The Good and the Bad of It

These days I must be on my toes.  The last little while there seems to be so much to do.  Layne and I gave a presentation on Mongolia to our empty nesters last Monday.  I decorated the house in Mongolian style and cooked Mongolian food.  We used our new projector to show pictures of Mongolia and gave our presentation to about 24 people.  They seemed to love it.  In fact, we have two more invitations to speak of it.  So Mongolia is back, with all its happy memories.

Here is one of our Mongolian "embroideries" stretched over a frame that Layne made.  They originally hung inside gers, above the beds.  I think they are wild and wonderful.

Our neighbors, Jim and Inez Wilkey, came to our house for the Mongolian evening.  They got along with our group very well and, I think, really enjoyed themselves.  I can say that because they invited us for dinner a couple of nights later.  Jim is recovering from cancer.  Recovering.  Layne joined with another member neighbor to give him a blessing before his cancer surgery and promised a recovery.  We've been praying that it would be so and, apparently, it is.  We are hoping that we might be able to lead them into the gospel.  They are such great people.  Maybe it'll happen.

We are struggling to get our presentation on pornography ready to take to the wards in our stake.  We submitted our materials to the stake president to make sure he approved.  He thinks it is too "frightening" and wants us to calm it down.  Hum.  The feeling we come away with after sitting through a couple of months of pornography support groups is...alarm.  We were hoping to awaken members to the dangers and give them real helps for overcoming and, mostly, preventing it from invading the lives and hearts of their families.  We have calmed it down and resubmitted it, so we shall see what he thinks of it.  This coming week we will talk to him and one of his counselors about it.  I hope we can come to a meeting of the minds about it.  If we tune in to what the Lord wants, I'm sure we will become united.  I hope so.

Pamphlets we made for our pornography addiction program; one is for treatment and one for prevention.

On a lighter note, I find myself assigned to draw some props for our singing group.  For the first time since moving here, I'm waxing artistic.  I drew a couple of romantically involved worms and a collection of faces to illustrate a couple of the songs for our spring concert.  It will be filled with whacky songs.  I like the group; it is comfortable for a girl who's singing voice is far from perfection.  Once we are rehearsed we sound pretty good and have a lot of fun.

In a year's time, we have become more involved and collected more friendships than we did in Pleasanton in seven years.  We have several good friends we do things with and visit with on a regular basis.  I like this social end of things.  Last Saturday we met with our Fremont gang for another dinner.  We seem to get together about once a month.  I can feel friendships deepening and I feel blessed by it.  It doesn't make up for not having family here, but it is sweet nonetheless.  On one of our get-togethers an especially funny thing happened.  As we were getting ready to leave, Jim, thinking his wife Kenni was already in their car, got inside the driver's side and drove home.  He got all the way inside the house before he noticed that Kenni wasn't there!  She was waiting patiently with us for him to notice she her absence and return to get her.  Finally he did.  Can you imagine it?  That has got to be a classic story!

Jim and Kenni Kirschbaum.  Kenni was the "forgotten woman".  She's pretty cute to forget, don't you think?

The days are warming up.  The snow is gone.  Green is beginning to appear in places.  Looks like spring is coming.  I love the change of seasons!