Can you believe August is almost over? We feel like it is getting winter here. It seems to rain almost every day. The skies are grey all the time. For people from California, this feels like winter. People are still not wearing coats and are wearing shorts. We on the other hand feel like socks and shoes instead of flip flops and coats all the time. We are wearing sweaters in the house. It really will be a long winter if we feel that way already. We really have summer (this is summer here) until October and that is the rainy month. Imagine! Then it rains heavy every day. I guess the rain has degrees of rain as well, here. Who knew?
We go out all the time in it. My hair looks awful all the time because you are not cool if you use an umbrella. One wears a coat with a hood. The hood does great things for me. I call it Alaska Hair. They know how to do it. I just can’t let it go. So on Sunday I am not cool and use an umbrella and the rest of the time I have AK Hair.
Now wasn’t that interesting?
Seminary starts tomorrow and we have 4 very nervous teachers tonight. Things will settle by the end of the week. They will be great teachers. Our job will be easy this year because of that.
We are thrilled this week because of a young man who has received his call to Uruguay Montevideo South mission. Baldur has worked with him and taught the mission preparation classes to him so we love him and are so happy to see him go. He is older and this is a great achievement on his part. Baldur has 2 of his 4 boys that he taught going out this month and one getting married (change in plans). So he feels like he has been successful in achieving his goals.
It’s been quite a month. It looks the branch is having 3 marriages and 2 missionaries. That is a successful program for us. The summer young adults are slowing leaving. We have fewer and fewer each Sunday. The last cruise ship will be gone in 1 month and the Disney ships are already stopped. So now we get about 2 a day instead of 4 or5. We sure will miss the youth. I find it to be frustrating as many of the youth come here and disappear. They use it as a hide out from church responsibility. Then we have some really elect who try to attend but can’t because of work
This past week, Elder Schindler and I have taken the quiet time to catch up on all the little things we needed to get done. Forms to fill out and organizational things. So it would be boring to share all that. Let it be said that our days are now arising early and going to bed late. We become nappers. We nap in the morning after seminary to be able to cope with Young adults.
We were walking and found these mushrooms popping up all under the pines. I was so surprised. They look like the German wooden ones that Baldur’s mom always gave the girls from Germany. They are all still sold there today. I am attaching a picture. I didn’t know such a thing really existed but they do.
We also have gone out to the glacier and each night found the bears eating salmon. It is fun to watch them catch and eat them. What we didn’t know is that the yearlings (babies about one year old) have to hide from the male bears that would eat them. There are about 17 bears around this trail that we go walk on. So the little ones hide in the trees. They look like beanie babies just hang over the tree branch. So fun to watch them I am enclosing a picture of one of them also. The bears are an exciting thing right now. They are attacking our dumpsters at night. Elder Schindler was awakened at 2:00 am last night with them knocking over the dumpster.
I am so grateful for the blessings of the spirit as we do this work. I asked Heavenly Father if I was doing what He wanted me to do and was blessed with a confirmation. Sometimes I wonder if I am here for a reason and then that blessing comes. I am so thankful. It would be hard without it. I would be doing things with my daughters and nothing is more important to me other that Dad and God.
As Elder Schindler was preparing for training on the church Seminary website he found a talk by Elder Nelson that is quite wonderful. In it, we found our eyes opened to periods instead of days. So we leave you with that food for thought.
The physical Creation itself was staged through ordered periods of time. In Genesis 22 and Moses, 23 those periods are called days. But in the book of Abraham, each period is referred to as a time. 24 Whether termed a day, a time, or an age, each phase was a period between two identifiable events—a division of eternity. 25
I also found a quote from that talk that I love and gives purpose to my life. You! I love my family. Grand isn’t it.
Grand as it is, planet Earth is part of something even grander—that great plan of God. Simply summarized, the earth was created that families might be.
The Creation, May 2000 Ensign
ELDER RUSSELL M.NELSON
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Love you all,
Mom and Dad, Omi and Grandpa
