Good bye, Elder and Sister Twelmeyer and Sister Audenart!

Til we meet again!

Elder Jim and Sister Linda Twelmeyer have been serving their mission since June of 2020.  They have served in the Africa/Middle East/ Europe area under Matt Heiss mainly reading missionary journals and writing WebCat entries for them.  They have also served as assistant zone leaders for the past year.  Sister Twelmeyer also served as our branch Relief Society president.  They were released from their full-time mission on December 16 and transitioned to church service missionaries. They will work remotely about 16 hours a week.  They are heading back to their home in Cleveland, Ohio, and later to their beach home in Hilton head, North Carolina where we hope to visit them someday.

A crop from a photo in front of the 
Jordan River Temple in October

Sister Audenart also was released and transitioned to a church service missionary as well.  We will miss working with her in zone leadership as well.  She has been an amazing help even from Canada where she has served her entire mission from home because of Covid related visa problems.

There is a real loss with Twelmeyers leaving.  They have been here since we arrived and we have grown to love them.  We have played games with them, gone to dinner, and had long conversations at our home.  It also serves to remind us that our mission will also someday come to an end which makes the feelings even more real for us.

How lucky we are to have known these great people and how we hope that our paths will cross again in the future.

Best of luck to the Twelmeyers and Sister Audenart!  Thanks for your great work and glad you are continuing to serve.

Ben's Clinical

As we talk in the Church History Library, journals are some of the richest sources of history as they often recount events soon after they happen.  However, not all journals are the same.  The archivists shared examples of journals where a man never mentioned his wife in the entire 40+ journals of his life despite the fact of being married and having children with her over 40 years or other people never noting anything about the Church or their service in the Church.

I feel the same about talking about Ben and his battle with schizophrenia.  It would be weird to not talk about it from time to time, because it has such a great impact on us, on all of our family, and most of all on Ben himself.  It doesn't mean that I share everything about the day to day battles--that is Ben's story and someday perhaps he can share it.  But I think it is important to talk about Ben from time to time and keep this record of his struggles and triumphs.

So, on Monday morning, December 13, I headed down to Provo for Ben's monthly clinical meeting.  Our phone call the night before had been better than the past couple of months and I was hopeful to see that in person.  Unfortunately, as soon as I saw Ben, I realized that he was not doing well at all.  He was distracted and unable to engage in conversations which weren't related to his delusions.  Over and over, he commented that he just wanted to be home or be with Gary and I.  Clearly, a change in medication which was started over a month ago was not working and so plans were made to return to former levels of medication and try again.  (Unfortunately, the prior levels of medication were causing unhealthy side effects and can't be the solution long term, but at least, he was more able to work with the treatment team.  So they are returning to those prior levels which will take a few weeks and then try adding another medication and then trying lower the offending medication again.  It is a tricky and time consuming process as you can see.)

During the clinical, Dr. Roundy complimented Ben on his jacket more in an effort to distract Ben rather than any other reason.  Immediately, Ben told him that he could have it.  His response was so immediate and stated so clearly and earnestly that it brought tears to my eyes.  It was the bright spot of a very hard clinical.

As we were getting ready to leave, Dr. Roundy mentioned that he "had typed up notes from the meeting and sent them to me by email."  He had never done that before so I was curious, but assumed it was about some medication options we had discussed.  Despite Ben's symptoms, I invited him to go to lunch and he agreed.  He chose Arby's and we grabbed food from there through drive through because Ben remains too anxious to go outside much or into new places.  We then went back and ate our lunch in the parking lot of the state hospital.

I decided to read the email from Dr. Roundy.  This is what it said:  

"I think it says a great deal about a mom when a child is having their most difficult moments, that the child simply wants to be at home.

That your son would give me his jacket...also says a great deal about his family. Thank you for having such a wonderful son.

Kent"

And of course, I teared up which made Ben wonder why. 

We had another such moment this month when one of the techs was letting us out of the building after a visit.  He was a young adult in shorts and with a long pony tail and looked like he had had a bit of a hard life.  He said to us "Thanks for being the good people you are in the world."  I assumed it was because of the missionary badges, but then he said something to the effect, "I know Ben brings you joy, but I know it is very hard.  Thanks for loving him. He is a good guy."

I don't share these to say that I am such a great mom, but to assure you that this is the type of people who are surrounding Ben at this time.  Caring, loving people who see glimpses of the "real" Ben inside and love him and us.  In the middle of this terrible illness, Ben is seen, loved, watched over, and protected.  What a great blessing for us and for him!  I don't know all of the reasons for these terrible illnesses and I hope that someday soon a cure is found.  But I do know that people will be blessed who have shown him love and compassion despite the curious ways this illness impacts him.  And I know that Ben is able to impact others in ways that he will never know until later--me probably most of all.

Merry Christmas, Gary and Jena!

I decided with Gary and Jena's permission that part of their Christmas gifts would be activities.  One of my goals after receiving our mission call was to be able to enjoy downtown Salt Lake events by walking to them.  I made reservations for four activities--although Gary and Jena only know the days and the times--not the actual events.  Today was the first one--

A walk on Saturday afternoon to the Eccles Theatre on Main Street for---

We have never attended his concert before but he has been doing a Christmas concert for 35+ years.  This year, Alex Boye' was part of the show.  It was fun and very enjoyable.  I was really glad that we were there despite the last minute frantic look for our immunization cards which were required by the theatre.

We had two very sweet experiences while there.  At the intermission, the couple sitting just down from us came and talked to us.  They are from the Tooele area and have a 3 year old daughter with Down syndrome.  We had a great conversation with them.  Then after they went back to their seats, the family on the other side of Jena talked to us about being missionaries, etc.  At the end of the program, the mother handed Jena $20 dollars and wished us a Merry Christmas and thanks for serving as a missionaries.  She told Jena to buy us a treat.  How sweet was that!  It made me cry.  People are so sweet to us when they see the missionary tags.

Our Merry Christmas events were off with a perfect start...and if you have a chance, watch the Alex Boye' YouTube video called "Newborn"!    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4S1WhJajk

They showed it as part of the performance.  It is amazing and will bring tears to your eyes!!!
 

Mission LIfe In the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission- con't

Still on that same week-- December 5 through the 11th-- Thursday morning started very early (not bright as it was still the black of night outside as we were getting ready for our zone temple trip to the Bountiful Temple)  Because a snow storm was forecasted, we got up at 5:45 to be ready and out the door by 6:40 to pick up Sister Audenart and get to the temple by 7:30 am.  There was some snow falling but it wasn't a bad drive up to the temple.

Pictures are taken in the basement parking atrium looking up through the glass....

We had about 15 missionaries with us during this session.  Very sweet!

After dropping Sister Audenart off at her hotel, we headed to the Church History Library for Jena to do the mail and for Gary and I to take care of emails and missionaries.  We discovered we were getting 4 new missionaries--a bit unexpected although Gary was predicting 5!  Two of them we knew about because they had been invited by other missionaries or staff to join the mission.  But that means training more missionaries on Friday of this week......

We were hoping to head to our apartment for lunch and maybe a short nap, when we got a call from Randy Gailey, a friend and owner of the other part of the storage units.  There had been a break-in at the storage units and we needed to head up and assess the loss and damage.  So change of clothes and off we went--in the snow of course.  Only one unit on our side and one unit on Randy's side had been hacked open.  Our renter checked and nothing seemed to be missing.  The locks had been cut and the doors left open.  They got in by cutting through the fence in a small side part.  The police were called and told us that this had been happening to other storage units in the area.  Lucky not worse and we should get the final repairs done on the fence this week.  Gary did a makeshift repair a few days later which has held for the meantime.  A weird situation!

We got home in time to change back into our missionary clothes and head to the COB to help serve dinner at another zone's Christmas party on the 26th floor of the COB.  It was fun to be there with missionaries we don't often see except on Sundays or mission devotionals.

The view from the 26th floor on a snowy night----

Friday was a day of training new missionaries.  It is always a privilege to attend the Go Forth Meetings and hear the mission president and his wife talk.  Even though they frequently cover the same topics, each time is slightly different and I usually find or feel something new or different.  And it is exciting to meet with the new missionaries and talk about how amazing the Collections Zone is.  This time we had Sister Kaupusi who will be doing SPC and Elder and Sister Olivera from Brazil who will work on the Latin American team.

And by the evening, we were tired and I wrote in my journal--"so we had a quiet evening."

Isn't missionary life amazing!

Zone Leadership Christmas Party

You know how sometimes you are with a group of people and things are so delightful and fun and you just don't want it to end.  That is how this evening was with these wonderful missionaries.  The Youngs' home was beautiful and decked out in Christmas finery. It was so fun to see the fun things they had throughout their home for Christmas.  Plus their home itself had some interesting and fun touches.  Sister Young is very talented.

I didn't take pictures during the dinner and activities.  We had a great dinner with meatloaf, sweet potatoes, an amazing green salad, rolls, and chocolate cake (by Sister Twelmeyer) for dessert.  We had a great conversation about--Church history--surprise, surprise--and learned some interesting facts and stories about missionary journals that people had read and some history of the Church in Japan.

We then all signed the inside of the Christmas cards--well. the women did while the men "cheered" us on.  58 signatures!  Done!  (We have about 80 missionaries but we gave couples just one.)

We then played Christmas Chronology which was a big hit (not surprising with a bunch of Church History missionaries.)  This was a game we had made up for a Christmas party years ago.  My team did not win, so apparently I didn't remember my Christmas history very well!

Then Santa made an early visit---

The Youngs gave Jena a fidget, but she wasn't sure how it worked...

Elder Young helped her.

She is now a pro at it!

Here we are minus Gary who took the photo:

Elder and Sister Young, Elder and Sister Twelmeyer, and Sister Audenart, me, Jena

It was a wonderful night that we didn't want to end...and we didn't get to bed until 11:30 which isn't the best plan when you have to get up early the next morning!

Mission LIfe In the Utah Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission

The week of December 5th through the 11th was very busy in the mission life department.  Sister Audenart was back in town for a two day training with the US/Canada team.  I picked her up on Sunday morning and she stayed at a hotel across from Temple Square so was able to experience the "whole" walking mission experience.  We loved being able to spend some more time with her in person.

As part of the US/Canada team, we also attend that two day training which was scheduled from 9-4 on Monday and Tuesday.  However, you could really notice how much being zone leaders impacts our daily schedule as we were frequently in and out of the training on both days--with planned and unplanned events.  Gary ended up not attending any of Tuesday because our schedule was so crazy.  I had to do a presentation on "Successful Communication" for the team training and then left and immediately did our regular training for new missionaries.  I got there about 1 minute before my turn--for which Gary was grateful because he was my back up.  In my digital journal, I detailed Tuesday and the long list of unexpected and expected interruptions to the training.  While I was there, I did learn new stuff so that was good.  

The US/Canada team:

Left to right:  Liz, Elder and Sister Eppich, Elder Crewell, Elder Barker, Elder Spencer, Elder Mel Young, Scott Christensen, Paulee, Josh

Front row:  Sister Audenart, Sister Barker, Sister Forman, Sister Winn, Sister Joan Young, Sister Newbold  (notice Gary and I were missing--away on zone stuff.)

Walking outside you never know what might be swinging in the air on Temple Square.  In this case, some red wire or cables??  The North Visitors' Center is basically all gone now.  Crazy the changes on Temple Square.

Tuesday evening, we headed over to the Hatch's Chocolate with Liz, Josh and his daughter Faye, and Jena and Gary, and Sister Audenart for the hot chocolate or ice cream.

Only missionaries go to a chocolate shoppe in suits or dresses!

That is a chocolate Christmas tree in the case below.

A close up of some of their candy designs for Christmas--

Sister Audenart, Liz, me, and Jena--Gary took the photo

On Wednesday morning of that week, Elder Bai and Sister Lee, our couple from Korea, introduced themselves to the zone.  They both wrote out in their introductions in English and did a very good job in reading them to us so everyone can get to know them a bit better.  They have limited spoken English but have been so patient as we try to make meaningful work for them to do.  They are serving with us two days a week doing work for the Korean oral history project and working in family history three days a week searching for related books about Korean family histories.

Still wearing masks anytime we are outside of our cubicle.  It is a way of life for all of us.

Wednesday turned out to be busier than I planned because two days of training had "put us behind."  Jena was working on the inside messages of our zone leaders Christmas cards.  Sister Audenart had handmade cards for each of our missionaries and Jena was doing the inside message.

Here is a sample of the fun cards Sister Audenart had made.  So cute!

Jena and I headed back to the apartment in the early afternoon to continue to get the cards completed and also finish our preparations for our Zone Leader Christmas dinner and party. We were in charge of meat loaf and sweeet potatoes for the meal and the games, of course.

We got the same "Hear Him" books for our five zone leader assistants which we had received.  This gathering was especially sweet as this would be the last time we would all be together.  Sister Audenart was returning to Canada the next day, the Twelmeyers were being released for their mission the next week, and all of them would be released as assistant zone leaders at the end of the month.  After a year of service, we felt it was appropriate to change everyone as the Twelmeyers and Sister Audenart were transitioning to service missionaries.

We also had a zoom meeting Wednesday afternoon so dinner was a bit late being done, but it all worked out as Sister Audenart joined us as we drove down to the Youngs' home in the Millcreek area for our next fun event......
 

Starting To Look Like Christmas...

I didn't pack Christmas decorations (and in fact, didn't even leave good access to them in our storage room at home when I went to look for our Christmas stockings later in the month.)

The "Hear Him" book is a gift from one of our missionaries.  "Hear Him" is the theme of our mission which makes it even more meaningful.

Missionary life----
 

SO Far Behind--And SO Much To Say!

Today is the day after Christmas and I am about 20 days behind in the blog.  Since those have been 20 jammed packed days of Christmas fun and other great stuff--that means a lot of catching up to do.  I think there is about 317 photos to sort through to decide what to use and what to discard.  And all of these things are good things. No pictures of hospital rooms or coughing or headaches to share, although many in our world are facing those and worse things.  We have been so blessed in our lives and we are so grateful for that.  We know it is through the goodness of God for the many things we have and we are not sure why we are spared many of the hardships others face.  That could change in a moment, of course.  Life is always changing.  However, we will continue to rely on God and the Savior in good times and the hard times because that is what has helped us in the past and our only sure support for the future.

So lots of posts ahead reviewing the events of Mission Christmas #2---let the good times roll!!

Happy Birthday, Zander!

 Happy Birthday, Zander!

Zander turned five yesterday.  He is a fun kid to have in the family.  He LOVES school, dinosaurs, and the alphabet.  He can already read so many words because he loves letters.

Saturday turned out to be a very busy day for us so I didn't make it up to the celebrations, but Gary and Jena headed up so that Gary could get the sprinklers cleaned out before the winter freezes arrive, so Jena delivered our gifts and I got to view by FaceTime.  Thank goodness for FaceTime.

Family Christmas Party With Ben

At the state hospital, they held a family Christmas party for the patients last night.  Pizza, salad and pie!  They had a choir sing some Christmas songs which was good as well.  Ben practiced with them some times but didn't want to perform.

Despite his lack of smiles in the pictures, he seemed to be glad that we were there.  We were a bit late due to traffic (and me underestimating traffic on a Saturday).  Shortly after we sat down at the table with Ben and some other patients, Ben hopped up and went to another table and gather 6 wrapped chocolates.  One of the workers behind me commented that they (Ben and the other patients) had already eaten all of the chocolates on their table. And then Ben dropped them in front of the three of us--two for each.  That delighted the workers--that Ben would look after us.  It was a sweet gesture and he even smiled when he did it.

A recent change in medication isn't working as planned so another adjustment was made on Friday which has made him more sleepy again.  He doesn't like that feeling but is willing to hang in there in hopes that his body will adjust and he will get some overall improvement in his symptoms and in his physical health.

One of the reasons for the traffic was a downtown park in Provo was having a Christmas market/celebration of some type and there was lots of traffic and people walking everywhere.

 

There Is Beauty All Around!

I picked these leaves up on the ground in Provo one day--actually over a month ago, but then forgot about them until this past week and pulled them out of the car.  Even then, they are still so beautiful and so big--I am sorry I didn't put them by something to help point out their size.

This photo doesn't do justice to the viewing--greens and yellows--on this leaf.

And then, looking out our north facing window on Saturday evening, the sky was glowing pink and then slowly changed to oranges.  It seemed like the air itself was colored.  I headed out the door and down to the west facing window in our hallway and watched a gorgeous sunset.  It is only for 5-6 minutes when the air was tinted and the skies so beautiful and then dusk comes and night falls.  But that night, I am so glad for the moments to watch that beauty on display.

Sorry for the light in the hallway!

Don't miss the sunset tomorrow!

Early Birthday Lunch with Lorna

Lorna's birthday is on December 4 so we met up on Thursday for lunch again in the COB.  We met each other about 43 years ago at this same time when we moved to Sunset, Utah.  It has been so great to reconnect after all of these years.

One special moment was being able to give her a copy of Gift From the Sea.  Ever since I started this project, she was one of the women that I thought I would like to give a book to, but I didn't think I would ever connect back with her and have that chance.  On Thursday, I was able to and she now has a book.  Oh, how blessed I have been with great women in my life.

Remembered to have Gary take a picture this time!

Mission Zone Leaders Plus Jena Christmas Party

The mission presidency and their wives organized and treated us all to a lovely Christmas dinner and program on the 9th floor of the Joseph Smith Building.  Jena was specifically included in our invitation and was mentioned as one of the special guests (I think she was surprised but happy.  She gave a cute wave from her seat.)

We had one of the Seventies (who served on the mission committee of the Church) but I don't know how to spell his name.  He had been a religion teacher at BYU and gave a fascinating talk about Christmas traditions and ancient history of the religion.  I could have listened to him for a long time.  I wish that I had taken notes.  There is so much that I don't know that I want to know!

Christmas lights on at Temple Square

Beautiful Music
violin, piano, and then a harp-piano duet

Table display

Jena with her name card

A view to the west from the 9th floor

As we left, some Temple Square missionaries were singing Christmas hymns so we enjoyed that for a few minutes.  Christmas is in the air!

Views in the Church History LIbrary

I went up to the 3rd floor to help one of our missionaries and got to see Sister Jones' Thanksgiving message and her cute little Christmas tree!  Tis the season!!!

Matt Row is the name of the "street" of missionaries
who work with Matt Heiss

 

Pandemic Continues

Monday morning there were new signs up in the Conference Center and all of the Temple Square missionaries were wearing bright red face masks.  The numbers for Covid continue to rise in Utah and around the world.  And so we are all trying to do our best to protect those around us.

Jena and I headed to City Creek to do some dress shopping--no luck with that, but we are sporting our masks there as well.

The face of 2020-2021...and probably 2022!  But life goes on!
 

Sunday Blog Writing

This morning didn't go quite as expected.  I had to pick up Sister Audenart from the airport around 9:00 am.  The plane arrived on time and she headed on the long hike to baggage claim.  She texted me (I was in the waiting area) and said that she was almost to baggage claim about 9:30....and then I didn't hear from her for awhile.  She finally texted that they were still waiting for their luggage...and they waited and waited.  Finally about an hour later, they were informed that their luggage had all been taken to custom and that it needed to be picked up and re-routed to baggage claim.  (She had flew in from Canada, but I guess they don't have to do customs in the same way.  Anyway, it took about another hour for their luggage to arrive at baggage claim.  She had found three other senior missionaries traveling to Salt Lake so they had a good visit, she said.  I on the other hand got a lot of reading done.  Thank heavens for the gospel app!

Mornings are when I usually do the blog, but had no time for that with the delays.  After Church, I was so tired for some reason and took a long nap.  Then there was the 1st Presidency Devotional and dinner and then I reviewed my presentation for tomorrow's training.  All afternoon, I was thinking--I don't think I have much to blog about so I will skip this week and catch up next week. 

So now, at 9:30, I decided to print out a picture we took yesterday with Ben and discovered that I had about 45 pictures from last week.  I guess a few things happened that I wanted to remember.  So here we go!

Relief Society Lesson

The main distraction from all of that partying was that I had been asked to give the lesson in Relief Society today. I actually enjoy teaching, but this was a bit nerve racking--more than normal.  It was tricker to prepare even though I had like 6 weeks notice on what the talk was to be discussed.  Part of it was teaching a group of 50 women--all serving full-time missions and basically all over the age of 60 is somewhat challenging.  There is so much life experience in the room and most of them are great teachers themselves.  But also we really don't know each other very well.  I don't know them and they don't know me.

The lesson was from Elder Ballard's talk "Lovest Thou Me More Than These?"  One of the things I did was read his biography which was excellent.  I encourage anyone who would like to learn more about him to read it.  At the beginning of the lesson, I did a brief summary of his life.  I had gotten this book, because several of the mission presidents we have interviewed had served under President Ballard when he was mission president over the Canada Toronto Mission in the mid-1970s.  Their comments made me curious about him.

These are items I used for my lessons.  Different from talks, I usually write out my outline for a lesson by hand often in a legal pad like this.  

I gave each class member an index card and asked them to write down a time when they put Christ first over anything else--What choice had they made?  Why did they make it?  What was the outcome?  As full time missionaries, they all have made a choice to put Christ first for this time in our lives.  But how can we always do it?  What does that look like in our every day lives?

The class then divided up into six groups and discussed practical ways to increase our love for the Savior including favorite scriptures, quotes, spiritual practices, and stories that keep us focused on letting Christ and God prevail in our lives.

It went fine and got done on time which is good!

I am not sure exactly how it happened, but now I have a devotional message to give on Thursday of this week, the following Monday--an hour workshop on "communication", and then the following day I lead a book club discussion on the book "The Witch of Blackberry Pond."  Fortunately, they are mostly different groups of people so no one person has to hear me four times in 10 days.