Bottle Brush

This week we planted a bottlebrush bush where one of the trees used to be on the side of the house. I also repaired a leak in the drip system.

Felicia took Haley's car down to the church and parked for 1 hr and the battery was dead. This is the 3^rd time we have had a dead battery on it so I am going to take it in for a battery replacement. I did charge it overnight and the charger says it is currently at full charge.

We attended the Messiah Sing-along with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir down at our Stake Center. There were only 30 people there, I am guessing. I think I was the only bass other than the choir. I whish they'd have turned the volume up so I could have felt more immersed in the choir instead of feeling like the only person singing my part.

Aunt Skip celebrated her 90^th birthday yesterday. They had a party but we couldn’t go so we sent flowers. In Sunday School last week a person proposed that it was a choice not to get married and it might be a sin. Someone else brought up Sheri Dew and the first person said Sister Dew obviously put her career as a priority over marriage. This struck most in the class as being judgmental. The teacher of the class, Bro. Stout, then said that he knew a lady in his old ward in Ogden named Skip Reese who was as fine a member of the church as any he had ever met. Felicia then said “That is Bryan’s Aunt!” We talked afterwards about her.  

Mission Memories:

We were able to get Frau Knoepfli in Olten to quit smoking and come to church and become fully prepared for the getting baptized. The only thing she struggled with was her daughters had a hard time sitting still during Sacrament Meeting. We brought a Sister from the Ward to fellowship her. She was good because she joined the church without her husband joining, also. I mentioned in a earlier post that she and her husband were not getting along. Nonetheless, her husband agreed to sign permission for baptism and we were able to accompany her to the stake center in Zolikofen, near the Temple, where Elder Pyper performed the baptism and I confirmed and bestowed the Holy Ghost. Sister Knoepfli was so happy and we were so happy to see her change her life and come into the fold. Unfortunately, that was not the end of struggles for her.

 

Sister Knoepfli on Baptism Day

Unity

Interfaith Round Table at LDS North Stake Center, Tucson

This week our Stake hosted an interfaith community service. The theme was "Together we journey in Love, Mercy, and Peace".

The following participated:

St. Odilia Catholic Community
Third Church of Christ Scientist (Christian Science)
Muslim Community Center  of Tucson
Tucson North Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Casas Adobes Congregational United Church of Christ

Reformed Jewish Congregation Or Chadash

I volunteered​ to usher at the meeting. Most attending were LDS but there were some from the other congregations. They promoted this by having interfaith community choirs perform. Apparently Pres. Broadbent has lunch once per month with the leaders of these groups. There are different beliefs but also common beliefs and common goals of promoting moral righteousness in the community. 

Pres Broadbent conducted the meeting and the minister of each of the congregations above was given a word from the theme to talk about. The Rabbi was given the word "Journey". He spoke about the journey of Abraham from Ur, then the journey of Moses to the promised land, then the journey of Christ from Nazareth to Jerusalem to Calvary, then he spoke of Muhammad's journey starting in 619 AD with his followers from Mecca to Medina and the back again to Mecca in 628 AD. The rabbi then said that in 1827 Joseph Smith was directed by an angel to buried book, the Book of Mormon. He then journeyed from New York to Ohio then to Missouri and then to Illinois. From there, under Brigham Young, the Mormons journeyed to the western United States. He said all of these are journeys of faith. It was interesting to hear the different perspectives with all emphasizing the common ground. All of the faiths had their version of the golden rule. 

The opening song was our "Love One Another". The interfaith children's choir sang "I am a Child of God". The closing hymn was from some other faith and was sung rather tentatively since most did not know it. The closing prayer was by the Imam and included Arabic musical chanting. He had a good voice but I couldn't understand any of it except the last word that resembled "amen".

It was a good experience. A lady came up to me while I was ushering and asked if I had a son that played clarinet for the CDO band. I said yes and I thought she looked kind of familiar. She was the mother of a girl that hosted sectional practices at her house and I had dropped Gordon off there a few times.

Mission Memories

After challenging Frau Knoepfli from Olten to seriously study, she really did start reading the Book of Mormon. She also started reading the other stuff from other religions and an evangelical neighbor gave her Anti-Mormon stuff to read. We worked through all those questions and always challenged her to pray to know what is right. She always refused to say the prayer with us. She said she would only pray in her closet and she kept saying that she didn't get an answer to her prayer. Finally, on a visit where we brought Sister Aernt (a member who's husband was not a member) I decided I say the closing prayer and ask if the church was true. When I asked the Lord to let us know if the Church was true, the spirit was very strong. We told Frau Knoepfli that the feeling was the Holy Spirit telling her the Church was true. She acknowledged the feeling but said," What is a feeling? You can't just join a church because you have a feeling". I told her that she also needs to study it out, but she should continue to pray and the feeling will guide her. I told her that she should never again say they Lord didn't answer her prayer. She agreed to set a baptism goal one month away. She had a smoking and coffee problem to work through as well as strengthening her testimony. She and her husband were having marriage problems. We didn't know how that would play out so pray and faith were needed. More later.

Music City and Airplanes and Waiting

I flew to Nashville on Feb 27 - Mar 1 because we were having a design review at one of our suppliers located 1 hour outside of Nashville. It rained most of the time we were there. On one night we drove into town to have dinner. Most bars and restaurants downtown had live music performers and they piped the sound out to the street in front of their place. Below are a few pictures of the streets.

Looking across the street to Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffet's place)

The Honky Tonk Bar and Grill across at the corner

Merchants Restaurant where we ate

While I was in Tennessee we received word from Krystal that Eric had been officially placed on the wait list for PA school in Mississippi. One of Gordon's friends had been on the waitlist for UofA Medical School and got in so we are hoping and praying for the same with Eric.

Felicia and I had been invited to a client appreciation event held by Kinghorn Heritage Law Firm that put our trust together and asset protection plan. The event featured dinner and a tour at the Pima Air and Space Museum. We enjoyed looking at the planes.

B-36 Peacemaker: The 1st long range nuclear strategic bomber

B-36 Pecemaker: Had 3 reverse turboprop engines on each wing with twin jet engines hanging from the outer part of the wing

B-36: The first plane of the Strategic Air Command and was the weapon the started the cold war with the USSR

T-38: KB trained in one of these

Petulant Porpoise Search and Rescue Sea Plane

The Mikesells were there also so we were able to sit with them at dinner. There were probably 200 people there.

SR-71 and Drone

Space Shuttle Booster: I worked on this while at Thiokol

Mission Memories
The first day Elder Pyper and I were in Olten, we had an appointment that the previous Elders we replaced had set up with two sisters living on the other side of the river. We rode our bikes over and introduced ourselves and started trying to teach the lesson on the Plan of Salvation. They had a bunch of silly questions and I began thinking that they were having us over as entertainment and weren't serious at all.  I was surprised that they agreed to have us come back for another appointment. We went over the next week and it was more of the same with silly questions like, "Cain killed Able and then Cain left and married someone. How could that be if there was only Cain and Adam and Eve left?"

Well, they agreed to let us come back again. Before our next appointment, I told Elder Pyper that I thought we needed to challenge them to listen and seriously read the Book of Mormon and ask if it was true and if it was true, be baptized into the church. We did that and one of the sisters said she thought it was silly and she didn't want to do this anymore, but the other one said that she would be willing to begin reading and praying. Meetings with her (Frau Knoepfli) went way better after that.