"And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them." Moses 7:18
This scripture has come to my mind continually over the past several weeks as I have seen many situations where special people work together to help build Zion on both sides of the veil. This has certainly been the case in our family history and temple efforts and has also been once again revealed to our hearts in several self-reliance groups that we have had the privilege to participate in.
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| Graduation ceremony for our Self-Reliance group of Young Church Service Missionaries at Welfare Square |
Family History and Temple Work
We have been successful in engaging many of our family and extended family members in doing the temple work for our deceased ancestors and relatives. This has happened on both sides of our family with great involvement of many of our relatives. Some of the memorable experiences include the following:
- In August we were able to meet with each of Debbie's siblings in our home. We shared the results of our family history efforts and the need to now work together in performing temple ordinances for these relatives. Immediately each of the siblings took several names of ancestors and immediately began doing temple work. This has included not only Debbie's siblings but also has included their children and grandchildren. We have seen temple ordinances performed in Florida and Texas and throughout Utah. The results have been exciting and gratifying. Next month we have a Moeller temple sealing session scheduled and already have many families ready to seal together.
- This has included the continued participation with our grandchildren. Last month (August) our two granddaughters acted as proxies for 20 of their great grandmothers. Once again the spirit was strong as each of these direct ancestors where baptized and confirmed as members of the Lord's church. All of these ancestors have had additional work performed by their various descendants represented in the families of Debbie's siblings.
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| Nikki and Katelyn in front of the Jordan River temple where they were proxy for the baptisms of 20 of their great . . . grandmothers. |
- Last Saturday we participated in a Rueckert Gathering of 1st and 2nd great grandchildren of Johann Andreas Rückert and Margaretha Höfer. Around 60 individuals participated. I was able to share some of our genealogical findings, showing almost 200 direct ancestors identified in the past 2 years and thousands of additional relatives also identified in Family Search so far. After the gathering, almost 100 temple names were taken to perform the temple endowments and several others left their email addresses so that we can share many of the temple names electronically with them. This is a continuation of work that we had started sharing earlier in the year but now is reaching out to an even greater number of individuals. In all cases, these relatives are pleased to be able to do the temple ordinances for their ancestors and relatives. This gathering is the culmination of much of our efforts over the past few years.
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| Announcement of the Rueckert Family Gathering |
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| Photo of the Rueckert Family Gathering |
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| Table of documents, genealogies, books, etc. at the Rueckert Gathering |
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| 9 generation charts of my great grandparents, highlighting almost 200 new director ancestors identifie |
- We continue to leave many of our temple family names in our stake drawer in the temple. Each week I see additional temple work performed, which allows more and more families to be sealed together. Just last Friday, someone left one of the temple names completed in our mail boxes. This was one of my great . . . grandfathers that needed to be sealed to his wife and his children. The timing of this work was a tender mercy to me, because we were going to the temple to do family sealings the very next day (see next item) and we were able to include his work on that special day.
- We were able to have one more family temple sealing session with three of my brothers and their wives, right after the family "gathering". These are some of the highlights of all the family history and temple work that we perform. On this day we had nearly 100 children to be sealed to their parents and nearly 30 couples to be sealed together. One session is not enough to complete all of this work, but we continue to meet together often and continue to have the privilege to act in proxy for these dear ancestors and relatives.
As we have seen all of this work completed in the past two months, we certainly feel that all of our relatives are becoming "of one heart and one mind" in this great work for our kindred dead.
Self-Reliance Groups;
Our mission was completed last year, but our love and testimony of these great tools continues. The participation in these self-reliance groups teaches us every day of the power of people being "of one heart and one mind". Some of these special experiences follow:
- We recently completed our second 12 week course with the young church service missionaries that serve at Welfare Square. Many of them have some disabilities that have prevented them from serving full-time missions. However, their spirits are strong and their hearts are pure. At times their follow through has been difficult from week to week. However, as we completed the last lesson with them, we found that almost every one of them had completed their assignments from the previous week and they were all enthusiastic in improving their participation in temple ordinances, which is the focus of the last My Foundations lesson. We left Welfare Square that day full of gratitude to see their progress. We certainly will miss this weekly dose of hope and spirituality that we received while we served with them. See the lead photo of this blog of their graduation. We missed a few of them which were not able to be their on that specific day.
- Since we have returned from our mission we have talked to many members of our ward about the Self-Reliance initiative. A few of the members had asked to participate in the Personal Finance class and we had suggested that this be implemented in our ward. Our good bishop was supportive but wanted to wait until a change in the bishopric occurred, which happened during July of this year. Our new bishop was also supportive but wanted us to do this under the direction of the Stake Self-Reliance Committee, which was good counsel. In this process, we were called and set apart as Self-Reliance facilitators in our stake. We also made presentations to our Elders Quorum and the Relief Society. As a result we have been facilitating two different Personal Finance groups in our ward on Monday afternoons and Tuesday mornings. This has included four wonderful couples and three single sisters (widowed or divorced). Even with an older group, the same benefits that we saw during our missions continue in our ward. We have now completed 6 weeks and have felt incredible joy to see the progress that each is making and even more importantly to see the increased love and friendship amongst each of the participants. They each reach out to each other and strengthen one another. In one example of this, I asked one of the group members who is physically limited to go with me to give a priesthood blessing to another group member. When we arrived, I was impressed with the specific counsel that was shared between the group members, dealing with medical situations and spending or budgeting solutions. I left amazed at the way that these individuals are becoming "of one heart and one mind".
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| Our Monday afternoon SR Finance Group |
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| Our Tuesday morning SR Finance Group |
Serving in the Temple
As we have continued our service in the Jordan River Temple as ordinance workers, we have been immensely blessed with increased understanding and continuing spiritual experiences. This has far surpassed our expectations and has once again shown me how the efforts of many bless the lives of others, even on the other side of the veil. I have started gathering these experiences in my (Tom's) journal. I will share just a few of them that I recorded within four days in the month of August:
- I love officiating in the endowment sessions. I love looking into the eyes and hearts of the temple patrons. On this day (August 22, 2018), as I stood behind the altar an looked at the more than eighty patrons. I had a distinct impression that they were more than those who I saw. I knew that they represented more than eighty spirits who were participating in these ordinances for the first time. I felt an overwhelming feeling of their presence in that session. I hope to always remember that feeling and that knowledge that we are doing this for individuals who are present.
- As I served at the recommend desk, I was impressed with the number of older patrons who come to the temple. I recognized what a blessing to the work of redemption of the dead they are providing. So many come at great physical sacrifice, many with canes or with walkers or wheelchairs. Their faith and determination to serve is inspiring to me.
- We were able to serve as ordinance workers in the Jordan River Temple for the third day in the last four days. As we came home and shared our feelings together we were on a spiritual high. On Saturdays we officiate in the same endowment session, which is a special treat. As I officiated in this session, I was very impressed with the attentiveness of all of the patrons, about 50 of them. The witness couple were especially in tune. I felt a special connection to them. The Spirit was very strong in the session. Debbie felt like she had glimpses of other spirits in the session with us. Somehow, as we spend more time in the temple, we feel like we are able to feel and perhaps see the presence of those for whom the work is being performed. In all of our efforts we are seeking more sanctification, perhaps we are making progress.
Serving our families on the earth
Or family gathering at the Heber YW Camp cabins was wonderful, perhaps our best experience over the past 15 years.We only had 22 members of our family but the spirit of love and harmony amongst us was amazing. Grandchildren played and interacted well with each other. No hurt feelings or frustrations were expressed by any.
We had Gina and her family of 5, Jared and his family of 4, Beckie with her 3 children, Kari with Serenity, Sam and the 4 oldest children of River along with Debbie and I. Our campfire was with a propane fire pit that we bought and brought with us due to the fire ban. All enjoyed that fire together as we roasted marshmallows and ate som'ores. I played games with some in one cabin and Debbie did crafts with others in another cabin. We hiked in the morning to the Legacy Lake which was closed, but it was enjoyed by all that participated. Everyone helped with meals and clean-up. We felt a genuine feeling of love amongst us. This is what family gatherings should be!
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| Getting started with our propane fire pit |
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| Marshmallows and more marshmallows |
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| Group photo at Legacy Lake |
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| Grandma working crafts with 5 different grandchildren from 5 different families |
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| Sister and brother hiking with their youngest children and enjoying the conversation. Another cousin in the middle. |
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| Abbie with her little cousin Grant (Gina's new son) |
New Grandchildren in our family:
On August 30, we welcomed our 39th grandchild, little Tommy Martin Picasso-Rueckert born to Ammon and Jessica. He was 6 lbs. and 11 ounces and 19 inches long. Photos below were taken on the day of his birth.
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| Grandpa Tom with little Tommy |
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| Grandma Rueckert with Ammon (the father) |
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| Great Grandma Rueckert with Tommy and his parents |
On September 30 we were privileged to participate in the blessing of little Grant Alexander Ferguson, born in July. This is a beautiful family that is working hard at doing things the right way. It was a wonderful blessing and special day.
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| Family photo on the blessing day |
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| Grandpa with little Grant on his blessing day |
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| 4 generations of women on Grant's blessing day, also Addie's 4th birthday |
Grandparent Dates:
Another two months of dates with our grandchildren. We started with some theater dates with older grandchildren. We saw the Newsies at Hale Theater with our 18 year old grandson Braden. We then saw Beauty and the Fantastic Beast at Desert Star Playhouse with our 10 year old granddaughter, McKenzie.
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| Braden with his Grandma at the Newsies Play |
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| Sushi dinner before the play |
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| Grandma and Braden before the play starts |
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| Just to prove that Grandpa was there also |
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| McKenzie and Grandpa at Desert Star |
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| Our beautiful Desert Star McKenzie |
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| McKenzie and Grandma in the Playhouse |
We finally got started with our Zoo visits by buying our annual family pass that includes up to 10 grandchildren. We used it 3 times so far, with Olivia, Aria and Paisley, and with Tiare. A few photos of each are included below:
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| Olivia with the Giraffe statue, her favorite animal |
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| Olivia up close and personal with the Giraffe |
We had agreed to watch Pollyanna's two children, Aria and Paisley, for a week while Rick and Pollyanna were on a cruise. This was a lot of work but very enjoyable. We truly got to know these wonderful granddaughters in a very personal way. Their acceptance of our role during this week was gratifying. Aria helped out in every way to help care for her little sister.
We started on a Saturday and took them to Church on Sunday. We then decided to take them to Temple Square for our Sunday activity. It worked out very well. We were able to expose them to a little more of Temple Square than they had seen or understood before.
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| In front of the Christus Statue |
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| Grandma with the two granddaughters in back of the temple |
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| Aria pushed the stroller the whole day. She loved it and was so helpful |
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| Aria posing for her photo in front of the temple |
The day to day activities went quite well. Aria is in Kindergarten and Paisley was about ready to start walking. We worked on a night routine, including stories and prayers and songs. They ate it up. We loved our experience but were certainly glad to turn them back to their parents on Friday night. We have increased our admiration for young parents who never have time all to themselves. After living the retired life for the last few years, it was certainly a change of pace.
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| Grandma reading the Friend magazine with Area |
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| Taking Area to Kindergarten |
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| Paisley pushing her toy stroller around the house, Aria behind her |
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| Grandpa and Paisley reading bedtime stories |
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| Grandma coloring with Aria |
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| Grandma helping Aria with her homework assignment |
On Thursday of that week, we were also tending Beckie's kids, so we took the two girls over to Beckie's house. It worked very well, as McKenzie and Abbie took over most to the child care responsibilities. One more example of grandchildren being "of one heart and one mind".
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| Going for a walk with Paisley and the Hennesseys |
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| McKenzie and Aria walking home from the park in the evening |
Grandchildren sports activities:
We also started into the fall sports activities support, watching soccer games for Ellie and Kaleb and Abbie's softball game.
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| Ellie kicking the soccer ball, she actually scored a goal |
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| Ellie throwing the ball in |
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| Olivia on her head at Ellie's game |
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| Caleb on the soccer field |
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| Abbie hitting the ball at her softball game |
Birthday celebrations:
We celebrated several birthdays for our Pennsylvania grandkids as James Preston turned 13, Henry turned 9 and Thomas turned 11. Unfortunately, no photos were taken since we were not present. However, we were able to call them on the phone and sing Happy Birthday to them in English and Portuguese, as is our tradition.
We did celebrate birthdays with Joshua, who turned 12, and Addie who turned 4 during September.
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| Joshua opening his birthday present with support from his brothers and his friend |
Even more important, but without photos, was that Joshua was ordained a deacon. As his grandfather, I (Tom) was honored to perform the ordination. We received wonderful comments about his dedication and spirituality from the members of his ward (our former ward). It was a very special day.
The following week was the blessing of Grant Ferguson, which also happened to be on Addie's fourth birthday. We covered the blessing above, but the photo below is of our beautiful granddaughter who was wearing a beautiful modest dress.
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| Addie opening her birthday books |
Other moments to remember:
We had the opportunity to visit with other senior missionaries at the home of Elder Enzio Busche, who was the first German general authority. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear his testimony and experiences from his own mouth. We had read the book that he wrote about his search for the Living God. This was an uplifting experience that we will always cherish.
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| Elder Busche, now 86 and excited to share with each of us |
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| The group of missionaries that were able to assemble together to hear from Elder Busche |
After spending most of my summer growing crops in my grow boxes on the patio we are finally enjoying some of the harvest. The photo below is of my first cantaloupe that I have ever grown to maturity. This is more noteworthy since my father was a prolific cantaloupe grower.
To end this blog, I share a classic photo that I took at our ward breakfast. Our ward members are certainly very senior, but this emphasizes it even more.
We can all work together to strengthen one another no matter our age, talents or experiences. It just takes the attitude of loving one another, even on both sides of the veil. If we do, we can become "of one heart and one mind" and we move a step closer to becoming a "Zion" people.
