We had the cutest message on our answering machine Sunday. T.J. was crowned King at his high school Winter Formal Saturday night. He didn’t even plan on going to the dance but his friends talked him into it telling him that he had been nominated for the court. A friend loaned him his tuxedo so he arrived looking great with the girls and boys from the drama group, who form the cluster of his friends.
I didn’t actually get finished but I worked at sorting and cleaning in my office for a couple of hours last week. I came across some starry sticker sheets. I bought them at Vinnie’s sometime and then forgot them. Years ago Michael and Joseph had their college apartment’s bedroom ceiling covered with them. They glow in the dark. Sunday morning about forty-five minutes before I was to leave for choir practice, I received a phone call and was asked to substitute for the sunbeam teacher. “I Am Thankful For The Day And Night” was the title of the lesson. It called for pasting a piece of black construction paper over half a sheet of paper and talking about the creation of the sun, moon, and stars and the things we can see and do in the daytime and night time. It was a tender mercy of the Lord to have the starry stickers. My class was three darling three-year-old boys. I was in the C.W’s home last night to help with preparation for Saturday’s primary activity day. C.W. came in carrying his paper from Sunday’s class. His mom said he has been taking it everywhere – even to his grandmother’s house – and taking it into every dark room to watch the stars and planets glow in the dark. That’s a lot of payback for a little house cleaning. It made me feel like I did an all-star job teaching.
After Joseph recommended the movie “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” Will told me that David and Fatima owned a copy. The boys invited me to watch it in David and Fatima’s home theater. Will showed it for me and it was excellent acting and great historical fiction. I had heard how horrible the seas and storms were sailing around the southern tip of South America. The ice and heavy weather was portrayed vividly. I wonder if they can do that with just the magic of technology or if they do some on-site filming. Burrrr, it looked cold! Then the scenes about the Galapagos Islands were fascinating. What strange animals and birds naturalists found when they first arrived.
Daddy B.J. and I took a car(over)load to our stake conference temple night last Friday evening. We found a request to go from a Johnny Palmer on our answering machine right before we were ready to leave. Of course we couldn’t say no. Daddy B.J. folded up our heavy afgan and stuck a couple of pillows behind the back seat of the van and slept on the way to make seats enough for everyone else. He had already taken his place before we picked up the last sister. She was amazed when we arrived at the temple and Will let the Bishop out the back. There was a little confusion and Will missed our gathering in the assembly room and missed joining our endowment session. The poor fellow then waited for us and not knowing he was behind actually ended up a full hour or two sessions after us. That just gave the rest of us a good long time to talk and visit together afterwards before he exited the temple.
Our stake suffers the unusual challenge of having its stake conference dates assigned when it is impossible to have its temple night together with the conference itself because of a temple closure. A Friday, Saturday, Sunday combination in a row is customary. Lavina and Cliff range frequently back and forth between their two homes and Sis didn’t know last Friday was our temple night since next weekend is conference. She was in town but I didn’t think to tell her. Sad that the people, who are the most important to us, can be the last people we think of sometimes. On the brighter side she will be going to the Saturday night adult session with me in three days.
