Glorious!

“I think the world is glorious and lovely as can be” comes to mind as we walk around Temple Square.  I thought the flower display was wonderful two weeks ago, but it has grown in color and brilliance.  And the blossoms are out—pink and white popcorn trees everywhere!  We see a row right outside our balcony window, west of the Conference Center.  For good reason, Temple Square has become a popular place for picture taking.  So fun to see families together.

            The number of patrons has increased at the Library—there’s not so much time to work on our own research, nor to lop off twigs and branches that have been erroneously attached to families in the tree or to straighten tangled branches.  (Please don’t mess with “my” dead!)   I always cheer inwardly (sometimes outwardly, too) when I am able to help someone find information important to them—like the maiden name of a woman or the birth of “missing” child. 

Last week, I was helping an older man (yes, older than I am), who was struggling just to move around in the tree and stay focused.  It was obvious that he had been “living” with the family we were looking at for quite some time as he could pull relationships and stories from his memory, but hardly any of it was documented in the tree.  I may have been getting just a little frustrated when he said, “I’d better go now and see my wife in the hospital.”  When I expressed sympathy and asked about his wife, he couldn’t hold back tears of despair.  I wanted to cry with him. Lesson taught once again.  As President Eyring said, ninety percent of the time the people you meet are “hurting.”  That night, Brother J, was certainly in my prayer, along with a plea for forgiveness and patience.

In the Zone, I have been asked to be on the training committee which means I will take a turn once or twice a week to teach the ten-minute-training in prayer meeting. Butterflies last Thursday on my debut about finding naturalization papers.   I felt like it was the “clueless teaching the clued in,”  but it went okay. Still so much to learn!  

Elder Challis has been asked to learn scheduling, no small project with all of the CSM’s serving in the zone with all kinds of limits to and requests for their schedules. Good thing he can get help from a computer program.

Mostly for General Conference, we had a front row seat in front of the TV at Jaynie’s.  (Sunday morning, I got to cuddle week-old Phillip for the entire session.)  Saturday afternoon, though, we were in the Conference Center, far right side, about 15 rows back.  Those weren’t great seats for seeing the speaker at the podium or the big screen, but, as it turned out, that was the “waving section.” President Nelson and the other leaders linked arms with their wives, turned and waved as they exited.  Sweet experience.  And the combined choirs from BYU were awesome—so glad to have heard their music in person.  

You'd have to see it to believe it

Tulip festival! 

Watching conference