Monday, September 21, 2009

Busy Week !!

We have had a very busy and interesting week betginning on the 12th of September. I was able to attend a special priesthood leadership conference in Manti with Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Elder Richard Hinckley and Elder Daniel Jones. It was a wonderful 3 hours of instruction held in the beautiful historic Manti Tabernacle.

Pam joined me that evening at the home of the Manti Stake President where he and his wife hosted a dinner for the stake Presidents and the general authorities. After a wonderful dinner and visiting Elder Christofferson followed us home and spent the night in our home. It was so enjoyable to visit with him and find out about his life and family and share our experiences also. The next day he presided at a special stake conference for our stake and we had a rich outpouring of the spirit as we heard from Elder Christofferson and Elder Jones.

Wednesday Pam went to a dentists appointment to examine an tooth that was giving her problems and Doctor Jeffries referred her to an endodontist in Sandy and we went up to Salt Lake Thursday morning and within two hours he had found two missing canals and hopefully fixed the problem she was having. We had also leanred earlier in the week that My Aunt Mae, my mothers sister, had died last weekend and the funeral was scheduled for Saturday in Logan, so we stayed up north in a hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.

As we tried to find the hotel we were blocked from getting to where we wanted to go by huge tents and other items that ended up being the set up for the Dew Tour stop in Salt Lake City.

As you might imagine we rushed right out and got tickets (just kidding), but young people were everywhere and parking around the hotel was at a premium.

Early Friday morning we went to the Distribution center and when done there went across the street and took a tour of the Humanitarian Center.


The tour was very enjoyable and we are amazed at the good the church is doing throughout the world. We were joined in our tour by a extended Tongan family and after the tour was over one of the ladies came up to us and introduced herself (becauase we had mentioned along the way that we had lived in Tonga) and she told us her name and asked if we knew Zola Larsen and LaVona Thomas. She was named for these two ladies and they happened to be wives of building missionaries in Tonga when we were there in 1957-1958. We had a wonderful few minutes with them and we knew her family very well and many of her relatives. What a small world.

Later in the day we did a searach for tile in several showrooms and it is amazing how many tile and stone stores there are in Salt Lake. Later in the afternoon we visited Lynn and Yvonne at their new home in Kaysville and had a wonderful time with them.

Saturday morning we headed north to Logan and attended the funeral service for Aunt Mae. Upon arrival in Logan I saw a sign on one of the stores which read "0 Days to the Top of Utah Marathon." I didn't think too much of it, but getting closer to the downtown area we came to a slow crawl as we came upon marathon runners going up main street. We were finally able to turn east and made our way to the chapel in time for the service.

As I mentioned, Aunt Mae was my mothers last living sibling, and so we have arrived at the end of an era. Uncle Art is doing fairly well but will miss his wife very much. He has a large extended family in the Logan area to help him adjust to the loss in his life.

Our week of fun ended as we returned to Monroe and to Sidney! He never seems to learn how to run away.