Ponderize 3rd Week October 2015

Matthew 11:28-30

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Life is filled with many ups, many downs, challenges, sorrows and joys. Seeking to know God and his Son Jesus Christ every day and be like Them will bring us peace and rest. They can make our yokes light and our paths clear. Seek Christ during easy times that He may be near during times of challenge.

Reflections

This past week has been one of great sorrow, but of even greater celebration. As we reflect upon the life or our dear Grandmother and Mother, we realize that her greatest joys lay in our family relationships. We, as parents and grandparents would like to dedicate our remaining years to following our mother's example of faith hope and charity. We would ask each our children and their families to consider prayerfully similar goals in their individual circumstances. We firmly believe that we will experience great joy in this life and in the life to come if we follow Afton's example. As our first step in reaching this goal we would ask each of you to consider the following actions: 1. Family prayer 2. Ponderize weekly 3. Participate in weekly family conference call 4. Improve our Sabbath Day observance. We would like to make our first family conference call Sunday, Oct 25th at 1900 MT Call in details to follow.

LuAnn

This is the last day we went up together, Nov 2008.

LuAnn

Today LuAnn Spjute died at 5 PM. We had 5,000 hours of hiking the mountain together and we became fast friends in body and Spirit-thus she will remain with me as I live out my life. It is 10:50 PM. She has been in Heaven 6 hours and I miss her deeply.

Went to a dinner with the IAP and they had a band with 2 singers playing 60's version of Indian music. They said if their parents heard this they would be outraged. It was a hoot watching Barry dance with all the Docs. from the Indian Accademy of Pediactics. He got me up for a swing and a waltz. The team was so tired, but we got a 2nd wind and enjoyed every minute. They loved Barry's moves and his free spirit. He did the 'sprinkler, moon walk, james brown'.

India #3 First Day April 21, 2009
We left USA on tues, arrived in Delhi Wed at 8 pm, slept over. Met in our room at 7:30 for a devotional. Ate a great breakfast, drivers picked us up for airport at 8:30, flew to Varanasi at 10 am Thurs. Bro & Sis Tanner met us in Delhi and flew with us. We got to hotel at 12, met at 1 to go shopping. We walked down an alley and found an ancient weavers' shop. They led us in and to our astonishment we watched old men on swaying benches weaving most awesome cloth. Click click went my camera- not doing it justice. They explained in detail history and technique. Our mouths' dropped as our minds could hardly take it all in. They took us upstairs, sat us down, brought us drinks, and gave us a show of their wares. AWESOME experience. I now know fine weave. We met Barry in the lobby with news Dr. Thacker had arranged for cars and a boat trip down the Ganges River at 5:30. I passed out granola bars and fruit snacks and we were picked up and driven almost to our graves once again on the roads of India. How to explain the fear, agony, and humor of our drives is beyond me. I am wishing for my old trusty video camera for the loss of words. It is beyond description. Maybe another time.







We were met by 30 small children with large, sad, desperate eyes, offering small candles/flower petals in a tiny ceramic bowl to light and float in the river. A 17 yr old boy and I had a great converse. His folks both gone to the beyond, he's had several jobs supporting himself. He wanted to look at his picture, then he shook my hand and we connected.
By the time we arrived, the light was dimming quickly. We boarded a very nice, large boat with an chugging engine as the African Queen. We chugged up stream passed all the old Palaces and passed 4 funerals burning their dead to push their ashes into the filthy river. We watched 18 Holy Men in perfect synchronized chanting, bell ringing, smoke moving, candle streaking, etc routine - with a chanting and bell ringing crowd on land and in a hundred small, medium, and our large boat in the river..




















If you can imagine this spectacle. The boat Captain's man put paint on our foreheads-a smear on the men, and a dot for the women. (when he came to me, I had watched him smear a long stroke across his forehead. He didn't want to touch me (they do not like to touch woman). He held the cup of paint out for me to use. I smeared it on like he did dads. He got the silly look on his face and took it away from me and wiped off my smear and He put a thumb dot on-for female. We were then offered a dark tea-which dad and I took, he drank a sip, I held it trying to figure out how I could dump it w/o being caught. 10 mins. latter they came for empty cups, and I gave them mine full-nothing was said. They brought potato chips, cashews, a coke, and sweet cookies. I took them and carefully maneuvered them into my backpack. It was a very long ceremony. My head nodded and I know I fell to sleep over and over-we are sleep deprived. Finally we chugged back and walked through another smaller ceremony just finishing at the port. The worshipers all came down to the river to bathe, or splash onto themselves. Naveen told dad that it is their way of connecting to their ancestors. Their ashes were scattered into the river and now they splash their remains onto themselves

Dad was a wonderful teacher. They didn't get his hu mor at first, but as he went on, he had them 'hi fiving' and doin the 'moon walk'

Mission Call

We have recently accepted a mission call from our church. We have asked to assist with the Church's humanitarian effort, specifically with the New Born Resuscitation Program. The Church has for many years has provided resources, training aids, and instructor training to third world countries to assist in the education of midwives and delivery attendants. We have been asked to develop and lead the training team for 2-3 such courses in 2009. The mission call is a little unusual in that we are only in country for 2 -3 weeks. All the rest of the administration of the program will be done from home. We attend meetings twice a month at the Church Office building in Salt Lake City. Most of the real work of the course development will be done by phone and email. We are officially called Short Term Specialists, but some of the members have been doing this for 5 years! We are excited to be able to participate. We are leaving September 5th for our first trip. We will be going to Romania and Albania. We return on the 17th. We have been busy packing and worrying about how everyone will get along without us. We are sure they will. We have been serving as temple workers in the Bountiful Temple since January. We have really enjoyed this service. We will be able to continue as temple workers with this mission call as we are only out or the country a 6- 8 weeks a year. We have both for many years wanted to serve on a mission. We have observed the rich blessings and tender mercies that have flowed to others who have served. We feel it a great blessing to be able to serve in this new calling even before we are completely retired. We will be posting news and pictures from the upcoming trip. Grant and Chelsea are both busily engaged in school. Jennifer
will finishing her RN degree in the fall. Jessica is a senior in high school. We are legitimate senior citizens. Live you all.