Week 48

Our one week of warm summer days has ended and we have returned to cool weather, now with an escalating touch of fall in the air. In September we are coming up on our one-year anniversary of our mission. Can it really have gone by so fast?

We continue to try to strengthen John by walking and it is making a positive difference, though he isn’t always enthused about getting out and moving. Some days we are so tired, neither of us feels like doing so, but we are determined not to break our daily pattern, even if the walk is short. 

Today, after our Sunday meetings we changed clothes and then walked to the forest nearby to enjoy the peace there and to take some photos along the way of some of our favorite neighborhoods with their boxes of flowers spilling over in colorful bloom.  

Though his mobility (when not using his Nordic sticks) continues to be pretty wobbly, strengthening John's leg muscles seems to be a wise thing to do. Besides doing it is good for the soul!

Bernd Suckow

Tuesday Bernd and Barbara Suckow arrived to spend a week in the temple being oriented to their new assignments—he as 2^nd counselor and she as 2^nd assistant to the matron—starting immediately after our shutdown the end of September. They are Germans though they lived for 14 years in California, having been transferred there by Volkwagen, for whom he worked for 35 years.

Change is always a little difficult and when it now comes to saying goodbye to the Metzners and the Harpers, who finish their assignments in the presidency in the next two weeks, and return to Darmstadt (for the Metzners) and Salt Lake (for the Harpers); we will feel their loss. That said, we will welcome the Suckows with open arms. John has worked with him all week training him on everything and he is a quick study. She too learns quickly and both will fit in well. We look forward to working with them for the three weeks we have remaining after the temple reopens. This next week the other counselor will come with his wife to have a similar overview and training.

Pötzschers, heading home to Berlin

Thursday evening we enjoyed a wonderful potluck as a sendoff for the Pötzschers, who left Saturday after their two months with us, and for Rebecca Tollefson, who is being transferred to the Family and Church History Mission in Salt Lake City, next Thursday morning. We were excited to learn that Rebecca will be attending our former branch there where we served for five years and where my sister and her husband now lead. We wish each of them well.

Rebecca Tollefson, headed to Utah

As for us, we have been dragging out suitcases and empty boxes to try to figure what we need to ship home, give away, or take with us. We like to plan ahead so that we feel no pressure as the time draws closer.

We spoke by phone with our former counselors in our Xi’an branch, now home from their second year in China, to learn that they returned three weeks ago and they say it now feels as though they had never left home. I suppose that is as it will be with us too but for now we are savoring each day and trying to serve faithfully and well with what energy we can muster.

Saturday we phoned to talk with John’s Mom to see how she is faring without his Dad. She was very weak and is unable to get out of bed any longer, nor is she eating or drinking much. In lucid moments, however, she knows “Bill” is gone—though she often sees him close by her now, as she does her sister Bea and her mother. It is not surprising to have the veil so thin for her, I think. We will see how long it is before she follows her sweetheart of so many years into the Spirit world. Meanwhile her only daughter, Rebecca, and her family care for her lovingly and are blessed with a wonderful outpouring of the Spirit in their home because of their devoted service to her. 

After nearly 69 years of being together. 

In times such as these the reality of the Plan of Happiness is clear before us and we are grateful for our knowledge of it.

Today in our Sunday School class we studied Alma’s wonderful sermon to his son Corianton, who had not behaved as he should while serving his mission. Alma, Chapters 40-42 provides a wonderful instruction manual for explaining the plan of salvation—of redemption, of mercy, of happiness. We had a marvelous discussion about the importance of the role of the Atonement in our lives—without which, with all the best intentions of our hearts, we could never return home to our Father in Heaven. One of the brothers made the comment that it is one thing to read of these things, but it is quite another to apply them.  His comment led me to see in a new light a poignant illustration of exactly that:

A sweet Rumanian sister in our ward and her much-older husband have longed for a child of their own. Needless to say, they were elated about expecting a baby. Then she had a miscarriage and since then she has not been at church. Because she likes to practice her limited English she often attends our English Sunday School classes. Today although I did notice that she had come in and taken a seat and felt pleased to see her, I got caught up in getting the class started, calling on one among us to give the invocation, and then—with an incredible lack of sensitivity—asked the lesson leader to share their wonderful news of the night before. She did so with tears of joy: they had just learned that their daughter-in-law is expecting twins!

Neither I, nor anyone else there, had any intention in the world of hurting Sis Hübner, but neither had I considered how such joyous news would make her feel. In my focus on the Gearys’ happiness, I didn’t even notice when she slipped quietly out of the room.  When it did dawn on me, I shared with the class what had just taken place, and how grateful I was for the Atonement that makes up for these unintentional blunders as well as the weighty matters of our sins. How blessed we are for our knowledge of the Plan of Salvation and of the role of the Savior of the World in providing a way for us to go home, without which we would all be lost.

After class, though we didn’t find Sis Hübner we did speak with her husband and asked his forgiveness for our lack of sensitivity and that he give our love to his grieving wife. For each of us we had had a vivid lesson in likening these scriptures concerning the necessity of the Atonement in our lives.

We are grateful for the blessings of the gospel and pray that your week ahead will be filled with joy as you walk your particular path towards "home."