My good friend, Marsha and her husband served two missions in Africa. They met this fine, faithful family there and became good friends with them. The father has a mantra that he repeats often. Whenever there are challenges or difficulties he says, "Jesus will come and everything will be fine." Now I find myself repeating it. Isn't that a great mantra?
We did a major renovation to our yard's landscaping. The hill in front was quite steep and dangerous to mow. In the last five years, we have solicited bids to remove the grass and have it terraced three different times, but kept deciding it was too expensive. This time we went forth with it. We have been very pleased with the company we hired. They have been prompt- coming when they said they would, have been efficient, fast, full of integrity, and have done a good job. The owner of the company actually was a little boy in this ward when we moved here. He is now a grown man with a family of his own. We took pictures as the work progressed:
I was so toucned by this post from the Holland family after the funeral of Elder Jeffrey R Holland. As they were cleaning out the house, they thought it would be nice if they could each have a copy of scriptures their parents had owned and marked. As they cleaned things out, this is how many copies of scriptures they found. Scripture study was a high priority to the Hollands.
The Housemaid by Freida McFaddenElder Clark G Gilbert has been called to be the new apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
America’s Youth in Concert
In the state
of Idaho when I was growing up, choir students had the opportunity to audition
for All- state and All-region music festivals.
Each festival included a choir, a band, and an orchestra. Students
auditioned to participate on cassette or reel-to-reel tape. All who wished to audition signed up and were
given an audition time. You went to the
choir room and sang (or played) the proscribed music. Then the teacher mailed the tape with all of
the students’ auditions. All-state was
held every other year, with all-region (the state was divided into regions)
choir being held in the in- between years.
I was lucky in that All-state was held my sophomore and senior
year. I auditioned (by tape) for
all-state as a sophomore and made it. It
was really pretty rare for a sophomore to make it in all-state and I was so
pleased.
My junior
year, I auditioned for and got in the All-region choir. Many from my school made it into that choir,
as it just included our region. I don’t
remember where that was held, but I remember traveling there by bus. I have a very happy memory about that. About
halfway to our destination, the bus stopped at a little elementary school. The school lunch workers had stayed after
lunchtime to prepare a lunch for us. By
the time we got there, it was one or two in the afternoon, and I was
starving. They served the most delicious
macaroni and cheese I have ever tasted.
Obviously, I will never forget that creamy, delicious macaroni and
cheese. Oh my, it was good!
But, back to
the subject. Because I was in all-state
and all-region choirs, I was invited to audition for an all-nation choir called
“America’s Youth in Concert” during my junior year. It was to include students from every state
in the union and would include a band, orchestra, and choir. I sent in my audition tape and was so
surprised and pleased to get an acceptance letter. I talked about it with my parents, and they
were so pleased and willing to pay for it.
I can remember the cost was $1,050 or something like that-a steal by
today’s standards. I signed up. The trip was to originate in New Jersey.
I left a
week before we had to meet in New Jersey to spend a week in Chicago with Patty
and Hal. Hal was in dental school in
Chicago. I had such a fun week with
them. They took me to Nauvoo on the
weekend. They just had Evan then. He was the cutest little boy. It was a special time with my sister who I
love so much.
From
Chicago, I flew to Newark, New Jersey to start the tour.
Over 1,000 students convened there to rehearse
and start the tour. Besides rehearsals,
we had uniform fittings, and social experiences. After three days, we went, by bus, to New
York City and put on a concert at Carnegie Hall. It was a thrill of a lifetime to sing in the
beautiful hall. The concluding number
was The Battle Hymn of the Republic. It is hard to put into words that
spiritual, magnificent experience, singing that gorgeous ballad with the huge
choir, band, and orchestra. We then went
by bus to Washington DC and put on the same concert at the Kennedy Center. It, too, was thrilling to sing in that famous
venue.
We then were
divided into two equal groups to fly to and travel Europe. One group, my group, traveled first to
London, England, then Brussells, Belgium, then Paris, France, then Salzburg,
Austria, then Germany (by mistake- the bus got lost), then three cities in
Italy. The other group started in Italy
and met us in Salzburg for another combined concert, then they reversed our
order of cities.
I loved
visiting the sites in all of the famous cities in Europe. I wished I had spent more time preparing for
my trip- learning about what I was going to see. Also, my camera quit working, so I didn’t
have a camera for some of the trip. Then
a nice girl from New Jersey loaned me an extra camera she had. I still feel horrible guilt that I never sent
her camera back to her after we got home.
I intended to; I just didn’t ever get it done.
For the
first time in my life on this tour, I was away from conservative Idaho. I was on my own. It was 1972, a time of civil unrest. I didn’t know it when I signed up, but the
head of the whole thing- the organizer was a member of my church, a Mormon as
we were called. Rumors started to fly
that he was prejudiced against black people and that a white and black person
should not be seen together. The rumors
grew and turmoil was brewing. We were
divided into smaller groups with a couple at the head of each group. Our group leaders called us together for a
discussion. There were probably 50-60
people in this lounge area of the dormitory in which we were staying. The atmosphere was tense as they discussed the
prejudiced issue. The head of the tour
was discussed and it was mentioned that he was a Mormon. Then one of the students turned to me and
said, “Kay, you’re a Mormon. What do you
believe about the blacks?” Wow! I was on the spot. My heart started beating faster and I said a
silent prayer for help. I opened my
mouth and out came the words, “I don’t know (the leader; I can’t remember his
name now. Maybe Mr. Geddes?) and I don’t
know what he believes, but I do know that our church does not teach us to be
prejudiced. We are taught to love all
people as Jesus does.”
I have often looked back on that moment and
wish I had had more maturity and knowledge, but I do believe the Lord filled my
open mouth with words He wanted said at that moment.
I am so
grateful for the opportunity to be part of America’s Youth in Concert- to
represent my country and my religion.
Non-Fiction Physical Book
I loved this
delightful book. My mom gave it to me as
a Christmas gift in 1983 and I finally got around to reading it. I am so glad.
It truly is a treasure. It isn’t
a page turner, but always a delightful read.
Each chapter is a story from Herriot’s first couple of years as a veterinary
surgeon in the English countryside. I am excited to watch the series on PBS. 4 ½ stars
Pachinko by Min Jin LeeThe children in our neighborhood love to play in our yard. They are here often. They are upset that we are taking out some of our grass in the front yard and replacing it with terraced xeriscaping. The day the workers started on the project, they spent the day making signs and cards and staging a bit of a protest. They all sat across the street in lawn chairs and watched and mourned. They each collected grass to save and framed some of the grass for us. They're a funny bunch.
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| They even had a picnic on the edge. (They often have picnics on our yard.) We have asked them not to play in our yard until the project is completed to protect the equipment, etc and for their safety. It has been a nice reprieve from the noise. It was increasing as more and more children joined the group and they were here many hours a day (and night). I will post pictures of our project. We have been taking them day by day as the work progresses. It's exciting! |
Ken was reading the book Saints at War. It is stories of Latter-Day Saints that have fought in wars. He read about a special conference held for Latter-Day Saint soldiers in Okinawa in 1945. The story was accompanied by a picture of the large gathering. He looked at it and exclaimed, "I think that's my dad!" His father, Lavar Hinton, was stationed on Ie Shima island at that time. Latter-Day saint soldiers from the islands all around were transported by boat to this conference. Ken vaguely remembered reading in his dad's journal about him attending this conference.
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| The drawn line points to who we think is Lavar. |
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| Ken then went to Lavar's journal and found the entry. A man named Jack Lemmon is mentioned in the journal. Jack was also from Hurricane. We now serve in the temple with Jack's son Jim, who is also a sealer. We are so glad both men were preserved in this war. |
Elder Bruce R McConkie's oft-quoted statement on marriage is powerful and worth pondering:
Our grandson, Nathan, Elder Mackrory, shared with us a mantra that he and his mission district came up with.
OPO
That stands for:
Opposition Provides Opportunity
They came up with it during the recent huge snowstorm that inundated the midwest and east. All kinds of things happened during that that hindered their work and plans. Elder Soares was supposed to come to their mission. Because of the storm, his plans were on again/ off again several times. He decided to push through and come "for the missionaries." But they had to travel to be at the chapel by 7:30am so that he could get a flight out before the storm hit. That meant being up and ready at 4am to get there on time. But it was a great opportunity and Nathan outlined so much that he learned from Elder Soares including that opposition is a good thing. We came to earth to have challenges. Elder Soares challenged them to never complain.
Soon thereafter, a car backed into theirs in a parking lot= opposition. The state declared that no one could drive on Sunday because of the snowstorm, so they spent the day in their apartment doing lots of phone contacting. The opportunity came in that they could spend time on the phone, answering questions. They had some great gospel/teaching discussions on the phone.
They had their district conference by facetime and came up with this mantra and shared miracles that have happened because of the storm, building one another's faith.
I thought it was a great mantra and a great way of looking at opposition.
One evening Michelle texted and challenged Ken to a "Calf-off." We're not sure what prompted it that night, but we have known for many years that Ken and Michelle have big, muscular calves. They are both very athletic and exercise regularly which maintains those large muscles. Michelle is a dancer and keeps in very good shape. So anyway, she wanted to know who had the biggest calves.
