This 'n that

You may not see anything different, but I certainly do. Everything has changed on my little computer since I re-installed the OS. The only things I seem to have permanently lost (and I'm rather sad about it) are all my flute music recordings. I had them on my external hard drive and tried to import them, and they got lost in the ether somewhere. The other files are merely lost on my computer and I can usually find them in some illogical place or other, but at least they're there.

Hey, Frisco people -- do you recognize anyone in the above photo? Reading from left to right: Elder Zornes, Sister Zornes, Tessie Roberts (President Roberts's mother), and Arvilla Finlayson, formerly of the Frisco 5th Ward, and one of my old visiting teaching victims. We had them over for lunch today after the conference, along with my first trainer, Ann Bettinson, and her husband Neil. We had such a good time! These are all people that I love dearly and whose company I love being in. We now have it on good authority where Pres. Roberts gets his famous sense of humor from, and we have material that will take him a long time to live down. Of course, now the group has material on me that I will have to live down, because when we walked in the door after conference it was to discover that the oven, which I had carefully set to come on at 10:30, hadn't cooked the pork roast -- I had forgotten to set the oven temperature! So we did some quick micro-waving, and everything was delicious. But it was a little embarrassing.

I know Bob will talk about the multi-stake conference in his journal. It was wonderful. We had great seats, and the talks were wonderful. It's always so good to hear dear Pres. Monson speak. He can tell a joke with the best deadpan delivery I ever saw. We all loved him.

I have nothing particular to say, but it's nice to be back to normal on my computer, and I just plain wanted to send something. We've been following the train wreck news pretty closely because we both know exactly where it happened -- so close to Bob's old home -- and it's the commuter train that Deane and Debby used to take to work. Very, very sad.

Hey -- I love you all!! Every single one of you!

The computer problem wasn't our router at all. I don't know what Bob's problem was, but it seems to be fixed now. My little baby, on the other hand, is one sick puppy and I've spent the last few days trying to save all my Encore music files onto my external hard drive. Then tonight or tomorrow I say "Hail and farewell" to whatever is left on my sicko hard drive and re-install the guts back with my recovery disks, which will force me to re-purchase Encore (not cheap, but absolutely necessary to the quality of my life!). And then, Dear Readers, I can go back to blogging with a vengeance, and post photos (I believe I have most of them saved, thank goodness) and generally foist stuff upon you. Just hang in there, and keep on enjoying Bob's journal posts.

We're having a huge multi-stake conference this Sunday, with some 69 wards meeting in the Conference Center (ours is one of the lucky ones!) for a meeting presided over by President Monson. Everyone else is doing the broadcast thing in their respective meeting house. Then we're having company over for lunch -- our Texas stake president's mother, another Texas friend, and my old trainer and her husband. It should be great fun and a lovely Sunday.

Bob is very close to getting the Mission Memories books finished and ready to go to the printer for a galley copy. Which is why we're here 45 minutes after quitting time, and look to be staying for another 45 minutes or so. But we sure would like to finish this and take an afternoon, or even a whole day, off for Personal Research. Stay tuned!

We seem to be having a problem with our router/gateway or whatever it's called and have someone coming tomorrow night to fix them. We can get online without any trouble at the library or in the Starbucks parking lot. I'm without any urgent assignment right now, so will try to catch up and hopefully post some photos that I've been wanting to share. So here, in whatever order this screwy program decides to place them are: my branch choir, our trainers, Elder and Sister Tom and Tressa White, and shots of our cubicle.

A Testimony

Those in my family who happen not to be LDS may wish to skip this entry. I have to write it -- it's been bubbling up all day, and every time Bob and I discuss it we get weepy. It's about personal revelation, and it's very difficult to express in words.

Long years ago I read the following thought from Brother Robert Cundick, a former Tabernacle organist. I've forgotten his exact words by now, although I have the letter in my box of memorabilia. He said that good music can give one a personal revelation. I only had a slight inkling of what he meant back then -- I was young and I was new in the church; but as the years have gone by and I've had some extremely moving and memorable musical experiences I have come to truly believe this. This morning my sweet companion and I experienced together an exaltation that we haven't yet experienced here, although we've come close. The Tab choir was singing an arrangement of Gustav Holsts's "All Creatures of Our God and King," with an extended Alleluia section; not a fugue, but contrapuntal in nature, that kept building and building to a great and glorious climax. There was no message in the revelation beyond the fact that God does indeed live and that our life after this one will be glorious beyond expression. We felt that we were at the very gates of Heaven. It's a humbling and at the same time exalting feeling and the emotion we experienced cannot be expressed with mere words. We had only one hanky between us and we were both using it. We were very grateful to be alive today, and more than grateful to know that when we are no longer here in the flesh we will be even more alive in our next state, and involved in celestial music that we can only dream about now. I feel very tranquil, almost excited, about going on over. But please don't worry -- I'm not going to stop taking my vitamins. Life with my Bob is too lovely to give it up any time soon.

And on another musical note, our branch choir acquired some new singers today, and my 30 folders weren't quite enough to go around. Life doesn't get much better!

And on yet another musical note, tomorrow is our regular Monday morning mission devotional, and I get to play that beautiful organ for it. Although I'm not sure exactly how it came about because no one officially asked me, I seem to have become the default accompanist for the Women's Choir, so now I'm doing three things that I dearly love to do -- sing, conduct, and play. I won't even miss the flute at this rate. I'm still waiting to sacrifice for this mission. So far it's been pure joy. I will say, however, that although we enjoy our new assignments very much (or we will after this edition of the Mission Memories book is put to bed), we do miss working with the patrons and staff over in the Family History Library. We don't seem to have as much time now for personal research as we did, although we have made some progress. Bob's has been pretty awesome but mine rather less, but nonetheless real. Our function now seems to be to serve the missionaries rather than the patrons, which is fine and dandy but (being human) we'd like to do it All. So we get a little tickled when we're at the library doing research and a patron sees our badge and assumes that we're there to help. So we help, and we love it. Bob is proposing to go over there next time we have a lull in the office and put on an "Ask Me" badge and just help out. Tempting!

Pictures 'n stuff

Bob says that I ought to post some of the pictures of various activities we've been to. So I will, but by now you have learned the sad lesson that I'm not very good at this particular venture. But -- here goes:


I never know how these things are going to arrange themselves, and they keep moving around. The top two pics were taken at a bi-monthly "aloha" party they have to say hello to the new folks and goodbye to those who are leaving during the ensuing 2 months. I should explain some of the people: In the line dancing shot, the couple on the left end is a counselor in our mission presidency and his wife. Doesn't he look like a Marlboro Man? He actually is an old horse man. They're really great people and we enjoy them a lot. The other group of ladies were some of the ones that came into the mission the same time we did (our Group). I love those ladies!

The bottom ones were taken at a barbecue/picnic deep in City Creek Canyon and featured (besides delicious food) a bird show for entertainment. I always seem to be making a potluck dish to take somewhere on Monday night. Last Monday, this Monday, and next Monday we have 3 different socials, one for the branch, one for our group, and one for the zone we just left at the library. And after the last-mentioned potluck, we're meeting our own tiny little FHE group at Leatherby's, where they have killer ice cream dishes. Bob and I shared a "small" banana split last time that was so huge we had to bring half of it home. We're just partying fools here.

The top photo of Bob and I was uploaded last, but went in the top spot -- not my doing. Go figure. Now you know why we're having such a good time here! And in the idle hours we work at the Joseph Smith building with people we really enjoy, doing work we really like, and for the Lord, whom we love so dearly. It will be hard to come home.

After the Niagara dump, gentle rain and sunshine

It's been a lovely day. I love conducting this choir (the Ensign 3rd Branch Choir). We sang today after only 2 short rehearsals, along with a wonderful flutist from the area, and I was deeply satisfied. I checked with Bob to see if he was feeling the same things I was, because he also has a new assignment in which he can use the talents and skills he's been developing for years. I feel as though I'm just unfurling, or opening like a blossom, to warm rain and sunshine and comfort. We're both doing things we love. Not that we didn't love working in the library, but we were always just on the verge of our comfort zones, and trying mightily to remember everything we learned in training that would be helpful to a patron's particular problem. Now in this last week Bob has taken many pictures; group shots, mug shots, portrait shots, and scenery, and has been on PhotoShop a great deal of the time. I have finally gotten a regular assignment to practice on and play the beautiful organ in the chapel, have gotten a calling to conduct the branch choir. I quite often have time to work on my arrangements in the quiet spots at work, and a member of the mission presidency this week asked me to look at an original poem that meant a great deal to him with an eye toward composing music to go with it. And in addition I've always loved clerical-type work, and have lots of those kinds of jobs to do during the day. We love the couple who are training us and will hate to see them leave. Hope nobody slips us any Miracle-Gro in our lemonade -- we'll start fizzing like firecrackers.

Welcome news from the Outside World

I don't think I mentioned that we had the pleasure of seeing Bro. and Sister Mergill in the library not too long ago. That was delightful in itself, but I think they must have gone back to Texas and said something, because this week we've had some delightful e-mail letters from friends in the Frisco 4th ward, and they were very welcome and much appreciated! I've been keeping up with the local blogs as best I can and it makes me feel like I'm not so far away, but we were thrilled to receive the notes, as well as the ward directory -- with photos!! I've been mooning over it. Thanks so much to everyone.

I'm a little apprehensive about coming back -- not only will Amy and her family be gone but it sounds as though the ward will have changed drastically. That's a little worrisome to me -- I liked it fine the way it was. But growth is exciting too, so we will adjust. We're so glad that the Kovach family will still live close by.

We are loving our new assignments in the Administration Zone. We have the busiest printers in the zone in our cubicle, so we have members of the mission presidency as well as others popping in and out all day long. It's great. Bob has already taken the photos of the latest group of incoming missionaries and we both enjoyed that.

Not only is all well in Zion, but Zion is a lot of fun!!