We have had a delightful visit here in Green River with my favorite brother, his wife, and some members of their family. This morning, however, we woke up to snow. Not much … it was gone by 8am. However, it was definitely a strong reminder that winter is on the doorstep! Another clue was that the time changed this morning and we pulled an hour out of “savings”.
We went to Church with Perry and Chris and had a very nice set of meetings. They have a very friendly ward and are well known and liked. Perry has lived in this ward for about 38 years! That is certainly long enough to become somewhat infamous. He’s an Assistant Group Leader in the High Priest Group in the ward. Chris makes up the Sunday bulletin each week and that has a very professional look about it. The chapel was full as were the adult classrooms even though their ward is one of the smaller wards in the stake. They must have good attendance percentages.
Perry conducted the Priesthood Meeting today and it was a lot of fun watching him interacting with the other brethren in the High Priest Group. We also met a couple (Elder and Sister Banks) who had recently returned from their mission in the Ohio Cleveland Mission where they served in the Ashtabula Ward and in the New Castle, Pennsylvania Ward, the same ward that our daughter Dawnmarie and her family attend. The Banks came over this afternoon to visit and regal us with stories from the New Castle area and Dawnmarie as the Relief Society President. Dawnmarie is an amazing woman and it was quite heart warming to hear about her from other people!
The weather has definitely turned cold. It’ll be a low of 28º tonight (it’s currently 37º right now) with moderate winds. As we head east this is likely to be our weather for the next few days. Some of the coldest weather we’ve driven through in the past has been in Iowa. Maybe this will be a repeat.
Yesterday Perry, Nina, and I went to the Vernal Utah Temple for a session. We had a beautiful drive down. It takes a little more than two hours to drive there. We did a small side loop (where this picture was taken) and got behind some very slow semi-trailer trucks on the steep incline into Vernal and, as a result, arrived at the front door of the Temple at 10:25 am for a 10:30 am session.
We did a very fast change into Temple clothes and they held the session for us, thankfully. The Vernal Temple is very small and has can only run one endowment session at a time. Had they not waited for us, the next session would have been at noon.
My cousin Gae Moon and her husband Lamont were released on Friday as the Temple President and Matron at the Vernal Utah Temple. While they weren’t there on Saturday (probably feeling quite at odds with themselves having nothing needing to be done at the Temple), we could see and feel the spirit of kindness and reverence that permeated the Temple as part of their legacy. Gae is the daughter of my mother’s older brother John Gillette. Uncle John died of a ruptured appendix before I was born having fathered three children. His wife, my Aunt June, drove out to Connecticut with my mother to be at our wedding. Before that she was my First Grade Teacher.
After the temple session, we walked around the temple. On the west side was a mailbox in the fence. It was full! I have no idea if anyone ever checks the mail in that mailbox! It looked rather lonely just sticking through the fence!