Today I give a talk in Sacrament meeting.  And tomorrow we will go to Lara's to celebrate "Pie Day" with her apple pie and some ice cream.  :o)  So things are good.

Dad and I have had colds but are getting better.

It's a beautiful day today with warm breezes and sunshine.  A perfect time of year.  Wish you were all here.

What I wanted to talk about was something that I experienced a few weeks ago.  We went to an Empty Nester's family home evening and met a couple that we didn't know before.  The sister was wearing just any old thing, hair askew, no attempt at makeup.  Obviously didn't care about her appearance at all.  You can tell I wasn't very impressed with her.  And then we started talking.  They as a couple have taken in several young people from other countries and helped them get a start here.  They are currently fostering a young woman from Vietnam and will keep her with them through high school and college.  (She is a dear young woman in our YW organization.)  And the sister herself has been a major influence in helping many others do the same thing.  She is a GIANT of a woman.  I was reminded of the movie Shallow Hal where he saw everyone as they really were inside.  I was so sorry to have judged her so quickly and so negatively just from her appearance.  I wish I could dislodge that tendency from my heart and mind and allow people to disclose their real selves as they wish, not prejudging.

I am remembering that experience as I prepare to talk today.  Please let me set aside judgement.  Please let me see people as they really are and care for them and about them as they deserve.  Everyone has a right to determine who they want to be and how they want to be as do we.  They have no responsibility to fit my expectation of what they should be.

And now, good news for me.  The ESL class is permanently disbanded.  We decided that it was no longer serving the students because most have other English classes and are very busy.  Also the new teacher that was going to take over can only teach 2 months so why start?  So this is a picture of the most faithful students.

Second from left is Igal Mozes from Israel who still wants to be connected to us.  We are willing because he is delightful.  But I don't enjoy teaching English so it will be social only.  I will start the reading class with Da this week.

Monday night Barneys came over for a s'mores party and visiting.  It was a pleasant night and we had a good time.  Sam wanted mostly to rest inside and Sarah spent most of her time playing.  

 And Tuesday was Lara's birthday with a nacho dinner and a carrot cake.  That was fun too!

Tomorrow is the birthday of two very special people (Alice and Atticus!) and Tuesday we have the missionaries to dinner, Wednesday the temple will be open and we will be back to work there, Thursday I have a mammogram appointment, Friday we will have dinner at the house of our ESL couple Moshan and Monsour with the rest of the ESL class, and Saturday looks like Jared Collins' birthday.  So a nice full week of good things is ahead.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone there in Utah soon since we already have our plane tickets!  We will arrive early Thursday April 7 and leave Tuesday April 12.  We love you every one!

I went for a walk this morning because it was a perfect day for it.  It was overcast and 69 degrees; there was no sun to make it too warm and there was a pleasant breeze.  Dad was still printing out his genealogy sheets so I took off alone.  We have a lot of sidewalks that go through greenery--lots of trees and bushes to look at and birds and squirrels.  I loved it because it's spring and there were blossoms that I remember since I was little here.  Along the sidewalk were lots of dewberry vines that were coming into flower.  I remember going into Mr Beezley's field behind our house in north Houston and surveying acres of dewberry blossoms that would eventually turn into delicious dewberries.  One summer we picked gallons and gallons of them and enjoyed every one.  My mom made a pie that was out of this world and she bottled lots of them too.  They mostly turned into juice but it was delicious as well.

See all the little white blossoms?  They will each turn into a delicious berry!  They will probably be picked before they even get ripe by all the kids that will pass by them, but that's okay too.

And as I reached the end of my walk there was a wonderful fragrance in the air!  I remember it from long ago too.  I looked all around and finally found this vine that I don't know the name of that has little yellow trumpet flowers that smell beautiful.

Maybe it's the vine we had growing on the side of the deck on Cloud Way.  Do you remember that vine that was by the kitchen window?  It made me happy to smell that remembered fragrance.

When I came home I made some potato salad for lunch and made some whole wheat bread just to have handy for toast.  I slice it and freeze it so I can break off a slice when I want it.  I eat it with butter and bottled peaches from our little tree in Orem.  I'll be really sad when they're all gone.

Now Dad is working in the front yard, getting the patch smoothed out where we took out a little tree.

 He will plant some grass stolons and cover them with good stuff and we hope it will grow and look beautiful.  :o)  The azalea is making me very happy with big fuchsia blooms.  The other little ones we bought are covered with little buds, one white, and one red.  I'm so glad they decided to bloom this year!

I love the color and the shape of these blossoms!  I just hope it will fill in some more this summer.  We pruned it fairly severely in the fall because it was all over the place.

So I guess it's just another day in paradise for us.  :o)

We have had some interesting experiences since the last blog entry.  We were challenged to take a relative through the temple from start to finish so I found about 13 people that we were able to take from start to finish that Dad graciously helped me with.  It was a thrill to be able to do it for them.  I especially felt strongly about Mamie Fisher.  When I was getting the initiatories for her the worker helping me started crying and I felt the same way.

Now Dad has finally gotten into his family history and started printing it all out.  He finally stopped when he got to the 1400s with GP Harward's line.  There are a lot of royals there.  King Henry III I think to start with.  So you can start having everyone call you "your majesty."  If you want to check it out you can ask Dad what their identity code is and you can look them up.  There are LOTS.  And he finally just stopped printing.  They go back to the 11th century.  He is hoping to find a line closer to the present to pursue so he can experience the fun of the whole thing.

The temple is closed this two weeks and just in time.  I've had some lessons to prepare that I really needed the time for.  One down last night and another one Sunday and then free for a little while.

Good news from the ESL class!  We were going to teach till the end of March, but only two came today and the library guy in charge said the lady that was supposed to take over for April won't be available for very long--just two months.  Not a good setup.  So we decided to cancel the class after next week!!!  Yay!  The students aren't coming not because they don't like me, but because they are all involved in so many other things and other English classes.  I'm the first to admit that I'm no professional, but we have a good time reading and talking and learning better speech patterns and vocabulary.  I teach grammar too, but they don't pay much attention to that because they still speak the same, not remembering the things we learned.    Practice and more practice is what they need. Last week we planned a party at the Iraqi's house that we may go on and do.  We'll see.

 Anyway, there is a sweet young woman from Myanmar that needs lots of help and I will be teaching her alone once or twice a week, helping her learn to read.  She needs to start with the alphabet since her alphabet is totally different.  She tried to come to our class but was totally out of her depth.

The weather is gorgeous with warm sun and cool breezes.  We are so happy to be here and looking forward to seeing everyone soon.  :o)

                 How we spend an hour or two in the afternoon: