John and Christine's Adventures: Jan. 2nd through Jan. 14th

Wednesday, Jan. 2^nd through Jan. 12^th: I have only one new picture in the cameras and we didn’t have a calendar for the first 10 days of the month. So I am having a hard time remembering what we did for the last two weeks. Usually I will write something on the calendar that hangs on the wall as you enter the kitchen to remind me of what I want to blog about for that day. But after a few days, my mind has a hard time remembering details. I know we went to the temple and worked all of our shifts and that we attended a few extra sessions. I know after one of those sessions Mom and I did the sealings for Aunt Doris and Aunt Edna to be sealed to their parents, August and Marie Norman. I don’t know what happened, but when I was looking on New Family Search I noticed these had not been done. One had been reserved by Gar, who died a few years ago and one by Liz Strickwerda, one of Tad’s girls. I contacted Liz and she said she looked on her account and did not have it reserved. Well, I had to contact Family Search and get them to re-assign it to me. Now they are done. Those Norman aunties loved each other and they were devoted to their parents, so it is nice to know that their work is complete. I know I cooked a new Chinese dish of fried noodles, but I don’t know which day I did that. Traditionally the temple is the busiest in the month of Jan. The first week was kind of slow but last week we were packed. The patron housing building was overflowing with groups from Tarija, Argentina, Santa Cruz and La Paz. We had at least one session each morning where we had to set up chairs.

Monday, Jan. 7^th: We had a Family Home Evening with all of the temple missionaries Monday evening. The Kennedys were in charge, they are leaving Feb. 4^th, and they told about a few things that they have learned on their mission and then had all of us write a few things down that we have learned. They had some of us then share with the group what we had learned. There were so many interesting perspectives, we all decided we wanted a copy of everything that people had learned, so they will type it up and get us all a copy. We had made a list of things we had learned last year and had shared them with our children but maybe some of you that read this blog would be interested, so here are ours:

Dad’s

1. That sacrifices are rewarded with blessings.

2. That if you want to understand a gospel principle you should study it and then write a talk. Inspiration will help you understand it even better as you write the talk.

3. That there is always two sides to everything and you should try and understand both sides before you pass judgment.

4. That there are ways to bless your children and grandchildren from afar that in some cases are better than if you were near them.

5. That the Spirit can lead and guide you to do things without you even knowing it.

6. That technology can help you understand and study things in marvelous ways.

7. That the days pass slowly, but the months pass quickly.

8. That it is hard sometimes to have faith that things will work out.

9. The importance of the Doctrine of Christ.

10. That repentance is the key to becoming sanctified.

Mom’s

1. If you repeat something enough times you will learn it. This has proved true with memorizing things in Spanish, I am now hoping I can memorize some of the simplified hymns.

2. People in all stations of life can take hold of gospel truth. I am always struck by this when I look into the wizened face of a cholita from the campo and guide her through the temple.

3. Temple worship has always been part of the gospel. It is exciting to read the new research of Margaret Barker and others about ancient Israelite temple theology.

4. When I am desperate, I know who I can depend on for help. (You know who you are.)

5. Adrenaline can be VERY helpful when you’re doing something physically hard. Like crawling, sliding and squeezing through a dark underground cave.

6. Having faith in the Lord and His purposes is harder to do when things aren’t working out like you want them to.

7. John and I can usually come to the same conclusion, just not always in the same time frame.

8. It’s easier to do hard things when you have good people around you.

9. Good weather is REALLY easy to get used to.

10. We are all love-starved.

Friday, Jan. 11^th: We had a youth group show up at the temple this morning from one of the wards in the Los Alamos stake. We did not know they were coming. They wanted to start their youth conference off with a meeting with the Temple Pres. and then do baptisms for the dead. Well, Pres. Crayk was not available, so he asked me if I would meet with them and give them a talk on the temple. This kind of an assignment would have given me pause a few months ago, but now it seems just like an everyday assignment. The kids were great and cute and it really is a lot of fun to talk to teenagers.

Saturday, Jan 12^th: This morning something extraordinary happened. We had to lock the front doors of the temple and turn people away because the temple was full. We usually have an early Saturday morning session that starts at 7:00 am, but we often wait for the stragglers and don’t start until 7:15. But this morning the chapel was full and we filled the session and put up 3 extra chairs and started on time. We then started another session 15 minutes later and had to put up 14 chairs. Well that is a record 117 people in the first 2 sessions when the rooms hold 50. We could not have gotten any more in the second session. In fact, Mom and I were going to attend but there was no room. After those two sessions, we had to scramble and have every missionary and extra help from the employees in order to finish the sessions. Pres. Crayk left for Santa Cruz and another stake conference. He asked Mom and I to meet with a group from Cobija at 8:00pm after we finished our shift and give talks.

The group from Cobija.

This group flew to La Paz and then took a bus to Cochabamba. If they took a bus from Cobija it would take 3 days to get here. It is a big sacrifice financially for them to come to the temple. They had a group of 26 with about 12 youth who mostly came alone. That means that their parents probably couldn’t afford to send more than 1 person. It was the first time for many of them to come to the temple. We had a great meeting with them. Mom talked about the growth of the church and the changes she has seen in her life-time. I spoke about the meaning of eternal life and how to achieve it. It is such a spiritual high to have these chances to speak and testify of Christ and his plan for us to return to our Father in Heaven.

Monday, Jan. 14^th: We had a Family Home Evening with just the North Americans last night. The Kennedys leave in a few weeks and so we all wrote them a couplet to “Roses are Red Violates are blue”. I woke up early and got carried away. Mine is as follows: