Sunday thoughts - a little late

It is actually Tuesday so I'm a little late posting.  But better late than never, right?

I've been watching my orchid plant, the last few months, making some changes that I suspicioned might actually be blooms and sure enough that is exactly what was happening.  This is the orchid that was given to me when Jeffrey died.  I've never been able to get an orchid to ever bloom again once it loses its flowers.  I was so excited to see this orchid blooming again.  Of course, it made me think of Jeffrey.

I am grateful knowing that I will see Jeff again and knowing that he is whole, free from any pain he may have felt in this life.  When he slipped from this life through the veil, he was made whole, this I know.

And now as we live through this global pandemic, I find great comfort and hope in Elder Holland's words "When we have conquered this - and we will - may we be equally committed."

 I hope to be equally committed to what my Heavenly Father needs me to do for continuing patience through trying times and for enduring faith when it's not been easy

Elder Holland also said, and I love this, "Be kind.  Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."

Spring days

Last Saturday Neal and I went downstairs and opened the front door and the patio door, fixed some breakfast and went outside to eat.  Oh, how I love the warmth of Spring and knowing that the summer days are right behind.

I've watched the daffodils come to life at the entrance of our complex.  The amazing thing is the daffodil bulbs are put in the ground in the fall and then they faithfully bloom year after year in the spring.  The daffodils symbolize hope for me.  In the middle of the dreary, barren winter, there is no sign of the daffodil  bulbs buried beneath the earth.  And yet each Spring I can count on their cheery yellow blooms.

This pandemic has made me feel like I'm in the middle of winter.  There is no sun, no evidence of flower bulbs or any sort of life or cheer.  This pandemic has certainly been a hard and challenging time for all of us.  When all around me looks lifeless and grey.  It's hard to even believe that flowers ever bloomed or ever will again.  That's when I have to dig deep and rely on hope.  I have to remember the moments when I felt God's love and beauty in my life, even though it's difficult to see and feel in the moment.  I know that Jesus Christ lives, loves and cares for me and all of us.  It's that hope that carries me through until the certainty of Spring and daffodils come again.  We will get through this pandemic, of this I am sure.

Puzzles and more puzzles

I think Neal and I have put together more puzzles in the past two months since this pandemic started than we ever do in a whole year.  We usually don't pull out puzzles until the Christmas holidays.  I even had to borrow one from Jeff and I bought a couple.  This is one that we did of Jeff's.

Great puzzle to put together.  It had its challenges but so worth putting it together.  This was our next puzzle.  Jeff's was 1,000 pieces and the Halloween one was 550 so it didn't take us quite as long.

Humor in COVID-19

We always have to look for humor in hard times and this pandemic calls for moments of laughter.

Andrew had to make biscuits for his high school class.  He came up with the crazy idea to write out COVID-19 with the biscuits.  I think he should get an A in the class for creativity.  Here is the pictures he sent his teacher showing that he made them.

Way to go Andrew Man!!!  Loved your idea.

Another moment of laughter.  Susan sent me this.  I quote her email:

"We all got an emergency service announcement on our cell phones this morning that our Stay in Place order was being extended to May 1st.  The problem was that it said "Wasatch County extends PUBIC health order!!!  Someone must have told them about the big OOPS and they sent another one out about 10 minutes later changing it to PUBLIC!

I laughed, after reading her email, until I couldn't breathe.  Just had to share that with all my staff at work.  It created some great laughing moments for all of us.

We are still in the middle of it.

Sunday thoughts

Today for Sacrament Meeting Mallory, Neal and I went downstairs and watched the first four Book of Mormon movies.  They are amazing and I can't wait to see the rest.  If you haven't seen them with your family I would encourage all my children to gather their children around them and watch them.

I also read this article and felt that I should put part of it on my blog:

President Russell M. Nelson knows that living in a higher and holier way, along the covenant path, requires us to access personal revelation.  He wants each of us to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father and a personal Savior in Jesus Christ who want to communicate and commune with us.  Because the prophets wants us to know the, he has extended a transformational challenge to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  "In this special lyears as we commemorate the 200th anniversary of the First Vision. I invite you to think deeply and often about this key question;  How do you hear Him?

So, I thought, how do I hear him.  The first thing that comes to my mind is I hear him through music.  Annette and I played and sang through most of our lives together.  I've always love music and have always been very touched by music.  Music is for me the language of Heaven.

I also hear him through others testimonies.  Often in Sacrament meeting I am brought to tears knowing that what someone is sharing is from the heart and rings true to the gospel that I love so much.  I can hear him in audible words, written words, calmness, specific thoughts and fleeting feelings.

President Nelson said that "to testify that we have heard His voice and know His word, will keep us on the covenant path as we journey toward our heavenly home.

Another Earthquake

Yup, another earthquake after shock.  Neal and I were standing in the kitchen when all of a sudden he said, "Another earthquake."  Apparently he heard the noise before the house started to shake a little.  I look over at the chandelier above the kitchen table and it was swaying just a little bit.  It was a 4.2 aftershock.  I think we are all done with the earthquakes.  They are scary and very unnerving.

I can't find my pictures.  I may have to go find Mallory and see if she can figure out where they are!
Well, it happened.  I'm sitting here and now the pictures are downloaded.

Mallory just told me that the geese honk to encourage the rest of them to keep flying.

Canadian Geese

I always know when it is Spring because the Canadian Geese come back and their flight pattern is right behind our home.  Believe me, they are not quiet.  I don't think they know how to fly without talking to each other, or should I say geese honking to each other.

The other morning, as I was leaving for work and backing out of the garage, I could hear some geese just honking like crazy.  I could not figure out where they were.  I checked to make sure they weren't on the driveway behind me.  I checked in the pool to see if by chance they were sharing the pool with ducks.  I check the lawn at the side of the house to see if I could spot them walking around there.  I could not find them anywhere.  I finally got about half way backed out of the driveway still hearing the constant geese yelling at me.  I happen to glance up at the top of the house and there they were.  Perched right at the top most part of the house.  I had to take a picture.  Not sure what my fascination is with the Canadian Geese but I look forward to them every single year!

New Symbol

President Nelson said, "To better remember Him, the Church is introducing a symbol that will signify the central place of Jesus Christ in His Church.  Graphically, the new symbol includes the name of the Church contained within a cornerstone because Jesus Christ is the chief Cornerstone.  At the center is the Christ.  It portrays the resurrected, living Lord reaching out to embrace all who will come unto Him.  The symbol will remind all that this is the Savior's Church and that all we do as members of His church centers on Jesus Christ and His gospel."

General Conference

I don't like to fill my Blog with negative things and so have made it a practice to try and just record good things that are happening in the family and in the Church of Jesus Christ to which I am a proud member.  But, I felt strongly about something Lyndsy said to Neal and I and it seemed appropriate to comment on it.  Lyndsy said that she would not listen to conference because she, and I quote "didn't want to hear raciest and misogynistic talks and comments from the speakers."  

I listened very carefully to all the conference talks and not one talk even came close to what Lyndsy claims she would hear.  If anything, they were all the opposite of raciest and misogynistic.

Joy D. Jones gave a talk on "An Especially Noble Calling."  She said, "The Prophet Joseph Smith counseled the sisters to live up to their privilege.  Their example teaches us today.  They unitedly followed a prophet's voice and lived with steadfast faith in Jesus Christ as they helped lay the foundation we now stand upon.  Sisters, it is our turn.  We have a divine errand from the Lord, and our faithful, unique contributions are vital."  

Misogynistic?  I can't find it.

The new Bicentennial Proclamation to the World.  Pres. Nelson said, "We felt impressed to create a monument - not of granite or stone, but of words.

"We solemnly proclaim that God loves His children in every nation of the world. . . .
As companion scripture to the Bible, the Book of Mormon testifies that all human beings are sons and daughters of a loving Father in Heaven."

Racist?  I can't find it.

Neil L. Anderson talked about a" Father in Heaven who knows us and who loves us.  We hear Him in our prayers, in our homes, in the scriptures, and in our hymns."

Elder Dale G. Renlund said, "I invite you to remember each day the greatness of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Every single talk, without exception talks of love for our fellowman, that we are all children of God, to care for each other, and that women and men work equally together to build up the Kingdom of God on the earth.

If Lyndsy can find one sentence in any of the talks at general conference that speak of being raciest or misogynistic, I would love to see it.

I bear testimony to my posterity that this church is the true church of Jesus Christ.  That it was restored to us in these latter days by the Prophet Joseph Smith.  The Book of Mormon is true and is another witness of Jesus Christ.  This is the only true church on the earth today.

Easter 2020

This Easter will be long remembered because we were not able to all gather together as a family.  The Easter egg contest went without a specific winner.  Emmi said we should put on the trophy egg, "COVID-19 wins for 2020".

I wanted to do something for the kids to let them know that we loved them and would be thinking about them so I ordered dozens of sugar Easter cookies from Granite Bakery and we took some to each home.  It took us 2 1/2 hours to deliver them.  Our children live in the four corners of Salt Lake!  The trip miles on the car were 104.5.  It was hard to keep a distance and not to run up and hug everyone, but we succeeded in being safe and seeing most everyone.  Thank goodness, everyone is well and has not been infected with this virus.  What a blessing.

Annie's home.  Andrew and Hayley were first at the door and then Jeff and Annie joined them for a picture.  We past Abby and Mallory and honked at them but they didn't hear us or recognize us so we missed them.

Mindy's home.  This picture was actually taken by Mindy and sent to us after we had left their house. 

 Mindy mentioned that Robert like the cookies!

 Nice reflection of Neal and I in Mindy's front door!

 Maren and Gerg's home.  We learned that Greg had been furloughed from Delta for 90 days because of the virus.

 Our last drop was Lyndsy's.

Happy Easter everyone!  We miss you all and will be ready to celebrate our first get together when this pandemic is over.

World Wide Fast

At the end of General Conference, President Nelson called for a World Wide Fast again on Good Friday.  President Nelson said "that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers protected, the economy strengthened, and life normalized."

Mallory along with Neal and I began our fast Thursday evening.  We had a prayer and then had dinner.  The next day was Friday and we all fasted the whole day.  That evening we had prayer to end our fast and then jumped in the car and headed for In N Out Burger.  When we arrived, there was a line of cars that went all the way through the Walmart parking lot.  It took us nearly 30 minutes to get to the drive up window for our order.  But, it was worth the wait.  As we pulled out we glanced back and the long line of cars had not shortened.  If anything, it was even longer.  We joked that all of these people had fasted and were lined up to eat.  I wish I had taken a picture.  I'm usually pretty good about taking a picture of something interesting that I might want to blog, but honestly didn't think about it then.  That evening I got these pictures from Linda and Dave Knight.  They had done the same thing, only they went to Crown Burgers instead of In N Out.  She text, "Breaking the fast . . ."

Linda said the lines were just as long at Crown Burger as I had described to her at In N Out.  Nice that we are all supporting our local eating places.

Humor in hard times

we all need touches of humor during hard times and we are certainly experiencing a time when humor is most important.  Annie saw this on the back of truck when she was driving home from her all night shift at the hospital.

Love it Annie.  Thanks for sharing!

COVID-19

It seems that we have been a long way and it seems that we still have a long way to go with this pandemic before we can all breathe a sigh of relief.  It is Sunday April 12 and we are easily looking at the end of May or even June.  We have had two world wide fast and are praying that our prayers will be heard and this pandemic ended soon.

Maren works with patients in the maternity ward and sent us this picture of how she has to dress each shift to protect her patients and to protect herself from the virus.

As Annie has said, "It does feel like we are on a movie set."  We all want the movie to be over.

Three fun pictures from Annie

Annie sent some pictures that were very fun to see.  One was a blast from the past that I just had to save and post.  This picture was taken as She and Jeff, JC and his wife were going to the Olympic closing ceremonies, almost 20 years ago, if you can believe that.

Those were exciting times for Salt Lake City and exciting memories for me working in the education department of the Olympics with Judy Stanfield as my boss.  My main job was having different elementary school choirs welcome the Olympians to Salt Lake City at the welcoming ceremony in the Olympic Athlete Village.  I spent every day for almost three weeks at the village welcoming the athletes as they arrived.
I was assisted in helping Judy with the Olympic pin contest.  We would have students from different grade schools draw pictures of the Olympics and then we would chose a winner and have a pin made of their drawing.
My final job was making sure all the elementary schools had tickets to all the events and accompany them to the events.  It was quite a task distributing thousands of tickets and arranging for hundreds of busses to transport the students to the different events.

Annie also sent me a picture of the new Tooele Temple.  Not sure what it will be called, but here is a drawing of what it will look like.  It will be a three story building and will certainly stand out in that area.  Of course, the Gertsons are thrilled to have a temple almost in their back yard.

P.S.

I forgot to post this cute picture of her at Wheeler Farm.  She had never seen all the tree carvings.  They are amazing.

A Spring Walk

Now that the weather has become more Spring like and the temperatures have approached the upper 50's and lower 60's it is good to be able to take walks and enjoy the beginning of a new season.  Mallory and I ventured out again and this time decided to take some bread to feed the ducks at Wheeler Farm.  I love walking with Mallory.

As we approached Wheeler Farm we saw the signs on the gates that the Farm was closed because of the Coronavirus.  We could see a few people here and there wandering around the farm so we ventured in, knowing that we wouldn't run into crowds of people.  As we neared the lake the ducks must have sensed or hope that we had food because they came in mass to greet us.  Mallory wasn't all that excited about swarming ducks and especially a couple very aggressive geese who were pushing their way in front of the ducks.  I was loving it.  Mallory stepped back and took some pictures, not wanting to be in the middle of the quacking and honking fowls.

This picture is before we even got to the pond.

 You can see the two very aggressive and very much in charge geese.  The one right in front of me kept her place the whole time I was there and made it very clear that she was hungry!

After all the bread was gone and hopefully a few ducks and a couple of geese had their tummy's filled, Mallory and I continued our walk.  Our next hungry animal that we came by was a horse.  The minute he saw us he came right up to the fence.  Maybe he sensed how much Mallory loved horses.  We were able to stroke his nose and we pulled some grass and gave his a taste of the new grass growing outside of the fence and just out of his reach.

Then we wandered up through the neighborhoods and home walking a nice distance of three miles.  Mallory has since gone back to Stansbury during this COVID-19 issue.  She is only working one day a week so will probably spend a greater amount of her time in Stansbury until this virus is no longer a serious threat and until she is back on a full time schedule.  We shall pick up our walks when she comes back.  I miss walking with her.

Stay Home Stay Safe

People have to get pretty creative to be isolated from those you love, neighbors, friends, ward members, etc.  Neal and I have done pretty well entertaining ourselves.  Of course we have puzzles that we both love putting together and can spend hours on them.  Here is our latest one.

I've come to realize that even putting a puzzle together with Neal has its moments of Neal being competitive.  Who finds the piece that we've both been looking for?  And who finds it first.  How many pieces you put in?  How fast you find pieces, etc.  It is rather interesting and almost comical.

I realized that we were out of bread and so I decided to make some.  I have to say it turned out delicious.  Almost as good as Lila Mae's!  The difference is that I don't have a bread mixer so I do everything by hand.  This is the dough just put in the bowl to rise.

 Finished product.  Nothing much better than a slice of hot bread with melted butter and some jam on the top.  Yummmmm

 Oops!  The pictures are a little out of order.  Neal snapped this one of me braiding and putting the loaves in the pans to raise before going in the oven.

 Now this is the funny part.  After I was all done with the bread making.  I looked at the bottom of my mixer that had been sitting on the counter and notice that both of the holes were completely filled with bread dough.  And, not only filled with dough but as you can see the dough was actually raising and coming out of the mixer.  Talk about a science fiction plot for a movie!!

 I have to admit that Neal and I busted up laughing over this.  I did my best to clean out the holes but have no idea if the mixer will work again or not.  I'll find out when I make cookies again.

COVID-19 Pandemic

I can't even remember when this thing started in the United States.  It seems like it has been going on a very, very long time.  Our "stay home, stay safe" is still in place.  We can run to the grocery store if needed and I go to work each day, but other than that there is little if any contact with people.  Even going for a walk we have to keep distance between people on the street.  Just a wave and a "hello" from across the street is pretty much the extent of our contact with others.  The only people allowed to go to work are the people who are considered 'essential'.  I have a job at the county that is considered essential so I do get to get out each day. Maren sent me this picture of what she has to wear when she is at the hospital.

Our nurses and doctors are at the highest risk for getting the virus because they are working with the sick.  Maren is in the maternity ward but still has to take extra precautions when working around newborns.  Lynda Ann also works at the hospital but doesn't have to be around patients so doesn't have to wear all the extra protective gear.  Annie has mentioned a couple times that they are keeping the hospitals as empty as possible to make sure they have beds for people who may have the Coronavirus and need medical help.  She said that the place looks like a movie set for another "Outbreak" movie.

As of today no one in my family, children and grandchildren, have had the virus.  For that I am truly thankful!