Blessed, Honored Pioneer!

Things are beginning to pick up again. We had a lot of new events get entered into the system and a couple of them were RUSH events. Last Sunday evening we able to help with the Single Adult Conference Devotional. It was a live event that was interpreted into Spanish. I love working with our wonderful interpreters. We do a lot of Spanish so we are getting to know the regulars very well.

Then on Tuesday afternoon we got a RUSH order for a Setting Apart for an Area Authority Seventy who didn't speak English. It was to take place on Wednesday morning in Elder Renlund's office in the Church Administration Building. We didn't get to help other than getting the order in the system. I will get to see the Interpreter this coming Wednesday for another event and I can't wait to talk to him about his experience.

I got a new assignment this week. They asked me to maintain the Zone's SharePoint sight as the person doing it before went home on Thursday. I'm kind of excited to do as it will help me to get to know our fellow missionaries better. 

I also got to teach Relief Society/Priesthood today. We do our lessons via Zoom and Sacrament meeting in person. We are hoping to start doing our lessons in person soon. I love the lessons because we have such great discussions. The missionaries are all eager to share and have wonderful and pertinent stories. It is easy to lead the discussion with a few thoughtful questions. Our lessons was based on Elder Rasband's April 2021 Conference talk entitled "Behold!, I Am a God of Miracles." It seemed to go pretty well.

This weekend Utah celebrated Pioneer Day. Friday was a State Holiday and they had a big parade down State street which is right in front of the Church Office Building. We decided to watch the parade from the 28th floor where we could be cool and out of the sun and have a birds eye view. I took pictures from the 28th floor and they turned out pretty good from that high up. I am; however, posting some pictures from the Internet so you can get a closer look as some of the incredible floats.

The opening float was a steamboat. The smoke stacks went up and down. It was pretty cool.

One of the more cleaver floats was the "remodel" of the Salt Lake Temple. Here is the shot I took from the 28th floor.

This is a close up from Deseret News.

The Community Award was really good too. It had a spinning globe with flags where all the Temples are. It was titled from Nauvoo to Rome.

On Saturday we went with the Hansen's (our trainers) to visit one of our Interpreters who happens to be an artist. He has his own art studio in the basement of his house. He taught art school for his career and has won many awards and had a lot of his work published. His name is Leo Platero. He is a Native American from the Navajo tribe. He is one of our Navajo Interpreters. 

One of the things that amazed me the most was the different mediums he worked in. Most artists tend to favor one medium. Leo does it all. I suppose that comes from being an art teacher. He and his wife recently served a mission to South Africa so several of his paintings reflect the African influence. He also paints a lot about Native American culture. He did some cool geometrics and line drawings as well. Here are a few pictures of some of his work. 

July is coming to an end. The Hansen's last day is on Thursday. We are having a pot luck lunch for them on Tuesday after our department meeting. Then we will be completely on our own. I think we are in pretty good shape. We are praying for a new missionary couple to show up in the next month or so before General Conference. We have several major projects coming up that we will probably need the extra help with. General Conference is the biggest project. We also do World Report and apparently that is interpreted into about 30 different languages. We will do that the month before General Conference. And I am involved in an ongoing project will take about two years to finish.

We love our Mission and are so grateful to be serving in the Headquarters of the Church. We have already experienced many incredible things and I know there are many more to come.

Dad is really getting into his computer work. We have spent much of the last two weekends getting systems in place for him to do all his work.