Finding the Joy in Service

Our week started at the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving point.

Because we wanted to see the sculpture garden based on the Book of Mormon, and other LDS doctrine.  The sculptures, over a 100 were done by one artist.  This artist has an assistant named Gina Ashbey.  Gina's mother is Aldi Doxey.  Aldi and Nolan served in the Helsinki Temple as missionaries during the time we served our first mission to Finland and we got to know them.  Aldi is shown here, on the left side of the golf cart traveling ahead of us through the Tulip Festival to the sculpture gardens, because.  

Gina talked to her folks about the possibility of building a smaller sculpture garden, with some of the statues, in Finland.  The idea has been introduced in Finland and land has been found on which to do the garden.  But the estimate for the construction of the copies, and their shipping to Finland is 3 Million.

This tour was sort of a way to find a few investors.  There were two golf carts of interested parties, and a half a dozen walkers.

The grounds were delightful.

So fun to see the topiaries too.

This curly tree was amazing.

And of course, this little mushroom house caught my attention.

The Tree of Life Garden sign shows the Great and Spacious building behind.

Here we see Gina Ashbey as she starts us on the tour.

The sky was cooperating in showing this amazing sculpture to advantage.

The garden tomb

I was ahead of the group, looking for places to sit, so here we see the tour group through the middle of the great and spacious building. Can you spot Dad?

I also like the cloud effect here.

The whole tour group

On Tuesday I got to take Alysa off the hill for a field trip.  We went by The Grove, and stopped at UGLY's Closet.

Doesn't she look cute in these glasses?  Then it was to lunch at Costa Vida, Macey's, Five Below and Home Goods.  Next, we headed to the house because she wanted to see where she would be staying, when she finally gets to have an overnight visit, possible sometime next month. We spent 5 hours together on our field trip.

At work on Wednesday, this gal wanted to find something for her son's new shop that he is opening, I think in London.  It's a sort of medieval, historical, fae, etc.  She wanted a 'shop warming' gift to show her support.  Initially she looked at door knockers, before finding the absolutely most perfect gift ever. 

It's an outdoor doorbell.  You turn the handle on the left which rotates and rings the bells.  I don't think there is a more perfect gift anywhere.

I worked again on Thursday and Dad was back to the temple after it being closed for cleaning for two weeks.

We been eating a lot of healthy Acai bowls, which has been fun.  We blend frozen fruit with soy milk (think protein) then sprinkle it with a high protein sugar-free granola, that is delicious.  Fresh fruit on top, with a drizzle of honey, and yum, yum, yum.

I told Adi she has changed our lives for good.  Look at the cute mug she found while shopping.  I thought it was so fun that she sent us the picture.

On Friday we had a teleconference with this man, James Perry.  We also met with Todd Welker who we met at the Family History Library the Friday before Conference.  Todd, as it turns out has a brother named Scott, (Yes, Scott and Todd are the perfect names for brothers, don't you think?) who happened to serve as Trevor's companion on his mission to Birmingham, England.  Small world.

The main point is that Todd is always looking for family history missionaries, who find and collect individual church histories for the Historical Collection Centers that are found all over Europe, including one in Finland that was moved to a safer location during the reconstruction/remodel of the Neitsytpolku chapel on our second mission.  Dad got involved with the move and was rather impressed but didn't realize it was a shadow of things to come.

Anyway, back to the video conference.  James, in England, is looking for a couple of couples to work in there.  He had two sites one in Southerland now and one coming open in London in the Fall.  The London opportunity is doing the collecting and overseeing ward and stake historians in the area, as well as in the Nordic Countries to which we would travel on occasion.  Yeah, that's the one we chose. 

These are the pictures we sent along with the short bio we sent him.

We've been praying and discussing this possibility for three weeks now. Listening closely during conference I was struck by the Sister who talked about 'Here am I send me'.  Then today while at a missionary homecoming, for a couple who just returned from serving in Africa, he said, "In regards to considering a senior mission" then he quoted 2nd Nephi 16:8 emphasising the part that says "He am I, send me."  That was just what we were waiting to hear.  Afterwards I told him that his talk had answered our prayers.

Later on Friday I worked on a couple of Insta posts advertising fleaology which happens next week.

Here's one grouping of goodies.

And another, followed by close-up shots. Lots of red and white from my kitchen, and from the store.

I've changed my kitchen from red and white to more of a green and red grandma's cottage aesthetic. So goodbye to lots of the red and white.

On Friday night Ann and I met up with 3 other book club friends and went to Pub Book Quiz night at the Salem Library.  We laughed when we saw this book on hold for yet another member of our book club, Carolyn.  Its our book for the month, and we meet next week.

We did better at Pub Night than we have in the past, in which we came in last every time.  This time we tied for 3rd, in a field of 6 teams.  We were good with that.  Every pub night has 3 individual pop quiz questions, for which there are prizes.  Every time I have won one of the 3 pop questions.  This time it was knowing the opening of the Book, I Capture the Castle, and the author Dodie Smith.  It's a popular book, every time I put a copy of it in the book booth at the mall, it's gone in a week.  I once had the same customer by both the copies I happened to have at the time. 

Ann and I got together again on Saturday, as we headed to the Acorn Antique Show in Ogden, the last real antique show in the state.

I took pictures of lace displays to help with my new lace, ribbons and buttons booth at Treasures.

seriously cute ideas.

Ann found this adorable, enameled bucket, among other things.

Saturday was also Becca and Brady's 19th wedding anniversary. Congrats!

and a favorite Finnish Mission picture I ran across while look for our bio photos.

Here we are with Dad's mission president's wife, Sister Wade, and Wayne Braunberger and his wife, who served for a year and a half in one of the Africa Area Offices as their Lawyer. Wayne was one of Dad's companions. They are estimating 50,000 convert baptisms in their area alone.

And in other news, I was sustained today as the Stake Historian.  I guess writing up all those books of family history stories that I have done all my married life, pointed to this point in my life.  I will be able to set up the works for our new stake before we leave (if all goes as expected) for our mission to England in the fall.