greaterthansparrows

Talofa! We were honorary Samoans yesterday, and I think we can continue to claim that status until the orchids fade and die. We were invited to the temple with a Samoan family Saturday because Hubby had been instrumental, at the request of their bishop, in sorting out some legal issues for them.  I realized at the temple that I didn't remember their name if I had to tell a temple worker who we were there for, so I stuck close to my other half.  I was definitely only blessed to be there because he was asked to come, and I was grateful for an experience that I wouldn't have had otherwise.  This husband and wife, native to Samoa, were going to the temple for the first time, and so were their two twentyish adult daughters, so that they could be sealed to their parents. We have a Samoan ward in our stake, so there was a large group with them.  They used to share our building, so we know a lot of them on sight and a few by name and conversation. Four new...

Last Sunday there was an NFL game with a final play and call that upended what everyone watching assumed would be the outcome of the game.  It caused enough upset and controversy that both sides of a labor dispute with the professional NFL referees sat back down and got serious, and announced a new agreement yesterday, so that the supposedly inadequate substitute refs could all go back where they came from. I don't care about football at all.  My father was shocked that I graduated from his alma mater without ever going to a football game.  I enjoyed basketball, I went to some of those, but I am not really a big sports fan.  I am aware of major things that happen, that people are talking about, and I can appreciate other people's feelings, and I appreciate skill and dedication on a personal level; so I don't despise sports or sports fans, I just have other interests. In the midst of the stories of all the reactions about this particular game, whether that call wa...

 I was cute once!  This is me at about a year and a half... ( Too bad it didn't last.)  I have no great claim to gorgeous looks, but I sure was cute.  Back then. I was the first child, and there would eventually be six of us.  I was born two days after my Grandmother Bennett's birthday.  Her name was Frances Marion, and my parents changed the spelling from 'on' to 'an' to make it clearly and solely a girl's name. (Though you probably don't know any guys named Marion, there used to be such.) This is the school picture of me at six or seven, that if you took a picture of my brother Morgan at the same age, covered up my braids, and placed them side by side, you could almost think we were twins.  (The next year, I had glasses.) Pippi Longstocking?  Nope, just me  The only picture of me as a teenager that I liked okay was this one, in 10th grade.  No, make that 11th grade, I think I missed ...

A friend in Institute class surprised me with a bag of tomatoes from her garden.  She had a new batch ripe, and she had already put up salsa, so she wanted to share the wealth.  Red ones, little yellow pear-shaped ones.  Then another friend brought me chard because she had mentioned that it was growing faster than she could keep up and I had gone, ooh, Hubby loves it--want to unload some?  She also included yellow summer squash, she said she was tired of eating it for a few days, and some--you guessed it--tomatoes!  Heirloom varieties, odd looking but so good.  All of them, from both gardens, have been so good.  It made me remember what tomatoes used to taste like, why I love them, and we have been eating them with glee.    I would guess that we had about five different types from the two gardens This is the first year that we didn't plant anything at all.  Now, we have planted things that went nowhere on occasion, and without chi...

Fall harvest means apples, but ours are already gone, and pears.  I wrote about summer being done, and going to go  try a new variety of pears .  They are called 'Tosca' and they are so good!  No idea whether I will ever see them again, but I hope they catch on.  These were advertised and brought in from a particular farm, and I was curious to try them.  (They were from Top Foods.) So this is my report. They are the size of a small Bartlett, you know, the ones that don't get big around the bottom, and these don't turn yellow: the green just goes paler and takes a slight yellowish tinge.  The ones in the store were already at the eating or eat-tomorrow stage.  The flesh looks like an Anjou but without the grainy feel, but not as bright white as a Bartlett.  They are very juicy, make sure you have a napkin!  They are very sweet and then in those best spots, intensely flavorful.  The ad terms them as having an "exotic flavor" and I g...

  We hear the stories of how poor the Saints in Kirtland were, and how the sisters gave up their china dishes to crush and add to the plastering of the exterior so that it would sparkle; I think we gloss past the deeper realities. Certainly I could not understand as a child what I can comprehend now as an adult. I didn't realize how desperate their condition was because most of the members had been sent to Missouri--there were only a hundred people or so, around twenty families, actually living in town, and given this burden. The very  next day after this rebuke was given (section 95) and made known, the brethren began digging the trench for the foundation.  The house was to be sixty-five feet by fifty-five feet, and the cornerstones were laid out six weeks later.  Missionaries were asked to preach the gospel in other communities and take up collections for the temple-building as they did so.  The Saints in Missouri were instructed that they should ...

  Our lesson this week was on the commandment, and then the rebuke, to build the temple in Kirtland (Doctrine & Covenants 94 and 95).  It was not quite four weeks after the revelation to build a house to the Lord for the work of the presidency, laying out the dimensions, that they were chastened for not having done anything. about it.  This doesn't seem very long--until  you realize that the first direction was six months earlier, in December of 1832 (section 88), and they had purchased land in March.  So May 6, laying out the plans, was telling them what to do next.  The Saints, and Joseph, didn't understand how essential, how urgent this house was.  In our parlance, they failed to get right on it. It would not be a full temple in the sense that we know them now.  The fullness of the temple ordinances would not be given until Nauvoo, but this would be no ordinary building.  The Lord tells them:   8  Yea, verily I say unto ...

Generally, Labor Day means summer is over.  School starts--though I know it's well underway lots of places already.  Temperatures here were cool, then rose, then plunged, but it will be 80 degrees tomorrow.  Maybe.  It was supposed to be today that might hit 83, but last night was cold, and the warm air slower in its arrival. I looked at the skirt I took to Utah, and went nope, all done until next year.  It's a very definite bright summer gauze, and along with the white flats, can't really fudge into fall.  The coral pink print, with a crisp blouse, I might  wear if the temperature on Sunday is warm and the sun is out, but not past another week or so.  Then it's darker colors.  I wore a dark print cotton, the only lightweight dark print I have, to teach today.  With black loafers. One of the local stores has contracts with several area farms and orchards, and every August they get the best melons; and for one week, sometimes two, the...

While we were in Utah, we went up to Brigham City, sixty miles north of Salt Lake, to see the new temple while it was open for visitors.  It will be dedicated and closed to the public the end of this month.  Hubby grew up in Brigham City, and my father's family was one of the original founding families, so this was important to us.  The site is across Main Street from the old Box Elder tabernacle which my great-great grandfather helped build.  We took our grandchildren over there before they left for home, and they oohed at the carved wood rails and balcony, and took a walk up and around the upstairs perimeter. The site used to be the Central School, the elementary school where Hubby went.  It was torn down a few years ago, and we were surprised and excited when a temple was announced for Brigham City, an area we wouldn't have thought large enough to warrant a temple of its own--then to find out where it would be built was another surprise.  Brigham City ...