Tuesday, September 09, 2014

         We are on the morning shift now and love it.  Our walk to the temple in the early hour does make us wish we were out for a run or a hike, though.  The weather is beautiful, the winds calm, and the fresh day beckoning.  The hardest thing about the early schedule is having to do the treadmill in the afternoon!  I shouldn’t complain, however, since we are lucky to have one at all.  After studying awhile, Glade needed activity, so he walked down to the grocery store and picked up a few items that weren’t too heavy to carry back up the hill—no taxi! 

         The first session was full of missionaries this morning and we love it when they come.  There are very few North American faces in these groups whether sisters or elders.  I visited today with one sweet sister from Phoenix, AZ, who is going home in November and says she loves her mission and isn’t ready to return home yet.  Some are new and seem so young, but they are spiritually strong and growing!  It made me think of Clint Bradbeer (Stephanie Peterson’s oldest son) who is in the MTC in Mexico City and will soon be headed to Nicaragua.  The missionaries can’t leave their mission area to come here to the temple, so we won’t see him, but it’s fun to think that he will soon be close to us.

         We are missing our home-canned fruit and summer’s end garden produce.  Apparently the Honeycrisp apple crop in Milo froze in the spring so there won’t be any applesauce from that source this year.  We understand, too, that because of all the rains, grain crops are being plowed under or sold at a low price for feed, and that the potato crop is at risk as well.  Is there a message here we should pay attention to--

         Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.  We know the Lord is blessing us and helping us with our challenges.  We are preparing for General Conference and hope you are excited about it, too. 

         Love and prayers to each of you!!  

I tried to get a key to the Church to practice today, but the Brother and Sister Cruz were not available.  The photos below are just random pictures taken as I walked back to our apartment building.   

It's too dark to see, but the green area in the lower left was lit by the lowering sun and was beautiful.
It wasn't captured very well, but the clouds look great!!

New construction is taking place across the way right in the center of the photo--the gray walls are hard to see.
We'll be watching to see what it turns out to be.

This sidewalk leads to one side of the Chapel.  I love the flowering border.