ASL Temple Tour

We had our special ASL Tour this afternoon for the St. George Temple Open House in between the afternoon and evening conference session. I am on the language and translation sub committee for the open house and had been working with the branch president of the ASL branch to put this together. The temple open house was closed today due to conference, but the open house coordinators arranged for it to open for a special guided tour for our Deaf/Hard of Hearing/ASL population. We had a great turn out! The entire big room in the visitor center where they show the video was filled to capacity. I welcomed everyone and then they all watched the temple open house video and then we divided the group into two smaller groups of about 50 people each. Each group had a tour guide and a few interpreters. We were hoping to finish in an hour and a half, but it took two and a half hours! The first group finished a while before ours did. 

We had several people in wheelchairs and so it took a while with them because the wheelchair and elevators were so slow! One of the ladies got sick (motion sickness or something) and said she was going to throw up. Rick was asking if anyone had a bag and then one of the interpreters told him to grab his shoe covering (they are pretty heavy duty, ha ha!) and so he grabbed that and it caught everything! So the interpreter's quick thinking saved the day! The lady who got sick sat out of the tour for a bit and then ended up going home early. So that is too bad, but everything else went pretty smoothly! A lot of the visitors were members of the church, but there were also several people who were either not members of the church, or inactive. They all had a lot of questions and were very appreciative that we offered this special tour for them. I am grateful that I could be a part of it!  

We took a photo of some of the group afterwards. Most of the first group had already left and some of the second group too. This is the same group, but a few more jumped in for the second picture. I really wished I had thought to take a picture of the entire group in the visitor's center before we went on the tour! Darn it! Oh well! I am glad that we got a picture with some of us! 

Sarah and Chantry Wedding

We have two interpreters in our area who got married on Thursday. We all wanted to go support them, but they had their reception on a week day in Lindon -- four hours away from St. George! This made it a little more complicated, but many of us decided to go anyway! It was a Renaissance themed wedding and so many of the guests dressed up. I even got a Renaissance styled dress for the occasion -- but one that I could also wear other places. They got married in the Provo City Center Temple and had their reception at Wadley Farms. I had never been there before -- it is a beautiful reception center! 

I was glad that I decided to go. I enjoy long drives if I have a good audio book to listen to! I was in the middle of the book, "Dry," by Neal Shusterman -- highly recommend! I went to Janika and Brandon's for dinner and then to the reception. There were lots of friends there to visit (and dance) with! Rick didn't come because he teaches a class on Thursday nights and had already made two trips to SLC within the past month and didn't want to make another one! The reception was fun and the weather was perfect! 

I slept over at Janika and Brandon's house and then brought baby Everett on a walk. Then I met my mom and dad for dinner at Chuck-A-Rama. We enjoyed a nice meal and conversation for two hours! I then went to Walmart and picked up a bunch of stuff for a care package for Jaiden. Janelle just got hired at the MTC and was working that night and able to bring it to her! I visited with Janelle for a while and lay down for a quick nap before heading back home -- again with a good audiobook! Jase and Ellen had come with the boys Thursday night and so we crossed paths! They were coming for Conference weekend! 

YW Tie-Dye Water Fight!

 Our young women always have the best activities! Tonight they had a tie-dye water fight!! 

Weekly Update

This has been a busy week, as usual, but I also saw tender mercies and blessings. 

So, you know how the young men do scripture reading every Sunday morning? Well, Rick was thinking that with the new bishopric they might take a break from that. No break -- in fact they are going to have the young women start doing it too! Jenna would have gone last Sunday, but she was sick and stayed home from church on Sunday and school and dance on Monday. I was glad that she had sung in church the week before instead of that week! Last Sunday Anna and Evie sang "The Miracle," in church. It was sweet! Josh went to the "Back to School Fireside," something he definitely did not want to do, but he went. 

Monday 18: This morning we did another temple tour for the visually impaired. There was a group of around 12 people, but really only 3 of them were blind. The others were the escorts, or helpers. I had been really disappointed that they couldn't come to our other special tour that was just for the visually impaired and blind, before the tours were open to the public, but it still worked out okay. It took two hours -- just like the last blind tour. We tried to accommodate them the best we could and they seemed very appreciative of the effort. 

Monday night Josh had a soccer game, but Rick was still out of town and I had two classes that I was interpreting for, so I couldn't go. It was a good game to miss since they lost 0-8 or something like that! Rough game! Rick got home from his work cruise at 12:30 am and then I couldn't go back to sleep! 

Tuesday 19: I interpreted this morning for two classes and then interpreted for the temple open house for an ASL tour. Since I have been a few times now, I was able to quietly point out a few things. It was nice. Rick had an interview over zoom that he was interpreting for and he wanted me there in case he missed anything. So we did that and Jenna went to Hip Hop. She has really been loving the class!  

Wed. 20: Today I was really feeling stressed because I had so much to do for the language committee for the temple open house! It was also the day that our time cards were due for my job and I am in charge of doing all of the interpreter time cards and entering in everyone's hours. So I had all of that to do, and had an all day interpreting assignment, plus a night class to interpret for that night, and then Josh's soccer game after that. Well, I went to my appointment and they said, "Oh that appointment was cancelled." So I was paid for six hours of time and was able to go home and start working on the temple open house spreadsheets and finish all of the time cards! It was such a tender mercy and I was so grateful! 

For the open house, we received a spreadsheet of all of the requests for languages and there were almost three thousand individual people on the list wanting language assistance in another language! It was SO overwhelming! We had already set up specific dates for big language groups to come, with 8 language assistants assigned to each one, but these were all in addition to the dates we had already set up! So we were wading through thousands of requests that weren't even in order, trying to figure out which languages were needed on which days and how we would get that all set up!  

Then we received a spreadsheet of all of the YSA sisters who were scheduled weekly. Several of them speak different languages and so we were trying to match up some of the language requests with the times a YSA sister would be there who spoke that language. Just doing that took a lot of time. I was trying to figure out all of the times deaf people were coming so that I could try and get interpreters to come volunteer. So I worked on all that until I needed to leave to go interpret for my class. I brought my laptop to the class because it has a lot of down time and did more work there. So I ended up getting a lot done! BLESSINGS! 

Also, Janelle started her training at the MTC and ran into Jaiden! She sent us a picture and it made my entire day!! It is so neat to see our two girls together in the MTC -- one as a teacher, and one as a missionary! I feel so blessed! 

Then I met Rick at Josh's soccer game. It was at 5:00 and really hot out! Rick had to leave early to go interpret. Later on the temperature cooled down and then all of a sudden it got really cloudy with lightning! So they called the game (about 20 minutes early). Josh's team was really disappointed because it was 0-0 and there were sure that they could have won if it hadn't been called off early. But I am sure that the other team thought the exact same thing! Our team was SO close many times for goals, but not close enough! 

Thurs. 21: I interpreted my classes today and worked on contacting people for the open house. Jenna had her voice lesson with Rick after school and then I brought her and Brooklyn to dance on my way to interpret for my night class. In the class they were just watching a movie and so I went into the hall with my laptop and started working on my RS lesson for Sunday. 

Fri 22: I went to Josh's CCR this morning. Time to start filling out college applications!! I didn't have to interpret today and so I spent a lot of time working on my RS lesson -- way too much time! I did a PowerPoint and it took forever!! I also worked on it a lot on Saturday too! Rick and I went and watched Josh sing with the Madrigals at Swiss Days this afternoon. They sounded great!! Then Rick and I walked around for a bit and talked to people. Jared arrived late and it was fun to talk with him. I haven't seen him since Jaiden left on her mission!  

Sat. 23: Rick and Jenna did pretty much everything to take down the pool. Jared and Josh had apparently snuck out to go play pickleball! I basically just helped push it onto the wheelbarrow and put it in the shed. Then I pulled weeds for a while in the sandbox, but it gave me allergies so bad for the rest of the day! We had our zoom call with Jaiden and the family and that was fun! Then I worked on my lesson some more and met Allison at one of the Swiss Days booths that we were asked to volunteer with. There were three ASL temple tours today, but I asked other interpreters to cover them. Rick and I watched a movie together tonight. It was cute, but I was SO tired and kept falling asleep!  

Sunday 24: Our testimony meeting was really good! RS was good too -- I felt like my lesson went well. It was Elder Uchtdorf's lesson "Jesus Christ is the Strength of Parents." I shared Jaiden's Sunflower Story in my lesson. I also shared the picture of her and Janelle together at the MTC. Great picture! After church I did some temple open house stuff and then took a nap. Rick fixed dinner, which was really nice! He cooked last night too! Chinese food last night and Italian today! I am so glad that I married someone who can cook, ha ha! The kids and I watched, "Meet the Robinsons," and I realized that I have never seen it! 

Jared and Hallie!

 Jared and Hallie...

Promposal: Sadies!

Josh got asked to Sadies! Bridgette Layton asked him (she is the tall pretty red-head in the homecoming pictures -- see homecoming post!) 

Josh: Homecoming!

Josh had his homecoming date today. He said it was a lot of fun! He went with Emily Ulenan. Others in his group were Cameron Hugunin and Bridgette Layton, and Oliver Larsen and Emily Condie. They went to Contact Climbing Gym and then to Costa Vida. For dinner they had a nice dinner at Cameron's house. Josh said they really went all out! We all pitched in for the food. I took their pictures (at Tuacahn). It was a perfect location because it was in the shade, so pretty, and not crowded at all! The pictures turned out really nice! The dance itself was at the high school. 

Sleepwalking in the Storm

Well, the big news for us this week was of course dropping Jaiden off to the MTC!! Then we went to Janelle's apartment. There was a note on her door saying "Welcome to the 98th Ward!" Isn't that crazy?! Welcome to BYU I guess! We met her other two roommates and then took Janelle, Brea, and Esther shopping at Walmart for groceries. Esther is from provo and went on a mission to the Netherlands and will be teaching Dutch at the MTC! Brea will be teaching Spanish at the MTC. We sure hope that Janelle gets hired too. That would be a bummer for her to have half her roommates working there and not get hired. Esther will be in Janelle's room and Isabel in Brea's room. All four girls are returned missionaries and had so much fun swapping mission stories. It is easy to see that they will all get along just fine! They are all very easy going! 

Thursday Dad left to work in Vegas for the day and then he left on his weekend cruise Friday morning. Thursday evening we got hit with a huge storm!! It was pouring with tons of lightning and thunder. Water was even slowly dripping from the black box above our little fireplace in our bedroom! I tried to go outside to check out where the leak might be coming from, but was too scared because of all the lightning! So I stuck a little garbage can to catch the drips and went to bed. Josh came home saying that the show had been cancelled part way through but he stayed and played in the rain. About thirty minutes after I went to bed Josh came in and said that Jenna was sleepwalking and it was really creepy. I went out to get her just as she was unlocking the front door and about to walk outside in the storm! That really freaked me out! Josh said we had better restrain her at bed time! I led her to my bed and put her back to sleep so that I could keep an eye on her. A little later she woke up and asked why she was in my bed and then went back to her room! 

Friday it rained on and off all day long. I have been so busy with all of the temple open house stuff I am working on, as well as the interpreter coordinator stuff, and interpreting etc. Jenna and Bria are going with her family to watch Vann's bike race in Cedar City tomorrow and hopefully they will be able to watch Clarissa's race too. It will be so cold and rainy and muddy though! I am going to the St. George Temple Open House tomorrow morning (I can go to one of the private tours since I am on the committee). I got asked to teach Jenna's Sunday School class on Sunday and so I need to prepare that lesson too. I wish Rick were here to teach it with me!