MnR Ogden Mission: Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial: Actually April

March 30-April 5

SUNDAY We were scheduled at the Memorial after Church today (fast and testimony meeting). Again they called on me to lead the singing but at least with Rhonda playing, the organist kept up to time. I hadn’t realized there were so many songs in the hymn book with 6/8 time. I packed a quick lunch which didn’t seem to go far enough at the time, especially since I didn’t get a chance to eat it until after the first visitors. They came before Church was out so they walked thru the snow and down around the old home-site foundations before coming to the visitor center. To top that off, it has rained for nearly 24 hours straight. It has reduced the snow from 3 feet deep to about 2 feet. It almost makes me think Spring is really going to come. After our shift it was “too rainy” to go for a walk so I just watched basketball and my recorded tennis match on TV.

MONDAY I went for a walk this morning but I wished I would have taken my scarf. The wind blowing in my face made my neck pretty cold. RSO was eagerly involved making our home evening food assignment while I was just around not doing anything constructive. Went to the Memorial for the afternoon shift and had some visitors but it is still cool and windy. It is just not an inviting atmosphere for people to be out and about. The activity for family home evening was to go to the visitor center theater and watch several of the short Mormon Messages. There really are some great messages about the Church and inspiring people. It seemed to be well received by those in attendance.
TUESDAY Today was a beautiful day here in Vermont. The temperature was in the upper 40’s but it seemed quite a bit warmer. There were visitors when we got t the Memorial and more came before our training meeting so I had to miss the meeting. With several visitors coming through the day, it seemed like the day was over before I thought it should be. We went home for a brief rest before going to Institute. Kelsey said she wanted a ride but to be careful coming down her road as MUD SEASON had started. That it had! There was no getting out of the ruts once in them and if you tried to avoid them, it seemed like you were involuntarily slid right back into them. It sure left ugly tires on the car. I thought the class went quite well and we had a safe trip so it was a successful night.

WEDNESDAY I guess I was re-taught a lesson on always being prepared today. Maybe the lesson was: STAY WITH YOUR COMPANION. Rhonda and Sister Osborn went to clean the apartments for the new missionaries who will be coming later this week and 2 weeks away. We were expecting the carpet people to be at the Memorial changing the carpet when we arrived but they weren’t here. Soon after Rhonda left with the car, there was a young family come from Cincinnati, OH to see the visitor center. They had given their middle child some walnuts earlier in the day and he had broke out in hives and itching all over. They had just started the tour when their baby threw up all over himself, the dad, the floor, the whole works. They ask if I had a plastic bag to put the soiled clothes in so I ran over to the office to get a spare key to the custodial closet (my key is hooked on the car ring with Rhonda) to find a bag. I asked what I could do to help them next and the dad asked if I had some oil to help him give the kids a blessing. (Sure, my oil is in the jockey box of the car) I called Elder Osborn who had gone to check on the ladies to see if he had some oil in the house I could find to help the dad. He was almost back so he got some oil from his car and I helped the dad administer to his two boys. By this time the carpet crew had come and started tearing up the carpet so I ask them if I could just leave the throw-up on the floor since they were going to rip it out today anyway. They said OK. Shortly after that, the carpet crew left to find some lunch and the delivery truck hauling the new carpet arrived. The driver said he needed some help unloading the rolls of carpet since they weighed 2300 pounds. I told him he would have to wait for the carpet crew as I couldn’t do that. Maybe this just wasn’t my day! The rest of the day, we just walked over and through where the carpet people were working without too much inconvenience.

THURSDAY After doing some laundry and a few odds and ends at the apartment, we went shopping for some different kick around shoes and pants for me. I believe I went to every available store in W. Lebanon before finally settling on a pair of shoes at Wal Mart on sale for $13.00. After getting some groceries and filling the car with gas, we headed home. It was late afternoon so I called Bro. Dunkle and ask him if he was boiling maple syrup. He said, "Yes, come and see." He lives several miles off the main road thru Tunbridge so we re-visited the mud season again. I had just washed the car in the morning but there was no indication that it had ever happened once we returned home. Anyway, the “sugar” business is quite interesting. He has feed lines from the trees right into his sugar house and also uses buckets to hang on trees which are not convenient for the lines. His sugar house is quite small but very adequate for a personal enterprise. He had three different bins where he was boiling maple sap. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Bro. Dunkle really had to keep adding wood to his stove to keep the pots boiling. He gave us samples of the different boiling bins to see how the sap concentrates.

After we left his place, we drove further up the highway to Chelsea just to see some new territory and visit some of the local towns. Some towns are quite quaint and looked like I think they must have looked when they were chartered in the late 1700’s. The one thing that is really remarkable is that every town has a large white Church with a tall steeple. They are really quite attractive.
FRIDAY   I had to take my new shoes out for a walk. They seemed very good to walk in and quite light and comfortable.   I washed the car again but on the way to the memorial there was a big puddle of muddy water on the side of the road and with approaching traffic, it had to go through it. Needless to say, the car wash only lasted about 2 miles from home. We arrived at the Memorial the same time as a car of visitors and since the carpet crew was out to lunch, I took them directly on a tour without checking in at the office. There was another large group in the house seeing a movie since the theater was all torn up for the re-carpet process.    I was not quite so lucky for the rest of the visitors who came. They mostly had to hear the tour message from the outside. It was windy and cool so they didn’t want to stay out by the Monument too long.   They had coats, etc. and asked me how come I wasn’t cold. My response was, who said I wasn’t?   We had our monthly senior missionary activity at the Mooney’s apartment. We had a great time visiting and some delicious treats. We almost got too involved to play their "Apples To Apples" game but finally got to it.   We missed the Harman’s who were in Utah helping out children who were having a medical emergency.
SATURDAY   Today was the first day of the 184 General Conference. We opened up at the Memorial and tried to watch the sessions on the Internet as the TV’s were all unhooked with the laying of the new carpet. The internet was slow and there would be long pauses in the talks so they were a little hard to follow. As soon as our shift was finished we hurried home and watched the Afternoon session (we are on 2 hour time change from MDT) and the Priesthood sessions from home. It was much better.