Our priorities in our service are to help our family and others to come to the temple and to enjoy the promised blessings from our Heavenly Father. This past month has increased our hope as we continue to see so many members of the Church in the temples and as we begin preparing for the rededication of the Jordan River Temple. This includes a call as officiators in the temple and participation in the open house. We also continue to be amazed at the goodness of the many dedicated saints in our stake and ward.
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| 17 of our family on the opening day of the open house, March 17 |
Just after we finished our last blog, Debbie and I were called and set apart as ordinance workers in the Jordan River temple. We will be serving on Wednesdays during the day and on every other Saturday evening. We are humbled and excited for this opportunity to serve!
The same day my mother's computer started having problems. Some of the drivers were not functioning correctly and it quickly surpassed my ability to resolve. So she called on the experts, my childhood best friend, Boyd Tidwell. He spent his career in technology and has been very helpful over the years in visiting my mother and helping her with technology needs. We couldn't find anyone better at any price. Of course, Boyd will not accept any type of repayment. His feeling is that he has been blessed with talents and he loves using them to serve others. What a wonderful attitude! After spending a full day of trying different solutions, even Boyd was stumped. He was able to get the drivers corrected in a "safe mode" but was unable to get the computer back out of the safe mode.
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| Boyd Tidwell, working on my mother's computer |
In the end she decided to buy a new computer and decided on a laptop. This will give her additional ability to be "portable" and also to use two screens in her computer activities. Since she spends much of her time on the computer, especially for family history work, this is a very worthwhile investment. I was able to help her to load up her back up data and software to get her back into business.
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| My mother using the two screens on her new computer installations. |
As my 65th birthday approached, my mother brought out her old journals and we were reminded that I came into this world early on February 25, at 12:44 am.
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| old journal and photo of baby Thomas and his family 65 years ago |
My sweetheart always makes birthdays for all of us special with beautiful wrapped presents.
One of our children said that I was growing up as I received bluetooth headphones and speaker. Presents were geared to facilitate my exercise efforts (headphones and jogging shorts) and our listening to conference talks in our old car that does not have USB support in the sound system.
On my birthday we had the special treat to listen to Elder Spender Condie give a fireside to our ward members about our new prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. Elder Condie had written a biography about Elder Nelson 15 years ago. His insights were amazing and only served to strengthen our love and appreciation for our dear prophet.
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| Elder Condie sharing his thoughts from the pulpit |
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| Notice of the fireside |
After the fireside we enjoyed our weekly finance class with our family and then we celebrated my birthday with this beautiful Banana Cream pie prepared by my sweetheart. As I mentioned in a discussion with others, I have officially "turned old".
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| Finance Class on Zoom with several of our children, including Sam in person in our home |
Grandparents Day at the School
Retirement gives us opportunities to participate in family activities that otherwise are difficult to support. This week we were able to participate in grandparent lunches with 5 of our grandchildren:
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| With 6 year old Jacob Digerness |
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| With 11 year old Joshua Digerness |
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| With almost 10 year old John Digerness |
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| With 6 year old Tiancom Rueckert |
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| Also with 10 year old Natalia Rueckert in the rear of this photo |
We were also privileged to attend another fireside put on by our good friends Elder and Sister Stay who had returned from their mission in Europe the previous month. This was an opportunity for them to share their amazing experiences working with the refugees in Europe. This was shared with missionaries who had served with them previously. We always love a missionary reunion.
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| Sister Stay sharing about their mission |
This month's grandchild dates:
We loved having dates with five more of our grandchildren this month, four of these dates were within a few days. We are finding these experiences to be super rewarding, as we get to know our grandchildren much better. This is the fruit of the promptings that Debbie received as we were returning from our mission.
We started with a movie with our granddaughter Nikki. We watched The Greatest Showman, which we found very inspirational. Nikki had already memorized most of the songs for this show. We have only been to the movies twice since we came home, both were to see this movie. We loved the messages of the show, but mostly we enjoyed the time with our granddaughter and meaningful discussions during our dinner together.
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| With our 13 year old granddaughter, Nicole Mills |
Our next date was with 10 year old Cherish Garcia who wanted to go see Disney on Ice. Once again we started with dinner and then enjoyed a magical evening together. Cherish loves the Disney characters and was thoroughly engaged with the performance. This was a major start with a granddaughter that we have had more limited association with in the past. We loved it.
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| Together while waiting for the show to begin |
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| Disney characters on the ice |
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| Cherish dancing with the characters from "Frozen", her favorite. |
Two days later we went to do baptisms for the dead with our 15 year old granddaughter, Katelyn Mills, in the Ogden Temple and lunch afterwards. We were pleased with her choice of date. Katelyn has a strong love of going to the temple and we loved sharing the experience with her. That day the Ogden temple was really busy, so we were limited to two baptisms per person. It still took two hours because of the back up of so many youth wanting to participate in baptisms.
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| With Katelyn in front of the Ogden temple |
After dropping Katelyn home, we picked up Joshua and John Digerness who wanted a combined date at the Classic Fun Center, playing laser tag. We had agreed that it would be whatever they wanted, so we changed our clothes and kept enjoying our grandchildren. We played laser tag and a lot more, including the Blast Zone, bounce rooms, arcades, magic show and more. By the end of the day, we were exhausted but happy.
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| Watching the magic show |
We celebrated the 12th birthday for Kaisha Garcia and the 11th birthday for Isake Garcia (same day). This was more complicated to pull off, but we were able to get there the day after their birthday.
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| Kaisha with her drawing book, an activity that she loves |
We were able to represent our daughter, who was working, at our granddaughters New Beginnings night. It was a joy to see the different young women, each who presented a Young Women's value and gave tribute to a women in their life.
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| Nikki Mills giving tribute to her mother |
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| Katelyn Mills giving tribute to her Grandma Rueckert |
We also had a nice visit from Jared and his family. We were presented a piece of art painted by our 4 year old granddaughter, Ellie. She has an amazing talent already.
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| Ellie with her painting |
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| Painted by looking at a photo |
We were also able to celebrate our daughter in law, Melanie's birthday. As in any grandchild visit to our home, they have to enjoy our chair lift. It brings great joy to each of them, even the older ones.
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| Ellie and Olivia together on the stair chair lift |
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| Helping the Hippopotamus doll up the stairs |
More temple experiences:
On March 3, we were once again able to do temple sealing with my brothers, their wives and my mother in the Salt Lake Temple. What a privilege it is to do the work for our ancestors together as a family. This night we were able to seal 7 couples together and over 40 children to their parents.
We had a significant experience with a few of these names. The day before, Debbie as able to do the work for a second wife of one of her great grandfathers and I was able to do the endowment for her father. This grandfather had married Johanna Arnold and when she passed away, he married her younger sister. On this day we were able to perform the sealing to the second wife , the sealing of her parents and the sealing of both of the daughters to their father. Emotions were very high for Debbie and I as we were able to be proxy for the couples in these sealings. This continues to be my favorite part of Family History and Temple work.
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| Families and couples that were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple |
We signed up to help usher in the Temple open house for 4 different shifts. The first two were before the official public open house and were canceled as they had overestimated their needs for VIP sessions. The other two opportunities will be later in the month. However, as Debbie was visiting teaching, she heard about a special open house invite for those in the neighborhood, so we took advantage to make our first visit to the remodeled Jordan River Temple on March 6. It was a wonderful chance to go through the temple when the crowds were not so great and we were able to ponder and enjoy all of the details. We also took advantage of the photo opportunity at the end of the tour, with my mother.
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| We love this photo that is emailed to all open house visitors who take advantage |
Later that week, we decided to go on our weekly temple visit to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and my mother decided to go with us. Usually we need to arrive about 45 minutes before an endowment session to make sure we are able to get in, since each endowment session is always filled, even in the middle of the day. This day, however, we came to the parking lot and found it empty. We immediately realized that the temple had been closed for maintenance.
As you can only do in Utah, we got back into the car and went to a different temple. This time we visited the Draper Temple. We had over an hour wait their, but it was well worth it. As we have learned to wait inside the temple for opportunities to participate, it is a wonderful time to read and ponder scriptures or just to ponder.
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| My wife and mother in front of the Draper Temple |
20th Wedding Anniversary:
The next Monday was our 20th wedding anniversary, March 12, 2018. Since it was a Monday, we were not able to go to the temple. Instead we stayed near downtown Salt Lake. That way we could do our self-reliance class with the missionaries on Welfare Square on Tuesday morning and then do an endowment session in the Salt Lake Temple afterwards. This completed an opportunity that we have had to do all temple ordinances in the Salt Lake Temple since our mission (baptisms, initiatory work, endowment session and temple sealing).
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| In front of the Salt Lake Temple, celebrating 20 years of marriage |
Once again the temple was quite full, with over a hundred patrons on our endowment session. We were selected to be the witness couple, which was a special treat. It has been quite awhile since we participated in a live temple session in this temple together. We found it quite enriching and helped us to gain additional insights. As we sat in the Celestial Room, Debbie commented that the beauty in that room surpasses the beauty that we had seen in any of the castles and cathedrals in Europe. I agreed!
On Monday we spent the day on temple square and had a wonderful time. We went to the Joseph Smith Memorial building and watched some of the new Meet the Mormon stories and were also able to watch a few 20 minute clips on the translation of the Book of Mormon in Harmony and in Fayette. Each 20 minute show was followed by a 10 minute intermission and then the next would begin. As we spent 2 hours together in this process, I pondered how blessed that I am to have such a wonderful wife who enjoys the gospel of Jesus Christ as much as I do. We can spend hours enjoying and pondering the marvels of this gospel and of the Church of Jesus Christ. This brings so much joy to us.
We also spent a few more hours at the Church History Museum and at the Visitor's Center. Our Church has done an amazing job of presenting the doctrines of Christ and the history of our Church. I believe that any that will come to these different locations and participate with an open heart, will feel the Holy Ghost testifying of the truth of this gospel.
Of course, we also have to eat, so we did enjoy a German lunch at Siegried's downtown and some barbecued ribs for dinner. We spent the evening at the Anniversary Inn in the special Victorian Room, which is my wife's favorite style.
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| German lunch of Wienerschnitze. red cabbage and ward potato salad and Hungarian Goulash |
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| A full rack of ribs to share in our dinner |
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| In our Victorian Anniversary Inn room |
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| Our breakfast delivered to our door |
That brings us to this last weekend. We had planned for some time a special family activity for March 17. We acquired reservations for the Temple Open House that was beginning that day and reserved the Condominium Clubhouse for a family game and movie activity. This included inviting all of Camila's children to join us. Without going into details, there were many moving parts to this activity. We did get a call from Kari that morning early to get a ride home from her work, as her car had been towed while she was at work. That was finally resolved happily, but it did add more complexity to the situation. We let Kari use our car to resolve her situation and my mother was using her car to go to a funeral.
The open house reservations were for three different times. At 10:15 am, we went with Camila's kids, and Kari's kids (while she was resolving the towed car). River also brought his family at the same time. Camila's kids had never been in a temple and didn't know much about it, so it was a learning experience. They loved the statue of Jesus at the end and the photos in front of the back drop of the temple. Hopefully that will help them to remember a few of the things that they felt during the tour.
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| Camila's kids around the statue of Christ |
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| Our entire group around the stature |
River's family joined us for the photo at the beginning of the blog. The four kids also wanted their own photo in front of the temple.
Camila's kids and Kari's kids helped us set up the clubhouse for the activity and played some games at our home. Jared and Beckie came early to the activity to attend a 1:30 open house visit with their families. If we counted them all up, 25 of our family were able to participate in the Open House this day. Hopefully others will have this opportunity in the next month.
Finally we had at least 34 at the game (upstairs) and movie (downstairs) activity and we served them snacks and pizza. We had multiple tables of games going on, many watching the movie and others wandering. In the end we were exhausted but it all worked out. We are thankful to be able to create memories with our children and grandchildren.
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| Some of the games available for playing. |
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| Eating Pizza at the end of the activity. |
We cleaned up the clubhouse, returned Camila's kids to their homes and participated in the Saturday night session of Stake Conference for our stake. We belong to a wonderful stake. Participation in meetings is amazing. The Saturday night session filled a large stake center including the cultural hall.
This morning we participated in Stake Conference which was broadcast into three different buildings to accommodate space for all. We participated in the stake center with two different wards and again the cultural hall was completely filled. The music was heavenly and the speakers were inspiring.
I don't know if it is because the Jordan River Temple is in the midst of our Stake, but the quality and commitment of the members is overwhelming. There are so many people that serve outside of their normal ward callings. We have 61 missionaries in the field and hundreds of temple workers. As we are among these saints we feel a feeling of Zion.
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| The amazing choir from our Stake conference on the video screen in the cultural hall, singing "One by One", the song written by Elder David A. Bednar |
As I pondered the words from our stake conference, I learned quite a few things for myself to change. One that stuck to me is that we talk a lot about the promises that we make in our covenants with the Lord, but not enough pondering on the promises that The Lord gives to us in return. I want to focus much more on the promised blessings. Clearly we need to do our part to receive those blessings, but people are more inspired by blessings than commandments. Personally, I strongly desire that the Spirit of the Lord always be with me, the promise we receive in the ordinance of the sacrament. That inspires me and I am sure it would inspire anyone who is looking for peace and comfort.
I watched our grandchildren who know little about the Savior to love being near the statue of the Savior. Those are the feelings that we need to nurture in each of us, so that we can receive the strength that comes when we "Come Unto Him".
There is often talk about people who leave the Church or fall to temptation. That certainly is always a concern, but as we have attended temples throughout this state in the past few months, we find temples filled beyond capacity everywhere we go, even in the middle of the day. We are limited in the number of ordinances that can be performed so that all will have the opportunity to participate.
We will surely be blessed by the opening of the Jordan River Temple to meet some of this desire to participate in the temple. However, I rejoice in the goodness of the members of this Church and the large numbers of them who are so committed. I testify that the Lord's Church is moving forward and Zion is being established and in fact it is flourishing.
