Week 38 Sept 20-27

It only takes one pitch to make a difference

                                                                     or one invitation

Sunday:  A pretty good day at church. Everyone was glad to have Joyce back, especially her primary class. The meeting was very good with lots of investigators and less actives there. For the first time in the nine months we have been here, we had a musical number in Sacrament meeting. Some of the investigators even asked some of the members to stay and go to all three meetings with them.  The Elder Sisters had all the missionaries over for supper.  They had to leave early to pick up some people for the devotional, so Joyce and the Elders did the dishes and cleaned up for them.  We then took Elder Bohne and Palo with us to the devotional.  The Elders can go only if they have an investigator there.  It was very good as always.

Monday p-day:  We did are usually thing, shopping and cleaning and laundry. Mostly we cooked and got ready for the evening. We had Annie, Luz, Karen and Skyway B elders over for dinner and a lesson.  It was mostly for Annie but Luz was there so it was good for her.  The lesson was on the Word of Wisdom, so it got pretty interesting considering the group we had there.  We invited Karen, she has problems she is working on, Luz (the member Annie and her husband live with) won’t come to church because of coffee, and it was the first time Annie had heard about it.  Annie and Luz both committed to live the Word of Wisdom but Annie told us how much she loves her coffee each morning before work!  Karen offered a few comments to help them understand the blessings of peace and comfort that come from living it.  Karen has her problems she is working on, but we love having her at lessons because she has a strong testimony of the atonement.

Tuesday District Meetings:  Meetings today were about teaching part-member families and helping them want to endure to the end.  Elder Goodell (our district leader) and Elder Walters go home on Monday so it was lots of good-byes.  Role plays were good because they pertained a lot to what we do.  Elder Knowles had a chiropractic appointment in the afternoon, then Karen wanted to walk and talk at Seward Park.  It was a beautiful fall day, Washington Lake was like glass, and Sister Knowles was wishing for a pair of water skis as all the boats went by. In the evening we went to our English Class and our ARP Class. 

Wednesday:   We went to Northwest Harvest and worked with the sister missionaries for the last time before transfers. We boxed pasta, like the Mac and Cheese kind.  We made a quick stop at Sam’s Club for the Elder Sisters.  The Skyway A elders wanted us to teach with them at 4; 00, so we rode the bus and then walked to the house only to find out that we had the wrong day.  We did have a nice visit with the family, so really it worked out great.  We can’t get internet in our back room and the Elders had sent the message Monday night and said the lesson was for tomorrow and we got the message Tuesday morning, so we thought the appointment was for Wednesday.  The President of China has been here since Tuesday and they have been telling everyone to expect traffic delays.  We found out on the way to the church what they meant, as we were trying to get Tesloach to YM’s by 7:00.  They had blocked off I-5 and all the surrounding roads when the president came from Tacoma to Seattle.  It was weird to see I-5 with no traffic on it.  Then we got to see the police lines of escorts first, and finally all the black SUV’s that went under the overpass that we were stuck on.  We thought the excitement was over for the night.  We were at the church for our English class when someone came in and told us we all had to go into the Relief Society room with the Young Men and Young Women while the police searched the building.  Someone they were looking for had run into the building.  They found him in one of the hall ways.  No one came to the English class, so we just stayed in with the young women.  We will cancel our English class and just teach in the homes. Later we had our Bishops meeting and then took Tesloach home from Young Mens.

Thursday:  We started with W.W. as always and then a trip to the museum to check on the indexing.  They still haven’t fixed things there yet, yet we are supposed to teach a class next Saturday on indexing. They even had the genealogy lab blocked off.  Some high security event was going to happen and a couple of guys in suits with radios were walking around.  They were towing a few cars from the parking lot so we didn’t stay too long.  They wouldn’t even say what was happening.  We came back home and went out walking to do our quadranting (for the second time) and Elder Knowles home teaching.  We were trying to visit four different members and only found two at home on the first try.  We did get one wrong address and talked to the lady there for a bit.  On the way home we stopped to check on Sonia, so we tried one more time at one of the homes and this time someone answered.  We didn’t get to visit who we wanted, but a young man, (Ivar) answered the door so we talked to him.  We didn’t even know that he lived there.  He said he would come to church so we will call on Sunday to see if he wants a ride.  He is a baptized member.  The ward could really use a few more young men.  The Elder Sisters came over so Art could see if he could figure out how to get pictures off of Sister Harrison’s phone.  It took a while but he got it done.  In the evening we met with all the missionaries and our new Ward Mission Leader. It was mostly a learning meeting for all of us and working out how and where we will meet in the future.  It will be so nice to finally have a Ward Mission Leader!

Friday:  The institute class stated today and we went with the Elder Sisters.  After the class we did our usual stop at Denney’s for lunch.  Joyce wanted to visit Joyce Johnson so we stopped and picked up some fruit to take to her.  She had more pants for Joyce to work on.  We rode the train up to Mount Baker then walked over to meet Diane Nardi for supper and a visit at one of the local Chinese Restaurant.  She just had surgery and has been wanting to get together.  She had some good chocolates for us!  We hurried back so we could go to a 7:30 appointment that ended up cancelling.   At least we found out that it cancelled before we drove there.  We did learn something new at the train station.  Don’t try going the wrong way on an escalator.  The last step is pretty rough.  The Muckleroys came from Idaho to stay a few nights with us while Chase plays baseball.  We had a good visit with them as we filled the blow up mattresses with air.

Saturday:  We helped clean the church first thing in the morning.  After we got home and cleaned up, we took Reymark, Eleazar, Princes Joy, Michelle, and Richel shopping for shoes and out to lunch.  Now, the boys don’t have an excuse not to pass the sacrament.  Joyce went with Karen to the Women’s Broadcast and Art took all the elders, (Jones, Palo, Fuller, Tavo, and Bohne) to supper.  This is why we have a hard time losing weight.  Seems like we are always take somebody out to eat.  Elder Jones told Art about the baptism that they conducted today.  They forgot to have an opening hymn, so when the musical number got up to sing (it was a solo), they both stared to sing thinking it was the opening song.  Finally they asked a lady next to them if they were supposed to be singing and she stopped them. Luckily it was a sister missionary doing the solo, so she just laughed about it.  Karen and Joyce rode the train and bus to Bellevue for the broadcast. They had to leave at 2:30 and didn’t get back until after 9:00 so not much else was done today.  The broad cast was wonderful and Karen seemed to enjoy being back in her old stake and seeing some friends.  Melissa, Karen’s friend, picked us up from the temple grounds, where we had walked to, after getting off the bus.  Melissa is the Stake Relief Society President and was in charge of the veggie trays, so it was nice to help with refreshments before the meeting and clean up.

A little preaching:  Joyce likes to do an object lesson in her primary class.  She used the Mento in a coke and related it to the way that kindness can spread.  If you are kind to a person, that person is more likely to be kind to the next person they see and it keeps going, just like the foam in the coke.  We can’t control others attitudes, but we can control our own and happiness can be contagious.  Like the song says “don’t worry, be happy” Have a happy week,

                                       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

                                                  Week 39   Sept. 27-Oct 3

Visit friends often, so the path to their                  home doesn’t become choked with weeds

                                                                 And it doesn’t hurt to write them once in a while either

Sunday:  The Muckleroys left early this morning.  We got up, fixed breakfast, said good-by, and got ready for church with all the phone calls Joyce makes to see who is going to church and who needs a ride.  A few less actives that we had contacted last week are coming for the first time in months. We had the pick-up full with four in the back and three in front.  Sister Vergaro and her grandson, Ivar, didn’t stay the third hour so we had more room going home.  We were just glad that they came.  Ivar is 15, so we could potentially have another young man to pass the sacrament.  Reymark and Eleazar passed the sacrament in their new clothes we bought them, for the first time since they were ordained.  They looked so handsome!  Joyce had Ruth, Rubi, Michelle, Sunshine, Princess Joy, Mhina (an investigator) and Donny in her primary class. They loved the coke and Mentos lesson.  Reymark came to her class at the end so he could make a paper doll.  Between the four sets of missionaries in the ward we had two investigators and ten less active members at church. Two more investigators would have been there, but they are sick along with a couple more less active members that have committed to come to church.  Plus seven of the thirteen most recent converts where at church.  We know 7/13 doesn’t sound great.  Sometimes there are no less active members or investigators there.  We know one of the recent converts has moved and really we only have two that we are really worried about and work is one of the biggest problems with him.  The other we have lots of contact with, but aren’t sure what her problem is, besides being sixteen.  We thought it was a pretty good day and we had a good meeting so we hope they will all be back.   We have General Conference, followed by Stake Conference so it will be three weeks before we have a meeting at Skyway.  We will be making a lot of visits to keep up the interest in attending church.   After church we came home and did our favorite thing, TALKED TO THE FAMILY.  We did manage to watch the blood moon and find one new investigator between calls.

Monday:  We were so glad to see the morning arrive.  A member of our ward is always predicting earthquakes and Mt. Rainier erupting, so the blood moon last night had him going.  Art would have been pretty mad to think that he had dieted the week before the world ended, so he felt better when the sun came up as usual.  Plus, we didn’t get transferred, but several of our favorites, (we know we aren’t supposed to have favorites, but we do) in our zone and ward did.  We can just hope we get to see them again.  Art keeps telling Joyce not to get so attached, but it’s hard not to.  It usually is P-day but because of transfers it will be tomorrow.  We have things going on both days so we won’t be going anywhere. We rode the bus down to the Skyway area for a visit and then missed the bus for our next visit and ended up walking a bunch.  We did find another Buddhist Temple.  It is Laotian and they are not as friendly as the other ones we have been to.  We made our last visit and got to talk to Crystal Silverhorn and give her some cookies.  It was a beautiful day to be out and about working.  We rode the bus home to meet Skyway B elders at our place.  Elder Palo is being transferred and wanted to copy the pictures we have of him. When an elder has been in an area over six months they tell them Sunday night they are being transferred so they can say good-bye.  He will still be in our zone so we can still see him once every week at district meetings.  After they left we met Karen and rode the train to the Mariner’s game.  It was a little bending of the rules, but Karen needed a break and we are member support.  She has to be in by ten so we had to leave early and made it by 9:55.  Mariner’s lost 3-2.  Evan Gattis plays for Houston and hit a home run so that was exciting for Art, plus all the junk food.

Tuesday.  Joyce spent most of the morning hemming pants for Joyce Johnson.  Then, we met her at 1:30 and took her to lunch.  Joyce still has more pants to hem.  Eric is six months old and wears eighteen month clothes so they are too long for him. We think it is funny when Joyce J. worries that he isn’t eating enough.  We did have a visit for the Skyway B elders as they were on their way to transfers.  Elder Palo is getting sick so Joyce loaded him up with medicine to take with him.  She has become the Zone Mother, so the elders call her when they don’t feel well. After our lunch out with Joyce J., we walked to the Acostas for an English lesson and gave them a bunch of t-shirts we have collected the past few months.  They are always handing them out at the ballgames and service projects and we have no place to wear them.  We had a good ARP meeting at 7:00.  The Skyway A elders called at 6:55 to see if we were coming to teach at 7:00 with them.  Sometimes we have a communication problem so we didn’t make the teaching appointment.  They had forgot to tell us, but we couldn’t have gone anyway because of ARP.  After the excellent ARP class we stopped at one of Joyce’s V.T. ladies and made a visit there at 8:30 p.m.   Her name is Margarita and she has been through the temple and we had such a nice visit.  Margarita rides the bus to the temple on Saturday and was wondering if we could ride the bus with her and go to the temple with her the Saturday after conference.  It is out of the mission, like most everything, so we shall see.  It would be so wonderful to go to the temple!

Wednesday:  District meeting was today and we met most of the new missionaries in the zone. Elder Zamora is our new D.L.  He is a Spanish speaking elder and he used to live in our building.  Our new district consists of:  Elder Palo and his companion, Elder Kidwell, Sister Wright and Sonasee  and Elder Serrine, Elder Zamora’s companion.  After our district meeting we went to Wal-Mart to shop for tomorrow’s dinner.  We were going to take a p-day and go for a ride, but Tesloach wanted a ride to YM so we went home and cleaned some.  Since we were taking Tesloach we called and invited Reymark and Eleazar to go.  They were almost ready to say yes then backed out.  We have been trying to get them to YM since they were baptized so we will keep trying.   We stopped by to pick up Tesloach and when we called to tell him we were there, he then told us he was at a park and wasn’t going to Y.M.  Since we were already on our way we went to the church early and Joyce practiced the piano until time for our missionary/bishop meeting.  It went very well, with some new plans since we now have a Ward Mission Leader.

Thursday:  W. W. again with okay results.  From there we made our run to the museum.  This time we were able to make contact with Stacie to find out what she wants us to do on Saturday.  They are having a big conference on Family History and she wants us there from 1:00-until-4:00.  I guess we will miss the second session of conference. If you didn’t know, October is Family History Month.  We are mostly going to be at the museum to answer questions and do a little presentation about indexing.  Since we are not experts, it may be interesting.  At 3:45 we picked up Annie and Luz and they came over to teach Joyce how to make Pancit.  Art made two different kinds of peach pie and one strawberry pie for dessert.  They tasted okay, but they didn’t look as good as he had hoped.  Annie and Luz also brought some kind of side pork and eggroll looking things with a banana inside.  The Skyway B Elders, Bohne and Jiao, and Karen came over at five for dinner and the lesson.  There are still some Word of Wisdom issues so they pushed back Annie’s baptism and the lesson went a different direction.  We took everyone home, then went to our missionary meeting.  It was another good meeting, with more talking about people and less about the calendar. 

Friday:  The morning was filled up with the Institute Class and lunch with the senior missionaries (Elder Sisters and the Bensens).  We came home so Joyce could finish hemming the pants for Joyce J.  In the afternoon, we took Ruth, Rubi, Mhina and Joanna out to eat.  They picked a Thai place and then couldn’t find anything on the menu so we had to leave and go somewhere else.  Our next stop was Popeye’s, a Louisiana fast food place.  They liked it until they got our order wrong.  By the time we got it straight we ended up with double the order so the kids really loved that.  Plus the manager and a women were fighting over something so we got dinner and a show.  At 6:00 we met Skyway A at the church, which ended up being the Spanish Elders instead, for a lesson with Mhina.   None of our keys, for the church, would work so we went to her house and had the lesson outside.  They won’t let anyone inside their house.  Then, we hurried back north for a lesson at the Acostas.   Ivar, from a few doors down, also was there.  Meeting with the Acostas is one of the highlights of our mission. We are trying to get the kids interested in YM/YW. We had a short testimony meeting at the end of the lesson on the Priesthood, then out came all the food.  Elder Jiao (from Beijing, China) is our new Elder, Elder Bohne’s companion. They had made some Bluet for him, (boiled duck egg, with the duck somewhat developed) but he ate it with no problems, he even liked it.   They tried to get Elder Bohne to eat one again.  He would not, so Richel and Michelle each ate one.  Richel loved hers.  Michelle hated hers and spit it out in the kitchen.  Cheap entertainment for us!  How we love the Acosta family!

Saturday we thank God for a prophet:  It was so nice to attend conference with all the missionaries.   We have to go to the Stake Center and it is mostly just missionaries, but there were a few members there today.  After the 1^st session we had to leave and go to the museum.  They wanted us there from 1:00 until 4:00 and when we got there we found they only needed us at 3:30 so we were able to listen to conference on the I-pad.  We could have stayed at the church since they never used us at all.  They wanted us to talk about indexing, but the computers still won’t work and we think we are a little intimidating to some.  Joyce is fighting a bad cold so we came home and put her to bed which is not easy.   After resting, Art made the soup for Sunday lunch between sessions, and Joyce, carefully, made the cake, so as not to get germs in itJ

Preaching:  We have been studying what it takes to be a good teacher and a good student.  For a lesson to be effective both must have the spirt so that the Holy Ghost can do the teaching.  We can’t control what the teacher does, but we can control what we do and how prepared we are to learn.  When President Kimball was asked what he did in a boring Sacrament meeting he said, “I don’t know, I’ve never been in one.” (Art said, “Well President Kimball has never been in a meeting where I talked”).  We have thought about his statement and decided that we have a few things to work on to be better learners.

Hope this letter finds you all well and excited after listening to conference and ready to become better teachers and students.

 Love Joyce and Art

                                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