notes from our Journal January 2009 We saw as much as we could of all our children and grandchildren during the months of November and December. Whitney and Brad brought Zachary all the way from Logan for our family Christmas party, which was a wonderful, wonderful time. Everyone was able to be there except David and his family. That Sunday Dennis and I spoke in Sacrament meeting. Kristen and Jeff were with us all through the holidays. When T went back up to Salt Lake City the house felt very empty.
Going through the house, packing, discarding, selling, and giving away all our "stuff" was a huge undertaking. We never knew we had so many treasures; thank goodness we got rid of about half of them so we don't have to face them when we get home!
Stuart and David saved the day by helping us move some of the big things into the living room and dining room, and Jeff helped us do all the last minute things, like the beds we slept in :) We hoped to be completely finished by Saturday the 10th, but didn't quite make it.
Jeff was with us the night we were set apart; his being there meant so much. He gave a beautiful prayer. It was one of those sweet times that you hold on to.
One more thing I must add about our time with President Robison. After Jeff and the Messers had left, President asked us if we would come back into his office for just a minute. He then asked if he could add to my blessing, as he had forgotten something. Then he blessed me that I would have the gift of tongues on my mission.
The next day, when all was packed and we were ready to leave, we had family prayer, hugged our boy one more time, and said goodbye. Jeff went out the front door with his Sergeant to fly out to MEPS, and we went out the back, got into the Honda, and said goodbye to the valley and our home for eighteen months.
We stopped at Michael and Katie's home and had dinner with them, and spent the evening reading stories to Kloie, Sophie, and Josie, hugging Zoie, visiting with Michael and Katie, and trying to get a year-and-a-half supply of hugs and kisses from all of them.
The next morning, we arose early, loaded back in the car, and headed north to the Provo Mission Training Center.
We were a day late when we arrived, having had some business dificulties that had to be resolved before we could leave. But the MTC took us in stride... within about a half hour we were unpacked and in our first class.
The first week was all Preach My Gospel training. Preach My Gospel is inspired of the Lord. The spirit of that week will stay with us all our lives. Those who have been to the MTC know the spirit there. It is impossible to describe. Elder Humes was sick much of the time but the spirit triumphed over all that and still made itself felt, to our joy.
The second week was office training. This was old stuff to Elder Humes, but it reminded me of an incident I had with Preston at the Bushman Family Reunion at Navajo Lake. Dad and I were walking along a path toward the gathering place when I saw Preston sitting on an ice chest in the back of a truck. It looked to me like he might be in time out, so I called to him: "Preston-- are you in trouble?" Whereupon Preston turned around and with that Preston smile hollered back, "Not yet, Grandma!"
That was me with computer training. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be in big, big trouble... (and may I say events have proved me right:) and yet... I am able to do things for the mission with the computer that I would never have dreamed I would be able to do, complex things completely outside of my ability to figure out or do. And so I ponder the blessing President gave me: isn't computer a foreign language?
39 years ago this October, a young Elder from Overton, Nevada returned from a two-year mission in Brasil for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. On Christmas day, he asked a blue-eyed girl from his home town to a movie at the El Notrevo (which, I am sorry to tell you, is Overton spelled backwards).
In January he gave her a ride up to BYU in his Dad's Chevy II Nova; by the end of February they were engaged, and on May 27th, 1972 they were married in the St. George Temple.
They became the parents of David, Michael, Stuart, Rebecca, Whitney, Kristen, and Jeffrey, and Grandpa and Grandma to Ben, Olivia, Preston, Kloie, Emma, Robert, Sophie, Josie, Stockton, Zachary, Zoie, Kavan, and Brae, for whom this journal is written.
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