Last Blog in July...

Wow, has this month rushed by; I can hardly believe it is almost over.  Didn't hear back from anyone except Em (I think) so if you missed the last blog, such as it was, it will be below.

Thought to Ponder:  From the book, Act in Doctrine, by David A. Bednar:  "Jesus, who suffered the most, has the most compassion for all of us who suffer so much less.  ...  "The character of Christ is to turn outward in compassion and service when facing spiritual adversity or physical pain even as the natural man in each of us would turn inward in self-obsession and self-interest."  A book well worth studying...

Coming Up:  Birthdays/Anniversaries     Here's a heads up for a busy month ahead!
August 5th - Jim and Jeanie celebrate 23 years of marriage!
August 7th - Abby Kirby will be officially 8 years old! (Baptism is scheduled for August 31st)
August 12th - Guess who celebrates their 46th anniversary? Wow - doesn't seem possible.
August 18th - Stephen is 31?  That can hardly be, can it?
August 24th - Patrick Kirby celebrates his birthday (34?)
August 25th - Elijah Manville will be 3. Imagine that...Seems like he's already been 3 forever:)
Whew...lots of August ones!  Wish we could be with each and every one of you on your day!

Mission Notes:  Monday was an interesting day because our other mission (Salem) began their week of transfers, departures and arrivals.  So in the office we got to field a good number of questions.  Despite all the "training" it is really a "learning by doing" thing, and they learned a lot, I am sure.  I cannot believe all that I have learned by being here and in the office...but I guess it is good for me:)  Tuesday and Wednesday were actually kind of "slow" days in the office - slow compared to the frantic pace we have been working at for so long.  I actually got a desk drawer cleaned out that had been a mess from the day I inherited the desk, then got the top of my desk essentially cleared (that is more than amazing), and actually cleared out the "inbox" - which, unfortunately held some things from back in February.  And...got a lot of stuff filed and got rid of a lot of stuff.  Yea me - now if only I could do that at home in our office bedroom.  (Have to have energy when I'm at home to do that...so it may wait quite a while.)

Thursday the Gausnells arrived in our mission:)!  Pat was feeling a little down, feeling like they were sort of being sent home to wait for their visas...I assured her that President Young would put them right to work.  And he did.  She e-mailed me the following note today (I thought you might enjoy it):

We have attended a zone meeting and a meeting with the Elders, ward mission leader, and bishop's councilor.  Also, today we attended our first discussion with the elders and a man who has investigated the church before.  We worked with him in the family history center last year.

And guess what.  He committed to baptism today.  His baptism is scheduled for August 24th.  It is a long, really interesting story, so I won't tell it all now.  But tell President Young that I feel very strongly that he was inspired to assign us to the Sutherlin Ward, if for no other reason, to work with this man. 

To help with this story, go to this webpage and you will see (on about the 4th page) a story I put in The News-Review about this man, Steve John.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/98892304/The-News-Review-Encore-July-2012

There is more stuff to the story.  Lately Steve has been seeing visions where an elderly man named William comes to tell him it is time to go to the temple.  Before we explained about the temple, he thought it meant it was time for him to die. 

We showed him a video about the temple, and it showed how the mirrors show the eternity thing.  He said, "I have already seen that.  William showed it to me when he told me it was time to go to the temple."

Anyway, I am very happy now.  I don't know how long we will be here, but I know there are some important things for us to do.

I almost cried; there are so many stories of so many people that so clearly show the hand of the Lord in their lives.  I am glad we get to participate in a small way:).  Reading her story from the News Review was fun too (follow the link).  Here is a photo taken of Pat and Jerry in the office:

Friday was just more of the same, more good stories and more "catching up" of undone things.  Jim Jr. called his dad and let him know he bought another Corvette...so will post a picture here of that:

Looking Good

Today  Dad is meeting up with Mike Fitz, a person we hung out with when we were at Fort Sill, during our "racing days."  Dad invited him to go to the drag races in Woodburn - and has been eagerly awaiting this day:).  Mike actually lives in Portland and has for a goodly number of years; I don't remember how he ended up there exactly.  We did stay in touch for a number of years, but then when I quite doing Christmas cards and letters I kind of lost most of our old friends.  Mike ends up on the radio a lot with the talk show person, Lars Larson, so Dad has kind of kept up with him that way and also ended up contacting him a few times because of his work at RFP.  They should have a lot of fun.

NOW - here is the interesting part of this story.  In a phone conversation a few days ago re-confirming their date, time, etc., Mike made a comment that he never knew we were Mormons when we were back in Oklahoma and racing.  Of course the answer to that was, We weren't.  I don't know exactly all of the words in that conversation, but Mike asked Dad to bring him a Book of Mormon "and anything else he would like" because he was interested in learning more.  So, how about that.  And, Elder Terry, the housing coordinator in the mission office, was joining them for this event.  I am excited to think that maybe we can have a small part in sharing the gospel:)!!!

So - I am "home alone" and enjoying the quiet and doing a lot of little miscellaneous things I don't often get around to and...working on this blog:)

Oh my gooodness...almost forgot to mention what we did last Saturday night...we had heard of a concert from our Camp Alpine couples and decided to all go to that for our monthly activity.  It was the Nashville Tribute Band and it was absolutely wonderful.  It was out in the fields of the home of one of the band members and the only thing wrong was that there should have been ten times more people.  The band members all are members of other bands who do country western, but they are also returned missionaries (most or all of them) and at this concert they perform songs written by one of the band members to honor/commerate Joseph Smith, mormon pioneers, etc.  I guess it is fairly well known - at least our missionaries seemed to be mouthing all the words to all the songs and enjoying it immensely.  We had a dinner right before the concert which was great (first time I have had potato salad I liked as much as my own!) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I am going to put a bunch of pictures here - us waiting in the beginning, band members just kind of warming up (one of whom seemed like he could be a twin brother to Chris Bullinger as far as I could see!) and a picture of the full moon (or almost full) rising above the trees.  It was truly beautiful and the weather was great.  Now I am going to get some of their CDs.  One of the bands that participated is called Due West and I want a CD from them too!  OK - here begin the pictures; hope I can make all this happen right.

Waiting for the dinner and Concert to begin...

Still waiting (We came early)

Yummy Food!

Nashville Tribute Band

The middle one could double for Chris B.!

We got called up on stage too:)!

Dad and I are at the far, far right...can't really see us much:)

Beautiful Moon to say our goodbyes by....

Family Notes:  Gosh darn.  I know I have had few phone calls but cannot remember for the life of me right now just who is or was doing what.  This would be so much easier if everyone sent me an e-mail every week telling me their news of the week:)!  I remember seeing that Sara was selling a horse on Facebook; and I know the Wyoming bunch is doing horse and a number of other things.  I remember looking at the weather for everyone a few days ago and thinking Wyoming was the best place to be for the next 10 days:).  The west has certainly been hotter than normal...altho Eugene is not too bad.

OK...Charlotte just called so I can update that part of the family news:)  She and Seth returned from the Huyett family reunion this past Wednesday and it sounded like everyone had a wonderful time.  She has had to spend a good deal of time on her artwork since getting back, but sounds like she kind of has it under control.  Seth, on the other hand, came back to find that a number of things had been done incorrectly in his absence and so is having to spend long hours at work, double and triple checking everything to make sure it is right.  So fun to come back when you've been gone a while:)!  Kuda apparently survived and is super happy to have them back.  Charlotte leaves on Monday for Girls Camp and will be gone through Saturday.  And...(drum roll) they have tickets for going to New Zealand.  Dates are November 9th through 29th...so they should have a wonderful time and we wish them well.  Much more exciting news than Dad and I have been able to come up with:)  Although we have our tickets to go to Utah over Labor Day weekend and be at Abby's baptism that Saturday and we are planning on getting tickets to go to Wyoming Thanksgiving weekend and be at Melissa's baptism that Saturday!  Yup...we're a traveling family!

A few more pics - The Oliphant kids, visiting our office and enjoying the "garden area"!  Baby Rose...growing well!  Christine...returning to bread making, but managed to drop the flour cannister! (Have to thank Chris for that photo:)

Taylor, DJ, Colin and Tanner...in our office "garden area"

Oh that baby smile:)!

What a face...at least she's smiling!

Guess that's all for now, Love to all!