5-24-25 Death. And Zone Conference!
Retired Missionary Life. Sunday.
Here! Have a Jesus Picture. Happy Sabbath!
Also, HAPPY MT ST HELENS DAY!! I was in the Provo Missionary Training Center when she became angry and blew in 1980. And Hanna and I CLIMBED her in 2017. Woo Hoo! She was sizzling and steaming that day, but fortunately for us, she did not blow.
In the afternoon, we drove to Elk and had an early dinner with Del and Ella. Our dogs and their dogs are still trying to figure out how to get along, but mostly did today.
And we made it home in time for the sunset. We spent the evening reading and watching a short church video.
Sad note. One of Del and Ella's dogs fell very ill shortly after our visit. They frantically drove it to Emergency Pet Care and unfortunately, it had to be put down. Prayers to overcome sadness would be appropriate. For us, the pets are like family.
Retired Mission Life. Monday.
P-day. Kinda.
We spent the morning meticulously planning out our busy week. And then we excitedly prepared nummy menus. And then we carefully created a shopping list. And then we typed it into the Safeway Web Site and pressed "submit". Groceries ordered.
We had just gotten showered and dressed for our 4pm lesson appointment when they texted and rescheduled due to illness. Sad. But it gives me time to get some household projects done. Or so I thought. Hanna killed the excitement quickly by reminding me that we still had to run to town to pick up the groceries. So we did.
Afterwards, I still had time to dust the house top to bottom, pay bills and do up the books, and I also worked a bit on the Mission Housing Database, trying to set up a report in it to my liking. And.....huge win! I got it to work and figured out how to create a report too! Mission accomplished!
In the evening, to celebrate, I watched a prerecorded football game. Rivalry game between Arkansas and Missouri. The only thing better than a rivalry game is a rivalry game in the snow. And so it was.
Finally, here, have some pictures of the boys. First, taking their afternoon naps. And second, waiting for their ball to magically come out from under the couch. And then...what AI drew when I told it about our day. Enjoy!
Retired Mission Life. Tuesday.
We put on our "Assistant Housing Coordinators" hats today and ended up driving all over the Inland Northwest to visit and train Stewards. We started with a drive through Spangle and up the Pullman Highway to folks who live in the West Hills neighborhood and used to be members of our neighborhood and congregation. It was great catching up.
Afterwards, we visited with a Steward up at Green Bluff. And from there, we met with ones in Post Falls. (She was a retired CPA and we had some interesting chats.)
Bought cheap gas in CDA and then came home via Worley.
Beautiful drive all day. And now we're half way done visiting and training the Stewards. Hanna took tons of pictures. Enjoy!
Retired Mission Life. Wednesday.
Zone Conference. Held every six weeks. Our mission leaders instruct us. It ran for 6 hours, but included a nice lunch. It was a multi-zone conference actually. Zones: Spokane East, Palouse (aka Moscow and Pullman), Lewiston, and the Service Missionaries. They instructed us on how to properly handle and respond to social media referrals (our mission receives 650 referrals a month from folks who want to know more about our church). How to plan and schedule your day. (A great topic for the younger missionaries). And the importance of baptism.
We were tired afterwards, but had two lessons scheduled, so off we went teaching. The first young man we taught had his friend there who helped a lot with the lesson.
We got home pretty much with just enough time to take the boys for their walk, fix and eat dinner, and read a few short things.
Pictures:
-Burgers and Dogs for dinner. (With plenty of leftover hot dogs to make a few sandwiches with...
-Gus eyeballing the hot dogs.
-And they took a bunch of pictures of us all at the conference, but they haven't been released yet. So I told Grok about our day and told him to draw it.......and actually, he didn't too bad with it. Enjoy!
Retired Mission Life. Thursday.
Plenty of time today was spent watching over and worrying about and taking calls regarding Hanna's mom. She is near the end.
We did have a lesson set up for late afternoon. Just as we were deciding whether to go to it or cancel, it cancelled. The lady had to go into work early. In the evening we met with our Branch President and went over the people we are teaching's progress and went over some other families we could visit and teach.
- Yesterday's Zone Conference Pictures. We are in both, can you spot us?
- Gus trying to start the truck and drive home while we were meeting with the Branch President. (Frivvy is sound asleep in the back seat.)
- Critters at the Highlands
Retired Missionary Life. Friday.
Hanna's mom did pass away last night. She was an incredible woman, best mother-in-law ever. She was one of the most faithful to God ladies I ever met. She served four missions! Three with her husband and then yet another one after he passed away 14 years ago. One of her last callings was that of a Temple Worker. She loved the temple. We are sad, but testify that she is in a good place, going about with new missionary work, and we felt her presence in the temple today. Here's one of my favorite pictures of her and my sweetheart Hermana Stewart-Longhurst on our wedding day.
Also a picture of Sylvester the cat who lived in the Assisted Care facility Mom lived in and visited her regularly. He will miss her too.
Hanna clearly takes after her mom when it comes to missionary work. She easily has shared her faith with those who took care of Mom and has given out four Book of Mormons to the staff.
Our morning started with Taco Omelettes. And then we went to the temple to worship. We love the temple. Today it brought us solace and peace and reminded us that Families Are Forever.
We invited "Las Hermanas", the Sister Missionaries that serve in the Spanish Congregation with us, to join us for dinner at that Fancy Place. We love meeting with them. They are so positive, happy, and always give us a boost emotionally and spiritually. And they coach us on the happenings in the mission. (If you would like a visit, the missionaries would love to come by and provide an emotional and spiritual boost for you too! Just let me know.)
Back at home, we were doing our reading when we saw Gus on his hind legs against a chair focusing closely on something out the window. Our first Hummingbird of the season!! He was amazed. We were amazed. Hopefully she'll go home and tell her friends and a ton more will come by soon.
Other pictures........baby moose on the loose at the Highlands. And a very old picture (2010) of the Chocolate Labs I used to own at the huge house on the hill in Elk long before it burned down. Two very cool dogs that I miss a lot. Wilbur and Cubie. It popped up in my memories and I couldn't help but post it again.
Retired/Missionary Life. Saturday.
Seemed like a normal day. No appointments. No reason to run to town. We reserved the day for family and to do stuff around the house. And we needed this type of day because we had a super hectic week.
First, we declared it "old people go to breakfast" day and headed off for Plummer to grab some grub at Gateway Cafe. Chicken Fried Steak and Eggs for me, Swiss Scramble for Hanna. Embarrassingly, she beat me bad at several rounds of Rummy. Sad.
Went to fill up with cheap Idaho gas.......and........BLESSINGS!! I had one phone call on my list to make today, to the missionaries in Plummer / St Maries to talk about housing. And there they were, gassing up their cool looking truck! In person is so much more fun, plus I hate making calls on the phone. We didn't talk much though, because like most missionaries in this mission, they had a complete sense of urgency about them and had a place to go like right now. Great guys!
Back home, I read, took a nice nap, weed wacked down some tall grass, worked on my book some, and then spent a bunch of time on housing. I downloaded data from the Mission Housing Portal into an Excel Spreadsheet, then added a column for Stewards. Made sure each apartment has a Steward. And now will dump all that into Google Maps so we can see where each Steward's apartments to inspect are in relation to where they live. I'm into this type of stuff. It's like being back at work, but only doing the fun stuff.
Hanna's sister stopped by for a while to talk about things having to death with Mom's passing. Got the locals on the phone and set up a time to empty her room and move her stuff here for now until the rest of the family can arrive for the funeral and go through it.
Oh yea. It was also "fill up the pill containers with vitamins, supplements, and real medicine" day. Enjoy the colorful picture.
Comments
Post a Comment