As missionaries serving in the office, Saturdays are our day off. Eileen still gets calls from the young missionaries, but to a lesser extent than Monday evening through Friday. We usually go to the gym, clean the apartment, I (Russell) serve in the temple, and then we go out to dinner in the evening. Yesterday, I knew as soon as I got up and looked outside that our plans would be modified a bit. During the night a storm had dropped the first snow of the season that was sticking on the ground, and it was still coming down. The app on my phone showed that the snowstorm would continue until around noon. The app also showed me that my usual route to the temple, on the freeway, should be avoided and an alternate route was suggested. Looking outside I could see that the roads were not plowed.
I decided to give myself over an hour to drive the 12 miles to the temple, which is usually a 20-25 minute drive. All morning the app continued to suggest the same alternative route to the temple. As I got into the car, I decided to check one more time. This time the app showed both routes as slow, but now equally so. So I took the freeway. It was slow going and I did see a car or two off the road. About half way there I saw two diesel truck tires in the road, not on their sides, but connected together and rolling in one of the lanes. My guess is that it was leftover from an accident that had recently been cleared. In the end I made it there and back without incident, slow but safe.
Today I learned from another temple worker who works the shift before mine, who lives close to us, that he saw the same advice as I did, to avoid the freeway. He took the alternate route. He said he saw many cars off the road and that the police actually closed the road at one point just after he got through. It made me glad that I had made it safely to the temple and back. I do believe my fellow temple worker and I were both aided in our travel to the temple.
As I got home, I found Eileen leaving the apartment. She was off to the hospital to be with one of the young sister missionaries. Sister Creer was giving Eileen a ride there since I was slow in getting home from the temple. Eileen texted me saying a little about the medical issue and that she would still like to go out to eat once things got settled at the hospital. We had planned on going to Olive Garden for dinner. That plan had to change as Eileen didn’t leave the hospital until 9:45 pm. On the way home we stopped at the only restaurant that was still open, other than the bars. It was both quiet and warm. As we ate our food in an otherwise empty restaurant, I thought about how differently the day turned out than we had planned. I appreciated the help we had received that day from the other side of the veil. The young sister who went to the ER was okay and we safe. I feel very blessed. Oh, and the sisters who went the hospital missed the baptism of their three converts. I’m sure that will hurt for a while.
Last Monday, our daughter Shefali was seen by doctors at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. They diagnosed her cancer as being in stage three. She will be treated with a combination of operation, chemotherapy and radiation starting the next few weeks. As Christmas will be quite different this year than she had planned, Shefali arranged to get her girls for Thanksgiving and a coworker worked her shift on Thursday so she could spend the holiday with Michael and her girls.
Shefali’s sudden change in plans this last week makes my change in plans yesterday seem trivial. What both have in common is that God is aware of our situations. He is in the details of our lives. While He allows the challenges of this mortal life to afflict us, He hears our prayers and stands ready to comfort and strengthen us as we face those challenges.
We had a very interesting FHE on Monday by Chris Newman who lives in Missouri. He owns the Cinechopper Aerial Video flight school. Here he is demonstrating how he can remotely fly his drone down the hallway and into the gym. We are seeing on the screen what he sees in his goggles. He has done some remarkable drone work including for the Piano Guys and several other top name companies.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Sister Parker put up our holiday decorations this week.
This poor sister had bilateral pneumonia 3 weeks ago. She has been on 3 different antibiotics, a shot of decadron, a round of prednisone and the hives persist. I finally got some good counsel from a dermatologist who was on call for the missionary department. Hopefully she will get better soon.
This missionary got bitten on the knee by a member's dog. Since he is quite tall it must have been an aggressive dog to get all the way to his knee. This is the 5th dog bite requiring care since I started my mission 16 months ago.
Elder Smith (with the hat) and his companion purchased turkeys for the Independence zone. One of their friends works at a BBQ place and smoked all this meat for them. It looked pretty amazing.
The elders played a football turkey bowl out on the field behind the church. You can see the Church of Christ auditorium in the background.
I’m sorry to hear about Shefali’s diagnosis! That’s hard to handle without mom and dad nearby. May the Lord continue to bless your family and the Missionaries you serve!
ReplyDeleteGreat fun reading about your mission.
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