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.