This Friday, April 30th, began as usual with a very insistent alarm clock going off at 3:30 a.m. so we could leave at 4:15 a.m. so we could be dressed in white and in the Idaho Falls Temple by 5:30 a.m. The short night’s sleep on Thursday night meant it was going to be a long, tiring day. However, being in the Temple also makes it a fun and uplifting day as well.

Since last September, a group of teenagers in one of the Wards has gotten up early enough every Friday morning to be at the Temple by 5:30 a.m. to do baptisms and confirmations for the dead. They’ve been there every Friday morning without fail, even when school wasn’t in session. Between 7 and 15 young people, sleepy but well dressed, along with a couple of adults come, stay for a little over an hour, and then leave so they can get to school on time. They’ve been quite an inspiration to me. For the past couple of months part of my assignment at the Temple has been to be at the baptistry at 5:30 a.m. to assist these young people. They’ve become kind of heros for me. The school year ends in a few weeks and they’ll have met their goal. Good for them!

We got home about 1:30 p.m. from the Temple and I had an interview at 2:30 p.m. with a company here in Pocatello looking for some web site programming assistance. This was my second interview with the company for the position. It looks to be a very interesting part-time position, well suited for my skills and interests. They gave me a programming assignment, a kind of a demonstration of my skills, to do and deliver on Monday, May 3rd. Hopefully that’ll be good enough to close the deal.

We finished off this last day of April at the Symphony for a fabulous performance of the Brahms German Requiem. This is a favorite piece of mine and I have two different recordings in my iTunes library. What an grand finale! Bravo, Idaho State Civic Symphony and the Camarata Singers!!

TTFN!

The big event for April 29th was a special presentation for the women in our Stake. The event was preceded by lot of advertising along with the admonition to be there well before 7 p.m. because the doors would be closed at that time.

The presentation was based around the Parable of the Ten Virgins from the New Testament. The program started in the Chapel and each sister as she arrived was assigned a number between 1 and 10. After a short introduction, the group split into ten much small groups and went to the room with their number on it. In the room, which was very nicely decorated, was a woman portraying one of the Ten Virgins and, after the group was seated, told a bit about herself and some of the choices she had made during her life. After about 5 minutes, a bell rang and the group exited the room and made their way to the next higher-numbered room. Over the course of about 70 minutes, each group visited each of the ten rooms and heard each of the ten presentations.

The turnout was almost overwhelming! The planning was set around about 150 women in attendance and well over 270 showed up. I’m certain that all of them had a great experience.

My assignment was to lead one of the groups from one room to the next and then to help serve the light refreshments at the end. Several sheet cakes had been ordered, but only enough for about 180 people … so we cut the pieces in half. We did have some left over, though quite a few sisters took a small piece (or two) home for their husbands.

Then came the cleanup. Fortunately we had a lot of help and by 11 p.m. I was headed home for a quick night’s sleep. Friday morning was a 3:30 a.m. wakeup to be at the Idaho Falls Temple by 5:30 a.m.

TTFN!

My day started off with a visit to the Veterans Administration doctor in Pocatello. After being poked and prodded and a lengthy history taken, he set up my prescriptions which I should be able to pick up in a week or so. It feels good to have reasonable health insurance once again, along with reasonable prices for medications.

We went over to the Bishop’s Storehouse in Pocatello and bought the cans and oxygen absorption packets needed to do the dry pack canning. The whole canning process took us about three hours from setup to having all the cans put away in the food storage area downstairs. We canned 50 pounds of oatmeal, 50 pounds of cream of wheat, 40 pounds of dry milk, 25 pounds of spaghetti, and 50 pounds of rice. It was very satisfying to see the cans all on the shelf and know that we would definitely be able to eat in an emergency.

TTFN!

Late last fall on one of my trips over to Montpelier I stopped at the Walton Feed to pick up 50 pounds of oatmeal and 50 pounds of cream of wheat. The bags have been in the garage ever since waiting to be dry-packed. The plan is to do the canning on Wednesday.

Just getting the material to be canned is a small part of the whole process. We need #10 cans and lids, oxygen absorption packs, and the dry pack canner. Our Stake has a dry pack canner which can be checked out just for this purpose. So, after my Portneuf Rotary Club meeting, I stopped by the Stake Center to get the canner.

My goodness, was it ever heavy! It literally took two people to get it out into my car and then from the car into the house.

I have the responsibility to arrange for a presentation at the Rotary Club meeting each week. About once a month I arrange for two members of the club to be on the program. On the 27th the program included an accountant who is normally fairly quiet. It turned out he has a quick wit and a great sense of humor. It’s nice to hear from our members on occasion as a way to get better acquainted with each other.

TTFN!

The week got off to a good start with reasonable weather and temperatures. A busy Friday, Saturday, and Sunday made for a good night’s sleep. We started the day at water aerobics. Our normal instructor was away on vacation and a young, trim, energetic, and very inexperienced substitute took over for the class. I’ll miss Wednesday’s class because of a doctor’s appointment and am not too disappointed. It’ll be good to get our usual instructor back!

TTFN!

Sundays come in two flavors for me at present: busy and very busy. The first and third Sundays are generally in the “busy” category and the second, fourth, and fifth Sundays are in the “very busy” grouping. April 24th was a fourth Sunday and that meant a very busy day.

They are, however, also fun and interesting days. On this particular Sunday I was assigned to speak in a Sacrament Meeting that started at 2:50 p.m. and talk about the subject of consecration. Then later that afternoon at 6 p.m. I was in charge of a meeting to include representatives from the ten Wards (or congregations) in our area. In that meeting we are planning a preparedness fair which will be held on October 9th. The planning has gotten a pretty good start and we should have an event that’ll be of interest to people living here in the south end of Pocatello.

The day started with a meeting at 7 a.m., another set of meetings at 9 a.m., a Sacrament Meeting at 11 a.m., a Sunday School at 12:20 a.m., and then the speaking assignment at 2:50 p.m. and the preparedness meeting at 6 p.m.

Then at 8:00 p.m. and again at 8:30 p.m. I have two meetings on the air waves. The first is a meeting on the ham radio with the Pocatello Amateur Radio Club followed by another ham radio meeting with the Portneuf Valley Amateur Radio Emergency Services club. By the end of the day, I’m right ready to head for bed.

TTFN!

Rather than find 65 men and 70 women who would be willing to spend every Saturday afternoon working at the Idaho Falls Temple, each of the other shifts at the Temple are asked to work four Saturday afternoons a year at the Temple in addition to their regular shift.

Nina and I work the Friday early morning shift (which is followed by a Friday midday shift which is followed by a Friday evening shift). In addition to our normal Friday morning schedule, we are assigned to work the Saturday afternoon shift on April 24th and May 1st of this year. We’ll have that opportunity again in late October.

The Saturday afternoon shift begins at noon on Saturday and ends between 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm, depending on what our last assignment is for the day. Saturdays are generally quite busy at the Temple, depending on the weather. The better the weather, the lower the attendance. The “wild card” in that has to do with how many weddings are scheduled for a particular Saturday. In addition, some wards or stakes will schedule a special event day at the Temple. On this particular Saturday, a stake in the area scheduled a special “women in white” event and 96 women came from the Stake to a special meeting in the chapel in the temple followed by an endowment session.

Endowment sessions start every hour on the hour and end about 90 minutes later. The last session on Saturday starts at 5 p.m. and ends at about 6:30 p.m. On this Saturday the last session was completely full with about 130 patrons. All in all, this was an unusually busy Saturday afternoon. I prefer busy!

May 1st will be another Saturday afternoon in the Temple. I hope it is also a well-attended, busy afternoon.

TTFN!

Friday, April 23rd was our normal day to work at the Idaho Falls Temple. That means an early wake up and a lot of time spent on our feet at the Temple. Meanwhile, Nina’s niece Ashlyn and her husband Eric came down to stay with us for the weekend. We have enjoyed having them here in our area and will definitely miss them when they leave in early May to go to Connecticut.

There’s also no news at all from the Census Department! My supervisor called me to say that he had no information and no idea what would happen next, if anything. So, I still have a badge and all the other stuff, but no work to do. My last paycheck for three hours of work will be deposited on Wednesday and that looks to be the end of this chapter. I was getting used to have a little extra money!

TTFN!