Week 13

A fun thing happened to me last week that I forgot to mention, so I will now. 😊 I was walking through the parking garage and saw two very important people walking toward me: Craig Jessop and Mack Wilberg! For those who may not know, they were and are directors of the Tabernacle Choir. It was so sweet to see them together, first of all, because Craig left the choir quite abruptly. Anyway, I just had to stop them, so I bravely approached them and re-introduced myself. They both remembered me, even though I had to take off my glasses before they actually recognized me. They were both so kind and interested in what I was doing. Brought back many sweet memories!

On Thursday, my FHE group went to the production "Savior of the World." It's a musical production on the life of Jesus Christ they do in the Conference Center every year for the last nearly 20 years. I can't believe this is the first time I've seen it, but I highly recommend it! It was beautifully done and so moving - a great start to the holiday season.

As you all know, mine is a mission of Church and Family History. This week we had a conference where the speaker was the new director of the Church's Family History Department, Elder Kevin S. Hamilton of the Seventy. He gave us some pretty amazing statistics and background of the department and slight glimpses of what is to come. He pointed out that the rapid growth in technology in the world began it's steepest rise with the year 1830 - the organization of the Church. Probably no surprise to us that the Lord provides many wonderful scientific and technological advances to further His purposes. Here's an interesting statistic that kind of blew my mind - every week there are 3,000 new signups on FamilySearch from members of the Church. In that same week, there are 53,000 signups from non-Latter-day Saints. The interest in knowing our families and their histories is not exclusive to us, but the Spirit of Elijah is spreading throughout the earth. He said that the purpose of the Family History Department is to discover, gather and connect all people - past, present and future. He kept stressing that ALL means ALL. All 10 billion on the earth today, and all 100+ billion people who will ever live on the earth. ALL means ALL. 

President Nelson said this to the youth of the Church last year, and I believe it extends to their parents: "You were sent to earth at this precise time, the most crucial time in the history of the world, to help gather Israel. There is nothing happening on this earth right now that is more important than that. There is nothing of greater consequence. Absolutely nothing. This gathering should mean everything to you. This is the mission for which you were sent to earth." He also said, "Anytime you do anything that helps anyone - on either side of the veil - take a step toward making covenants with God and receiving their essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping to gather Israel. It is as simple as that." 

Thanks to Abby & Adam & Madeline for all you are doing to help gather Israel! Thanks to all of you for going to the temple and helping to gather our ancestors - for the baptisms for the dead, the endowments and sealings you are helping to do to connect our family. Thanks even to the young ones who cooperate and support your parents in going. It's such an important mission that we can all participate in! If you can't get to the temple, then open your computers and index a batch or attach a record hint. It's all important!! We can all help - ALL means ALL! 😘

Love you ALL! As Thanksgiving is this week, I'm ever more grateful for each of you and what you mean to me! Thanks for your love and support and for your prayers. I certainly feel them and want you to know that I'm praying for you too. 

Week 12

It has been a very nice week. Do I say that every week? Probably!

I'm going to start with a story that is really shared with Madeline. Caryn texted me on Monday - "Not sure if Madeline told you about her crazy week or not but thanks for being part of her answer to prayer!!" Well I was in an all-day meeting and couldn't ask her what she was talking about! I called her when I got home, and here's what she told me, with a bit more detail. It was such a sweet story that I wrote it up for our weekly mission newsletter for the "Tender Mercies" section. Here's what I wrote:

"Last month Elder and Sister Hall came to our mission for a short time while waiting for their visas to Portugal. I was excited to learn that they would soon be in the same mission as my granddaughter, Sister Madeline Ashton. When the Halls introduced themselves in Sunday School, I knew that I needed to speak to them. So right after class, I told them to be sure to watch out for my granddaughter when they got to Portugal, never dreaming that they would actually ever meet her. Sister Hall told me that she was assigned to be the mission’s nurse and that there might be a chance; so she pulled out her phone, typed in Sister Ashton’s name and promised to give her a hug from Nana if she ever met her. Fast-forward two weeks. Today I got a message from my granddaughter. She was transferred last week, and somewhere along the way she picked up a nasty bug. After she spent hours on the bathroom floor, in tears and much distress, her companions decided that they should probably call for help. So, in the middle of the night the call was routed to dear Sister Hall. She was able to calm my granddaughter’s fears and give her some helpful suggestions, and then she said, “Sister Ashton, I have a story to tell you.…” A few days later, Sister Hall was able to deliver that hug at their zone conference. The Lord certainly is in the details of our lives and puts angels along the way when we need them most." Here is a picture of Madeline and Sister Hall. 

I love knowing that Heavenly Father is watching out for each of us and blessing us with the things we need most. Maybe not immediately, but we need to learn patience. I loved that reminder as I was reading in Come Follow Me Daily, a blog that I follow going with the Sunday School reading for the week. It's a quote from Elder Holland's talk, An High Priest of Good Things to Come: "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come." This blessing for Madeline came soon - right when she needed it; but I know that many of you have had to wait years for the blessings you've prayed for, and some may not have received them yet. We learn patience along the way - sometimes the hard way!

Caryn shared this talk with her family this week. You might want to read or watch the whole thing. It's from the October 1999 general conference. At the end of the talk was one of my favorite quotes from Elder Holland. When Papa had the surgery on his neck and was in the hospital for so long, our stake president, Andy Horton, visited and brought him this quote. We kept it up on the wall for weeks as a reminder because it was so perfect for his situation: "Don't give up, boy. Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead - a lot of it.... You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come."

Nothing comes without a lot of hard work and even more faith. Thanks to all of you for your example of that in my life. Congrats to Jonathan (and thanks for your example of hard work and faith!) for your first college touchdown yesterday! I've attached the great picture of it because many of you might not have seen it!

 

Here's hoping for another great week ahead! I pray for you all that you'll receive the blessings you're praying for. 

Week 11

My week was blessed with lots of family visiting! On Thursday night I braved I-15 and drove for an hour and a half to get to American Fork. Should have taken me half that, but it was worth the drive. I had dinner with Ann, Larry, Catherine, Rod, Lynda, Greg, Steve & Michelle at the Olive Garden in AF. It was great to visit and catch up. Everyone seems to be doing well. Ann & Larry are waiting for a mission call. Rod and Catherine are trying to decide about one - not yet for them. I think they would love it but they have to be ready. Saturday was fun too. I went to Jonathan's football game with Coray & Mindy. It was a nail-biter! They won in the last 30 seconds.

Caryn, Jon & Tyler came down for Hanna's dance recital and stopped at the game. It was a beautiful day for football - nearly 60 degrees. We left at halftime to go to Provo for the recital and listened to the rest of the game on the radio. We met Alyssa, Chad, Hanna & Mason at Brick Oven for dinner. That was so fun to be there again and eat my favorite mini feast. 

Then we went to Hanna's recital. She's in the Dance Ensemble. She danced beautifully, and of course the dances she was in were my favorite! 

We spent the night at Coray's and I left in the morning for my regular Sunday assignments. 

I'd like you to know about the Temple View Branch. I was asked to go there to play the organ for their sacrament meeting. It's a tiny branch in South Salt Lake and is served by the Inner City Mission, but my mission president likes to have service opportunities for our young elders. Two of them go there every week to help with the sacrament. One of the senior couples takes them, and I go to play the organ. The branch meetings are held in a little room that's part of their apartment building - low-income apartments for seniors. 

The room is about the size of a regular Relief Society room and is furnished very much like one, except there is an organ and a sacrament table. They are SO appreciative of my being there to play the organ. In prayers and testimonies I get thanked regularly, and the people are really sweet. Lots of walkers and wheelchairs, but it's not an assisted living. Just a place for poorer old folks. Last week was testimony meeting, and at the end of the meeting a man who had come in late and sat at the back walked up to bear his testimony - the last for the meeting. He had long hair and a scruffy beard, was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt with some sort of beer ad on the back, and two different shoes. He introduced himself - David I think - and said that he had been a member of the church, and thought he still was, that he had taken three of the five temple prep classes, and that he wanted to come back. After the meeting was over, I looked back to see if some of the branch members or Inner City missionaries had gone back to speak to him - I really hoped they had. I thought about him all week, that he would be the lost sheep that the Savior would ask us to find. I didn't see him at the meeting today until I was playing the postlude. There he was gathering up the hymn books. This time his shirt was plain on the back (inside out maybe?) and his shoes matched. 

I imagine that Adam, Abby, and Madeline are having regular experiences with lost sheep, but it's new for me. I love my mission. Most of what I do could be done by any church employee, but I feel like I'm serving and saving a few precious tithing dollars so they can be spent on better things. 

Week 10

I'm sure you've missed my regular laugh-at-myself moments. Well, here's a doozy! We have a little keyboard in the conference room where we hold our morning zone devotional. I play for the hymn singing. Well, it's small and doesn't play very loud without pounding, so I was trying to figure out how to increase the volume. I couldn't, so I put it back to the original setting for piano - or so I thought. Anyway, thankfully the person who gave the thought for the day talked about his birthday and the cards his grandkids made for him. It was pretty light and not as serious or emotional as some of them can be. Thankfully! because as I started to play the hymn, all the rhythms and beats and harmonies that I thought I had turned off started playing with "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel." I gasped, turned it off and back on as everyone was giggling with me. We sang the song, but days later I'm still getting teased for the look on my face and the lively morning hymn. 🙄

Thursday I rode the elevator in the parking garage with Elder Rasband, but wait - it gets better!

I received a sweet blessing this week and confirmation to me that Heavenly Father is very aware of me and my "righteous desires." A few weeks ago, I told you that I had passed Elder Gong and really wanted to talk to him; but because of instructions we had received I decided that it wasn't a good idea to approach him just then. I hoped that there would be another chance for me to tell him thank you for the sweet message that he left on my phone when Papa died. He was a Seventy at the time and called me from Washington DC. I'm so grateful that I wasn't home at the time because I was able to copy and save the message. So on Friday I parked where I usually park, which is on a lower level of the Church Office Building parking near the entrance to the temple. When the door opened and Elder Gong was standing there, my heart dropped! I got on, we said hello, but then I took my chance. I introduced myself and told him that I was Doug's wife, and I told him how grateful we were as a family for his kind message when Doug passed away. He again said how grateful he was for Doug's service and all he did, and he thanked me for my service as well. We then got off the elevator and walked from the temple entrance to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building entrance, which was probably a hundred yards or so. He asked me about my mission and what I do, about the missionaries and how many were serving (I was glad that I had just looked that up!). And then it was over and we said goodbye. At that moment I thought to myself "Heavenly Father loves me." It's moments like these that we need to realize how aware Heavenly Father is of us and what is important to us. A few minutes later, Sister Gordon was giving the zone devotional and talking about the attributes of the Apostle Paul. Then I made the connection - I had just ridden the elevator and spoken with an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, who holds the same keys and carries the mantle that Paul did. It was a sweet experience that I'll always be grateful for.