Week 20

Twenty weeks! Good grief, time flies by. Especially for us because we always make the temple-work plans a day ahead—for us, Saturdays always seem like Tuesdays because that is when we do Tuesday’s plan.

The week just past has been a big one for us hearing news from Patrick that he had called and spoken with Dan, Tessha Thomas’s, father, to ask, and receive, his permission to marry his daughter. For the second time, they are engaged—with a 10-year gap since the first. We are happy for their happiness. All those years ago we spent time with Tessha at Depot Bay and were pleased with his choice then.

Welcome Tessha! Congratulations to you both--no, to you all.

We were sorry to learn, not long afterwards, that she had not yet felt ready to get married and had broken their engagement, thinking she was putting a “comma” at the end of their relationship. Patrick, however, thought she meant it as a “period” so moved on with his life. He met and married Emily, a widow with three children. In the following years they added two more to their Laing Gang. Then last summer Emily and Patrick decided to take different paths and focus separately on just being good parents. 

In Patrick and Tessha's romance, it seems as if she has been preserved just for Patrick and their renewed friendship has rekindled into a sweet second-time-around love story.  One of its happiest facets is how quickly the children, who are with Patrick every other weekend, have grown to accept and love Tessha. All five children were part of the proposal as Patrick asked her to marry the six of them, giving her six lilies and a homemade ring he and Anderson had fashioned from a dollar bill, ribbon, and a cute four-petal flower Anderson had made of paper.  All of them cheered when she said “Yes.” The real ring will come later. They plan to marry soon and begin the next phase of their life, working together to create a home for one another and for their five part-time children. We have been pleased to hear that Emily has been supportive and happy for them. We wish her well on her own journey. 

On our own home front, besides our temple work, John and I continue to plow ahead on our Laing line family history sourcing. We have been delighted to have the help of two of John’s cousins in extracting details from documents into our Laing chronology to help us sort out all the people and events. Helen Follmer, in Montana, has been a working dynamo in moving through massive amount of materials. Gary Laing, in Central Utah, has now joined in and is likewise contributing greatly. Many hands do make lighter work. It was fun this morning to ship off a number of names to Gary, now cleared for temple work, before continuing my preparation for my Gospel Doctrine class on II Nep 3-5. What awesome chapters those are. Our faith in the role of Joseph Smith as the Prophet of the Restoration was reaffirmed as was our gratitude for the Savior's role in rescuing us and helping us move forward in our lives--we do indeed know in whom we can put our trust!

Valentine Dinner at der Ratskeller

Tuesday was Valentines Day but we didn't celebrate until Wednesday with a outing in a snow storm to have dinner with the Chidesters at the Ratskeller downtown (a nice restaurant in Freiberg, located beneath the courthouse). We are still very glad to have each other and look forward to the millennia ahead together. We still hold to our motto "We such a team!" and are glad we are.

Talent among the members

Music at the Husz's

Saturday we attended a musical evening at our temple president and matron’s apartment next to the temple to which the temple missionaries, part-member ward families, young full-time sister missionaries, and some of their investigators attended. We more than filled their rooms and it was a fun event.

Two of our missionary couples will be leaving soon. One at the end of this week, the Wenkes, from northern Germany, and another, the Larsons, from Spanish Fork, next month. We have bolstered our depleting ranks with the Schmidts, who, though originally from Austria, have lived in Utah for many years prior to their call here. I envy their fluent Deutsch. Another new couple arrives in March. This will be the process over the next few months since most of our current eight couples are concluding their missions before we do.

May your week be filled with bright memories, happy thoughts, and lots of love.