September 10-16, 2018, SLC, UT

Today, we had the special privilege of attending church and hearing the homecoming talks of our fellow Brazil mental health advisor couple, Ruth and Brett Barrett, in South Jordan, Utah.  They returned home from Sao Paulo on Wednesday after having served there for the past 12 months.  They gave very inspiring talks about service.  Ruth started her talk with a couple of jokes, "Why do dragons sleep all day?  Because they fight (k)nights!" and "What animal do you not want to play games with?  A Cheetah!"  She said that humor is a kind of service because we all need to laugh more! They shared some wonderful stories about the amazing Brazilian people, and the Americans down there as well, that they served with and whom they served. 

They are great people and we were so blessed to be able to serve with them for 4 months.  We taught an English class with them and did some musical things together as well, including our Geezer Samba Band!  After church, they invited us to their home to meet some of their family members and to have Brazilian Feijoada!  It was delicious and a lot of fun.

Yesterday, we had the rare opportunity of being close enough to go and stand at the finish line of the Huntsville, Utah Marathon to watch and cheer for three of our sons as they finished the 1/2 Marathon.  They didn't know we were coming and they were surprised and happy to see us there, especially Eric, as you can tell by his face!!  They all worked hard to get their bodies in shape to be able to run over 13 miles.  We are in awe of anyone who runs, especially those long distances.  Todd came in 4th in the men's group and 5th overall.  The gal who won the women's group set a record for this race!

Later in the day, we went to the 9th and 9th Street Festival where Hannah was volunteering at a booth encouraging Utah voters to vote for Proposition 3.  Read up on it!  Proud of our girl for getting out there and standing for things she believes in!  We got to see Chase and Violet too so that was a treat.  Violet is starting to sit up now and she is 8 months old today!

This month, I received my recognition award for finishing Level Three training on our International Floor of the library.  Mike got his done a couple of months ago.  We continue to try to help people as best we can and do some searching for our own ancestors too.  This week a group of young women from a local Spanish ward came in and I got to take them into the classroom on our floor and teach them about indexing.  Indexing is where you are shown a record of something and you take out pieces of important information and put it onto a form that later (after it is reviewed for accuracy) becomes a part of Family Search so people can more easily obtain information about their ancestors.  It is a wonderful thing to do and more and more people are helping with family history in this way including a lot of the youth in the church!  You can do it at home or anywhere you have a computer/laptop/iPad/phone and WiFi!  The young women I taught were looking at records in Spanish!

Sister Moore, Sister Adams, and Sister McNew receiving Level Three Recognition Awards

It's beginning to feel a little bit like Fall around here!  It's still quite warm, but the nights are a little cooler and the mornings are a lot cooler.  I need to wear a sweater on the way to the library in the morning.  There have been a lot of fires and high winds the past few days (it's very dry and warm) so it has been very smokey.  It burns our eyes and throats a bit, but today is better and we continue to pray for rain here.  Praying for people in the Carolinas as they are being hit by Hurricane Florence in a big way!  The flowers on Temple Square are still absolutely amazing!  We enjoy them everyday.  These pictures are without filters!

This week I'm encouraging everyone, especially myself to be a little more kind and a little more tolerant of others.  We are all in this together and we are all great people who can do great things together!  It's really a simple concept when you think about it.  Kindness is the essence of greatness!