Tough week.

It’s been a tough week.  Sometimes it seems like all around me hard things are happening.  Jeanine Andrus’s son died unexpectedly this week and her other son is battling cancer. Then Dorothy Collins was diagnosed with liver cancer. Then Ceil Dinsmore’s daughter, Dana went in for surgery and they learned the tumor she had in her brain was cancerous (but they think they got it all.)  And today Lanetta Bogart’s neighbor came to church to tell Lanetta her house was on fire.  It burned to the ground.

Still, we had some great talks at church today.  One was on having gratitude in times of adversity.  Bro. Howald told a great story about a man riding on the train with his blind daughter.   The man was tired and really wanted to go to sleep, so another passenger said he’d watch the daughter while the man slept.  The father put his daughter on the man’s lap.  Before he dozed off he leaned over and said to his daughter, “Do you know whose lap you are on?” She said, “No.  But you do.”

He talked about how the Lord loves us. John 16:33 says, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Shall is covenant language.  It doesn’t mean maybe, might, or if you’re lucky it won’t happen.  You WILL have tribulation—troubles, trials.  That’s part of life.  But Christ says even with tribulations you should be cheerful and at peace.  The Lord is in charge.  These tribulations are for our benefit.  They can be a blessing to us.

Bro. Howald said that when we go through hard times we can be like that little girl.  We don’t know why we need this, but we can trust our Heavenly Father, just as she trusted her earthly father.  He knows why we need that trial and how it will bless us.

Tom said that when he came home this afternoon, he said, “Thank you house, for still standing.”  Loss helps make us grateful.

I think, perhaps, I have an addiction.  I can’t stay away from houses that need some TLC. Scott Kelley called and said they may be moving back to Mountain Home, and could I check to see if they could get 20 acres for $30,000-40,000.  So I checked out Zillow and Realtor.com.  I can’t filter out cheap houses… so… I found some cheap houses, too!  And it looks like our duplex in St. Louis might sell… the one with the non-paying tenant… So I might actually have some money.  And Susan has some money… so.  We went and looked at homes.  The problem is, when you buy it with IRA money, you can’t work on it.  And that takes some of the fun out of it.  But we have a really good handy-man.  So we will have him take a look and if the numbers work out, we’ll likely put in an offer.  (Oh, then Scott called back and said, no… they decided to move to Ohio.)

This week I pulled the last of the beets. We have the last bowl of ripening tomatoes on our counter.  Winter is coming.  We’ve had frosty days and our garden is ready to be put to bed.  We need some more horse manure to put on it, then, I think I’ll turn the chickens loose in the garden. 

A week ago or so we had some sadness with the chickens.  Something scared them and they all vanished from the pen.  We searched… and two returned, but that was all.  So we have two skittish young chickens who don’t lay eggs (instead of 3 skittish non-laying chickens and two old biddies one of whom occasionally laid an egg.)  They also have changed their lifestyle and now spend most of their time in the chicken coop… hiding from monsters?  The good side of that is that I don’t have to wait until dusk to close up the coop.  I can do it any time in the late afternoon.

Tuesday was a fun day.  I was interviewed by one of the co-owners of AWAI for their Professional Writer’s Alliance.  My thirty minutes of fame. But it was easy to answer the questions and she did a great job of interviewing.  

Most of the rest of my working week was spent on spec assignments.  I stewed over the Weiss assignment.  It’s in the financial field and really very competitive.  I learned a lot and I finally got something I was pleased with.  And I’m really glad IT’S DONE!  If I get this assignment it will truly be by the grace of God.

I’d invited the missionaries to dinner, but they had to cancel.  They said what if we just call you when we have a free night.  I said fine.  Might be peanut-butter sandwiches, but sure.  So as we were looking at houses on Thursday, they texted: “Can we come to dinner?”  I’d thought about breakfast burritos, but hamburgers seemed easier.  We invited our neighbor, Barbara, over and had a nice evening.

Friday I made a dessert—Banana split cake—and then on Saturday I cooked a turkey for the Ward Thanksgiving dinner.   They planned on 130 people and I think 175 showed up.  Still, we had PLEANTY of leftovers.  Must be a loaves and fishes thing.   It was nice to visit with all the members.

This morning I got a call to see if I could lead the music in Sacrament.  Fine.  Then walking out of sacrament, the missionaries asked if I could teach the Gospel Principles class.  Ummm sure!  I’d read the Relief Society lesson so I could support one of my visiting teaches who was teaching.  But I hadn’t read the Gospel Principles lesson.  Fortunately, the lesson manual is laid out so it’s pretty easy to teach.  I felt like my Kenya Mission background kicked in.  Need a talk?  Need a lesson? Sure!  And when you are teaching about basic principles… ya know the material.

I visit taught a sister after church.  Then the choir is practicing before and after church for the Christmas program.  And then I talked with someone… and then went to the hospital to see Dorothy… and now it’s blog time and time to write to the missionaries who are serving from our branches in Kenya.