Conference Weekend

Saturday

The time for our mission is flying faster than fast;  Almost as quickly as the snow has melted here.  We had a  heavy blanket of snow and ice all over the ground and it was difficult to go walking or even think about going outside.  We have had a couple of days of above 50 degrees and the snow has pretty much disappeared where the sun shines but in the shade it is still very evident.  Even the HUGE piles of snow at the mall parking lot have been reduced considerably.

This morning when I went out I heard a couple of woodpeckers doing their job.  It has been a long time since I heard a woodpecker.  There used to be a pileated woodpecker that pecked our neighbors chimney when we first moved to Prescott.  He was persistent but he was not successful because he was pecking at the metal top of her chimney.  As the houses filled in the area, the woodpeckers disappeared.  Habitat is everything but it is slowly giving way to huge homes.  Even though they insist on painting these homes in Prescott every shade of green and brown, the birds are not fooled into thinking that these are actually green and brown trees in their habitat.

This afternoon Bill left early to go to the leadership session in Topsham.  I was driven there later in the afternoon and this is the first time I have ever been to another ward building in this Augusta Stake.  The Topsham building is in the middle of a housing development and is hard to find.    It is a much larger building than the one we have here in Augusta.  We had a number of speakers and one of them was a man who was born in Kenshasa, Africa.  He talked about how he joined the church.  I was amazed that he had such a good grasp on the English language.  Another speaker was a newly returned lady missionary from the Korean mission.  She must have really stood out among the Korean population because she has red hair and very fair features.  President Alan Barker, whom we knew in Pennsylvania as Elder Barker when he was serving as a missionary there, gave a talk about the wonders of the creation.  He told of seeing a program on the universe and how the images that were shown on the program were put together from computer data collected by the Hubble telescope.  His point was that the creations of God are innumerable and are totally amazing.  Our Mission President spoke and asked us to remember the vision of Joseph Smith and to contemplate how that vision has changed our lives.  As a boy of 14 years Joseph was unsure which of all the churches in his area to join.  So he read in the scriptures, the epistle of James  where we are told “if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God “.  He decided to pray about what to do and as he prayed pillar of light opened up and came down and rested on him.  In that pillar of light, Joseph saw two personages, one said, pointing to the other, “Joseph, This is my beloved Son, hear him”.  I want my grandsons to know that I have heard this event over and over and have prayed to know if it is true, and it did happen, just as Joseph Smith said it happened.  This is the central message of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and we invite all to explore it.

Sunday

Today we left very early and drove to the Westbrook Middle School Auditorium about 67 miles away and we had the full Stake Conference session.  Last night was the adult session but today it was for the whole family.  It was well attended.  The speakers were selected from among the membership and one lady in particular spoke to my heart.  She is an only child and said that when the little people began to be born into her family, that she had no idea what to do about them.  She had never had brothers or sisters younger than her, never babysat, and here she was a young mother with three little people growing in her home.  She told of the bond she had with the sisters of the Relief society and how these sisters rallied around her and helped her with common questions about “how to operate” these little kids.  I do remember well about being in the selfsame boat.  We had decided to adopt and went through the meetings with Tressler Lutheran Services, and then it came time to go pick up the baby.  We had no nine months of anticipation, just 24 hours or so and hey presto, we were parents of this squirming little boy.  Talk about the instant age….this was faster than instant parenting.  This sister talked about some of the challenges of raising her boy – how he killed a fly that was on the window and he  used a hammer to kill the fly.  David did a similar thing.  He asked for the ‘Swyfwatter” and when I gave it to him, he toddled off into the living room, and smashed the fly on the screen door and then said ,”Well, that broke him”.  He had hit the fly with such force that the screen came out of its moorings.  I can totally relate to this lady and her boy with the hammer.

The Boston Temple president spoke and it was quite startling.  He talked about his life before he joined the church.  He was a 3 pack a day smoker and his language was enough to make a sailor blush.  He made no bones about it and spoke frankly of the change that he had made in his life by joining the church.  In Pennsylvania I watched a young man and his family take the challenge of living the gospel as it was taught to them, and he progressed from being a recently returned Viet Nam Vet  who had lost his way to getting an education, becoming  a temple worker, moving to Africa with his work and then after he retired, he was called as Mission President in Africa.  The gospel as it is taught in the Church of Jesus Christ totally changes lives and brings out the best in all men (and women) who embrace it.

Our Stake President spoke about the conditions of today and how we as members of the church should not let the press define who we are but to be proactive in correcting befuddled views of the church held by many due to the misinformation spread about by the press and many other ministers of religion who are interviewed about their views of the church on TV talk shows.

We drove home by way of Gardiner where we were hoping to see the river still frozen over because this week the Coast Guard Cutter is slated to come up the Kennebec River from Bath to break the ice ready for the spring thaw.  I think that most of the thaw has taken place and the river is flowing freely from Watervile through Augusta and Hallowell and Gardener.  Guess I will not see the coast guard cutter smashing the ice.  At least I did get to see an ice shack on the ice in Hallowell.

It has been so warm these past few days that 90% of the ice and snow has just disappeared.  Now we can see the pine cones decorating the lawn under the trees and I did not know that there were so many there before the snow came.  At the back of our apartment building, those who smoke are supposed to put their butts in the receptacle provided but they are lazy and they just flicked the butts into the snow rather than walk over to the receptacle and so there are cigarette butts littering the grass in back of the building.  It looks very untidy.

So we stand at the portal of another week.  I wonder what it will bring.  It is just like Christmas – we open each day one at a time to the surprises that they contain.