Week 40 Oct 4-10
Going on a
mission is a good way to find out who will miss you when you die!
Sunday: Hope you all watched conference and enjoyed it. We loved it, every session! We had a car full of YM (Reymark, Eleazar and
Ivar) and Karen. The YM had a hard time
staying for both sessions, but they made it. They really didn’t have a
choice. Actually, they liked the talks! Reymark did
start clapping at the end. We were going
to pick up Annie for the last session, but she was sick and cancelled. The Elder Sisters and we made soup, rolls,
and cake for everyone to eat between sessions.
Mostly it was the missionaries, but there were a few members that joined
us. It is pretty fun to be around all
the elders and sisters. We get to visit those we know and meet all the new ones
in our stake. We fed the missionaries between sessions in
April, so those that knew us were expecting lunch. Art
moved the pick-up from the parking garage to the street so we could load the
things for lunch and ended up hitting a big garbage container. Another dent and scratch to remind us of the
tight parking in Seattle. The garbage
container wasn’t hurt.
Monday
P-day: Today was a beautiful fall day. We needed to run a few errands. Joyce J. needed Art to put together a walker
she had bought for Erica, return the hemmed pants, and Art needed some suits
dry cleaned and altered. We then picked
up Karen and the Elder Sisters and drove to Flaming Geyser State Park for a
picnic. The State Park has the Green
River running through it which has an interesting history from the 80’s and
90’s. We thought maybe all the colors would be out, but we are a little early. It was still very nice, with some trees
changing. The Steelhead were spawning in the river so that was fun to see. Art
has caught Joyce’s cold so he is not doing well, he even let Joyce drive home
so he must be really sick. The Elder
Sisters needed to get home for FHE so we didn’t hike too much. Just one short walk to the river to watch the
fish. They are really worried about the
spawning this year because of the lack of rain and the low rivers.
Tuesday Zone Training:
Art’s cold is worse so he
stayed home and Joyce went to the meeting.
We are afraid between the two of us we will get all the missionaries
sick and the next two weeks are big weeks with interviews and Elder Larry Lawrence
is visiting the mission. The district
meeting was about using the Book of Mormon.
Joyce took a bunch of leftover snacks from yesterday which the missionaries
loved. Joyce also went to ARP by
herself. Most of the day for Elder
Knowles was spent laying around and doing some paperwork.
Wednesday: Art is still sick so Joyce went to Northwest Harvest alone,
she did pick up the Elder Sisters. By
the time she got home, Art felt better and was sick of the apartment so we all
went to the 4:00 appointment. We had to
pick up Christine and Bethany and then meet Skyway A at the church for the
lesson. Art did stay in another room in
case he started coughing. After the lesson, we ran every one home and then went
to the missionary meeting with the Bishop.
Thursday: Plans can change so fast here. We were going to drive Sister Acosta and
Cabiao to the S.S office in Seattle.
That got changed to riding the train instead of driving. We went to the train stop and no one showed,
so we walked to the Acosta’s and decided we could apply online, then found we
had to apply in person and needed an appointment for their situation. After being on hold for an hour we finally
made an appointment for November 5.
Sister Acosta is trying to get help for their son Eldrex. He was born a healthy baby and at 8 months
had a seizure. They took him to the
hospital where he was treated for a month and they gave him injections which made
him worse. Now he is 6, can’t walk and
is still in a diaper. He definitely has
some disabilities. This all happened in
the Philippines. Anyway, after we made
the appointment, we all went to lunch, Michelle, Richel, Eldrex, Hajo (Michelle’s
friend), Sister Cabiao, Sister Acosta and us.
It was fun we walked to the Asian BBQ place down the street from us, and
Sister Knowles got to push Eldrex in the stroller. The appointments with Skyway B all cancelled
so we were able to go to the lesson with Skyway A and teach Mhina and some of
her family. We rode the bus and were a
touch late but we made it. The Zone
Leaders (Skyway A) asked if we could sit with a sick elder the rest of the
evening, so they brought him to our place, which got us out of going to the
7:45 missionary meeting. Elder Rapp’s
was sick, just like Elder Knowles had been.
Friday: We had a very good institute
class today with lots of comments about General Conference. The instructor is also the housing
Coordinator for the mission and he had some interesting comments from Apartment
Managers about missionaries. They love
having them there. Missionaries are a
calming influence and often they don’t up the rent to get missionaries to
stay. After the class we went to the
Stake Center for an interview with President and Sister Eaton. We had lots of questions for the Eaton’s and
we were told to just do what we needed to do as service to the members of the
Skyway Ward, even if it took us out of the mission periodically. We even get to go to the temple 4 times a
year, so we can go with a Spanish sister that Sister Knowles goes visiting teaching
to. That will mean a lot to
Margarita! The Elder Sisters were with
us so we made a quick stop at Sam’s and then out to lunch. We have a lot a sick friends in the ward so
we started some soup for tomorrow to take around and then went to the Acosta’s
to teach about Family History. Joyce got
to ride Reymark’s bike so she was happy!
President Obama is in Seattle today so the sky always had a helicopter
or two flying around spying on us. Joyce
J. car has quit running so at 10:00 we went and gave her a ride home from work. Busy day!
Saturday: We thought we had a rather slow day but it quickly got out of
hand. The soup is done so we made lots of deliveries. Joyce J. needed to go to the store so we took
care of that. While there she wanted Art
to hang a couple of pictures she had gotten from work. He hung the first one and while he was
working on the second, the first came crashing down. So, we had broken glass all over the
floor. The pictures were free so not a
big deal. Art was using Velcro strips to
hang the pictures and when he rehung the first he found either the frame or the
wall isn’t flat so not all the corners of the frame touch the wall. We did finally get both hung up. Then, we
took Joyce J. to the African grocery for four bags of groceries, plus a box of
yams. They must like yams in
Africa! From there we made a stop at the
Jackson’s for VT. We had a good visit
and lesson, and then picked up the Elder Sisters and went to the Priesthood
Leadership meeting for Stake Conference.
They had invited all the missionaries, but Joyce and the Elder Sisters
wouldn’t go in the chapel and just sat in the foyer. Between sessions of stake conference we took
all the Skyway Elders to supper at Arbys.
We invited all the elders to go, but President Eaton doesn’t like them
all together. The Adult session was very
good and this time Joyce and the Elder Sisters went into the chapel and Art
stayed in the foyer. He still has a bad
cough. Here are some good notes from
conference: Enjoy! We had an area 70, Elder Murray, come
to our conference and he talked about putting your “whole self in” in the
gospel experience. He likened it to the
Hokey Pokey and we may start with maybe just putting in one arm or one leg in,
but we need to “immerse” ourselves
in the gospel and put our “whole self in” to having a Christ Centered
life. Start where you are, as President
Uchtdorf taught in conference, and have a willing heart and desire. We all have spiritual DNA from Heavenly
Father and we are trying to become like God.
. He said we all make
excuses. On his last trip to Africa he
learned about giraffes. A man was paid
to haul two giraffes and one was taller than the other. The man was driving quickly to his
destination with the two giraffes and did not do the proper planning. He went under a bridge and the tall giraffe
hit the bridge. There were many people
on the freeway who called the police and the police pulled this man over. The tall giraffe died. The man would not take responsibility, but
blamed the accident on the bridge, because he said, “The Bridge was too
low.” Elder Murray cautioned us not to
make excuses like this man did. He said
to not be a couch blob and use the excuse that you have to watch one more
television show or play one more game, because there will be no couch blobs
making excuses in the celestial kingdom and that the celestial is where we want
to be. There are inactive people in our
church, active people in our church, and proactive people in our church. The proactive are the ones who read their
scriptures, pray, share the gospel, keep the commandments, do their callings,
and have an excuse free life. Anyway, food for thought… It was a great stake
conference.
Love Joyce and Art
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