Jam-Packed Week

It s been a wild week.  So much stuffed into it.  We had a delightful time at Mom’s and hated to leave.   Monday evening we went out for a delicious Chinese dinner.  Tuesday we left at the crack of dawn…um… pre-crack of dawn, driven by our faithful brother-in-law Jim.

We had an uneventful flight home.  It was kind of fun.  We sat next to a country singer, Bobbie Dean, on our last leg.  He had to hoof it to get to his show on time.  We had our friend pick us up and drove home in good time.   It was good to sleep in our own bed again.

Beans had grown in our absence, so we froze a half dozen or more bags of green beans.  Tomatoes were also giving their last gasp with ripening tomatoes on dead vines.  Saturday afternoon we did two batches of salsa.

Wednesday I did visiting teaching. We have a sister who is quite ill.  She’s 89.  Tom and I have visited her for years.  She recently went into the hospital, then a retirement home, then back to the hospital, then to rehab.  There were times I visited her that I wasn’t sure she’d be around… but she seems to be rallying some.  She has two little dogs that were her constant companions.  Her whole goal was to get back to her babies.  Her daughter didn’t think she could live alone any more, thus the retirement home.  Now it’s likely to be a nursing home as she doesn’t have the strength to do things for herself.  However, this week we just learned that the daughter had the two dogs put down.   I was shocked!  What if the mother gets well enough the dogs could have come visit???  And if she learns they were put down, she will be furious with her daughter and likely die mad.  I suppose grief may make one do strange things, but it seemed not well reasoned to me.  Now the daughter’s worried mom will get better.  How terrible is that?

Thursday I had a call with the co-founder of AWAI about the AWAI Boot Camp I’m going to next week. She answered a few questions I had about Boot Camp. Then I prepared for the seminary training. I trained by phone that evening instead of a group meeting.  It’s hard to get good attendance even when all they have to do is pick up the phone and listen.  But those that were on the call were involved and it went well.

Friday Tom and I drove to Branson.  I love the Harvest Festival at Silver Dollar City.  It has a cowboy theme and lots of craftspeople.  We watched a … lumber man?  house builder? trimming logs.  He axed off and trimmed the sides of the logs so they could be used for log homes.  He’s built about 35 houses!  One log at a time.  We watched pewter makers and potters and weavers. Glass blowers, wood carvers, quilters, painters.  One painter has Parkinson’s, his wife said… but he still paints!  This time we didn’t go on ANY rides.  We watched a wild west stunt show, a performing horse, a world champion roper, a cowboy poet, a Dutch oven care class, and a horse trainer with his no-longer-wild mustangs.

We dined at IHOP and stayed at the Dutton Theater Hotel.  Saturday Tom had a training in Branson.  Actually, I was to have had my Seminary training on Saturday… but I thought, with the next training in two weeks (at Stake conference) let’s save on travel for my people.  That was before I knew TOM had to go to Branson.  So he dropped me off at the library and I worked on shortening a Christmas program script for our December program.  Then I worked on a few things to prepare for my trip to AWAI Boot Camp.

When we came home Saturday afternoon, I tried to get some things organized for Boot Camp, but ended up spending about 4 hours making salsa.  Tom made a cake and brownies for Bishop’s Youth Discussion which was on Sunday, and I frosted the cake.  Then about 8pm as he’s talking to the missionaries, I hear him say, “Sure, Sandy will be glad to teach that class.”

Actually, I was.  I love teaching Gospel Principles.  This one was on the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  I took a picture of a kitchen machine a friend gave me—the kind that does mixing, chopping, blending and so on.  It was all in a box in pieces.  We talked about what good this gift does me if it just sits in this box in the family room.  What would the giver think if she knew that the gift she gave with love and charity was sitting there unused?  It came without a manual, so I’ll need to work to figure out how to use it.  How is this like the gift of the Holy Ghost?  We reject the giver if we don’t use it.  It doesn’t do us any good at all or bless us if we don’t use it.  We need to work at it to figure out the language of the spirit to get full use.  And when we do that—the Spirit can help us do lots of things.

Tom had BYD after church.  I did my last visiting teaching right after church with a sweet sister who spends all week out of town.  Then rushed home to be there when the kids started arriving.  They actually waited for Tom and all came in a clump.   Now it’s blog writing time.  Then time to think about packing.

I’ll leave tomorrow and go to Miranda’s and visit Tuesday.  Then early Wednesday I fly to Del Ray Beach, Florida.  The Boot Camp begins Wed afternoon.  It goes from 7am-9pm Thurs and Friday and most of Saturday. I’ll fly back to Miranda’s on Sunday and hope to catch church there in the afternoon.  Then I’ll drive home on Monday.  So you may not get a blog next Sunday.  And if you do… it will be full of things I learned at Boot Camp!