July 17th through July 23rd

One of our workers sent this to me this last week.  We are not faking it, we were having a good time.

July 17^th through July 23^rd: Monday we went shopping and then took the Gordon’s and the Winkfield’s to the Oakland mall to have lunch at Panda Express and then go to the new Spiderman movie.  We had a nice afternoon together.  We had a great week back in the temple.  It was busier than usual.  I guess people had missed the temple during the two week closure and they wanted to come the first week it was open again.  Wednesday we spent the day cooking for the secretaries, the two recorders and the presidency.  We are going to cook for 9 new stake presidents and their wives next week (we will be feeding 24) and I needed to try out two new Chinese recipes, copycat Panda Express orange chicken and Peking beef.  It went well and they thought both dishes were excellent.  Saturday was really busy.  We had 16 sessions and most of them were full.  Saturday afternoon we went to speak at a ward conference.  They were having a dinner for all the adults as part of their ward conference.  The meeting lasted about an hour and then they served ribs, a potatoe, and salad. Mom and I both spoke.  These informal meetings are more fun speak at because you can have a lot of interaction with the members.  

It was a packed house.

Brother and Sister Monroy two of our temple workers.

The flowers were magnificent.

We had entertainment for our dinner.

This is our table for dinner.  L to R the stake patriarch and his wife, Sister and Bishop Perez, Mom and I, Brother and Sister Velasquez, first counselor, and Sister and Brother Lopez, second counselor.

Sunday after church, in the afternoon, we had a planning meeting in the temple for the temple presidency and our recorder.  We then spoke with most of our children.  They are getting ready to celebrate pioneer days in Utah and Ginny and Sam are enjoying India.  Sam is working on a project there for 2 months and Ginny and the girls are with him.  Charlotte, her son, Evan, and John and Jill’s son, Moose/James, are coming to visit us in three weeks and they and we are getting excited for their visit. Evan and Moose turn 12 this summer and we wanted them to come and do baptisms for the dead here in the temple we work in.  I wanted to say in our temple, but it is not ours, it is the Lord’s temple.  We are just privileged to preside here for a time.  We feel so blessed by this assignment and still wonder “How did we get here?”, “Why us?”  We never seem to find an adequate answer.  We are only left with the feeling of profound gratitude and awe by this calling.