Vernal, Brigham City and Ogden Temples, Hoo Hung Woo Murder Mystery Dinner Party and Joan of Arc Book Club Meeting

I am finding it harder and harder to find the time to write these last couple of weeks. We have had full days and evenings for a long time now. Paul is recovering nicely, last Monday he went to physical therapy and the therapist evaluated his mobility and stated that Paul has 85% facility now. Paul has certainly been working at it---so it is gratifying that he is showing some good recovery. He hopes to be at 90% by 12 weeks since surgery. In the meantime, he has been able to do many things that were impossible just a few weeks ago. Including riding his beloved horses again. Today, while I was a work, Paul took the day off to go on the Buffalo round-up. I don’t know yet how long he was able to participate, but he was very hopeful of riding for a full day. K.C. came into town on the 12th and was here from late Sunday night until late on Friday night. He gets a rental car when he comes to work here for a week, so he is free to come and go as he wishes. He was involved in a retreat during part of the time he was here, and then spent time interfacing with the newer computer guys in the office. He will be with them for just a few more months so they have to get as much of his knowledge transferred as possible before he leaves their employment. I organized a family dinner for when he was in town. We got Peter, Kortney and Eleanor and Erika and Jono to come to dinner on Wednesday evening and we had all the family members except for the Philip branch—all under one roof for a few hours. I enjoy gathering the family and we had a lively, noisy, happy dinner. It was great fun. We laughed and talked and shared. Good times were had by all. Food and family is a great combination and we do have a dynamic and energetic group. After the evening wrapped up, I got the kitchen cleaned up and prepared a few things for the road trip, the next morning. I have been watching this year drawing to a close and I still had four temples that I needed to visit to have attended an endowment session in all the operating temples in Utah. This was a goal set in January 2013 and I didn’t achieve it during that year, but just rolled it over into 2014. Now 2014 is almost over and there were these temples still unvisited. I didn't want to have to roll it over into another year, so I took a hard look at the calendar to see when I had days that I could use to do temple sessions. The fall break from school was approaching and I decided that I could do a day trip to Vernal, leaving in the morning, doing a session and returning home all in one day. I committed myself to that. As the time approached, I asked Erika if she would like to take a “fun day trip with me to Vernal.” She agreed to do it and so we set the date for October 16. I left the house at about 7:00 a.m., then picked up Erika leaving her house at about 7:30 a.m and then we headed off to Vernal, though Park City and Heber. I had googlemapped the best route and the time table and figured the trip would take about 3 hours. We stopped for gas in Heber and made another bathroom break in Roosevelt and when we arrived in Vernal and at the temple it was about 10:45 a.m. We had missed the 10:30 session. We did get to visit with a very chatty temple worker who told us some interesting facts about the temple. The Vernal Utah Temple was the first temple built from an existing building—the Uintah Stake Tabernacle. A modern temple was built within the shell of the gutted tabernacle, which had fallen into serious disrepair and had not hosted a stake conference since 1983. (Since then the Manhattan Temple and the Copenhagen Temple have been constructed from existing buildings and now the Provo City Center Temple is under construction—using the old Provo Tabernacle.) At the dedication of the Uintah Stake Tabernacle on August 24, 1907, President Joseph F. Smith's words would prove prophetic when he said he "would not be surprised if the day would come when a temple would be built in your own midst here." The Vernal Utah Temple is labeled 1907 and 1997, indicating the two years when the building was dedicated—first as a tabernacle and then as a temple. The idea of converting the Uintah Stake Tabernacle into the Vernal Utah Temple was first proposed by leaders of the Vernal Utah Glines Stake to area authorities in 1984, but the proposal was eventually rejected by the First Presidency. Many other possibilities were pursued, and the building had even been put up for sale for a time. However, in 1993, the idea of a temple was proposed again. This time, it met with First Presidency approval. All of the furniture and fixtures salvaged from the Uintah Stake Tabernacle were sold at public auction on April 15, 1995. Everything available sold in 3½ hours. Due to the narrowness of the building, a two-stage endowment room was innovated for the Vernal Utah Temple—a concept which has been used in many temples ever since. The Reader Home, a turn-of-the-century residence in Vernal, built of the same bricks as the tabernacle, became the source of thousands of needed replacement bricks for the Vernal Utah Temple. The owner, a friend of another faith who planned to raze the home, agreed to donate it to the church instead. For two months, 16,000 bricks were painstakingly removed from the home and brought to the temple. The old dome of the Uintah Stake Tabernacle was removed and renovated into a gazebo, located at the Ashley Valley Community Park. The Vernal Utah Temple was given two domes instead of one, as was featured on the tabernacle. The eastern dome of the Vernal Utah Temple features a gold-leafed angel Moroni statue added on September 16, 1996. In an experiment, the statue had originally been painted gold. After four months, however, it was decided that the statue should be given the traditional finish of gold leaf. The sessions in the Vernal Temple run every hour and a half so we had more than an hour until the next session. So Erika and I did a set of initiatory names each and then dressed and waited in the chapel. Then we went on the session. The endowment rooms are on the second story of the building and there is lovely etched glass work and trompe l’oiel patterns on the walls. The celestial room has an enormous photograph of Christ’s second coming with arms outstretched. The room is narrow, but very pretty. And for only the second time I was able to see Temple Film #2. It was a very nice experience. When the session was over Erika and I left the building—we were really ready for lunch. It was about 2 o’clock. But before lunch we had to run an errand to the Vernal Deseret Industries. Peter had told us that when he was visiting Vernal with Kortney sometime earlier they had been disappointed that they had missed the local DI and suggested that we stop there in their honor. Erika was looking for a costume for a party and we found just the thing. Then we had lunch at Café Rio and back on the road for the three hour trip home. And for me happily have met a personal goal that represented a significant challenge—and really took a whole day to achieve. Erika was a really good sport about driving with me to and from Vernal and attending the temple with me. She admitted that part of the reason she did this was because I was helping her with a Murder Mystery Party that she was hosting at our house on Friday. This was one of the standard How to Host a Murder games that we have done so many of over the years. The name of this one was Hoo Hung Woo and was set in 8th Century China. The costumes were Asian in theme and the group really came through with interesting costumes. Peter and his group had done this mystery in 2009 and I had made Peter a costume for that party which Jono wore at this party. The costume that Erika wore is the one she bought part of the components for in Vernal Deseret Industries. She felt quite lucky to walk in and find a silky surplus front robe and a cummerbund. It was a very productive DI visit. She wore leggings on the bottom. All four of the girls at the mystery did their make-up with white face in the Chinese style. They looked very authentic—in a costumy kind of way. I was responsible for the food and the decorating and setting the scene. I had thought I could find some of the same decorative items that I used back in 2009 for decorating. I had purchased some items from Zurcher’s party store, but when I went back five years later, the selection was entirely different and I only bought chopsticks and napkins. The table looked cute anyway. I served Spicy Orange Sausages and mini egg rolls for appetizers and an Asian flavored salad (recipe off Allrecipes.com) and two entres: sweet and sour chicken and vegetables over rice, and beef and broccoli over fried rice. They both disappeared like snow in summer. For dessert we served dessert crepes sporting three different fillings: apple cinnamon, vanilla crème and berry. Erika made the crepes in advance and brought them to our house that evening. She made some of them regular and some gluten free. I filled the crepes over the course of the evening—served cold with whipped topping on the top. The Murder Mystery was a great success. There was so much laughter and carrying on—the participants had a fun time, I think. Erika said it was the best time of all the parties that she has put on. She started doing them when she was in junior high school and has done a number of them, like Peter and his group. Their group has changed over the years—but there is a nucleus which has been consistent. Two of the girls are now married so their husbands are part of the group now, and they have gotten to know one another really well over the years so it makes for a fun evening. I enjoy having the group at our house and doing the dinner. Erika said it is embarrassing to continue to have parties at your parent’s house—but it is a tradition now. I expect I will do one more before the year end—because Peter’s group still continues to do this annually. I conceived of the idea of doing the Brigham City Temple and the Ogden Temple on the same day because I was seeing the end of this year descending on me and with a limited number of Saturdays available to make a trip to these temples. Earlier in thespring of this year, Paul and I made a trip to Petersboro and Brigham City with the idea of attending a session in the temple and then going and doing some farm work. When we arrived at the temple for the 12:00 session we were asked if we had an appointment. It hadn’t even occurred to me that we would need an appointment. We were unable to get into a session, but did do sealings on that day. Two other times during the summer and fall I had found a time and day when I thought I could go and do a session in the Brigham City Temple and when I called to make an appointment that session was already completely scheduled. This was more challenging than I had anticipated. And then the Ogden Temple was rededicated and I had another temple to add to the list of temples that I wanted to attend—so I decided to try and fit both of them in the same day. I looked at the list of Saturdays in October and the only one that didn’t have a major event already in place was the 18th of October. I called the Brigham City Temple first and found out that I could make an appointment for the 9:15 a.m. session. Then I called the Ogden Temple thinking since it had just re-opened that I would need an appointment there. I was mistaken. They had sessions running every thirty minutes and they required no appointment. And so it looked like I was actually going to get two temple sessions in different temples on the same day. Paul who is still recovering from his shoulder surgery didn't think he would be up to two sessions, but agreed to come with me—check out the property in Petersboro while I was at the Brigham City Temple but planned on joining me in the Ogden Temple. I went on-line and got directions from the Brigham City Temple to the Ogden Temple and everything was a “go”. We got up early on Saturday morning because we had to stop and feed the horses before heading north. We arrive in Brigham City with time to spare and Paul dropped me off there and headed to Petersboro. I entered the temple and prepared for the session. The endowment room I visited was really lovely—and after all the difficulty that I had had with getting into a session, it was very sparsely attended. And it turned out that I was to see Temple Film #1 again. When I had completed the session, I went out onto the Temple grounds and walked around a bit until Paul came and picked me up and then we headed to Ogden. With the directions that I had downloaded, we were able to get there easily. It does not stand on a hill or a place visible from afar and it is in the middle of town, surrounded by buildings. But it is on a large tract of land which is beautifully landscaped. Because it was past lunchtime, we went immediately to the Temple cafeteria and had lunch and then dressed and proceeded to the chapel and in a timely way ended up in a very full session. The façade of the temple and the interior are very lovely. The temple has been renovated and the exterior is now entirely different that it was previously. There is no art in the endowment room which is a “single location” room, you don’t move into another room except to enter the celestial room after passing through the veil. And once again I saw Temple Film #1. It is interesting that I have been in a number of different temples over the last several months and I have yet to see Temple Film #3. K.C. claims that it is the one he prefers of the three. So in another couple of hours, I had completed three temples during the fall break five day weekend. This was a very satisfying accomplishment. I now have one more temple to complete my goal to visit all the operating Utah Temples. Originally it was all the temples in one year, but that didn't happened. Instead of giving up, I just rolled over previous accomplishments and gave myself another year, but I felt really compelled to try and finish this goal up. It has been work and effort, but I feel like it has also been worth the time, energy and resources that I have applied to this project. I keep wondering when things are going to slow down, when I will get some downtime again. I have some outstanding projects that I just can’t seem to finish. I think the fact that I have something to do—some place to go every day is part of the problem. This week is an example. Monday evening I participated in the Shape Up Sandy walk at Bicentennial Park. Tuesday was our ward Homemaking Meeting. Wednesday I went to the home of the sister that I team teach Sunday School with to plan our lesson for November 2nd. Thursday was one of my book clubs. Friday, I am working the football game as a ticket taker and Saturday I am giving an accommodated ACT Test and going to our annual Lauper Ladies Brunch. It is no wonder that I am not getting my ironing or my quilting done. I wanted to mention my book club in particular because we read an interesting book this month. It was a book I had never heard of even though it was written by a very famous author. It was the last complete book that Mark Twain wrote, titled Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte and as the title suggests it was about Joan of Arc. It is a novel, but also a history. The novel is written as if it is a found manuscript, discovered in the National Archives of France. The manuscript is supposedly the memoirs of Joan of Arc’s page, Louis de Conte. A pseudo forward in the book explains that the manuscript was"Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France". In the novel, de Conte is presented as an individual who was with Joan during the three major phases of her life—as a youth in Domrémy, as the commander of the army of Charles VII of France, and as a defendant at her trial in Rouen. Originally, Mark Twain's novel was published as a serialization in Harper's Magazine beginning in 1895. At Twain’s request, Harper's Magazine published it anonymously to avoid expectations for it to be humorous. It was inspired by a lifelong fascination Twain had with Joan of Arc. Twain spent fourteen years on the novel and considered it his best work. The book was fairly well-received at the time of publication, though critics since then have generally dismissed it as overly sentimental. We had a lively discussion about how much history we learned from this book, even though it was a fictionalized account. The story line explained certain aspects of the Joan of Arc story that are confusing. Why did Joan of Arc get burned at the stake if she was responsible for leading the French against the occupying English and placing King Charles VII of France back on the French throne? (Because she was captured by the Anglophone French as traitor to the English that held portions of France at that time.) We all learned a lot and it was interesting to make comparisons between biblical prophets, Joseph Smith and Joan of Arc and discuss the concept of visions and revelation. A really fascinating discussion. ,

Paul's recovery, Children Reports, Conference weekend at the Cabin

Seems like forever since I have written. Here it is the end of another week. We have been busy—both Paul and me. Things going on at work, things going on at school, things going on at home. Enough to keep us going. Paul is recovering a little bit every day. He is going to a physical therapist that is making him work hard. The day or two after the session he is pretty sore, but he sees the improvement from each session. He is also going to the City Creek Gym every day but Sunday and swimming and working out and so he is seeing that sometime in the future he will be normal again. He still has periods of discomfort (pain), but he is actually sleeping the whole night in our bed again. And has actually slept through the night a couple of times. Pain and other discomforts to wake him up from time to time, but we can see that he is getting better. And that makes us very hopeful. Philip called a few days ago with his ipad and we had some facetime with him and the grandchildren and Camille. He called mostly to show us that Andrew is really up and walking now. He isn't just taking some of those first tentative steps but is waling like a champ, moving around like he owns the place. We had a nice chat with Philip and Camille. They are getting ready for the move to Ukraine. They leave their home in Washington D.C. on the 22nd of this month—then there is a week of meetings and travel before they actually arrive in Kiev. Philip has to shadow an immigration officer at the International Terminal in New York for two days. Then they will fly to Frankfurt, Germany and overnight there, then continue on to Kiev. They are ready to go—Philip has been studying for the last eight months, language and policy, and now it is time to put it all into action. We told them from the time that we knew about the assignment to Ukraine that we would be coming to visit them and Paul has been looking at flight information for the last three months. Sunday we took the plunge and booked and bought airline tickets for the two of us to go and visit them. We will be going in June next year. We will leave on the 15th of June and come home on the 23rd of June. That is just after I get done with work for the 2014-2015 school year. So we will have the whole year practically to look forward to the trip. I took the precaution of buying insurance for the trip—who knows what could happen in all that time—but we are really excited and happy about the prospect. We will be seeing K.C. again this week. He is flying in on Sunday. Friendemic, the company he is working for right now is having a company retreat next week and he is flying in for that and to work with the other employees that are concerned with information technology, which is the area where he works. He will be staying with us but will get a rental car so that he can come and go on his own. It is fun to have him come and visit because he is a magnet that encourages our children to gather at our house. We will see the whole group at least once while he is here. I suppose that I should organize some kind of family dinner, which I haven’t done yet. This week on Tuesday, I had a gathering of one of my book clubs. I didn't care much for the book—Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walters. I didn't really think much of it while I was reading it. (Many dysfunctional people in ridiculous situations.) But it has been positively reviewed and has won some very prestigious awards. It is total fiction, but it is set in Italy and concerns events that happened during the filming of the movie Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. (That is where they fell in love and their romance figures into the story.) The hostess, Lisa Whiteley has a sister who is a movie critic and a movie aficionado and a collector, and she came to the meeting and did a very interesting presentation on Elizabeth Taylor. She had books, and dolls and movie posters and signatures. She collects signatures and has about 250 celebrity signatures in her collection. That was the most interesting part of the book club evening. I found out lots of interesting tidbits about Taylor/Burton. One of the books was about Elizabeth Taylor's massive jewelry collection. It seems that whenever Elizabeth and Richard had a fight that part of the make-up was a piece of jewelry—so sometime Elizabeth Taylor would pick fights when she wanted a particular piece of jewelry. Hmmm. It is a lovely group of women and I enjoy very much our time together. Paul and I spend last weekend (Conference Weekend). We can’t watch conference, but we can listen. We listened to all four sessions and Paul went to Mack’s Inn to the priesthood session. We actually listened to the closing session in the truck on the way home. We went to Island Park for the weekend for another reason besides conference, to take down the fences, bring the horses home and winterize the cabin. It was such a lovely weekend there. It was bright and cool, the trees losing their leaves and turning colors. There was this quiet sense of the end of summer. The horses were happy to see us, and were happy to hop into the trailer when it came time to go home. We loaded them into the trailer on Sunday between sessions and then took the fences down. When we had finished and all the fences were lying down and the poles standing straight and unconnected, it looked so much like the change in season. We do feel blessed that the option of leaving the horses there was available when Paul was so indisposed, and that they ended up being good at self-care. Peter came on Monday and Wednesday last week and helped Paul get hay and get it placed in the pasture in Midvale—so now we are ready and prepared for winter. Paul has decided to try and get ready to do the Buffalo Round-Up on Antelope Island and so we are going to do a short ride in Dimple Dale on Saturday—and see how that goes. We are moving into the “healed” place—sooner or later. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but Erika had a series of tests a couple of weeks ago—she had been combating continuing stomach problems—runs in the Kern Family. She was diagnosed with Celiac disease and so now she is gluten-free, too. It isn't happy news, but at least she knows that it is possible to live a comfortable and normal life with celiac, as she has witnessed it first hand in our situation with Paul. And I won’t have to do anything different when she comes to our house for dinner since Paul and I eat pretty much gluten-free anyway. Erika and Jono and their group of friends are having a Murder Mystery Party next week—it is set in 8th Century China—so I am thinking about Chinese and Asian food for the party and looking forward to that.