Sweet is The Work

 

Let's start with the best news first. When blessings rain down on us, it's a deluge. Like usual, we were sworn to silence for awhile until confirmation and media posts could be made. But it's out in the open now- Kinzi and Tom are going to be parents! When it rains it pours! We haven't heard the determined due date and it's still pretty early in the game, but by our basic calculations, maybe sometime in November? All we know is it's time in our family to make womb for babies! 

A gummy in the tummy

           A beanie in the belly

That's it for exciting news this week! How can you top that? Oh Yeah. That other thing. It's Day 10 of waiting to hear anything on our visas after the email. Nothing but Crickets... Crikey!!! Anticipation is making us wait! But here it is, Another Saturday night and time keeps on slippin'slippin'slippin' into the future . But just like always, we've had great pop-in visits, many "special friend" encounters, fellow missionary Lovefests, the "Indian of the Week" meeting and always some touching family history stories that you've come to expect from this blog. Let's begin! 

Our FSL mascot Reid had his 39th birthweek. Yeah, not a typo. He had special t-shirts made for each day so we couldn't possibly forget. He worked it for 3 days and spread the joy out to make it last as long as possible. So it was pretty much Party Central all week. 

                   Let them eat cake

             Reid will never atrophy with a trophy! 

Additionally, we had a Hello/Goodbye Potluck on Monday night for all the newbies coming in and the cherished missionary friends that we have come to love going out and must now say goodbye to. Parting is such sweet sorrow! 

                   Fay, Gwen, Fran+

                            Mesia

                         Jan

                               

I'm embarrassed to even mention Pi Day and St Patrick's Day too but throw those in the mix plus a Sunday dinner invitation and a VW Game Night and let's just say the sugar consumption this week has been off the charts! Everyday had some reason to celebrate with treats and sweets. 

 

Onto another topic, our MidValley ward friend Ron Clawson came in to the library and we hardly recognized him, he's lost so much weight. What an inspiration to us since we've completely fallen off the wagon this week.

                           a sweet friendship

We finally got the opportunity to get a picture with Leslie, the sweetest little Weeble that works/volunteers, (not sure which), on another floor of the library. She lives in our same apartment complex and walks to work every day as do we, but her little legs take her twice as long to get there. We're not sure what she does there exactly but you've probably realized by now the library is a very safe, accepting, and accommodating place for lots of very special spirits. 

                  What a sweetie!

Friday we hoofed it up to the COB on our lunch hour to treat ourselves to some cookies because as my mom always used to say , "A bit of sweet makes a meal complete". Right? And because it was St Patricks's Day, there was a table display saying, "Today is your lucky day!" giving away free pints of BYU ice cream. Score!! Life just doesn't get much better than this. (Can you believe we still bought a cookie too? Honestly, we're out of control)

Not only did we run into my sister Lolly (very fun coinkidink) but as we're sitting there we couldn't help but overhear a very familiar accent at the next table. We've gotten very bold to ask folks point blank, "Pardon me, are you by chance from India?" Well sure enough, Venky is from Bengaluru and works for the church in their Interpretation Department and for Google Translation.  What a charming fellow!  We can add him to our growing list of Indian friends we've made here. We feel it's no coincidence we've made all these connections and friendships during these past 4 months. That's the real reason we had to go to the COB, right?

                 Doing the Venky Thanky 

This whole week at the Discovery Zone was so incredibly busy but by now we are getting to be old pros at helping people build their family trees, find records, attach them, merge them, delete them. It's hard to remember all the many wonderful encounters because of the sheer numbers, but I'll share one that stood out. A large multi-generational family with Italian ancestors came in. They were members of our church. Rob immediately liked the son's hat! The purpose of their visit was to find an ancestor's record who'd been given a patriarchal blessing by Joseph Smith Sr. I was working with one son Giovani and we soon found a random census record that showed his great grandfather's family with a 3 year old child named Silvio, which incidently was also the child's father's name as well as another sibling's name, but was marked as a girl so it was all very confusing. Fortunately, the patriarch of the family had come to the library as well, who was quite old and was just sitting there on a couch while his family did all the researching. "Dad, do you know anything about this 3 year old named Silvio". He said, " That's not correct. Her name is Maria" and she died in the Flu epidemic". As soon as we put in her correct name, her death certificate almost immediately appeared and verified that she had indeed died at the age of 5. Once she was properly identified with her correct name that matched her gender, her family was able to immediately reserve her so she could be sealed to her parents in the temple. It was a touching moment for this whole family to find this little daughter and give her back her lost identity. Even though this wasn't the initial reason they came in, we all sensed it was the real reason. We know according to the teachings of Moroni in the Book of Mormon that little children are born innocent and are incapable of sinning until they reach the age of accountability, needing no baptism, but are alive in Christ. But that sealing ordinance to her parents is vital to her so she can be part of her multi-generational family for eternity. It's sweet moments like this that make us so grateful to be helping in this work of gathering families, in preparation for the Savior's Second Coming. 

                                  The Fratelli

Of all the sweet things we have partaken of this week, (which were legion) the fruit of the Tree of Life is the most sweet above all else and the most delicious to our souls.