Bah...Again!

Hi Everybody,

Where are the tech teenagers when I need them!  If I soon don't start getting a little smarter, this may be the last email you get from us.  Not really....but I thought I was doing what Dad told me to do but obviously not, because I lost all of last night's letter again that I saved like I thought he told me to do.  It's a good thing we're not office missionaries or the whole mission would fall apart with my incompetence! 

So....good Monday morning and we will get this written sometime today.  The young missionaries just called and want to come over and "hang out" for preparation day...which means play games and eat and use our computers.  Maybe we'll have them scrub the floor and vacuum and finish planting the flowers.  Except it's pretty much too wet to plant flowers.  Last night at Seminary graduation, Dad just finished giving his talk and everybody's cell phone alarms (including his) started going off.  It was a flash flood warning for the area that our Stake Center is in.  A warning means that a flash flood or rising creeks or rivers are imminent.  Our stake building is up on a hill so everybody just calmed down and went on with the graduation.  It was a very nice graduation (Dad gave a great talk) and several of our institute students got certificates as well including 70-something year old Brother and Sister Albujah and 80-something-year-old Charlie.  At the tables where we ate afterwards, the students made a big deal over Ceasar and Olga and Charlie and they loved it.  By the time we helped get everything cleaned up and headed home it was dark and about halfway home we passed a bunch of emergency vehicles and road crew guys but it was too dark to tell what was going on.  This morning at the Laundromat, a woman said that they were trying to keep the road from washing out.  There was some major flooding in some of the little communities around here but not anything in Ithaca.  Somebody also said some areas had 4 inches of rain in 4 hours.  That must be a lot??

Dad also had to speak in the Ward Sacrament meeting yesterday as well.  We are “attached” to the branch but we try and go to as many ward things as we can and we think it has been good to do that.  We’re regulars at the Blood Drive sponsored by the ward for that area of the community and we’ve discovered it’s such a small but big thing to go every 6 weeks and donate.  That will be something we definitely keep doing when we get home.  So we literally are giving our blood, sweat, and tears to this mission! 

 Let’s see…..what else did we do this week.  Zone Conference for one.  We sang in a special musical number with a double mixed quartet of young elders and sisters.  It actually sounded really good.  We like ZC.  We like being able to see the missionaries from other units, especially the ones that have served here before.  We like the training we receive.  In role-playing so we always volunteer to be the “investigators” so we can give the missionaries a hard time.  In this Conference, President Wirthlin played part of a video-conference that all the mission presidents received last week.  It took place during General Conference training for all the General Authorities of the Church….First Presidency, 12 Apostles, and all the Seventies including Area Authority Seventies.  The information will come to the Stake Presidents and other leaders in the next month or so.  It was all about the Sacredness of the Sabbath Day and it was so powerful.

We’re really liking teaching The Teachings of the Living Prophets in Institute and have now started lessons based on the last General Conference.  It almost feels like we’re studying the scriptures when we read and study those talks over and over again.  What the Brethern and Sisters say is definitely the mind and will of the Lord!  We have to work a lot harder on these lessons because we have to put together our own lessons based on the talks.

The rest of the week was spent in visiting less actives with the missionaries, doing work at Harmony and her Mom’s house, tending Phoenix who’s Mom has just been put on bed rest for some complications in her pregnancy…and trying to still dig out our house from the last two semesters of not having any time to do any of that sort of stuff.

We see you’re getting ready for another Family Birthday dinner….soon it will be our turn!!  Life is good!  The Church is true!  Families are Forever!  Sometimes the only sunshine around New York is in our souls!  We love you all and are so grateful we have a Fine Family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XOXOXO  Dad and Mom and Grandpa and Grandma etc.