Fall 2016 Family and Europe Trip - part 1 - From Utah to Virginia

This is the beginning of several blog posts I will be making detailing the experiences we had in our recent extended trip to see family and friends in the East and in Europe.

We had hoped to have completed the sale of our home by the 1st of September and then start on our trip later that day, however, the process took longer than planned. After closing on our home on the 7th, we left the valley heading south, intending to cross the country on Interstate 70 and visiting a few temples along the way.

We first headed to Fruitland and visited an old friend, Vickie Potter in their rustic home. It had been a number of years since we saw the Potters after they moved from our West Jordan neighborhood, so it was good to see her again. He was away at the time, so we missed him.

Shauna and Vickie

Rather than going all the way down to I-70 initially, we decided to follow US highway 40, so we went to Vernal, visited the temple there and then headed east from there into Colorado.

Shauna at the Vernal Temple

We began looking for a place to have a late lunch and ended up at a little café in Dinosaur, Colorado. It was a small place where the only woman there was waitresses, cook, and babysitter.

Don't I look like a bundle of joy?

We spent the night in Golden, Colorado and then visited the Denver temple and participated in a session there, serving as the witness couple.



At the Denver Temple

We traveled the rest of the state of Colorado and across Kansas, staying the night near the Kansas City, Missouri Airport. The next day, we attended the temple in Kansas City and were once again the witness couple. It was wonderful to mingle with the members attending these sessions with us. Everywhere we go, the blessings of the Lord can be found among the people.



Shauna at the Kansas City Temple

After Kansas City, we struggled through the rush hour traffic of the city and then made our way across the state to St. Louis and found the temple there. We attended there and were once again blessed with being asked to be the witness couple for the session.



 The St. Louis Temple    

After leaving St. Louis, it was getting towards evening and we drove through the city, saw the grand arch, 



A drive-by of the Arch

crossed the Mississippi River and on into Illinois.



Crossing the Mississippi into Illinois

From there, we headed through and out of town (seeing the arch along the way), stopping for gas a little ways into  Illinois. The road conditions were difficult and so we took another route, but then back to Interstate 64 and on towards Indiana. The weather conditions were difficult with severe rain and also tornado and flood warnings along the way. It was dark and so it was difficult to see. I followed the tail lights of a truck most of the way. We stopped at a Hardees for some dinner and then on to Evansville, Indiana to stay at a Super 8 there, not far off the freeway. 

After Evansville, we traveled into Kentucky,



and on to Louisville and attended the temple there. Again, we enjoyed the wonderful spirit of the people. Usually the sessions were small, but the spirit was not. We were not the witness couple, but sat next to them.



The Louisville Kentucky Temple

We headed on towards Virginia, after stopping at a Kentucky Fried Chicken (in Kentucky).  I loved when the woman serving us at the window said, "And have a blessed day!"  True Southern hospitality! We enjoyed traveling again through Kentucky. It was beautiful seeing the horses running in their fields and the countryside is beautiful. After Kentucky, we went through the main part of West Virginia, including the capitol, Charleston. 



From there to Virginia was beautiful, except for the tolls required, not in themselves that they were much, but that we found out too late that they did not accept credit cards and we were out of cash. 

At last, by evening, we arrived in Raphine, Virginia and visited with and stayed the night with Beth and Ray. The next day was Sunday and we attended church with them in the Lexington, Virginia Ward. After a nice meal that Ray cooked, we visited a while and then headed out to Maryland to visit Aaron and his family (continued on the next blog entry).



Here we are with Ray and Beth in Virginia

Here we are together. Next is a picture as it looks behind us at their beautiful place.



(Continued on the next blog entry.)

Our Changing Life

We sold our home at the beginning of September. After our son moved out into his own place, we decided that we no longer needed a 6-bedroom home with a large yard. It was very, very difficult, especially for me, to leave our home of almost 36 years. We will miss it and especially miss our neighbors and friends. We will, of course, keep in contact with them, but unfortunately it always happens that the closeness is lost in the change.

We had many memories in our home, both good and bad, but primarily they were wonderful times.

As we finished our mission at the end of August, we also were finished with major upgrades in our home, prior to selling it. We had some help from friends in the ward, who provided much needed professional help, especially in upgrading our bathrooms. We love Kenny and Brien and appreciate their wonderful help in this. There were many others who helped and we appreciate them as well.

As we finished the mission, we also found it difficult to be less involved with those special people we came to know and love in our missionary service. We are continuing to keep connected with many of them and will do so in the future. We cannot cut off the love we had developed for them, but, again, the choice closeness will be unfortunately lost as well with them. We pray that the Lord will continue to bless them, and have already seen that He is still blessing many of them.

As we worked towards selling our home, we, of course, started working towards a new place to live and settled on a new home construction of a town house in the Daybreak community of Garden Park, in South Jordan. The home was not scheduled for completion until mid-October, so we planned to take a break after our mission was completed to travel for those 6 weeks. We are now back from that trip and are still waiting for the completion of our new home. It should be finished in the middle of next week. We have already gotten connected with our new ward and have already been extended calls in the ward.

Our trip that we just completed was simply amazing in many ways. Some days, we went to bed wondering how we could have had such incredible experiences, and found that the next day was the same or better! We visited our son and his family in Maryland and our daughter and her family in New York. On the way there, we visited many temples. From New York, we flew to Europe and visited our people in Ravensburg and then went up through Germany and into Denmark, finally returning to Hamburg, Germany and flying home, then visiting family for yet another week before traveling home.

The upcoming blog entries will describe that trip and show pictures. We have had many people ask about the trip, so we are sharing it in this manner. Also, some of our visits in Germany and Denmark was for the purpose of seeing the places where our ancestors lived, so some of these blog posts will be very specific concerning these family lines, so they may have a different audience of interest.

As we get settled in our new home, hopefully soon, we are also starting to fill out mission papers for our next mission, hopefully to begin next spring. We will keep you posted.

Thanks for all the wonderful times we have had with many of you. We love you all.

As a Hen Gathers

As you all may have noticed, I have not posted much lately. We have finished our mission and entered some significant changes in our lives. I intend to spend a little time now recording some of my thoughts that developed in the past few months in our mission.

Here is the first of several thoughts.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The other day, as I was reading in the Book of Mormon, in my studies, I reviewed the phrase Christ used in saying that He would gather us as a hen gathers her chicks. I was waiting in the temple at the time, reading in third Nephi. The thought occurred to me how a hen really gathers her chicks. Having lived with chickens a lot as I was growing up, I recalled how she calls with a specific, steady, but quiet clucking sound. The chicks listening, respond very quickly, usually to see what is the focus of her attention, often something nice to eat, but as the Savior uses the phrase, it is for her to bring them under her wings for safety. We, too, are familiar with our Savior's quiet voice, though we often drown it out with the noise of daily life and concerns. Whereas the chicks are immediately ready to respond to her call, we usually have other things occupying our attention and do not hear nor respond to those quiet, steady call of the spirit and miss the outstretched arms of our Lord, waiting to bring us under His protection.

The metaphor is used by Jesus at the end of his ministry, recorded in Matthew, chapter 23 and Luke chapter 13 - also as I discovered it in 3 Nephi 10. I also found it better described in the Doctrine and Covenants, mentioning the voice:

D&C 29:2 Who will gather his people even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, even as many as will hearken to my voice and humble themselves before me, and call upon me in mighty prayer.

May we be always ready to respond to His call and come to his protection in this world of trouble and concern.

Temple Blessings

The Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Today was a beautiful day. My post for this day is more like the ones I posted when we were serving in Germany. I enjoyed showing the beauties of the area and the temple experiences we had. Today is much like that.

Our Mountains are Beautiful here in this Mission

In our work we visit and teach a number of people and families. The influence we have, really is the influence of the Holy Ghost as people open up to the opportunities we bring as set-apart missionaries, representatives of Jesus Christ in  inviting others to come to Christ. Our mission is not as much directed to convert baptisms. That is the focus of the younger missionaries. We do work together with them in many cases and our involvement with the many people of the stake often overlap.

Today we were blessed to be in the temple with a wonderful family. We have been visiting them for about a year and today they were sealed as a family for all eternity in the temple of the Lord.

The ceremony was wonderful and the children did well. Many tears of joy were shed.

We thank the Lord for the blessings of the temple and for the experiences we are having in His work.

Family

Life is always interesting. We find our selves quite busy with our mission activities. In our weekly reports we are asked to report on the number of lessons given, people who are attending sacrament meeting (of our focus group of people - currently about 53 households), along with reports of people receiving ordinances (baptism, priesthood, temple, etc.), and people transferred to the younger missionaries. This does not include the many other times of service, mostly helping people get to doctors, shopping, etc. But through it all, we try to get family time.

We have had a practice of holding a family party on a Sunday evening, once a month. Because of people moving, and many other conflicts, our get-togethers are sometimes large and sometimes small, but we enjoy those wonderful times together, especially when we are so busy.

I just wanted to give that kind of a little report here on the blog, along with a picture of yesterday's gathering.



As you can tell, this is not a posed picture. I love taking pictures of people when they are not expecting it.

We are doing well. We love our family and are truly blessed of the Lord.

A Perfect Day - the journal entry

January 21 - This was a perfect day. It was not that everything went flawlessly, nor that plans for the day were completed with utter precision. Actually the latter was definitely not true. It was just a very fulfilling day.

At the beginning of the day, with the expectation of attending the temple in mind, and needing a name or two for Shauna to do family work in the temple, I started putting in names into FamilySearch for temple work - in hopes that some would work for the day. The previous night, I had done some searching in Danish records and found what could have been the father of my 3rd-great-grandmother. As I assembled my notes and started entering the information from what I found in the research, I realized that not only did I have his information, but I also had his wife, who was the mother of my 3rd-great-grandmother! As I checked for duplicates or already existing information on them in FamilySearch, I found that the work has not been done for them, so I next proceeded to print out the Family Ordinance Request sheet, only to discover that we can now print the actual temple cards, so I got them printed and ready for the work later in the day.

Next, we hurried off (after breakfast and our combined reading of the Book of Mormon - Ether 11 and 12), we went to visit our 9:30 appointment. She was not answering, so Shauna thought of going to the other part of the building to visit another less-active sister. It was really a very inspired decision, because she was home and was in real need of encouragement. She was in the depths of depression from a difficult past weekend with family issues following the funeral of her grandmother. Our visit with her was well received and she was visibly brighter as we left.

Normally, we would have been in our Spanish class and mostly finished when we left our visit, and we might not have gone to class since we were so late, but we expected to pick up some used clothing from one of our fellow students (for our Spanish Branch people), so we drove up to Sandy for that purpose. We enjoyed a little Spanish instruction at the end of class and were promised to receive the clothing after our next class with them.

From there, we went to the temple and did baptisms for the dead and initiatory ordinances. Shauna and I did the work for my 4th great grandparents, and others. After that, we helped one of our people get to the doctor office and pharmacy. While Shauna was with her in the doctor office, I did my daily DuoLingo assignment.

After taking the sister home, we went to our appointment with a family where we taught the sixth temple preparation lesson. It was a wonderful lesson. They are ready to go to the temple and are excited about it. He will be presented this coming weekend at Stake Conference to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood.

After that, we had our first opportunity to go home and I got a simple dinner prepared and Shauna continued working on some laundry for one of our people who is recovering from shoulder surgery. Mark came home from work and was with us. We talked about our upcoming temple meeting and he joined us for that and the temple endowment session that followed. It was a beautiful ending to a wonderful day.

The Remission of Sins and Preparing for the Second Coming of the Lord

As I was reading the scriptures, I encountered the phrase "remission of sins" in a context that made me think. This was in 3 Ne 1:23 and it spoke of the remission of sins, but not of an individual receiving a forgiveness of sins, but a group of people having this great effect. The concept of remission of sins has always been in my mind as being synonymous with receiving a forgiveness from God, having a particular sin removed and blotted out. With this new thinking, I thought of the concept of remission of sins in a much broader sense.

The key is the process that follows repentance. Mormon explains it well in his letter to Moroni in Moroni 8:26, "And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer, until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God." It is a process which is driven by the power of the Holy Ghost and leads to being a new and a changed person, not just the removal of a particular sin as we strive to overcome our sins and imperfections.

I see it as a three-step process:
Step 1 is the forgiveness, having our sins taken away. Step 2 is to have the effect of sin taken away. Step 3 is to have the desire of sin taken away, having no more the disposition to do evil, but to do good continually (Mosiah 5:2). This is an ongoing process, the conditions of repentance, not just what we do before baptism or a one-time change of heart for repentance, and it is the on-going effect of the the Holy Ghost that is key in every step.

Concerning the second step, as we learn about the atonement, we come to better understand the process and the need to have the effect of sin removed. The Savior suffered the "pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people." (Alma 7:11) It is the wonderful blessing of the atonement that makes our progress even possible. We are often hurt, wounded and suffer from the effects of our own sins and the sins of others. It is an essential part of the remission of sins.

The third step is what the people experienced in the beginning of third Nephi - the removal or lessening of the disposition to sin - individually and as a people.

Looking back at that people in Third Nephi, we see that they were amazed by the signs of the birth of Jesus.  It is evident that they were not a perfected people and they began to be less amazed and believed the lies Satan told them, but that through the work of Nephi and the other church leaders that the people progressed and learned and grew towards perfection. A great remission of sins was the result. The people as a whole became less inclined to sin, to be less consumed by pride - and they became full of "meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer" (as stated in Moroni 8:26). As a whole, the people were more prepared for the coming visit of the Savior to them. It allowed them to weather the powerful attacks of Satan, which did pull many away, but still left many who were ready for the coming of Christ.

I see that today, as we look forward to the coming of Christ, that same is so necessary. We have the promise that we will not become totally lost as it happened in the apostasy of the many previous dispensations, but that the Kingdom of God will keep progressing until the Savior comes. How is that to be? It is as more and more of us as a group become less inclined to sin, more and more filled with meekness and lowliness of heart - the result of the remission of sins.

How does it happen? is it by our best efforts? No.

When Christ did come and visit his people in America, he taught them:
3_Nephi 12:2 "… blessed are they who shall believe in your words, and come down into the depths of humility and be baptized, for they shall be visited with fire and with the Holy Ghost, and shall receive a remission of their sins."

It comes through the cleansing fire that can only come with the Holy Ghost.

The thing to remember is the absolute necessity of continual prayer. As we repent and are forgiven and go through the process of the remission of sins, it must be accompanied by constant prayer. The lessening or the lack of the desire to sin is not a switch that is turned in our souls. It is the natural consequence that comes through true repentance where we recognize that we are powerless on our own to become "[filled] with hope and perfect love" as Mormon puts it. It "[endures] by diligence unto prayer." (Moro 8:26)

I love the way Alma states it as he spoke to the wicked people of Ammonihah:

Alma 13:28 "But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering;"

Our desire to sin, or the lack thereof, is our ability to endure temptation. To be able to do so, we must "watch and pray continually."

As a people striving to be ready for the coming of our Savior, we understand the need for the 4 steps (principles and ordinances of the Gospel), but to truly be "baptized by immersion for the remission of sins," means that we first have our sins removed, then the effects of the sins burned away the fire of the Holy Ghost, and then continue to watch and pray always that we are freed from the desire to sin. Then, as a people, because of the atonement of Christ, we can be able to withstand the power of Satan as he attempts to thwart the great blessing of the coming of our Lord - so we can rejoice with the throngs who are ready to meet Him.