6-21-25 Families are Forever
Retired/Missionary Life. Sunday.
Sacrament Meeting. Sunday School. No other meetings since it was Father's Day. (HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!) Back at home, nap, lunch, a bunch of reading, worked on my book, watched some church videos, had popcorn and brownies for dinner (best dinner ever....YUMMMM), and watched The Chosen.
Also below is a picture of Hanna and her many siblings. This is likely my favorite picture of the past week. Everywhere we went (and we ate out every day at least once as a group) the mood was upbeat, fun, loud, and happy. Several times I had the restaurant staff ask what we were celebrating. When I told them it was our mother's funeral, many times they looked confused. Shouldn't there be moaning, whaling, tears and sadness? Nope. Because we believe that death is not the end. That we will live again. As families. That we will see each other again. And death is nothing more than a transition to the next life. We feel sadness and miss our family when they leave us, but it is not overwhelming because of the faith we have in this plan. We feel comfort, peace, closeness, and happiness in abundance. The covenants and ordinances we make in the temple make this "families are forever" faith possible and is another reason that Hanna and I try to worship in the temple weekly. Comfort. Peace. Closeness. Happiness.
And by the way, that lamb Jesus is carrying represents ME. No way can I ever make it on this life path by myself....
Retired/Missionary Life. Monday.
Reading and studying and practicing Spanish and working on my book in the morning.
Did up the family books after lunch.
And then we spent several hours making inspection assignments to our Stewards. Working with a huge data base. Sending them out via Email. Yes! Missionary work from home!
I chilled and watched a prerecorded football game in the evening. Iowa vs Missouri bowl game. Good, close game including a 100-yard kickoff return.
Our day was so boring and "in the house" that neither of us even took any pictures. No matter, Grok drew one for me. Here I am, working on that housing portal. Enjoy!
Retired/Missionary Life. Tuesday.
First picture is of the new Antofagasta, Chile temple. It was dedicated Sunday and is the third temple in Chile, although three others are in process for a total of six. Beautiful building! And it is just a short walk away from the Pacific Ocean. What other temples are near an ocean, like within a mile? Here's the list:
Recife Brazil .3 miles
San Diego .7 miles
Manhattan New York .8 miles
Hong Kong .9 miles
Tokyo 1 mile.
Also, the Concepcion, Chile and the Idaho Falls temples are the only ones that were built near the banks of a river.
There's your cool facts for the day. I've never been to Northern Chile, but would love to go some day. Find a Geocache or two and visit this temple.
Today: Breakfast. Walked the boys. Planned out meals for the week. Created menus. Prepared a shopping list. Drove to Plummer. Ate salads at the Gateway. Filled up with cheap gas. Shopped for the groceries. Drove back home. Unloaded. Put everything away. This is the first time we shopped in Plummer since late April when we became missionaries. It was good to be back. There is nothing like picking out your own food. Plus, over there in Idaho they'll give you all the bags you want........FOR FREE!!
Had time to read a little bit. And then we drove to Airway Heights where we met with and trained the new Stewards over there.
Pictures:
- Temple by the ocean.
- Salad (after she beat me twice at Rummy...
- She was acting cute, so I took a picture of her shopping.
- Great day to drive on the Palouse. Winter wheat recently headed out, Canola is turning yellow, and grass field is turning brown.
- It was too hot out to take Gus and Frivvy with us, so they took naps instead. (They sleep around 20 hours per day.) If you look close, you can see Annie the cat in this picture too!
- We bought them a new toy. No, they don't share well. Lots of growling and tugging and pulling resulted. Here they take a break to pose for the picture.
- We also brought them each a bone. Puppy Heaven!!
The only thing more beautiful than a temple by the ocean is what goes on inside the temple...if you can go, you should.
Retired/Missionary Life. Wednesday.
The morning was spent doing the usual things, breakfast, walking Frivvy and Gus (and me), reading, practicing Spanish, taking a shower, etc. The afternoon turned into running a bunch of errands in town. Here's the exciting list:
- The bank to conduct some Estate business.
- Chiropractor for a decompression and an adjustment.
- Cleaners to have my cool white shirts laundered (again...they almost remember me by name now)
- Hanna's sister to drop off on old TV set left behind by her mom.
- Taught a lesson in Spanish to a sweet lady who wants to go to the temple.
- Dropped by the church to use the facilities.
- Dropped by the Mission Office to drop off some reports and stuff.
- Stopped by the cemetery, I guess, to make sure Mom was covered up?? Not sure why...just felt like it needed checking on.
- Pharmacy to pick up more drugs. (legal ones)
- Taught another lesson. Same lesson, this time in English. An awesome man wants to be an Elder and go to the temple.
- To the grocery store to pick up some stuff not found in Plummer yesterday.
- And isn't that enough???
I grilled up some Pork Chops for a late dinner.
And yes, the boys are still fighting (and having a lot of fun doing it..) over their new toy.
Retired/Missionary Life. Thursday.
Your typical day, folks. Morning: I fixed turkey sausage omelettes for breakfast. Took the boys for their walk. Read. Studied Spanish. (I have started having a conversation every morning with an AI driven voice that claims to be from Chile. It is very good practice in an area that I am weak in). Worked on my book. Ate lunch. Then actually had 45 minutes, so ran outside and tried to mow the lawn in that time. SUCCEEDED!! Efficiency or fastness? Maybe a bit of both. Showered, dressed, and off to town.
We taught a lesson to a lady who is now completely ready to go through the temple and is excited for it. Great day to be a missionary. Stopped by several other homes. Three: nobody home. Fourth one, folks were home but couldn't have a lesson right then. We'll text all those folks and see if we can set up lessons for next week.
Someone where in between all that, we took a break in a Maverick Parking Lot and ate Sack Dinners. (Like a sack lunch, only we're having it for dinner...) Finished the night off with a lady from our congregation that is tutoring us Spanish. Very helpful.
The boys were glad we finally came home, although they enjoyed their nap. They sniffed us both a lot because in the two houses we did go into, there were dogs.
Pictures. Gus has snarfed down his dinner and is wondering if "that is all...". Frivvy is actually taking his time and tasting every bit. And all the commotion caused Hanna to fix herself a snack too.
You can eat whenever you want when you are retired...
Retired/Missionary Life. Friday.
Sack lunches. In the truck. In the temple parking lot. And there was still time to burn. So we took naps too.
Worshipped in the temple.
Notice the picture below. I disdain folks who emasculate their JEEPs with ducks. Here I have put a Jesus on my dash. Much better. At the temple too.
And then PTSD set in!!! The wildfire app went crazy reporting a fire close to Del and Ella's home! Here we go again, right??!! It triggered all of us. Soon we were texting with Del and Ella as well as Luigi, who was on shift up there as a firefighter and he was giving us updates. Del was running a FedEx route almost in Canada and Ella was home alone. But, they got the fire out quickly. Looked to me like it wasn't heading for their place anyways, but you never know.
Early dinner of tacos. Best Mexican dish lately is Enchiladas Rancheras. i.e. with eggs on them. Reminds me of Chile.
Back home, pictures of the boys. Frivvy protects their new toy from Gus, even while he is napping. And a picture of Frivvy (and his ball) sleeping. If there was audio, you would hear snoring...
Retired/Missionary Life. Saturday.
On this date 2017, Hanna and I successfully ascended Mt St Helen's, which was quite a feat for us. See the picture of her below as we started the climb.....on the longest day of the year so we wouldn't get lost in the dark while coming back down.
Today, believe it or not, is "old folks go to breakfast day." So we went over to the Harvest Moon for some good grub. Once back in our warm home, we read, studied Spanish, walked the dogs, worked on my Life History. And then late afternoon we took a road trip to have some burgers and dogs with Del and Ella. Several pictures were taken of Frivvy and Gus and their little dog, Molly as they jockied for position to lay in Molly's bed.
And even with it being the longest day of the year, we still got in past dark...zzzzzzzzz
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