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After three weeks teaching 15-16 year olds in Sunday School, we are being released. We were just about to leave for Taylorsville Sunday morning where we were to talk about our mission to the Taylorsville Gardens 1st ward, when we got a call from the Executive Secretary, Brother Cook, in our Spanish Fork ward. He said that Bishop Voorhees would like to see us right now. As we met with him, he called Wendy to be a 1st Counselor (education) in our ward Relief Society Presidency. He had two new assignments for me: 1) to be the building scheduler and overseer for our building for 2011 (when he will be agent bishop), and 2) to do some work with scouting advancement for the young men for the ward. We went to the very start of our Sacrament Meeting, long enough to stand and be sustained, and then left for Taylorsville.
It was sweet to be back in the Taylorsville Gardens 1st ward again, and people seemed to really appreciate our coming. We got there in time to attend Loyal Flynn’s Gospel Doctrine class. This caused me to remember the inspiration involved in extending this call about 10 years ago, and to marvel that he is still in that calling, still teaching the scriptures with intensity, in the very same room.
We gave about the same talks we gave in our Spanish Fork ward, with Wendy listing the things she loved and learned about the mission experience–the young elders, their faith, their commitment and sacrifices, and love of service. She was very kind to say how grateful she was to have been invited to be a part of the Lewis family and how much she admires and loves us and especially her “Elder Honey,” which made people giggle.
I introduced my talk by recalling attending zone conference in the NC Kinston Stake House, feeling at home there and then realizing that it was built with the same architectural plan as the TG 1st building. I reminded them that this wardhouse was built on a different construction plan, one in which the ward members did much of the construction and that they labored for a considerable time in all of their spare hours to finish the building. Janet Poore had said that it was such a joy to see this building completed, because they knew that they now had a lovely and convenient facility to teach their children the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We moved into the neighborhood when the building was about 5 years old, and it was also the place for our children to be nourished in the Gospel for all of their growing-up years. As such, it was, and still remains, a Holy place for our family.
The Vietnamese group is still a part of the ward with several of the old-timers, but also with some new faces, and 40 or 50 attending. Thao Tran was still translating the sacrament meeting talks to people with head-phones and still teaching a Vietnamese language Sunday School class. I was happy to see Richard Mascarenas as a counselor to Bishop Powell, apparently now fully embracing Gospel principles and the other counselor, Mark Gull, who served so well with the Young Men when I was Bishop.
We try to do an endowment session weekly. Last Tuesday we went to a session at 6 pm in the Provo temple. We had not been sitting long in the Chapel waiting for the session to start, when Uncle Blaine came in, looking sharp in his white ordinance workers’ suit. We learned that currently he is serving as an Endowment Room Coordinator for his shift. He came over to us and said, “I have an important assignment for you today” and asked us to serve as witness couple, which we love to do, of course. (We love it when we know high people in high places.)
A few moments before, Wendy had passed by Aunt Linda working in the New Name area. I sure had a good feeling seeing those two working in the temple.
We started our new ordinance worker schedule on Thursday, working both Shift 1 and Shift 2, as we did before our missions. We start at 6:20 am and get done at 4 pm. This day was long but I had a good feeling to be back. We were amazed to see so many friends still there who we had worked with almost two years ago.
A few weeks ago, I sent a letter to each of the missionaries from our Wolf Hollow 2nd ward. (They are all young men I worked with when I was ward YM President in 2007-2008.) I had a sweet letter back from Elder Ryan Jackson, who is serving in the Washington Seattle Mission. He said in part:
“I want to thank you for all you did when you were an adviser to the Priests Quorum, and especially during the Youth Conference we had in Manti. I don’t know exactly what you did, but you really helped me to enjoy that Youth Conference. That was one of the first events that really got me wanting to serve a mission. Thank you so much!
“My mission has been the greatest experience of my life and it has also given me some of my hardest challenges, but also have all helped me to grow so much... I just love being out here so much.”
Picture: Ryan at the Snow College Youth Conference July 2008
With the new hearing devices, I am starting to be able to hear sacrament meeting talks again. Today’s were just exceptional. Kristen Johnson, a fairly young mother in our ward, gave a very intense talk on the high priority that mothers should give to being at home and teaching and nurturing their children. I had the thought that this was Valerie transfigured, standing before us emoting and presenting the message of the prophets. It literally brought tears in my eyes.
Then Gordon Mills gave an equally powerful message about fathers and father’s blessings (he is a former stake and mission president, who by the way is married to Joan Toronto, a childhood acquaintance of JoAnn’s). He spoke of the power and influence for good deriving from the giving of father’s blessings by a righteous priesthood holder and family patriarch. He recommended giving blessings at every important “passage” time for children. These might perhaps include before going to school each fall, going away to college, leaving for a mission, getting married, moving away, starting a new job, and other special occasions.
Apparently, Brother Mills has had the practice of keeping notes about the content of various father’s blessing he gave to his children over the years, perhaps in his personal journal, and might on occasion refer back to these things in his dealings with individual children now grown. This reminded me of the counsel that had been given by various Church authorities to fathers to record and transcribe one blessing they give to each of their children verbatim, for the child to have. We tried to follow this particular practice with our kids. There are two who for some reason we missed, and I still say that I owe you such a blessing if or when your want it. I could also be available to assist in these kinds of blessings of grandchildren.
Tonight I am hoping that these kinds of father’s blessings are being used maximally in our families, and that our grandchildren are all privileged to have this kind of priesthood support and direction in their lives.
Saturday, August 21, was a milestone or passage day. It was the day for the first grandchild to marry. Andrew married Britain Young in the Salt Lake Temple. She is from Massachusetts and attending BYU along with Andrew. The day was full, with the ceremony, pictures, luncheon, and reception, the two latter at the Lion House, the meal in a large room on the second floor and the reception in a garden area. I thought the sealer did an excellent job of creating a spiritual atmosphere, of teaching the importance to the temple ceremony for families and giving useful direction to Andrew and Britain. The couple was appropriately cute with each other and in love, the Lion house settings seemed elegant, the weather cooperated, and all of the people were happy.
All of our family in Utah was present, the married adults in the temple plus Paul and Daniel, and all of the grandkids at the reception including Staci, Katrina (home from college), and Heidi (home from Romania). Blaine and Linda, along with their three girls and spouses, came. We saw lots of other acquaintances including Leon Soderquist, Quin’s uncle. (I worked with him for a long time at the State and he also had been the Director at DDI where Nathan and Wendy’s Michael both attended as pre-schoolers.) All in all, it was a very happy occasion.
While still on our mission, we decided that we would use the three summer weeks scheduled for us at the cabin as best we could to reconnect with our families and grandchildren. The first week in late June we had Jack and Olivia for a couple of days, also the Blakes, and Matthew and Kim’s kids (they were on a trek with the youth of their Stake).
The second week which started Jul 19th started with Valerie and Greg and family coming Monday afternoon. Angela and here three youngest also came Monday evening and left Tuesday. Matthew and Kim joined us Tuesday for a night. Wednesday we discovered a fishing pond at the Wasatch State park, and Matthew and Greg and the older Chandler boys went golfing. These families left Wednesday afternoon. The picture is of the loaded Chandler car, leaving us for another year.
Alison arrived Thursday with Rachel, Amy, and the three youngest boys and stayed Friday afternoon. Michael, Wendy’s son was also at the cabin for most of the week. Wendy and I had to bring two vehicles so that I could leave early Saturday to attend the Spanish Fork parade, and the yearly pot-luck and swimming party at Teresa Argyle’s place. We all got t-shirts saying, "Thank Heavens, I'm an Evans.
On our third cabin week we went to the cabin on Tuesday August 10th.
We had Nathan and Michael with us. Gloria came up for lunch on Thursday and took Nathan home. Later that day, Angela and Bruce and all but Staci arrived, as did Earl and Diane Mullennax. The Stanfords left Friday morning and the Mullennax’s stayed until Saturday.
We feel blessed that all of our families came at some point and we did have experiences with each one, so as to renew our relationshi
ps to some degree.
We succeeded in going through all of the paperwork, etc. to me to replace Kim as the representative payee for Nathan’s SSI, as of the start of August.
Wendy and I saw one of the best baseball games ever on Monday the 9th. We went to a Bees game with Wendy’s family, Andrew and Hilary and the two kids, and Michael and Brian. The game went into the 10 inning tied at 5-5. In the top of the 10th the New Orleans Zephyrs scored twice. In the bottom of the 10th, the Bees got two walks along with two outs and two strikes on the Bees little shortstop, Figueroa. He then drove the next pitch over the right field fence, to win the game 8-7.
On July 27th, we had the privilege of attending the Ogden temple when Paul and Daniel received their endowments. What joy to see this progress in their lives. What fine young men. They remind us so much of the best of the young missionaries we worked with in NC.
On Monday August 16th we had an interview with President Bateman and were set apart to return to the Provo Temple as ordinance workers. We will start on next Thursday, August 26th, to work again on both the first and second shifts. I found my old temple clothes, and, oh the agony of it, could not button either the pants or the coat. Since the temple desires that both items be buttoned, we went Friday to the Orem distribution center and I got new, expanded sizes of these items. We also spent a couple of hours that day at the temple viewing the training videos for temple workers. In our 87 times attending the Raleigh temple, I made a note of about10 items that they did differently that the Utah temples we were trained in or attended. (And it was with great difficulty that I held my tongue and avoided trying to make corrections there, but I succeeded.) I was particularly interested in seeing what the videos said about these items. The answer was mostly that the videos were inconclusive, as it turned out, but in a couple of instances the way Provo performs seemed to me to be confirmed.. We are really looking forward to being back in the Provo Temple this Thursday at 6:20 am, and seeing many of our friends again we hope.
Wendy spent Monday afternoon through Thursday with her Sewing Group at her friend, Janean Sonntag’s cabin, which is in the vicinity of Causey Reservoir east of Huntsville. The Sewing Group is a bunch of ladies who were mostly in the same class at Dilworth Elementary, Hillside Jr., and graduated together from Highland H.S. I spent a time working on Lewis family history, and added a number of names and source materials to our records regarding some of the descendants of Elizabeth Ann Robertson McCarty, who was a daughter of Mary Adline Lewis Robertson, and granddaughter of John Lewis and Elizabeth Sams, our ancestors. I also spent some time with Kimberly, trying to resolving some problems in New Family Search for some Agee names we had submitted for temple work. I spent Wednesday evening working with Matthew, trying to help him finish some things in his basement prior an inspection.
On Thursday, I helped discover a new fishing resources, at a Spanish Fork city reservoir call Spanish Oaks, high up in the hillside above where David and Rebecca used to live. Kimberly had asked that I help her ward’s Cub Scouts pass off some things relating to fishing. I meet her and another leader, with 4 Cubs including Joshua, and also Erin and Jeremy, a little after 10 am at the reservoir. We helped them get their poles ready and started catching fish. It didn’t seem to matter w
hat we used, worms, power bait, spinners–all were successful. The fishing was great! All told we caught at least a dozen fish in about two hours, gave some away, threw some back, and kept some. I took home 2 nice ones including one that about 13-14 inches long and quite fat, that I hooked and let one of the Cubs reel in. It was a nice cool, overcast day and we might have stayed longer except that at about 1 pm we observed what was like a black curtain of clouds approaching from the northwest. We cleaned our fish, jumped in our cars and I just got in the house when a torrent of lightning, thunder, wind, and rain began.
Wendy and I have now taught our 15-16 year old Sunday School class four times. They are really nice kids and mostly cooperate and help us as we try to teach lessons from the Old Testament.
At the invitation of President Blair, Stake 2nd Counselor, I helped plan and conduct a training meeting on Tuesday, August 17th, to initiate the Friends of Scouting drive in our stake.
We call periodically to stay in touch with Mt. Zion branch people. It appears now that the temple sealing for Todd and Tabatha and also her parents Jeff and Debbie, will be Saturday, October 23rd. We are still intending to go back to NC for this, and also to work in a visit to David and Rebecca and boys on the same trip.
I called Jeff and Debbie Pierce in Mount Zion Sunday afternoon and found them on a spiritual high. Jeff had stood and born his testimony as did Tabatha in testimony meeting this morning. Tabatha was just called to work as Activity Day Leader in the Primary (a great fit considering her love of “young-uns”). But even more exciting, their daughter Anita has accepted a call to serve as a Primary Counselor and here husband Richard has agreed to help with Cubs in the Branch. Jeff has taught the Elders Quorum twice in the last month, and is scheduled to do it again next week. Speaking in testimony meeting and teaching a class in the Church was a long-time dream of his, but totally unimaginable a few months ago. And the progress of his family in the Church made him very happy. Also us. Jeff said that he and Debbie are definitely planning to be sealed in the temple along with Todd and Tabatha soon. Talking to Tabatha today, she said September. We are planning to be there.
We taught our first Sunday School class lesson to ten 15 and 16 year olds Sunday in our Wolf Hollow 2nd ward. We had 5 boys and 5 girls present, and the lesson, on the changing of the prophet went pretty well.
This is Asclepius, the Greek God of medicine and this last week was another of the weeks that emphasized medical catch-up. I saw Dr. Carter on Monday for follow-up on cardiac concerns. No urgent issues here, but I need to go get my Cholesterol levels checked and to come back in six months for a treadmill test.
On Monday afternoon, I had my hearing checked by an audiologist, Mindy Norris, Au.D. Just as we have suspected, I am a good candidate for hearing devices in both ears. Response to lower tones is pretty well intact, but as pitches get higher I have significantly more hearing loss. So, I ordered hearing aids, to arrive in a couple of weeks.
I also learned something as to why others’ speech seems to be more muffled. Apparently, consonants, even when spoken by a lower-pitched voice, have various higher pitched resonances I am not hearing. This causes S, TH, D, T, F, etc. to sound alike. Recently I said to Wendy, “I think you have a lisp. I can’t tell whether you are saying an TH or an S.” Now I learn that it is my ears, not her pronunciation, that make the TH and the S sound the same. I am so embarrassed. I hope I can get back on her good side.
Friday I visited with Dr. Middleton, my urologist, to check up on prostate issues. They got a bunch of fluids to do their tests, so we’ll see. I am on a 6-month check-up cycle here also.
The two biopsies that Dr. Bradley took a couple of weeks ago both came back negative for skin cancer. Wendy, not so fortunate, needs to have some work done next Tuesday to remove a spot on her forehead, just above her left eyebrow.
I am trying to get back on a exercise program and lose some weight. We walk most days, and have been able to lengthen the time and distance. Six weeks ago it was all I could do to walk for 20 minutes. This morning we went an hour. I am down about 7-8 pounds, and need to shed another 25, I think.
There are great places to walk here. Sometimes we walk around the track at the Junior High, and sometimes around the neighborhood. If we have time, we drive to the walking path along the Spanish Fork River that starts at the ball fields just off south Main Street. We also like to walk along the Bottoms road, which is just below the bench along the river toward the canyon.
