Dear Family,
This was the week of many checks getting lost in the mail. It has been frustrating to have to redo so many checks and spend the money to FedEx the checks to make sure that the checks get this time. Along with this is the time and effort to void all of the checks through Salt Lake and then find them in the file to void the paper work there too. This is not a new problem with me, but it is getting old very fast. Some of the apartments don’t just notify us that we are 5 days late, but threaten law suits if the check isn’t in their hands within 5 days. Some of these even require a certified check, so that includes a trip to the bank in addition to all of the other tasks. The sad part of it is, I should be using my time to get the rent for March ready and preparing for my audit.
Then on top of all of the extra checks that I have had to do this week, I opened up the new box of checks to discover that Salt Lake had sent me checks that require two signatures. I should have looked at them when they arrived last December, but assumed that they were just like the ones I had been using since I arrived. I called Salt Lake to order the correct ones and asked them what I could in the mean time to take of these little emergencies with the rent checks. She suggested that I have the mission president be the other signature. Luckily there is another signature that gets printed on our checks when I print them. So I have had to meet up with the President in the evenings after he is through with his interviews. Once we went to his home and once he stopped by our apartment. It is one thing to have to be inconvenienced by all of this, but I have really felt bad about adding to the President’s long list of things to do. With all of this going, most of the rest of the week has blurred all together. The week did end well.
Saturday was a wonderful day. It was a sunny day and that always is an indicator of it being good. We got up early to get our scripture reading done before helping our neighbor get moved. When dropping off some packages to the missionaries that live in our complex, Dad answered their parting question, “Can we do anything for you” with at our neighbor is moving and starting it about 8 am. They said they would come and help until they had to go to a service project at 9. James had gone to get the U-haul and didn’t get back in time for the missionaries to help, but it was nice that they were willing to do so. We had asked James when we got home yesterday if we could take care of lunch on Saturday. I know how hard it is to think of fixing anything to eat in the middle of a moving mess. He agreed to let us help that way.
While Dad was helping with the loading of the truck, I was at home working on mission office stuff that I hadn’t had time to get to during the week. Then while James and his two friends took his stuff to the new apartment Dad and I went to get some sandwiches, drinks, and chips for James and friends to have. They still needed to come back and load the last of his things. We hope to be able to get his new address and maybe send the missionaries in that area to visit him.
We then went and ran errands. Our apartment doesn’t have any carpeting, so it is a bit cold on the feet and noisy, so we went looking for a rug for our hallway. We couldn’t find one that was exactly like the area rug in the living room, but the colors match. It makes the house feel a little more homey.
We ate dinner and went to the evening session of our stake conference. That meeting has become the high light of our week. Our theme for the conference was on putting the “Come Follow Me” into practice. Our stake President, President McConkie led off by talking what it meant to follow the Savior. One comment that stuck out to me was that if we are no different after coming and following the Savior than we were before, then we really aren’t following the Savior. To follow the Savior we will have to sacrifice something of the world or put off some part of the natural man so that can become more like He is. He also said that it isn’t about learning some gospel facts, but more about becoming more like the Savior. We had people who worked with the youth, a gospel doctrine teacher, a bishop, and an empty nester talking on how they have implemented it into their lives. All had good ideas and made me want to try harder. The final speaker was Our visiting authority was Elder Smith who was a senator from Oregon for 16 years, but is now “retired” he says. He was talking about by small and simple things great things happen and told us a story to illustrate it. I want to keep the story for future remembrance, so if you want to skip it you can. He was a senator at the time of this story and he was at work at the time and got a call from Salt Lake. The person on the line said that there was a new member of the 70 who was from Europe. He was in Washington, D.C. and would like to have a tour of the capital building. Could Senator Smith do that. Elder Smith took Elder Uchtdorf around and Elder Uchtdorf was so kind and gracious in his appreciation of Senator Smith’s time. A few years later when Elder Uchtdorf was a member of the Quorum of 12 apostles he gave Senator a call saying that the Church was having some trouble in Italy with not being recognized as a religion by the government. This made it so the people were unable to worship completely as they wished. They couldn’t build church buildings. Elder Uchtdorf asked Senator Smith if he could fix that. He replied that he had some power for Washington, but not for Italy, but would see what he could do. He called the Italian embassy in Washington, D.C. and asked if they could help. They said that that was out of their realm, but they could schedule a meeting with the Religious Minister in Italy. Senator Smith called Elder Uchtdorf and told him of the meeting, and Elder Uchtdorf said I am going with you. They got to the meeting and were seated when the Religious Minister (a woman) came with her assistant who was a Religion Professor. Elder Uchtdorf introduced himself and Senator Smith and turned the explanation over to him. After the presentation, the Religious Minister turned to her assistant and said they have a moving story what do you think we should do? The assistant replied that earlier that year he and his family had gone to the western United States to site see. They visited Salt Lake City and toured their city and especially enjoyed the square with the sacred buildings. As part of the tour they had two young sisters from Italy who showed them around. The assistant was really impressed with these two young sisters. The assistant then turned to the religious minister and said that if this religion made these two lovely young ladies from Italy there in Salt Lake teaching their religion into the people they were, then we should let their religion into Italy.
Elder Smith then emphasized that while Elder Uchtdorf and Senator Smith were better known and held more visible positions, but it was the lives of these two young women that turned the hinges of history. We can lift where we stand. The minister turned to Elder Uchtdorf and Senator Smith and asked if the Church could build one of those sacred buildings in Italy. President Uchtdorf said, “We’ll begin tomorrow. Take away: We can all make a difference when we “Come Follow Me”.
Sunday was another great meeting. President McConkie’s talk was on doing 4 simple things to increase learning in our homes through the Come Follow Me.
1. Be consistent – We need to create consistent prayer and study. Consistent is the key word here. There will be blessings immediately, but also for our posterity.
2. Look for informal teaching moments.
3. It is critical for our children not only to know of our faith and the doctrine, but they must feel it too. The feelings are what last. He shared a story from his family:
His father’s sister who is 80 years old now tells the story of when she was about 10 years old and was home doing some chores in the kitchen. Her father (Bruce R. McConkie) was upstairs in the bedroom doing some studying at the large desk that was there. Apparently he got so excited about what he had been studying that he came quickly downstairs to share. She was the only one at home so she was the one to hear his testimony of “The Book of Mormon is true”. He then explained simply some of the things that he had been studying that had renewed these feelings that he had. He did it with such exuberance (filled with the Spirit) and conviction that she says she still remembers the feelings she felt that day as her father shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon with her. That was some 70 years ago.
4. Stay positive—God is on our side. Our homes should be a shelter from our sin-sick world. We need to build up homes as a refuge.
Elder Smith had other good stories about making the small decisions in our lives that lead us to be where we need to be and wanting to do what we should be doing. Our homes can be the place where we are all taught and strengthened so that we will make good choices and be the person we need to be for the Lord.
Well, that about does it for another week. We think of you often and pray for you daily. Thanks for your prayers and examples to us.
Sending much love,
Mom
P.S. No pictures—all I could have thought of to send would have been a picture of a check. I don’t think so.
This was the week of many checks getting lost in the mail. It has been frustrating to have to redo so many checks and spend the money to FedEx the checks to make sure that the checks get this time. Along with this is the time and effort to void all of the checks through Salt Lake and then find them in the file to void the paper work there too. This is not a new problem with me, but it is getting old very fast. Some of the apartments don’t just notify us that we are 5 days late, but threaten law suits if the check isn’t in their hands within 5 days. Some of these even require a certified check, so that includes a trip to the bank in addition to all of the other tasks. The sad part of it is, I should be using my time to get the rent for March ready and preparing for my audit.
Then on top of all of the extra checks that I have had to do this week, I opened up the new box of checks to discover that Salt Lake had sent me checks that require two signatures. I should have looked at them when they arrived last December, but assumed that they were just like the ones I had been using since I arrived. I called Salt Lake to order the correct ones and asked them what I could in the mean time to take of these little emergencies with the rent checks. She suggested that I have the mission president be the other signature. Luckily there is another signature that gets printed on our checks when I print them. So I have had to meet up with the President in the evenings after he is through with his interviews. Once we went to his home and once he stopped by our apartment. It is one thing to have to be inconvenienced by all of this, but I have really felt bad about adding to the President’s long list of things to do. With all of this going, most of the rest of the week has blurred all together. The week did end well.
Saturday was a wonderful day. It was a sunny day and that always is an indicator of it being good. We got up early to get our scripture reading done before helping our neighbor get moved. When dropping off some packages to the missionaries that live in our complex, Dad answered their parting question, “Can we do anything for you” with at our neighbor is moving and starting it about 8 am. They said they would come and help until they had to go to a service project at 9. James had gone to get the U-haul and didn’t get back in time for the missionaries to help, but it was nice that they were willing to do so. We had asked James when we got home yesterday if we could take care of lunch on Saturday. I know how hard it is to think of fixing anything to eat in the middle of a moving mess. He agreed to let us help that way.
While Dad was helping with the loading of the truck, I was at home working on mission office stuff that I hadn’t had time to get to during the week. Then while James and his two friends took his stuff to the new apartment Dad and I went to get some sandwiches, drinks, and chips for James and friends to have. They still needed to come back and load the last of his things. We hope to be able to get his new address and maybe send the missionaries in that area to visit him.
We then went and ran errands. Our apartment doesn’t have any carpeting, so it is a bit cold on the feet and noisy, so we went looking for a rug for our hallway. We couldn’t find one that was exactly like the area rug in the living room, but the colors match. It makes the house feel a little more homey.
We ate dinner and went to the evening session of our stake conference. That meeting has become the high light of our week. Our theme for the conference was on putting the “Come Follow Me” into practice. Our stake President, President McConkie led off by talking what it meant to follow the Savior. One comment that stuck out to me was that if we are no different after coming and following the Savior than we were before, then we really aren’t following the Savior. To follow the Savior we will have to sacrifice something of the world or put off some part of the natural man so that can become more like He is. He also said that it isn’t about learning some gospel facts, but more about becoming more like the Savior. We had people who worked with the youth, a gospel doctrine teacher, a bishop, and an empty nester talking on how they have implemented it into their lives. All had good ideas and made me want to try harder. The final speaker was Our visiting authority was Elder Smith who was a senator from Oregon for 16 years, but is now “retired” he says. He was talking about by small and simple things great things happen and told us a story to illustrate it. I want to keep the story for future remembrance, so if you want to skip it you can. He was a senator at the time of this story and he was at work at the time and got a call from Salt Lake. The person on the line said that there was a new member of the 70 who was from Europe. He was in Washington, D.C. and would like to have a tour of the capital building. Could Senator Smith do that. Elder Smith took Elder Uchtdorf around and Elder Uchtdorf was so kind and gracious in his appreciation of Senator Smith’s time. A few years later when Elder Uchtdorf was a member of the Quorum of 12 apostles he gave Senator a call saying that the Church was having some trouble in Italy with not being recognized as a religion by the government. This made it so the people were unable to worship completely as they wished. They couldn’t build church buildings. Elder Uchtdorf asked Senator Smith if he could fix that. He replied that he had some power for Washington, but not for Italy, but would see what he could do. He called the Italian embassy in Washington, D.C. and asked if they could help. They said that that was out of their realm, but they could schedule a meeting with the Religious Minister in Italy. Senator Smith called Elder Uchtdorf and told him of the meeting, and Elder Uchtdorf said I am going with you. They got to the meeting and were seated when the Religious Minister (a woman) came with her assistant who was a Religion Professor. Elder Uchtdorf introduced himself and Senator Smith and turned the explanation over to him. After the presentation, the Religious Minister turned to her assistant and said they have a moving story what do you think we should do? The assistant replied that earlier that year he and his family had gone to the western United States to site see. They visited Salt Lake City and toured their city and especially enjoyed the square with the sacred buildings. As part of the tour they had two young sisters from Italy who showed them around. The assistant was really impressed with these two young sisters. The assistant then turned to the religious minister and said that if this religion made these two lovely young ladies from Italy there in Salt Lake teaching their religion into the people they were, then we should let their religion into Italy.
Elder Smith then emphasized that while Elder Uchtdorf and Senator Smith were better known and held more visible positions, but it was the lives of these two young women that turned the hinges of history. We can lift where we stand. The minister turned to Elder Uchtdorf and Senator Smith and asked if the Church could build one of those sacred buildings in Italy. President Uchtdorf said, “We’ll begin tomorrow. Take away: We can all make a difference when we “Come Follow Me”.
Sunday was another great meeting. President McConkie’s talk was on doing 4 simple things to increase learning in our homes through the Come Follow Me.
1. Be consistent – We need to create consistent prayer and study. Consistent is the key word here. There will be blessings immediately, but also for our posterity.
2. Look for informal teaching moments.
3. It is critical for our children not only to know of our faith and the doctrine, but they must feel it too. The feelings are what last. He shared a story from his family:
His father’s sister who is 80 years old now tells the story of when she was about 10 years old and was home doing some chores in the kitchen. Her father (Bruce R. McConkie) was upstairs in the bedroom doing some studying at the large desk that was there. Apparently he got so excited about what he had been studying that he came quickly downstairs to share. She was the only one at home so she was the one to hear his testimony of “The Book of Mormon is true”. He then explained simply some of the things that he had been studying that had renewed these feelings that he had. He did it with such exuberance (filled with the Spirit) and conviction that she says she still remembers the feelings she felt that day as her father shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon with her. That was some 70 years ago.
4. Stay positive—God is on our side. Our homes should be a shelter from our sin-sick world. We need to build up homes as a refuge.
Elder Smith had other good stories about making the small decisions in our lives that lead us to be where we need to be and wanting to do what we should be doing. Our homes can be the place where we are all taught and strengthened so that we will make good choices and be the person we need to be for the Lord.
Well, that about does it for another week. We think of you often and pray for you daily. Thanks for your prayers and examples to us.
Sending much love,
Mom
P.S. No pictures—all I could have thought of to send would have been a picture of a check. I don’t think so.
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