Monday, July 20th, 2020

Nauvoo, Illinois

113th operating temple

Dedicated: 27-30 June 2002

By: Gordon B. Hinckley

Jesus Christ, Light of the World

Isaiah 2:5

O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Book of Mormon/"Come Follow Me"

Alma 36:1-16

April General Conference

"Fulfillment of Prophecy"

Elder Ronald A. Rasband

 We live in that time prophesied; we are the people charged with ushering in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; we are to gather God's children, those who will hear and embrace the truths, covenants, and promises of the everlasting gospel. President Nelson calls it "the greatest challenge, the greatest cause, and the greatest work on the earth today." Of that miracle I bear my witness.

I had five of the books I bought last week be cancelled, this happened yesterday so I ignored it until this morning. I finally figured out why they were cancelled. I pay for them with my Amazon Store card and the limit on that card is $1,000. I evidently went over the limit so that's why these books were cancelled. The first thing I did when I got up this morning was pay off the card and re-order the books. Some of them went up in price. I also went to settings on the Amazon Seller page and managed a backup payment in case this ever happens again.

I listened to Book of Mormon Central this morning while working on the computer. Brother John Welch was there as a guest speaker. He is actually the founder of Book of Mormon Central and the person who discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon while on his mission in Ravensburg, Germany in 1967. He had listened to a lecture on chiasmus in the Bible. The next morning as he was reading in Mosiah 5 he discovered it in verses 10-12. About six months later he discovered the masterpiece of chiasmus in Alma 36. I loved listening to Brother Welch and appreciated his testimony of chiasmus, a Hebrew and Near East literary style foreign to Joseph Smith, and how in Alma 36 it points to the Savior as the center point of Alma's testimony. He talked about Alma 36 being a roadmap for repentance and a change of heart. 

James went to the post office today and brought back ten new books for me. I was happy to see that none of my books are stranded and I also repriced 60 of my books in inventory.

James is worried about the job in Peoria. On Saturday the framer didn't show up because his wife had a baby. James called another framer but he wanted twice as much to do it as James had budgeted. The only solution he could think of was to go down himself and do the job along with help from Sal. He plans on leaving tomorrow afternoon. 

This evening James and I watched the movie, "The Fighting Preacher." This is the story of Willard and Rebecca Bean who were called on a mission to the Joseph Smith farm in Palmyra township, New York. This was in 1915. Brother Bean was a retired boxer. The people were so unkind to the Bean's simply because they were Mormons. By the end of their mission, 24 years later, the longest in Church history, the Bean's were the most well-liked people in the community and people were upset that they were leaving. Some of the acting is a little unprofessional but the message is so inspirational!

Follow the Prophet

If he says to look at a serpent on a stick,

do it.

If he says to wear a mask,

do it.

My books

Tuesday, July 7th, 2020

Boston, Massachusetts

100th operating temple

Dedicated: 1 Oct 2000

By: Gordon B. Hinckley

Jesus Christ, Lamb of God

1 Nephi 11:21

And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

Book of Mormon/"Come Follow Me"

Alma 30:19-29 with James and "Book of Mormon Central"

"April General Conference

"Prayers of Faith"

President Henry B. Eyring

 "Through His Saints, the Lord will offer the gift of His gospel 'to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.' Technology and miracles will continue to play a part - as will individual 'fishers of men' who minister with power and increasing faith."

Lambson Study Group

"Let Us Be Men"

D. Todd Christofferson

October 2006 GenCon

We received a letter in the form of an email from the Snowflake Temple President, President Palmer this week. President Reidhead has broken his hip and President Palmer is asking that we pray for him. Having a broken hip sounds so painful!

Anthony and James were out early today working on cementing poles in the ground for Luna's fence. I think when she is turned loose in her new field she is going to feel like she has been let out of prison. Once James is finished with the fence we are going to get Luna a companion so she won't be lonely anymore.

I am waiting to hear from Amazon about what to do with my 15 stranded books. I tried what the first technician told me to do and obviously it didn't work. I tried a couple of things on my own and then left it alone. I won't go back until I have heard something from Amazon.

We have company coming tomorrow and so I need to clean upstairs and make sure the bedrooms are ready, even though Laura and Dave will probably sleep in the family room. James said we should set the bug foggers before I clean. I told him I thought that was a great idea. He went upstairs and set them in the bedrooms. I was trying to read out loud to James but I started coughing. I told him I thought it was the fumes from the bug foggers. Come to find out, he set one out in the common area and those fumes were floating down. We decided we better leave for awhile lest we succumb to the fumes. 

I read to James in the car and we went to Dollar General to get ice cream. We saw a couple of ward members, James spoke with Heather Bowen who just found out she is pregnant, and Charlie Gordon who works at Walmart and says it is a zoo right now. I waited in the car. It is hot today, around 90 degrees. We are just holding on until it starts raining. 

After eating my ice cream I read to James. We drove along the 60 towards Springerville. We turned off on the dirt road going to Green's Peak but it was too bumpy so we came back. I was ready to go home. The bug bombs/foggers worked! So many dead bugs upstairs when I went to clean. Going on this little ride today was a nice way to spend some times with James. 

Chuck Lewis came today to put freeon in our air conditioner. He also fixed a leak. We are grateful he came today because of our company tomorrow. We have two air conditioning units and the one that was not working was the one for upstairs where Terry and Cathi will probably sleep. 

James went on his horsey ride while I stayed home and studied the gospel and finished getting my steps. No TV today except for "Lark Rise to Candleford" on my phone. Went to bed around 10 tired and hurting.

 Sweet Scarlett

 Logan, Utah temple

 The highlight of the talk for me

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020

Billings, Montana

66th operating temple

Dedicated: 20 Nov 1999

By: Gordon B. Hinckley

Jesus Christ, King

Acts 17:7

Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.

Book of Mormon/"Come Follow Me"

Alma 5:27-56 and "Don't Miss This"

April General Conference

"Ensuring a Righteous Judgment"

Elder James R. Rasband

"A vital and peace-giving contribution of the Book of Mormon to our understanding of the Savior's Atonement is its teaching that Christ's merciful sacrifice fulfills all the demands of justice. As Alma explained, "God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy. to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also." The Father's plan of mercy - what the scriptures also call the plan of happiness" or the plan of salvation - could not be accomplished unless all the demands of justice were satisfied.

"Hope Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
October 1998

James left early this morning. He went by to check on his job and then drove to home to Vernon. The main reason for going home was to mail the book that someone ordered, which he did. He also found Luna and fed her. He watered plants and then headed back to Show Low to pick up his prescription that he did not realize he was out of. He went by the UPS store and mailed the Razr engine which cost him $96. The company we ordered the new engine from said if we could mail the old engine it would save us $800. I wondered if that counted the postage. 

There is one thing James forgot to do. He forgot to deposit the $27,790 check from Mario. He needs that money in his account because he has subcontractor's to pay. I guess we will have to do it down here when he returns.

The girls were in bed until after 10 am. I thought they were asleep but when I went to check on them, they were watching TV in bed.

I had them get up and have some breakfast. They both chose Captain Crunch Cereal. After breakfast we got ready and went down to the pool. All of the good table spots were taken so I set our stuff up on a couple of lounge chairs. The attendant filled their "donuts". He handed the pink donut to Ruby and Lola let him know that the pink one was hers. 

The girls loved the donuts and Ruby used her goggles. Lola used hers until the strap came loose. They swam for about two hours while I sat in the shade and worked on my blog. It go to be pretty warm so, for my sake, we went in. I see alot of older people in the pool who don't look much better than I do. I think next year I am going to bring a swim suit.

As we got ready to leave the pool area our favorite pool attendant, the one who threatened to throw me in, gave the girls some Dots ice cream. They came home and ate their ice cream and then I fixed some lunch. Lola wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and mac and cheese. Ruby only wanted mac and cheese. They both had Sprite to drink. 

Lola wanted to watch TV while she was eating so we turned it on. Funny how you will allow grandkids to do what you wouldn't allow your kids to do. When Lola was finished eating she wanted to make the couch in to a bed so she could watch "this" TV and be more comfortable. So we made the couch into a bed. It's a little crowded when the couch is a bed but I didn't care if they didn't. 

There was a knock at the door and when we answered a resort employer with a mask on, they all have masks on, handed me two envelopes. The envelopes had the pool schedule for the weekend, beginning Friday inside. We  have green wristbands. There were two slots on Friday where pink & green wristbands were scheduled. I called Aaron at the front desk and asked if there was a pink and green wristband and he said yes so I assumed we were not scheduled. I thought the only time the boys were going to be able to swim this weekend was on Saturday morning when green was scheduled. I called Sheri and Trina and Trina said she would bring the boys over tonight and pick up the girls tonight instead of in the morning. I then wrote a letter to the general manager and told that swimming one slot on Saturday and no slots on Friday was unacceptable. She wrote back to me and said she was confused because she gave pink and green two slots on Friday. I told her I thought that was for a pink and green wristband especially after talking to Aaron at the front desk. I apologized for the misunderstanding. Now I feel bad that I had Trina come and get the girls although they did not seem upset. 

James got home around 5 p.m. and went straight in to take a nap so he missed our visitors and didn't know the girls had left. He was sorry he didn't get to say goodbye. When Lola left she said, "Be sure and tell grandpa I said goodbye."

Joshua was not able to come because of Covid so we just have Max, Evan, and Rowan. Max and Evan had already eaten but Rowan hadn't. We cooked the Red Baron cheese pizza we had in the freezer for him. We had family prayer with the boys and James told them he did not want them staying up past 7 a.m. Why would he say that? Oh well, I guess that's one of the joys of being a grandparent. 

I finished walking and James and I watched "Lark Rise to Candleford." 

Ruby and Lola with their Donut floaties

So very cute and grownup looking!

Remodel of our house built in the 70's