Happy Easter!

April 20-26

Easter is a beautiful time of the year.  We are feeling the promise of Spring--even here in Vermont!  The resurgence of new growth is appearing as the blanket of snow is lifting.  It is wonderful to think of the beautiful Easter message and the blessing of Christ's resurrection, which gives us the gift of eternal life.  We are so grateful that He lives today as our Savior and Redeemer.                                                  SUNDAY   Rhonda was ask to play the organ at Church today.  She always does a great job,  it sounds so nice to have someone who can really play the organ.  We only stayed for Sacrament meeting as earlier in the week a Bro. Lowe called and ask how he could get a tour of the visitor center but only had time to go to Sacrament mtg.  I told him I would miss Sunday School and take him.  After Sacrament mtg., I told him I would meet him at the Monument.   Before he got there (45 minutes later) was a group from Maryland (7 people)   who just parked waiting for us to open.  I walked out and invited them in.  No sooner did I start with them than Bro. Lowe arrived.  I tried to combing their groups but before I knew it, they were wandering all over.  Some watched the Easter Video and others went to the Monument.  We finally finished with whoever was around about the time the Osborn’s arrived from the block meetings.  We left and went to the apartment and played with the TV but couldn’t even get it to boot up.  Rhonda called DISH and after “talking” with them on the internet, the guy determined that our receiver was bad so we were finally talked into getting “insurance” so he could send us a new one by UPS.

Today was also Elder Harman's birthday

It was soon time to go back to the Memorial for a Missionary Easter Dinner.  
 MONDAY  Started the day with a sweaty run/walk.  Then it took a while to cool off before getting ready to go to work.  Once at work, it seemed like I hardly spent any time in the office, most of the time I was dealing with visitors at the visitor center/monument.  Several of the non-members who came hardly had time to go through but then the started asking a number of questions so they could have had the whole tour.  I missed the activity at FHE as I was busy giving a tour.  I did make it back for the eats however.  Once back to the apartment, I didn’t have much for excitement so messed on the computer for a while and soon retired.   
TUESDAY   We had more rain during the night.  The rainy weather did give me a little more time to read in the Book of Mormon.  We went to the Memorial for the missionary training and no sooner had the opening prayer before visitors came.  I ended up missing the whole meeting.  That was only the start of the day, I was kept busy  almost all the rest of our shift talking to people.

This is about half of the young sisters serving in our Mission

WEDNESDAY   Today was cold and windy all day.  It started early and continued all through the day.  Rhonda went with the other sister missionaries to a “Sisters Conference” at our Church. Sisters from our half of the mission attended.  Rhonda accompanied the sisters serving in So. Royalton as they played a special violin number.

Singing to the Chef in "thanks" for a wonderful meal

     
 The “senior” sisters here at the Memorial did all the table decorations for the conference.   


 Just after noon, Elder Osborn got a call to come to the chapel and get some lunch our wives had saved for us (he had been sitting with me most of the morning).   Before he got back with the lunch, I had visitors.  I ended up warming my dinner in the microwave three times before I had a chance to eat it all as people just seemed to keep coming for tours.  After our shift finished, we stopped at the Church and cleaned up a little and did the dishes that were left in the sink, luckily most of the dinner was on plastic plates and cutlery.  We were quite a bit later than usual before we finally got home.  Our DISH receiver arrived so we spent some time getting it hooked up and programed so we could begin watching TV again.    

 THURSDAY  Instead of a day off, we worked mornings today and traded our day off for Friday.  We only had one group come so I did a lot of reading, etc.  Once home, I had to wash my dirty car again.  In late afternoon, we went to town.  I let Rhonda off at JoAnn’s while I took the car to Norwich to have the oil changed in the car.   When we go back, Rhonda started cleaning house while I kept checking the computer to see where Randy and family were on their way to visit us.  I couldn’t follow their travels.  
Finally Rhonda found that they had gone to Los Angeles on their way here as some flights closed up,  I finally helped them make a motel reservation in Minneapolis but they were only able to get about three hours sleep before they had to be going again.  They went from SGU to SLC to LAX and finally MSP (Minneapolis) just after midnight, at which time they called it a day.