam that the elders had invited. It was a pretty fun class. Our meeting with the Bishop ended the day, with no Ward Mission Leader called yet. Sounds like members keep saying no.
Thursday: We went to W.W. first thing as usual then up to the museum to index. They haven’t fixed the computers yet so we didn’t stay too long. The Acostas taught Joyce how to make sticky rice so we spent most of the day there. Of course, they have to feed you when you visit so we had fried chicken wings, some kind of noodles with spam, shrimp, and some kind of fruit (mabutin). While Joyce made the sticky rice, Art talked to Reymark and Eleazar about going on a mission, country western music, and school. They told Art what you have to do in the Philippines to become a man. Not to pleasant. We’ll just say it involves a knife and a hammer. In the evening we walked to Sister Nielsen’s home for our missionary meeting. We still can’t get any of the auxiliary leaders to attend except the R.S.

Friday: Joyce was taking soup to two ladies in the ward that she V.T. so we spent most of the morning cooking. One just had surgery in Utah and the other is less active and will only let us in if we have food. We had some extra so we gave some to the R.S. President who has been sick. After dropping off the soup at two of the homes we stopped at Wal-Mart for some more groceries for dinner on Sunday. We have more people coming over. In the afternoon we took Ruth, Rubi, Reymark, Eleazar, and Princes Joy shopping for clothes. It was pretty fun. Eleazar and Princes Joy are very quiet and Reymark, Ruth and Rubi never stopped talking. Ruth and Rubi are usually quiet, but they like Joyce so they talked a lot. They don’t have any church clothes and the boys will start passing the sacrament soon, we hope. Ruth and Rubi don’t have any dresses. We split up: Joyce with the girls and Art with the boys. Of course the boys finished sooner than the girls so they went to the food court and ate while the girls continued to shop. Not only does Reymark talk a lot, he never stops eating. We took them all home and then had to hurry to a 7:30 teaching appointment with the Skyway A elders which turned out awesome and Joyce might have a new member for her Primary class. Kenzie is very interested in the church and hopefully will be to church Sunday.
Saturday: We spent the morning doing some business for home (Idaho Falls). At noon we needed to take lunch to another lady in the ward that Joyce has been working with. We weren’t sure if she would let us in, but she did and we had a nice visit. She said we could come anytime, just can’t bring the elders. The young lady that the elders taught last night needed the Book of Mormon Reader so we took one to her on the way home. We have permission for Joyce to fly home so we spent the afternoon preparing for that. Art will stay and take care of the classes we have so we should have everything covered. The Elder Sister will help Art with the classes and he will still be available to go with the elders if needed. They will be disappointed to not have Joyce there. Karen came over at 5:00 with dinner and then went with us to teach at 6:00 to the Acostas. They had all gone to a movie, except Reymark and Eleazar so we had a lesson with them. Allison and Ryan will understand when we say that Reymark and Tyson would be best friends. We are understanding the Filipino culture when it comes to keeping appointments and being on time. The 7:00 appointment canceled so we came home and then walked Karen home. The Safeway parking lot was full of police cars and when we got home our parking garage had several police cars in it. A usual Saturday night in Skyway. It does make a nice light show when the pavement is wet, which is was tonight. Joyce bought her plane ticket so, Allison, you may see her in Idaho Falls by Wednesday. Joshua and Anj, you will see her sooner, and Jake and Jared, you are out of luck, but we will keep you up to date on what is going on.
Our preaching for the week: At our last zone conference they talked a lot about non-linear blessings. (They don’t line up with what you are doing, but are blessings anyway). We watched the video of the moonwalking bear and after you watch it this will all make more sense. The elders have been using the I Nephi challenge (read 15 min. every day and you will finish I Nephi in 10 days). I Nephi has lots of examples of non-linear blessings. So here is your assignment, do the Nephi challenge and then see where you are getting non-linear blessings in your life and your family’s life. We count your friendship and support as one of our greatest blessings! Love Art and Joyce