My mother had a thing about red dirt. Perhaps it was because she grew up in Lisbon Valley, very near Moab, where red dirt abounds. Maybe it is my mother's influence, but I find that I also like it. There is something about it that fascinates and delights me. Visiting our friends, Bill and Trudy Ostler, offered us plenty of these red sightings. They live in St. George and we spent most of last week with them there. Trudy is one of my "kindred spirits". She and I move our thought processes along many of the same roads so spending time with her is particularly delightful. Of course we also had our men along, so our girl to girl conversations were very limited this time around. But it was fun nonetheless.
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Bill and Trudy Ostler with me at Mountain Meadows,
near St. George. There are several monuments there
which retell and memorialize the Mountain Meadows Massacre. |
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Layne and me at Mountain Meadows. We discussed once again,
why did this happen? |
We saw a live show in Cedar City at the Shakespeare theater and another at the Tuacahn outdoor theater in St. George. Fun for sure. But the best for me was our hike in Snow canyon, near Bill and Trudy's home. Named for Church President Snow, it is not filled with white structures, but almost all red ones. It is a canyon full of the results of early volcanic activity; there are black volcanic rocks strewn around and giant piles of red rock and dirt that look like mighty helpings of red pudding. I have come to think of them as "The Puddings". Climbing among them is absolutely joyful.
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Trudy and me in one of the many caves among "the puddings"
in Snow Canyon. |
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| Layne in Snow canyon, surrounded by beautiful red mounds, hills and mountains. |
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| Layne climbing in Snow Canyon. |
As with all good things (and sometimes even bad) the time passed quickly and Friday night found us at home. It is so good to be home. We have been gone so much lately that the cats have almost forgotten us. But now that we are here we have given some of our attention to our neighbor, Jim Wilkey, who is struggling with cancer. We offered him a blessing from Layne and he accepted. Layne fasted today to prepare for the blessing and felt, during the blessing, a strong feeling that Jim would be healed. I'm so excited about that. He is a fine man and I'm hoping that this experience with the Priesthood might warm him to some gospel discussions. We'll see. Now to pray that the blessing will be honored by the Lord.
Today we had an interesting presentation at Church by a couple who are local missionaries in charge of the addiction recovery program sponsored by the Church. They mostly discussed the problem of pornography and how to address it. Here is the amazing part. The stake president asked us to meet with him after Church and....called us to replace them! He wants us to be in charge of the recovery program for all of Treasure Valley (that's the Boise Basin area), and organize programs to address all sorts of addictions but especially porn and homosexuality. It is a mission call. Local. We have been praying about a mission and what we should do. The President made it very clear that this assignment is an answer to our prayers and is what the Lord wants us to do. He is in charge of the addiction recovery program for this whole area so we will be working closely with him.
Hum. That is a life changing call. President Firmage promises that we will love it and that we will be able to make a dramatic contribution. Hum again. I'm excited and scared. I've never felt confident about addressing either of the categories he mentioned. We will have to do a lot of studying, talking, observing and praying to get this right. So I guess we will begin.
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Here is one last, unrelated thought: our plum tree is ready to harvest.
I did so on Saturday but found I had to be very careful as the tree
was full of bees, munching in the partially eaten plums. It was
tricky picking only the uneaten plums. Monday will find
me processing them, in some way I have yet to decide. |
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