Shower Doors

Our Ward had a Trunk or Treat Party on Wednesday.  Felicia put together the Star Wars / Rogue One theme for the trunk of Haley's car.

Jyn Erso

Obi-Wan

The shower doors in our master bathroom have been looking bad for a long time. There were many layers of water-deposit buildup on the doors and the clear plastic bumper parts had yellowed and there were crevasses where mold had formed but we couldn't get to with cleaner. I had looked into trying to replace the doors before but it seemed the do-it-yourself kits were not the right size for our exact opening. Finally, I decided to take measurements and go talk to the guy at home depot and see what it would take to order what I needed. To my surprise, nothing needed to be ordered. The kits they had in stock would fit. All that was needed was a hacksaw to cut the width of the bottom and top frames.

Friday afternoon Felicia and I took the truck to Home Depot and purchased all the kit parts. Saturday morning I helped Wayne (now Linda) move out of his house. His wife is coming back from Argentina and they have decided to separate. Saturday afternoon I took the old doors off....

Lots of Cleaning Required After Removing the Old Doors

...and out on the new frame and doors. It was surprisingly easy. Felicia said we should have done it years earlier. The hardest part was cleaning and prepping after taking the old doors off.

New Shower Doors with Rain Texturing

Mission Memories:
A few days after the sock and laundry incident, Elder Green was transferred out and I received Elder Nguyen. When Elder Green and I saw the name of the Elder coming to be my new companion, we both couldn't figure out the origins of the name. We decided he must be Dutch. We were wrong.

Elder Nguyen in the middle, Reese on the Right

Elder Nguyen was Vietnamese. He had come to Switzerland to study and while in Switzerland the US pulled out of the Vietnam War. The South Vietnam was immediately overrun and his family was sent to camps (they were viewed as being too intelligent [wore glasses], therefore dangerous). He was unable to return. He met the missionaries in Switzerland and was baptized.

When Elder Nguyen stepped off the train I was thinking they had sent me a 16 year old. Turns out he was 26 and had graduated from Engineering School and was working when he decided to serve a mission. Both of us were only 3 months out in the field and neither one of us spoke German very well. Fortunately, he was fluent in English and also French. The French part came in handy because the lady with the laundry problem was from French-speaking Switzerland. He was able to talk her back from hysteria and we were able to teach her a missionary discussion and giver her a Book of Mormon. After that we were able to negotiate a fair price to pay for ruining her wash and things calmed down for a few weeks at the house. A little bit of nice, plus the spirit and respect, go a long way.

Elder Nguyen was a great person and friend. The Vietnam War accomplished something significant if it only saved him.

Drip

We had a leak in the drip system where the California Pepper Trees used to stand. The roots of the tree had caused leaks in the drip system. I got the ax out to chop through the roots and reroute the flexible piping of the drip system. After several blisters, I was successful.

Russ and I rode out to Davis Mesa a week ago. It is a pretty isolated location but has native grass that grows there and was identified by ranchers long ago for grazing.

Davis Mesa: The whips of grass grow naturally

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Mission Memories:

My first mission field companion was interesting. He told me that he and his previous companion had quit tracting and they had decided to study scriptures and be tourists because nobody listened to them anyway. I arrived and replaced this previous companion who was going home because the 2 year mission commitment had ended. My arrival to be trained by him was his chance to redeem himself and work hard before he went home in 6 months. I can honestly say that he tried but Elder Green's missionary manners were not the best. He would get upset and be harsh at the door with people who rejected us. On my first day tracting one lady threatened to call the police on us after Elder Green berated her. Because the previous companionship had not been working, we had no investigators when I arrived. We were slowly able to build up some appointments over time.

One month after I arrived, the land lady raised the rent on us. Our parents sent us allowance for paying for our missions back then and Elder Green did not want to ask his parents for more. The apartment had one large bedroom and we shared the kitchen and bath area with 2 other rooms. He told me that we were moving to a new apartment. This started a new activity for us. For one solid week we tracted half of the day and looked for an apartment the other half. We found a new one-room furnished apartment after that week and the landlord agreed to put two beds in. It had a little oven and sink for cooking in the room. There was a bathroom in the hall and a shower downstairs in the laundry room. We moved in and everything seemed fine until about 5 days before Elder Green was to get his last transfer. We came home for lunch and the lady upstairs met us screaming about some kind of mess then she held up one of my lost blue socks. Apparently I left it in the washing machine and she washed all her fine linen and turned it splotchy blue. She wanted us to pay for everything. Elder Green told her she should have looked in the washing machine before she put her whites in and that we weren't paying. That was the beginning of the decline of our welcome at the new apartment. The rest is for another story, but the lesson for the mission was: always remember you are a representative of Jesus Christ and you must be understanding and be willing to treat people fairly.

Mission Trip

This was a big week for Haley. We saw a picture of her on the bus going to her Mission President in Las Vegas (taken by the driver), we saw a picture of her with her mission president, and we saw a picture of her painting a porch. Technology is amazing.

The trip to my mission involved flying to Chicago O'Hare Airport and catching a Swiss Air flight to Zurich. As we came off the plane in Chicago and walked to the central area of the airport, a young lady with a ring in her nose (not common in 1977) and dressed kind of oddly spotted us and came running up to my companion and I. I was thinking this would be my first official missionary experience teaching this poor lost young lady. To my dismay, my companion, a Californian, said "Ich spreche kein Englisch" and ran the other way. I was thinking "What kind of missionary behavior is that, Elder Nartker?"

The young lady then pulls a flower out of her bag and pins it on my lapel while telling me she knows I am there to serve others. She then says she is in an organization serving disadvantaged children also. She says she is a member of Hare Krishna and asks if I could give a small donation for the flower she pinned on me. I had $20 in my wallet for meal spending money while traveling. I tell her I only have a $20 bill. She says, "No problem, my purse is full of change and I need to get rid of it 'cause it is heavy". I naively give her the $20 and she gives me back a $5 bill, says thank you, and walks quickly away. I say wait I need more change than that for meals, but she speeds up and disappears around the corner.

So the lesson is, a companion may have more experience than you in certain things and you'd be wise to pay attention to their opinions. I taped the flower into my missionary journal.

We were able to repair Haley's windshield this week.

Unfortunate Events

Conference was great. There were so many good talks. One that impressed me was Elder Waddell who spoke about tragic events that occur in peoples lives. He told about the Hyrum Shumway who was blinded during WWII. He spoke about how we respond when events out of our control change our lives. He said, "Eternal life cannot be derailed by events, only choices." When events occur, it is the choices we make reacting to those events that has the biggest impact on our eternal happiness. When he spoke, I immediately thought about Janet. It has been 2.5 months since the rollover accident and she is still in a coma. This event has brought our family together in faith and prayer though and we continue pray and hope.

Haley's car was the victim of Tucson roads last week. I drove it to work one day last week and immediately after entering the freeway, a rock hit the windshield and cracked it. We will need to get that replaced.

Alone Again

With Haley on her mission, Felicia and I are alone again and thinking about home improvement. The screens on our front window had holes worn in them. I decided this was a do-it-yourself project that could mesh with the Oct 2017 General Conference Saturday session. I bought the materials for 3 windows and detached the first frame, brought it into the house, and Felicia turned on the BYUTV.

While modern prophets and apostles spoke, I removed the old screen and rolled out the new one over the frame. I determined that stretching the mesh while I put it in place would ensure that there would be no wrinkles when I installed it. I anchored the corners and stretched as I used the roller tool to press the screen edges into the grooves holding it in place. I then rolled the spline into the groove to lock it and trimmed the excess material. It looked great but when I tried place it back over the window, I discovered that the stretched mesh bowed the sides in and created an hour-glass shaped screen that wouldn't match up with the bolt holes.

I had to take it back in to the house and remove the newly-placed screen, discard it, and roll out new screening material. This time I did no stretching. The result was perfect as shown below.

For the next one, I didn't pay attention to make sure the frame corners were square and I discovered I had a rhomboid shape when I went to install it. Lining up the bolts stretched the screen resulting in wrinkles as shown.

Every mistake I make is a learning opportunity and allows me to increase my skill and do better the next time.