Comings and Goings

I think it was Jarom who said, “Our lives have passed as if it were a dream.” That’s the way I’ve been feeling lately. Sometimes I stretch to remember what it was that I did just last Monday. Life is usually pretty busy.

I miss singing so it’s nice to get invited to perform in Church. Right now I’m helping two other brothers get a quartet ready to sing Christmas songs. I say two because the third person in the quartet is a sister from another ward whose in-laws go to our branch. She has a degree in vocal music performance, plays the piano and should do fine jumping in during the last rehearsal. The Church has a website for the hymns. One of the things the website does is play out the parts, transpose, show the lyrics, etc. for most of the hymns. I used it for our rehearsal last week and it was very helpful. Grant was in the building at the end of our rehearsal and I invited him to join in and sing with our bass, my friend Horacio. Horacio was very impressed with the fact that Grant could sing so well in Spanish.

I have been proud of both of my brothers’ church service. Grant rides his bike several miles every Tuesday to help with boy scouts. Garit is an engaging Sunday School teacher. They are both diligent home teachers who try and reach out to different families and individuals.

You might not think of Becca as much of a disciplinarian but she has set her youth group straight plenty of times. She cares deeply for her girls in young women’s program which is good because they need it. These girls are mostly from tough neighborhoods and their problems and issues make most other teenager’s problems look very trivial.

Two weeks ago I finished my first successful mediation flying completely solo! I say solo because my mentor was not sitting beside me while I did it. I did, however, make recordings of all of my sessions and then gave them to him so we could talk about them. After meeting with and preparing two angry adults several times I sat them down together so they could have a frank discussion. It was really a wonderful experience to see them change so much in about a month’s time. They went from seeing each other as bitter rivals to being able to trust and confide in each other. Cool!

I have read the entire Book of Mormon in German and will probably be starting on the New Testament soon. I have a very patient language exchange partner (the 21^st century version of a pen pal) from Bavaria who I talk with over Skype most Thursdays. We trade off speaking in English and German every other week so we both can practice. Her English is quite good and my German is still very weak but I get by and am able to express myself so it’s fun.

The Church also has come out with a website for local interpreters! One of the training videos reminded me of a few things that I had learned in college and will be implementing in our stake meetings. I should have a group of four individuals who can help with interpreting for this next stake conference and that should be really good.

Many of you are probably wondering about my mom. She’s had two big surgeries over the past few weeks but says that she is recovering well and that every day is a little bit better. We’ll be visiting her in Utah this Thanksgiving but we hope to have her home for Christmas. A lot still depends on how well or quickly she recovers so please continue to pray for her.