14 September 2018 - Friday - Amy's Birthday!

14 September 2018 - Friday

The time is flying by, and mom and I just completed our 5th month here in the Wyoming Mormon Trails Mission!  Wow!  I wanted to send this blog post out last night, but the wind and the shaky internet connection caused us to lose our internet connection.  We also had the phone system down at the Missionary Village.  I am taking a break here in the Homestead to catch up on some notes from yesterday.

I am amazed at the beautiful fall weather.  The clouds are stunning and the sunrises are coming later each morning.  I am still walking my three miles each morning.  Today is was 37 degrees as I was making my way to the highway and back.  I am finding that my shower time is being compromised, a little, with the later starts in the morning, but it is worth the time to make this effort to exercise!

The view of the sunrise on Friday morning!

"Farewell" flags at the Missionary Village

As I started my walk yesterday, (Friday), I got right up close before I noticed the flags out.  This is the final farewell salute to the departing missionaries.  We had two couples leave on Friday, and we have nine more leaving by next Friday.  

Mom  and  I  had a  fun   assignment  working  together  on  Friday (yesterday).    We washed the windows at the offices.  I never knew there were  so  many windows!     We  washed  the window tracks, the window sills, and the screens.  It took us a little over three hours to get the work done!  The only things we could not get off were the water stains from the sprinklers.  We  suggested some very fine, wet/dry, sandpaper that will work very nicely if they decide to buy it for the mission.

Elder Tuescher, one of our MTC friends, drove a grader in his work  occupation.   Since we had a grader here at the mission, he was finally able to fire it up and give me a clinic on how it operates.  
So, here is an action shot;

Tommy, are you ready to do some road work?

We got home about 1:30pm,  on  Friday, after our window cleaning assignment.  It had warmed up to 
the mid 80's and we got the cooler going.    It was about this time  that  we  found out the phone was down, in the Pavilion, and the internet was out.  I kept hoping we would have it restored by the end of the day but that never happened.  I even checked at 11:45pm on a potty break, but still no internet! 

But I did respond to a missionary movie activity that was held Friday night at the Pavilion.  I wanted to make sure that they saw we weren't  ignoring  the  senior  missionaries  on these  special activities.  The movie was okay, but at least I made the effort!  And mom got a start on going through our "stuff" in preparation for our farewell in October!

What do we really need to take home with us in October?

I have put together a little spiritual thought for our correlation meeting, for next Tuesday,  based on Henry B. Eyring's statement; "Never underestimate the spiritual value of temporal service".  They have used this quote a lot here  in the mission field  and I wanted to investigate the background of it.  

President Eyring, then Elder Eyring, was giving a talk at a Seminary/Institute conference in August 1990.    He  was  referring  to  Ammon's  service  to  King  Lamoni,  and  how  he  was first to serve, temporally, until the teaching opportunity, spiritually, came along!  I have thought about this effort a lot since I found that resource.  

It seems like many of our callings in the Church begin as temporal service.  We are challenged to work hard and magnify our responsibilities and then the spiritual blessings come to each of us for our service.  However, when we just go through the motions and fail to fully magnify these callings and responsibilities, the spiritual blessings are either delayed or withheld.