Progress and the past

I see this time as a critical moment before significant life changes. With the upcoming opportunity of serving the Lord on a 23 month mission, We are in the process of clearing and cleaning out the past and setting up for our new roles and challenges. A lot of what we are doing is going though the massive amount of things we have accumulated in the house over the past 32 years (including a lot I inherited when my parents passed on). What is significant? What is necessary? A lot of trips have been made to Deseret Industries (including this morning) and many items have been given away through FreeCycle. Our nephew is interested in some of the church books, which makes it easier to give them away. We'll see how that goes.

The other side of things has to do with preparation. One interesting development is that I recently discovered a new app for the iPad, NovoCard. I hoped that the iPad would be useful in my future work, and I hoped for some programming and database environment so I could make some organizational tools like I have done in the past. Up until now that hope has been in vain. NovoCard is based on the idea of HyperCard, which was my tool of choice for the past 25 years (lately using SuperCard). NovoCard is based on JavaScript, which I have already been using in web programming. The product is still in its early stages and some of the functionality is still unproven or not working (e. g. Functions), but that will be soon remedied. I have hope in it as a very useful tool for me. The author of the app has been communicating with me and is taking my suggestions to heart. An interesting point I discovered today is that he was once a Univac programmer like me, so we have some things in common.

The final point of this posting is that my spiritual preparation for the mission is ongoing. I love reading the scriptures and enjoy the inspirational insights I get. I have one that I have been developing recently and will post in another blog entry soon.