Tonight my Church assignment was to team up with the full-time missionaries. Some places these are called missionary splits; in this mission they are called team-ups. Essentially my job was to drive the missionaries to their appointments and participate as needed. We have two very fine missionaries assigned to our ward. One is from Springfield, Missouri, and the other from Memphis, Tennessee — Elders Conrad and Stanbaugh. They are good, dedicated young men anxious to work and to make good use of their time as missionaries. Their families should be pleased with these young men and their service. We visited a family in a neighboring ward tonight and then spent some time with the Stake President. As far as missionary team-ups go, this was one of the better. Quite often they are frustrating as nothing was planned and even less was accomplished. Not so with these two young men. We had a good evening and it was good for me to be along with them.

I spent yesterday afternoon being scoped and scooped by Dr. Davis. For some time I’ve had occasional problems with food getting stuck at the bottom of my esophagus. It usually would happen with meat and sometimes getting it to either go up or go down was nearly impossible. I finally made an appointment with a doctor to see what the problem was and determine what was needed to get it fixed. He explained that the likely cause was dysphagia, usually caused by acid reflux and that he would need to put a scope down my throat, take some pictures, and inflate a balloon to break up the ring of stuff that was constricting the bottom of the esophagus. The procedure was done yesterday afternoon. After starting an IV drip and wheeling me on a bed into the procedure room, the doctor injected some pain medication and sleep stuff into the IV and within seconds I was gone. Everything went well. The procedure seemed to work and he also took some tissue samples to be biopsied. He had told me occasionally the acid reflux problem will create some pre-cancerous lesions. I’ve a followup appointment next week when he’ll show me the pictures and tell me what he did and if he found anything interesting. In the meantime, I’ve added another prescription for a Prevacid to start clearing up the acid reflux problem.

The last time I was put to sleep was when I had my tonsils removed at about age 3 or 4. I don’t remember that, of course. The process yesterday went very smoothly and I’ve decided that’s the best way to do dental work as well! I’ve heard some recent advertisements from a local dentist who does dental work while the patient is under. A very good idea in my opinion!

Finally, a year ago when our granddaughter Madison was being baptized, Nina and I went out to New Wilmington, Pennsylvania for the event and stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast — The Jacqueline House. We had a great time staying at this bed and breakfast (and was it only just a year ago that we were there?). Today the owner of the establishment found my posting about their bed and breakfast on a search engine and posted a comment. It’s always interesting to me who finds the web log and reads it! It’s not just for family any more, I guess.