8.30.25 Happy Birthday!! Inspired Callings.
Retired/Missionary Life. Sunday.
Typical Sunday. Sacrament Meeting. Men's Meeting. Missionary Correlation Meeting. Eat sack lunch in truck in church parking lot. Go to incredible lesson. Drive home. Read. Study. Watch Church Videos. Eat leftovers for dinner. Watch an episode of The Chosen.
The highlight was that the Leader of the Women's Group in our Congregation came to our lesson with us. Since she is from Peru, she speaks much better Spanish than us. And since she is a returned missionary, she knew what to say. She was bold, helpful, and full of the spirit all wrapped up into one! Teaching one person at a time in their home is the best way ever to bring folks closer to Christ.
If you need a lesson, let me know...
And also, here, have a picture of a critter at the Highland's. Wide open eyes mean it is probably scared to death of the bear that is lurking close by.
Retired/Missionary Life. Monday.
Staying home all day can be a good thing. And it felt like it today.
Critter alert! No bears. But this insect critter showed up on my back porch last night.
Today's household chores that got done: primarily planning our week, creating menus, preparing a shopping list, typing it into the computer, pressing submit, and then watching money leave my bank account. Spent some time handling some Mission Housing Steward Business. And paid the bills and did up the books.
After all that, I celebrated the start of football season by watching (for the third time...) last February's Super Bowl! Some folks think that it was boring because of the huge blow out. But I've been an Eagles fan since 2013 and it is AWESOME to watch them throttle the ominous Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. Now I'm in the mood... bring on the season!
Frivvy loves watching football and did so with me today on the love seat. Gussy didn't care for it much so just laid there and stared at me like I was shirking my human duties. But then they both got bored (not Eagles fans apparently...) and started a live wrestling match!
Then a beautiful Palouse Sunset appeared out of nowhere.
And finally, today is Gus's second birthday. I made him up a birthday dish of steak, treats, and kibbles. Both watched closely with anticipation. And patience. Kind of. We sang to him and then handed him the bowl. It didn't last long.....
Here's to many many more years!
Retired/Missionary Life. Tuesday.
(My apologies to Richens, Hernandez, Stout, Aranguiz, and Coulson...)
I wonder sometimes why God called us to a small Spanish Branch. Very challenging mission. Tons of work to do. But then we have an experience like we had tonight.
We are teaching this gentleman who converted to our faith from Catholisism recently and our two religions pray differently from each other. He has been hesitant to pray, especially in front of us. Tonight he asked that Hanna pray instead. So she did. In her broken Spanish. She, at this point, can pray, testify, and read Spanish. Kind of. At the end of the prayer, he told us how good it makes him feel to hear her try to pray in Spanish. He was touched by her faith, her desire, her efforts, her love and service for him. As he explained that to us, he stated that he now has the courage to pray himself and will do so. With tears running down his face.
God knew this stuff would happen. He doesn't need our Spanish. He just needs our desire and faith. The calling was truly inspired.
We attended District Council in the morning where we met with a dozen or so missionaries to brainstorm and receive inspiration as to how to perform this work better.
We went out to lunch with the other Senior Couple in our District. They serve the Chuukeese Group. It was great to visit with them.
Back home, I did up the dishes, prepared a lesson, and fixed dinner.
In the evening, we went back into Spokane and taught two great lessons. More folks will be going to the temple soon!
Retired/Missionary Life. Wednesday.
And then the most exciting thing of the entire day happened! We got a huge package, and it wasn't even from Amazon! We scrambled to open it up and........yes!!! Can you guess what it is? Yup, that's right. It's a huge pee jug. For Hanna's upcoming Mayo Clinic Urine Sample Test. Pee in the jug for 24 hours. Stir and shake. (the jug, not her...) Pour out a sample and mail it back to the Mayo Clinic. The postmen have no idea what they're carrying around...
After all that excitement, it was tough to do, but we did go out and visit, eat with, and/or teach in three households. More people heading to the temple.
And one of them doesn't drive and needed groceries, so we drove him to the store, waited for him while he did his shopping, then drove him back home and helped him unload.
Missionary service comes in all forms...
Retired/Missionary Life. Thursday.
Today was mostly infusion day. After spending time in the morning reading and studying Spanish and walking the dogs, we drove to Post Falls to the Cancer Clinic. They drew Hanna's blood, ran all sorts of tests on it to make sure she was healthy enough for her infusion, and then they infused her with powerful and expensive immunotherapy drugs. Bye Bye Cancer Cells!!
In the clinic, we ran into one of our friends from Wood Badge and church and had a good talk, especially when it came to "just why are YOU here??" (Cancer, of course...) I gotta add, fighting cancer is much easier if you include Jesus in the battle. We agreed on that.
After we killed cancer cells, we went to The Olympia the Greek restaurant in downtown CDA for some Lamb to celebrate the fact that Hanna is still alive. Delicious! And happy!
We spent the evening meeting with our Branch President and going over the families we are teaching and working with.
Plus I threw in a picture of the boys because I haven't included one in a while. I couldn't get them to pose much. They think the green laser dot lives in the fireplace and will come out to play at any moment!
Retired/Missionary Life. Friday.
The morning was spent reading, studying Spanish, walking the boys, getting ready for Fantasy Football Draft, working on trip plans for our pilgrimage to Mayo Clinic.
Afternoon was spent worshipping in the temple. And going out for tacos with the Sister Missionaries that also serve in our congregation. (They are huge football fans and so we had to update them on such important news clips as a guy named Bronco being the new head coach, a QB named Bear starting as a freshman, and how Boise got beat real bad. We have an Aggie, a Duck, and a Blue Coug). After tacos, we went next door to the ice cream shop that members of our congregation own and had some ice cream. Tres Leches and Reeses for me. (Their servings are HUGE!! and delicious. Hanna had a strawberry popsicle.)
Evening, we declared it date night and watched an episode of Heartland. (She is really going to Europe with that creepy Prince guy for several months??)
Retired/Missionary Life. Saturday.
We told the boys that Del and Ella and Justin were coming for dinner and they checked out the front door about every 30 minutes in anticipation.
I also winterized the rototiller today. The garden, which only has three rhubarb in it, never did get rototilled. So this is more or less a confession that it just isn't going to get rototilled the rest of the year either...
Football Season took off for real today. My TV can show four games at once, which is cool and confusing. But if you look closely at the picture below, you will see why I rarely watch a full game live. Yup. I was getting three commercials and one game. Sigh.........
We dined on Spaghetti, green salad, and garlic bread with the grown kids, but not until I put them to work doing some chores for us. Topics of conversation included Geocaching, Football, Work (and how everything keeps breaking), more Football, and then more Football.
And, we caught a small critter on the Highland's Cam yesterday.
Enjoy!
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