I like my birthdays, every one…..

It has been a great week.  It was my birthday on Sunday, the 17th, and it has been wonderful to hear from family and friends.  I thank you all for your well wishes, love and support!!

While I was in New York serving, Jake and Kristin came to visit me and it happened to coincide with my birthday.  (They probably planned it that way.)   Jake surprised me with this as we waited for a train in the subway.

This has been transfer week so we lost some missionaries who finished their missions and gained some new ones.  Transfer day and orientation of new missionaries was on Wednesday. 

I have been busy with missionaries who have had a stomach virus.  I have my treatment advice on stickies on my laptop and on Notes on my phone.  When I need to give treatment advice, I can copy and paste into an email or into a text so that all instructions are written down and can be referred to as needed.

This has been a particularly nasty virus for some with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea lasting for 2-3 days and headache and weakness following for a couple of days.

Tuesday I found myself in the ER with a missionary at 5:00 in the morning.  Well….I got the call at 5:00.  It took me half an hour to drive there.  All ended well with a discharge to home around 1:30 that afternoon.

I have had quite a bit of travel time going to and from doctor appointments with missionaries and taking medications to missionaries too sick to go out and get it for themselves.  Not complaining at all!  I love being busy and needed. 

Some of the sights I’ve seen in my travel.  

Christmas decorations on the streets

Graffiti on a wall.

I haven’t had much time to get out and walk this week so Saturday morning I hit the foot path (side walk) and headed for the beach.

Roses to brighten my morning walk

Takapuna Beach is busy on a sunny Saturday morning

My dogs would LOVE this!

Saturday Sister Lewis called and invited me to dinner so I was treated to a lovely meal with a birthday bowl of frozen yogurt to celebrate. (The first picture on the blog.)   She also gave me a turkey made of shells that she had collected on Takapuna Beach.

Sunday evening, Lillian and Kevin came to dinner along with the Chinese speaking sister missionaries and Sister Bunker.  We had a nice evening.  After dinner we had a lesson on recognizing the spirit.

Today, I was blessed to enjoy some time with the sister training leaders.  We had lunch and ice cream.  Fun!!

Sisters Holley and Stone

This afternoon Deanne sent me some pictures of the sunset from my back yard at home.  They are so stunning I have to share.

These were taken just minutes apart.

The little bright, white light just to the right of center in the darker line is the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

A couple of things stand out to me this week.  When I was in New York serving my first mission, I was blessed to get to know the Korean speaking sister missionaries.  I spent quite a lot of time with some of them and developed close and lasting relationships.  One companionship that I knew well share some of their experiences with me and even invited me to attend some of their baptisms. 

Katie Fitt shared an experience with me about teaching and helping a man that had known her grandfather in Korea many years ago.  She invited me to his baptism but I was not able to attend. She sent me a link to a story that some of you may have seen in LDS Living.  It is such a great story I would like to share it with you HERE.

Another special event happened to me this week.  While waiting for orientation of the new missionaries to begin on Wednesday, one of the assistants to our mission president caught me and asked if I knew how to help someone get into Family Search. I’ll admit it has been a while since I actually helped someone with this but I agreed to try.

A woman, a member of the church, brought two of her family members who were non-members, to the chapel.  They wanted to get into Family Search.  The member had a key to the family history room but for some reason didn’t know how to get into the system.

Even though it has been about 7-8 years, bits of memory from the time that Kay, my husband, and I taught a family history class came to my rescue.  The non-member woman sat at the computer next to me.  I helped her set up an account so that she could access Family Search from her home computer or phone.  When she finally got logged on and typed in the name of her grandfather, names of ancestors began to come up on the screen.   She got so excited it brought tears to my eyes.  She was jumping up and down in her seat, reading out loud the names of her ancestors, and clapping her hands. 

I felt so blessed to have witnessed this special moment for this woman.  It made me recall a talk by President Eyring that Kay used to refer to often as he taught the class and tried to convey the responsibility we have to find our ancestors and to do the work for them.  He had parts of it memorized and would recite to the class. One paragraph he often quoted was ”… remember that the names which will be so difficult to find are of real people to whom you owe your existence in this world and whom you will meet again in the spirit world. When you were baptized, your ancestors looked down on you with hope. Perhaps after centuries, they rejoiced to see one of their descendants make a covenant to find them and to offer them freedom. In your reunion, you will see in their eyes either gratitude or terrible disappointment. Their hearts are bound to you. Their hope is in your hands. You will have more than your own strength as you choose to labor on to find them.”

If you would like to read the talk in full, you may do so HERE.

I have personally found great joy in doing family history work whether indexing, reading stories/histories, or searching for names to take to the temple.  There is so much satisfaction in taking family names to the temple and in doing their work for them.  It is most rewarding!!

All of the things I have experienced this week have testified to me that each of us matters to our Heavenly Father and that miracles still occur.  The Lord is in every detail of our lives.

I love my Savior.  I love you my family and friends.