July 20th through the 24th

 Check out the 3 videos posted right before this post.

 July 20^th:  I’m starting to feel better but mom is still under the weather.  We finished our shift today and were asked to speak to a group of young adults from La Paz.  There were about 50 of them.  Mom did a good job with voice that sounds like she should sing bass.  I felt good about my talk also.

July 22^nd:  Pres. Crayk had to go to Santa Cruz again today.  So went with his wife and the Johnsons to the Esmeralda Ward.  I drove for the first time.  It’s only about a 15 to 20 minute drive east of the temple.  The Johnsons spoke and then I spoke.  I changed my talk on sacrifice to fit the situation and added the story about Samuel the Lamanite.  I think it was a good talk.  I am trying to translate it because Sister Crayk said she would like to read it in English.  I will finish it in the next few days and post it for the kids.  We also had to teach a combined RS and Priesthood class for the 3^rd hour.  Mom had worked on an outline on “we are a covenant people and what are our responsibilities as a covenant people.”  We then traded off taking turns talking and teaching.  It turned out really good and mom is going to make this into a talk she can have on hand for one of our upcoming speaking assignments.  We came home and cooked dinner for the Johnsons and Sister Crayk.  We had pork chops, cabbage and augratin potatoes.  It was fun to have people over.

This is Brother Ramos' new son about 6 weeks old.  He works in the temple and lives in the Esmeraldas' Ward Where we spoke July 22nd.

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July 23^rd:  I decided to cook Chinese today.  But first we cleaned the apartment, which entails moving all the furniture and sweeping and then mopping the floors.  We then went shopping for things I needed.  I made Kung pao chicken, Crispy honey chicken, sweet and sour fried egg plant and a spicy cucumber salad.  We had invited the Kennedys, the Winkfields, the Cardons and the Crayks.  Sister Kennedy also made sweet and sour chicken.  We decided to have the dinner at the Crayks because they have the biggest table.  We ate about 4:30pm and then all of us went to a party to raise money for Claudia the woman who is in charge of the laundry at the temple who has cancer.  She is not going to make it. The cancer has spread from her ovaries to her stomach and is everywhere. She will have some chemotherapy treatment but that will only give her a little time.  She has 3 small children.  The party was incredible over 1000 people.  They had musical acts and other performers.  It had started at 2:00pm, we didn’t get there until 6:00pm and we stayed till about 9:00pm. They had a raffle we bought 6 tickets and 3 of them won 3 big baskets of food.  The first one had a fifth of whiskey in it so I took it back to the stage, everyone was laughing.  The next basket I won I gave back so someone else could win.  The next one I was too embarrassed that we had won again that I didn’t even want to go up.  Sister Diaz grabbed the ticket and ran up there and got the basket.  So I let her take that one home.  I will post some pictures and video of the party on the blog.  I’m sure they raised a lot of money for her family.

Some of our group at the party for Claudia July 23rd

This is Claudia with one of the singers.  Claudia is the one the party was for.

Sister Diaz with you basket of Groceries which she won with our ticket.  She is the wife of the other counselor in the Temple Presidency.

July 24^th:  Pioneer Day.  I thought a lot about all of you at home today, climbing Ensign Peak and Lagoon.  Then when we started getting pictures of the kids at Lagoon, we got even more homesick.  We went to lunch with the Kennedys and the Crayks.  It is 2 for 1 at Tuesdays on Tuesdays.  So Pres. Crayk and I had ribs and Connie and mom had BBQ Chicken.  It was a nice meal and with tip and drinks and everything was only $10.  We decided at lunch that we would play cards in the evening.  Crayks had the morning shift and we were off.  So we played cards for a couple of hours.  The women won again.

July 25^th:  We had the morning shift and the temple was busy, 2 sealings and 6 new endowments.  Pres Crayk at cards the night before had said that the group from Argentina wanted to have an early session at 8:00am and then all the men in the group would go to the Baptistery and their youth would come up and they would do baptisms then they would leave for a 19 hour trip back to Argentina.  He said that we needed to get some people to help us, since we were on in the morning we would be in charge of making everything happen.  So the Kennedys got enlisted there at cards to officiate and I called the Perezs to help in the clothing and new name booth.  It went well, they had 20 people show up.  It made for a busy morning.  We didn’t do much in the afternoon and evening.  I worked on translating my talk and mom studied and went and did iniciatory.

The group from Argentina leaving.