Halfway mark

Jack wanted to know if were coming back to Bountiful. 😁

Monday

Rode our tandem 10.53 miles this morning. Made bread and pizza and spinach artichoke dip after we went shopping. And Aunt Ranae sent me four pictures to give away of the Nauvoo Temple with a rainbow at the top that Uncle Lance took. 

Whittiers invited Alveys, Littles, Wilkersons, Shultz and us for games. Rick Whittier made a Nauvoo Jeopardy game that was very good. And we played one lie/2 truths. That was difficult. Ray and I both wrote down 3 truths—terrible at that game we are. They served us pizza, toss salad and gluten free cake.  We all laughed and laughed. It was a great time..

Tuesday

I was notified to be to the temple early—by 6:05 dressed in white and at the ppmeeting; then Rays phone showed up that he was to be at the temple dressed in white at the recommend desk by 5:30 so we were there at 5:00 just as security arrived. I was ready in five minutes headed down to the recommend desk and coming up were Elder Cornish and Elder DAE. They asked why I was there so early and I told them that ray was told to be at the recommend desk with Elder Cornish. They both looked at each other. Turned out. For some reason the phone showed that message but it was from back in May.😭😂. Joke was on us. After our shift we rode 10.5 miles.  Wilkersons brought us a dozen ears of corn from a farmer. It was so good.  And we received a water heater pitcher from Tim in the mail.  I need to be more careful about my speech. It is really nice to have foe oatmeal and dandy tea etc. so thanks Tim.  

Wednesday 

10.3 bike miles and saw the group gathered by the mansion house so we stopped and listened to Parley P Pratt and wife sing (Jake and Susan Slader). It was over too soon but was so lovely.  We went at night to the British Pageant and sang in the finale with the missionaries.  The crowd always cheers for the missionaries.  It’s fun to be part of that group!  Before it began, we met the Omans from Ogden—a senior couple that were so nice, their granddaughter was in the band and one of their families was in the blue cast, I think. So we had bragging competition😂. No.  We let them win and let them enjoy their posterity memories. 

Thursday

We were at the Arrival Center, rode the bike 9.8 miles And we walked from our apartment to and from the pageant!  First real walk since arthroscopic knee surgery for meniscus tears. It was a little much but ice, heat, and ibuprofen helped.

Friday

Biked 10.5 miles. Saw Nathan Rockwell at the beginning of his Scottish bagpipers practice and got a hug.  Listened to a talk be Elder Gary Stevenson from Education Week, I think 2022 about the Book of Mormon. It was so inspiring. Temple started at 1:00 today. When we finished we walked again to the pageant to sing with the missionaries again at the end and walked back to the apartment. This time I didn’t need ibuprofen, just ice and heat.  Awesome.  I’m progressing still.

Saturday

Biked only 6.44😔. And crashed after fulfilling our temple assignment in the baptistry.  It was so busy.

Sunday 

No one showed up for our class so we went to the teachers instruction class.  The instructors 14 year old son died 8 years ago and we talked with him after.  It 2as one of those moments with the Spirit.  We enjoyed our family call and thank everyone for participating. It feels so good to hear your voices and see you and know of your ups and downs as we all cheer on each other.  

Alma 31: …continue in prayer and supplication to God daily, that (you) might not enter into temptation.  :32. Alma set his brethren apart as missionaries …:34 O Lord wilt Thou grant unto us that we may have success in bringing them again unto thee in Christ.  It’s wonderful to be set apart as a missionary and we’re grateful to be in His service for our brothers and sisters in this special temple in Nauvoo with so much of our heritage in the gospel.  True to the faith that our parents have cherished ..faithful and true we will ever stand.  We love you each so much!  So glad He picked out our favorites for us!  

Visitors distracted—2 weeks email. Stop reading when you are through before I am😀

July 1:  8.6 miles on the bike. Temple missionaries family home evening (talent show). Thought about telling a mole but one Elder here is so funny, I didn’t want to waste time.

July 2:  heat of the day bike ride 7 miles only, ice knee when we returned home

July 3:  11:15 we were endowment leaders; bike ride 8.66 miles; Tim and Dallin came in a Tesla rental car at sometime after 10 pm

July 4:  our assignment today was Arrival Center—for baptism groups.  I don’t know if I’ve explained what we do here but it is across the street from the temple and we run everyone’s recommends so we can fix any problems before they get to the temple like reported missing recommends so they don’t work, or expired recommends so bishops have to be contacted, or recommends left at home or the hotel or wherever and then ray calls the recorder and gets them cleared.  Then those who want to print family names can do that at the Center and cut them out.  They can get drinks, use the restrooms etc.). 

We rode the bike 8.38 miles

We had a practice for the British pageant at 8 pm at the stage for the ending of the British pageant. 

July 5:  9.55 miles.  Filled our temple assignment. 

July 6:  Tim and Dallin went home; rode 9.65 miles, Angela and Darrin, DJ , Hunter, and Jenny arrived.

July 7:  fast Sunday, I taught the lesson; it was nice to have Angela’s family to participate; Kevin also came, a member less than a year.  Attended “Our Saviors Love “ concert at the visitors center. Later Darrin and Jenny played Chinese checkers with us.

July 8:  10.27 miles, Ossians first birthday, soaked in epsom salts bath at Amy’s condo. Saunders went to sites and Carthage, Ty called from his mission, went to the pageant stage to watch dress rehearsal for British pageant. 

July 9:  early preparation meeting 6:05 am

July 10Saunders did an endowment session at 11:15, Family did temple baptisms at 4 pm; 5:00 we all went to the Nauvoo Hotel dinner buffet with Saunders. Ray and I had the salad buffet only.  6:30 Ray and I sold snacks at the concessions stand for the ward young women and young men activities fund raiser..

July 11:we left for our AC assignment and Saunders left for home.  I saw Dr. Grant at 4:00 and we rode the bike 9.75 miles. 

July 12:  biked 10.29 miles out to the Villas after we picked up Amy’s kindle. Sang with the missionaries at the end of the pageant. Interesting story…when we were at dinner, a man saw our name tags saying ROBINSON.  His young boy asked him twice to see if we knew an Amy Robinson.  Her name was written on the kindle and it had been lost.  It showed up at this man’s house. Ray said , “yes, she’s our daughter in law”. He said a kindle showed up at their house with her name on it. Ray texted Amy and she told him that her and Cole were just praying to find it when we texted.  God really does care about us and our seemingly unimportant wants.  

July 13:  we rode the bike 10.14 miles. I cut my own hair; all I can say is that it looks better😊. Ava went to pick up Rock at the airport while we were at the temple.  

July 14:  we went to the 9:00 sacrament meeting for the visitors branch so we could tune into Dallins talk before he leaves Tuesday for the mtc. He spoke of the JOY of the gospel life with examples of faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.  He used a combination of sense of humor with a depth of testimony and honest understanding of joy.  After we had tacos for dunch, we kept our spirits up as we were missing family gathering, by going to visit Wilford Woodruffs home and Heber C Kimball’s home with an addition by his grandson.  And we went to the Seventies Hall and a sister missionary was there who was a full-Mongolian, her parents had moved to the states from Mongolia and she had Jane on her tablet. Small world, always connections🥰. 

The Lord is in the details, Love Grandma, Mom Robinson

Nauvoo begins to come alive

Monday the core cast for  the Pageant arrived.  We rode our bike 7.5 miles.  We were blessed to get to feed Amy and Ava, India, Portia and Cole.  We went to see Sunset on the Mississippi again.  It is better than the first time.  Some funny advertisement was included this time. They have so much energy and fun in the Nauvoo performing missionaries.

It is such a blessing to serve. There is nothing like it—a continual reminder to look to Jesus Christ and Live! 

Tuesday after our early morning shift, we biked 7.6 miles, we’re inching up😳. We ate with the Thurston and Lewis couples from Cedar City. They made smothered burritos.  They were amazing with relish on the side. Wow!  And then we played one round of “Five Crowns”. 

Wednesday 7:05 prepreparation meeting because of my position at floor 1 chair 2.  We’re looking forward to Raymond III coming this afternoon. We rode 7.96 miles today.  Riding bikes is my favorite exercise.  We got to fe3d Raymond tonight and cute Amy and the four children came by too.  This is great!

Thursday we worked at the Arrival Center. It was a crazy day.  A bus came in with 70 youth who wanted to be baptized—no appointments. We had just sent a group of 25 over and three families were scheduled soon.  I told them that we would process them (meaning, run their recommends, take names and birthdays of those without their recommends and then call the baptistry for permission to send them.)  We got permission to send 10 at a time in intervals.  Ray walked the first batch over.  Then three families came that were scheduled so while I processed them, Ray took another group of unscheduled youth over and returned to take the families over. We were just waiting for a phone call to get in trouble😩.

A Smith family came in from Preston, ID—-yes, they are related to us, third cousins.  Yes, we had a phone call, but not what we expected. Not because we sent too many youth over but because someone was turned away by someone and it was perceived that it was us at the Arrival Center.  Not us, but no questions were asked so Ray actually received THE phone call.😢so onward, ever onward as we glory in His name🥰. Elder Larry and Sister Larson invited us to ride with them to Carthage for the 180th Anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  It was really wonderful!  The performing missionaries sang for 30 minutes beautiful hymns of the Savior and then Sister Meir spoke and I thought “we’ll, it won’t get better than that”. Then Elder Joseph Monsen spoke and I wanted a printed copy.  Then President Meir spoke and he was amazing.  Yep, I wish I could hear it all over again!  How we love the prophets seers and revelatory from Old Testament-latter-days!  How full we feel to know we are Gods children and we want to be like Him.  Step by step, then a trip or fall, and get up again.  He still loves us all!  

Friday 8.22 bike miles. We prepared papers for baptisms for India, Boyd, and Ava which they did at the baptistry today.  We didn’t get to watch but we so appreciate their service for our ancestors. We started serving in the temple at 12:20-7:15 pm today. This is our regular schedule except when we go until 9:15 pm but that won’t happen again until pageant is over.  The core cast for the pageant came for the 2:00 endowment session so that was so nice to see our friends and some of our new temple friends got to meet Raymond and Jake and Susan so that was a treat for me to hear about or be part of.  We were the leaders for the 5:15 endowment session.  After the temple we watched some of the pageant rehearsal on stage but left as the temple schedule makes us pretty tired.

Saturday 8.2 miles, 40 minutes, done by 7 am. I had signed up for the ward “Get to Know You” and then didn’t have time to go before temple assignment😔whoops. I wanted to go.  12:30-8:00 pm baptistry—it was a big day!  

Sunday—sacrament meeting, actually 5th Sunday meeting—both were wonderful!  I was moved to tears.  It seems to happen every Sunday😇. No time for emotions. We hurried to our apartment and set out the food I had been preparing all week:  5 cup salad, potato salad, cole slaw, pasta salad, toss salad, baked beans, pizza strips, fried chicken and cherry cream cheese pie and lemon aid   Raymond and Boyd came, Susan and Jake and Amy, India, Portia, Cole, and Ava.  They sang happy birthday👍❤️ to Ray. They had meetings after and dad took a nap, I cleaned up and put away.  At 8:00 we went to “Our Story Goes On” with many of our new temple friends attended.  I had warned them to bring Kleenex so everything was just right.  Afterwards, many of them came up and told us thanks for telling them about it so they could attend.  Susan, Jake, and Boyd were great, of course as were the other participants.  It’s a moving story.  How we love the Plan of Happiness with the Joys of posterity.  There is nothing that even comes close to being part of the family of God and the love He shares with us as we multiply and replenish the earth as families!  We thank God for His plan of redemption, change, and eternal life as families!