The day hasn’t been particularly cooperative so far! I can try to blame it
on the day, but that probably won’t stick. I got up at 4 a.m. to get ready
to leave for Milpitas today. I was intending to leave about 5 a.m. but
didn’t get out the door until 5:15. I got partway down the hill and realized
that I had forgotton to pack any slacks. The only pants I had with me were
the ones I was wearing. So, back to the house to get pants. That made it
5:30 before I was really driving away. I then checked my airline schedule —
I thought my flight was leaving at 6:40 a.m. Wrong. It was leaving at 6:20
a.m.

I drove quite quickly to the airport and then got a VERY SLOW shuttle
driver. It was all of 6:00 when I got to the ticket agent. The line for
security was longer than I’ve ever seen it in Colorado Springs. As a result,
I missed my flight. I was going to fly on a new service that United has
established flying from Colorado Springs to Los Angeles and then to San Jose
on a new smaller regional jet. I’m scheduled to fly back on the reverse of
that route and hopefully all will work out for that trip. As it stands,
we’re about 20 minutes into a 2 hour 20 minute flight to San Jose and I’m in
a middle seat. The guy on my left is trying to sleep, so he isn’t taking up
much room. The guy on my right is a pretty skinny guy and that helps a lot.
So far everything is smooth and quiet. I am at least quite close to the
front of the plane so I should be able to get off quickly. We’re over
western Colorado right now and will be in the Salt Lake area in about 40
minutes. I really dislike middle seats! I sure feel hemmed in and somewhat
captive. It gets much worse if the guy in front of me decides to put his
seat back. So far, so good.

I’ll be in Milpitas until Friday mid-day. The other two managers who work
for me in Colorado Springs are flying out to California this week as well so
that we can have a planning session on Thursday morning. Haven’t done one of
those for quite a while. Should be good to get all four of my managers
together at the same time.

Yesterday was Stake Conference. We had the morning session (the stake is
large enough that the conference is split across two meetings. The wards
which meet in the morning normally attend the morning session of conference.
The wards which meet in the afternoon attend the afternoon session). The
Stake Presidency has decided to institute a “Season of Rededication” to
continue through November. This plan germinated when the Stake President
was in China for a couple of weeks on his first
trip to that part of the world. He was quite struck by the poverty of the
Chinese people, particularly when compared to the life of luxury that we
have in Colorado Springs. Then Church Headquarters issued a letter calling
on all the stakes in the U.S. to have a special day of fasting and mighty
prayer on behalf of the missionary program of the church. That will be held
on June 17th. Finally, the rebuilt Nauvoo Temple will be dedicated on June
24th at the time that Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred in Carthage,
Illinois, some 160 years ago. All of that culminated in the “Season of
Rededication.” Three challenges were issued to the Stake yesterday (and were
discussed in some detail in the meetings on Saturday afternoon and evening):
Perfect a soul, Find a soul, and Redeem a soul.

Perfecting a soul has to do with our own personal circumstances. We are
being asked to raise our performance, faith, and commitment to the next
level, whatever that might be. Finding a soul has to do with missionary
work. We are being asked to find and prepare one person to hear the
missionary discussions. Redeeming a soul, or course, has to do with temple
work. We are being asked to do the family history work on one person and
take that person through the temple. All of this is to be done by November
when the Priesthood Leaders will conduct a PPI with every member of the ward
to obtain an accountability of how they have done on these three challenges.

This Stake Conference was memorable for another reason! There was a lot of
music programmed into the meeting. We had an opening hymn by the
congregation along with a rest hymn (but we only sang two verses of the
hymn). The Stake Choir performed two numbers, including the closing hymn. In
addition, two other solos were performed. One was by a 14-year-old young
lady with a major talent and the other by a fellow with a spectacular bass
voice. So there were six pices of music planned along with 8 speakers. Not
bad for two hours. I was particulary pleased with the amount of music! I
need to send a letter to the Stake Presidency expressing my appreciation to
them for the music. It brings a spirit to the meeting that is hard to
duplicate in any other way.

Saturday we were at the temple for the afternoon. We asked to leave a
half-hour early so that we could get back to Colorado Springs to attend the
evening meeting of Stake Conference which both of us needed to attend. It
was a pretty busy day at the temple. This is the time of year when a number
of people come to the temple for the first time for their own endowment. The
college year has just ended and young men getting ready to go on missions
come to the temple or young men and women getting married come to the
temple. Most of the marriages are scheduled for the morning and most of the
missionaries are scheduled for the afternoon to balance out things. In
addition, the third Saturday is Spanish Day when we have a session in the
morning and another one in the afternoon in Spanish. Their afternoon session
on Saturday had 8 people going through for their own endowments.

Next Saturday will also be very interesting. The Shift Coordinator (Br.
Richard Stott) and the Assistant Coordinator (Br. Mike Pacheco) are both
going to be gone, so the shift supervision falls to me. It should be quite
interesting…. Fortunately, most of the brethren know what they’re doing
and are willing to do whatever is asked of them.

We have come into the Salt Lake area — or at least well south of it. It’s
quite hazy today and hard to tell exactly where we are, but as best I can
figure we’re on the southern route. There’s a pretty big fire burning down
below us. It has been a very dry spring resulting in a number of pretty
serious fires burning. We’ve gotten a little rain recently in Colorado
Springs, but are still only at about half of the water we should have
received by this time in the year.

The deck didn’t get finished. We had enough rain that I wasn’t able to do
the staining. I did get the hot tub finished and it looks quite nice. I have
enough stain left over to do the hot tub again next year. When I get back on
Saturday morning before going to the temple I’ll empty the hot tub, clean
out the filter, and refill the tub. The water needs to be replaced every
three months or so and the last time I did that was in December.

Then we’re headed to Utah and Idaho for the week following Memorial Day.
After we get back from that trip, the deck will definitely get finished.
I’ll sand it down and start staining. It’ll probably take two mornings to do
the sanding and two mornings to do the staining and sealing. Then when
that’s done, I’ll get all of the windows washed on the outside. We haven’t
done those since we moved into the house. High time that they got cleaned
up. I’ll need to wash the frames as well as the windows.

Enough rambling. Time to wrap this up for today.

Transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002