We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet

I woke up Sunday morning to the news of President Nelson passing the evening previous.  It was sad and happy news.  I could imagine him stepping through the veil and greeting the Savior and all his loved ones.  He was such an amazing man.  There was a nice article/video remembering his life.  

Article on President Russell M Nelson

This is a short quote from the article. 

"As a physician, President Nelson was perhaps best known for his part in the development of an artificial heart and lung machine small enough to function in an operating room. Made possible by invaluable support and encouragement from his first wife, Dantzel, it was an achievement that heightened his appreciation for the gift of life. “I think a surgeon is in a unique position to understand one of God’s greatest creations — the human body,” he said. “Every segment of the body motivates me to faith.”

The fact that he was a renowned surgeon and gave up his career to spend the rest of his life serving the Lord, is one thing that reaffirms my testimony of Jesus Christ.

Just before his death, we commemorated his 101st birthday.  He spoke to the world, pleading for peace.  Since that request, we have seen tremendous amounts of violence in the world, and more specifically, here in the US.  The first horrific act of violence was the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a conservative influencer online and at college campuses.  Then, Sunday morning a Church building belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was set on fire and a shooter proceeded to take at least 4 lives while injuring many others while they were trying to worship peacefully.  

I admit I felt very unsettled throughout the day on Sunday. I was grateful to have little bodies to hug through both sacrament meetings I attended:  Cub, Yuli, and Ollie in Adrienne's ward and Yuli in my ward.  Ollie came and sat by me after he was done passing the sacrament.  He had a sling on his arm.  I guess he got  knocked down accidentally by a young man playing football while Ollie was playing basketball in the gym (I'm assuming church gym).  Luckily, his shoulder was not broken, but it put him out of commission for a few days.  He likes to sit by me because he knows I'll tickle his back.

After Adrienne's ward, we went to our ward, too, because we got a new bishop yesterday.  Most of you don't know the people in our ward, but our new bishop is a man in his mid 40's by the name of Rob Clark.  He only moved here a few years ago.  He travels a lot as his job is an athletic recruiter.  It'll be interesting to see how it goes since he's not always in town on Sundays.  He kept the same first councilor (Michael Graves) and his 2nd councilor is Nathan Zollinger.

The reason I had Yuli by my side was because Jieun's father passed away in Korea last week and she flew to Korea to say goodbye (she got there before he passed) and to be there for the services.  It's been a trying time for her.

Dan and Roy had planned a hunting trip for the weekend with Yuna and Dojin.  After Jieun got word about her dad, it looked like the trip would not happen, but after I offered to keep the other three kids with me at my house, Dan decided they could go anyway (but not without Dan suffering some conflicting feelings that maybe he should be in Korea with Jieun).  The kids came over to my house Thursday night in time for dinner.  I got pizza so that Dojin and Yuna could eat, too, before getting on the road.  I think Hyeji, Doyeon and Yuli had a good time staying with me.  I know that Dojin and Yuna had a great time at the cabin.

Friday night Viewmont had a football game against Bountiful High.  Hyeji was cheering--and Yuli was cheering, too, as she'd been involved in mini cheer camp that week.  Yuli had fun, even if she spent most of the time chasing around with a little boy. 

Elijah is getting around very well for a 7 month old.

The next section is written by Roy about his weekend excursion:

We had a whirlwind of activities at the Gorge.  Friday morning we went to the newly constructed firing range just south of Manila.  

It was a beautiful. Yuna and Dojin turned out to be quite the hot shots making many shots in the bullseye or near it.

Yuna said that she wanted to go back soon so I guess that she had a good time. I think that she is interested in hunting as well, Dojin, not so much regarding the hunting.

We had a short. fun trail ride over to the shooting range.

Dojin looked pretty cool with his helmet and goggles.

We then went back to the cabin for lunch.  After that we loaded up the fishing gear and headed to Sheep Creek Bay. The Salmon are running right now so we went down to the creek which feeds into the lake and saw at least a couple of thousand running up the creek. 

There were also several dead which is what the life cycle of salmon are.  The DNR (State of Utah - Department of Natural Resources) had set up traps in order to harvest the salmon eggs so that they could cultivate fingerlings and plant them back into the Gorge.

We went over the other side to the lake area not far away and started fishing. I think that I have it dialed in now. Since my friend Dana Dickson has mentored me on the method, gear and specific bait type I have always caught fish.

Dojin was the first one to catch a fish on his kid pole. Not a bad size either. We decided to throw all fish back and only keep a couple at the end for frying at dinner time.

In total we caught around 14 in about 2 hours. It's always fun fishing but especially when you catch some.

This was a smallish one that I caught but he was a fighter. Around 5, the clouds darkened and it started to sprinkle. After it while it started to come down pretty good so Dana took the kids back to the cabin in his truck to keep them from freezing while Dan and I drove the SxS's back.

Dan did a good job to cook the fish on the Trager.  We had the Dickson's over to have dinner with us.

On Saturday morning we went nearby to see the Petroglyphs. They were really cool to see.

Snake!  Nick would have liked this one.

In the afternoon we went out to Cedar Mountain, one of my favorite places to explore.  There was a pasture field next to where we were that had a bunch of Antelope in it next to some cows.  I just wasn't feeling it to get one right then. Our choice was to either shoot an Antelope which would have been kind of easy in the field or go on our side-by-side ride have visit the Chert Mine, we choose the ride. I figured that if I really want one that I could come back another day.

After our ride we went to Brownings to have some dinner, we then went home and Dan made a fire for the kids to roast marshmellows.  We also enjoyed seeing a lot of stars and falling stars.  

Note: we had kind of an exciting (no fun) event on the way out to Cedar Mountain. I had been having some problems with the hitch lock but thought that it was locked properly. Dan was driving the truck and hit a large bump which popped the hitch disconnecting it from the ball. Fortunately he was a good driver and had the sense to slow down and stop. The jack lift was the only thing that was holding the front tongue off the ground. I pulled around, I was pulling the open trailer with the Pioneer on it. I had a strong floor jack in the back of the truck which we used to help lift it back onto the ball. Fortunately the box part of the trailer suffered no damage, just the tongue had some. We were able to carry on carefully to an area not far away and still go on a ride with the SxS's. It turns out that the tongue connector was defective and should be covered under warranty. I'll have to bring it back (carefully) to the Wasatch Trailer dealership for repair.

When we parked the rigs we were in an area below Cedar Mountain next to my acquantance Bob Slagowskis' pasture property. He had give me permission to shoot an Antelope on his property as long as his cows weren't around which they were. There were roughly 40 Antelope on one end of the property and cows on the other end. Aaron the ranch hand came by our rigs and I talked with him about what we were doing. He said that he was fine with us carefully shooting an Antelope (I had a special irrigation permit). Dan and I talked about what to do. We would either go for a ride or shoot the Antelope. I wasn't feeling it and I knew that it would take the rest of the day to deal with shooting an Antelope, so we decided to go on a ride as it was already after noon. If I decide to shoot a doe antelope I have a couple of weeks to do that. We had a fun ride. We also went to the Chert Mine and acquired some Chert rocks. Dojin was going to give one to each of his classmates. 

Overall, I think that we had a great couple of days with Dan, Dojin and Yuna.

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(Catharine again)

We went to the Green's primary program Sunday morning at 9:00 and watched Ila and Finn sing.  They did a great job.  Finn started out the whole program with a piano solo of I am a Child of God.   I found out much later that it was Camden and Avie's primary program, too--at 10:00.  They took a cute picture (I didn't take any of Finn and Ila).  I enjoyed sitting with Cub because he was tired enough to cuddle with me. Usually he chooses his other grandma, but this time he chose me for the win!  I think it's because he knows I have candy in my purse.

Avie and Camden

We're looking forward to General Conference next weekend.  Jordan is singing in the Saturday night session with a multi-cultural choir.  He had to try out and everything.  I didn't even know he could sing.

Jordan is in the middle of this picture but he says they've moved him to an aisle.  He's going to work on smiling more since he knows he'll be on camera.

Sunday night we had one of the couples that Roy ministers to for dinner.  It was nice to visit with them.  It was a lot quieter than when we had the family over.  I even used china and silver since it was only 4 of us.  We had a delicious dinner with steelhead salmon, roasted potatoes and tomatoes, and corn on the cob.  The Morby's brought dessert. 

The cap on the evening was getting a quick hug from Ruby, Greta, Bridget and Crista (Todd and Zack were asleep in the car) on their way home from Mapleton where their other grandparent's live.  They were down there for a wedding.  It's always nice to see them, even if it's just for a few minutes.