Well we had a fun Halloween!  We dressed Kathy as a bird, and Tory and I were bird watchers.  I thought Kathy looked pretty cute!  She got to go trick-or-treating to both sets of grandparents, which was a lot of fun! 

 

Afterwards we went to Dill's party, which was great.  We had good food and plenty of fun!  Charlie the Amazing Fortune-Telling Dog even made an appearance.  A good time was had by all.

 

I'm also posting pictures of two of our pumpkins.  Tory also carved a cool foam pumpkin out one of our wedding photos.  If you saw the one he did last year, you'll have an idea of how cool it is!  And since it's foam, we can keep it and use it again in years to come!  You'll have to watch Tory's blog for photos of that one and for these lit up.  I don't have those on my camera.  Oh, and don't feel bad--Ann's probably the only one who understands the full hilarity of the second one. :)  (In fact, it may just rival the year of the historical heroes pumpkins.  Do you have photos of that?)

 

Do you remember the good old days when Randy Travis showed up randomly on TV shows?  He was always a down-and-out, yet lovable, musician.  And he always either ran into hard times or a problem on the show that he had to be bailed out of.  Do you remember those days?

 

Well today I was watching Matlock during lunch, and low-and-behold, there was good ol' Randy.  And of course he was, yet again, a poor musician who fell into a bit of trouble.  (He was accused of murder.)  Of course everything worked out well in the end.  Matlock of course cleared Randy, a.k.a. "Billy," who sang throughout the show.  I love Matlock (who doesn't?), but it just tipped the scales to bring back Randy Travis.  I laughed out loud.  It was a lovely moment.  What a funny world.

 

Oh, and I love Tory.  And TAMJB.  They're the best ever.  I have a lovely life.

We're blessing Kathy next Sunday (September 6) at 1:30, and we're having a lunch just before at 11:30.  I hope we let everyone know.  Sorry if we missed you!

Lately I've taken to calling our sweet little wiggle-worm The Amazing Mexican Jumping Bean because of her recent acrobatic feats.  She doesn't hold still for very long at at time!  She likes to move ALL over, all the time!  Just about any time (day or night of course) she's wiggling, jumping, bouncing, and doing Tae Bo.  I've also become somewhat of an expert at her own special little wiggle-language.  In case you're wondering, here's what she has to say lately:

-"Daddy, will you take me fishing?"

-"Daddy, why do you have to be away from me all day?"

-"Daddy, can I help you carve your antlers?"

-"Daddy, will you please sing me a song?"

-"Daddy, I want to hear you read some more Ivanhoe!"

-"Daddy, I want to come out and play with you!"

-"Daddy, I've missed you!"

-"Daddy, can you tell Mom to stop wearing those uncomfortable clothes?  They're squishing me!"

-"Daddy, why can't I go to scouts with you?"

-"Daddy, I love you!"

 

As you can tell, she loves and adores her daddy.  She wiggles more when he's around (and she can hear his voice) than any other time.  She also really likes to hear him sing.  She wiggles to get just as close to his voice as she can.  She really likes snuggling up close to Daddy at bedtime, too.  She kicks against him as hard as she can so he won't forget she's there!  So then when he pats her and holds his hand against her, she snuggles right in.  She really loves it.

 

Further proof of TAMJB's love for her daddy:

Tory was on the radio a few weeks ago for work.  He did an interview about his habitat restoration stuff--what they do in general, as well as some specific projects.  Dill was here with me that day, so we took a short break.  We went and sat in the car to listen to the program (I don't have a radio in my office).  We leaned back in the seats and turned the radio on loud enough we could hear it easily.  Well, TAMJB had been fairly active up to that point of the day, but as soon as Tory's voice came across the radio, she fairly leapt out of my belly!  She did such amazing acrobatics during that interview she probably could have won some kind of an award.  It was pretty funny.  :)

I'm tired of having heartburn.  Can I be done with that now?

Well, I'm sure you'd all love to hear that we had a wonderful day fishing!  Between the two of us, we caught six fish in a few hours.  It was so much fun!  (Oh, and no, the cabbage on my shopping list was not for fishing—it was just for one of our dinners.)  :)

 

Mother's Day was really nice, too.  Tory gave me a lovely present--a stroller and car seat for the wiggle-worm!  I'm so excited to have them!  :)

 

So all in all (despite 5 hours in the hospital), we had a fantastic weekend!

Take a peek at part of our shopping list for today:

 

-Milk

-Eggs

-Apples

-Cabbage

-Worms

 

Can you guess what we have planned for tomorrow?  I'm very excited!!!!!!

 

(If you didn't guess, we're going fishing!)  I can't wait!

I have not been feeling particularly well lately, thanks to our sweet little wiggle-worm.  The last few weeks have been pretty rough.  Yesterday as we were getting ready for church, I was so tired and worn out and overwhelmed by everything that I just couldn’t do it.  Sweet Tory put me back to bed and went to church on his own.  I slept all through Sacrament Meeting time, but woke up when Tory came home during Sunday School.  He’d had a feeling that maybe he should come home and check on me and see if I wanted to try to make it to Relief Society at least.  So he helped me get up and ready, and even made me some lunch so I’d have something to eat before going.

I was still feeling rather lousy, but I decided it would probably be good to try to go anyway.  We made it back to the church just in time for Relief Society (and Priesthood for Tory).  I sat down next to my sweet dear friends, who always watch out for me and are so kind.  That’s one thing I love about Relief Society—it really is a sisterhood of dear friendship between sisters both young and old.  Heavenly Father sure knew what he was doing when he organized it for us!

As we went through the meeting, I tried to pay particular attention, even though I still felt so completely exhausted and out of it.  But I figured that if the Spirit told Tory to come get me, there may be a good reason I should be there, something I needed to learn.  The lesson was good, but I was struck by a few things we didn’t particularly mention.  I learned a lot, but it was not necessarily the “thing” that brought me to church.  When we started the closing song, I couldn’t help but internally roll my eyes. 

Really?  We’re singing this song today?  Of all the songs in our book, we have to sing this one?  Who thought of it?  For heaven’s sake, there is certainly not sunshine in my soul today.  Why are we singing this particular hymn?  Not that I’m the only one who we’re here for, but still!  “Master, the Tempest Is Raging” would me much more appropriate today than, “There is Sunshine in My Soul Today.”

The sweet sisters next to me took up the hymn vigorously and sang with all the sunshine in their souls.  I painfully limped along with them, certainly not feeling the sunshine.  But then we got to the second verse, and it struck me in a way that it never before has:

“And Jesus listening can hear
The songs I cannot sing.”

Always in the past, I have thought of that in a way like, my joy is so overflowing that I cannot even begin to express it.  That Christ knows and understands anyway, even though I cannot put it into words, or even into music.  But yesterday it hit me in an entirely different way.  No, there was no sunshine in my soul yesterday.  It was a pretty miserable, dark, and gloomy place.  I was so frustrated with every little thing, there wasn’t much light at all, and certainly not sunshine.  But as I woefully sang those words, I could almost hear a voice in my head explaining them to me:

There may not be sunshine in your soul today, but there will be again.  You may not be able to see it coming, in this dark of the night, but I can see it.  You cannot sing that song of gladness yet, but I can hear it, because I know it’s coming.

Wow.  That struck me between the eyes.  Of course.  Sometimes I get so overwhelmed and frustrated in the moment that I forget to look at the bigger picture, the eternal perspective.  Sure things might be hard now, but they will get better.  Sometime, somehow, things always improve, and the sunshine comes back.  And even if every single day of the rest of my life is horribly miserable (and of course it won’t be), I have an eternity of joy and happiness and peace to look forward to, so long as I do all I can here to get there.

So although I am still rather frustrated and still struggling and not feeling entirely well, I am grasping onto that thought—that even if I cannot right now sing of the joy in my soul, Christ can still hear it, because he knows it’s coming.  I just have to be a little patient until I can hear it, too.

I love Tory.

 

The end.

I love being married.   It's the best thing in the world!  This past year has been the best year of my whole life.

 

Well, as most of you already know from Tory's blog, last weekend we celebrated our first anniversary.  It was lovely.  Since our anniversary fell on Sunday, we had fun celebrating all weekend long!  It was fantastic.  It was so lovely just to spend time together and celebrate being married.

 

Well, some of the highlights were:

-Tory taking me out to dinner at Stockmans (chicken-fried steak!  Yum!)

-Tory bringing me beautiful flowers (yellow tulips!)

-Tory giving me two books: an old favorite and a new favorite

-Tory being so sweet about "going" to the opera at home (it was kind of fun!)

-Going to the temple to do sealings

-Attending the Draper Temple dedication

 

It was so great to be together and to just be so happy.  Tory is so good at making me feel so happy and so loved.  It was especially nice to have a chance to go to the temple and do sealings, as well as go to the Draper Temple dedication.  It was really neat to see the dedication after having the chance to go to the open house last month.  It was so neat.  Having temple experiences just at the time of our anniversary was such a blessing, to be reminded what it's all about.  It was great.

 

This year has been one of great blessings.  We have certainly had some difficult struggles (try passing out on your new husband several times in a row.  He'll love it!), but we have been so blessed.  It's amazing to me how life works out.  We certainly would not have asked for the health struggles we faced this year, nor would we ever want to have them back.  But it was wonderful to see how much closer they've brought us together, in a way that probably nothing else could have.  I trusted Tory 100% before then, but now I trust him 500000000%!  Having those struggles really drew us together, and together to the Lord.  Our year together has really brought us so much closer together, and together closer to our Heavenly Father.  Besides the struggles, we've shared such happy days!  So many good memories.  I still love (and suspect I always will) going to sleep in Tory's arms and waking up in them, too.  There is nothing more comforting to wake up from a bad dream to find Tory right next to me, dispelling all the gloom.  I love helping him get his lunches together each morning, and welcoming him home each night.  I love how he eats whatever I cook, no matter what, with no complaints.  I love how he always washes the dishes, before I can even start worrying about them.  I love how he lets me take a nap curled up on his chest, and how he rereads our Ivanhoe chapter if I fall asleep.  I love how he sits so happily and feels our little wiggle worm Kathy kick away.  I love how he always makes sure we get to the temple frequently, even when we're traveling.  I love that he suggested a Christmas ornament collection for all the temples we've been through together, and how big our collection is growing already!  I love that the gospel is so important to Tory and that he brings it into our home.  I love that he fills our home with beautiful music.  I love that Tory always leaves me sweet notes in Deseret to greet me when I get home.  I just love everything about Tory.  He's the best!

 

Well now I've rambled on and on.  But I couldn't not take a moment to tell Tory how much I appreciated our wonderful anniversary weekend, and how much I have appreciated this wonderful year!  I'm so happy I get to spend my whole life with you, and my whole eternity, too!  I love you!

 

 

 

 

Well today is certainly one of those days.  You know the kind.  Everything is going just “perfect.”  Yeah.  I’m frustrated over my crazy workload.  There’s no way I can get everything done this week that I’m supposed to!  Things are coming from all angles, and they’re not slowing down in the least.  People keep whining and complaining to me, and I’m getting frustrated.  (Oh, and if you’re wondering, yes.  I have been whining and complaining about it all to Tory in the evening, too.)  :)

 

So this morning of course nothing is going right.  I feel like I’m about to go out of my mind!  And then it happens.

 

See this little shredder?

 

It looks so harmless and benign.  Don’t let it fool you.  Most of the time it doesn’t even really work.

 

I have this bulletin board hanging behind my desk.

 

Yes, I know.  It’s very cluttered.  But it’s full of all the information people come ask me for all the time.  Well this lovely little bulletin board was never really mounted to the wall very securely.  So I was organizing some things in my area, trying to get things together so I could get lots of work done.  Well, inevitably, I knocked off the bulletin board.  But I hit it with just the right amount of force, and from just the right angle, so that all the pins went flying in diverse directions.  That meant, of course, that all the papers also flew off in diverse directions.  It just so happened that my calendar fell right onto my innocent, benign-looking shredder.  And apparently it fell in at just the right angle, so that the shredder started up and gobbled it!  Keep in mind that this is the shredder that rarely works normally.  How ironic.  Lovely.  Well I grabbed it out as quickly as I could, but alas, the damage was already done.  Months June through December only half-exist now.

 

That was it.  After everything else this morning, my calendar just had to go and fall into the shredder?  I lost it.  I felt myself starting to shake from head to toe, when this wild laughter burst out from me.  I couldn’t help it.  I mean, really, what are the odds?  And it is kind of funny.  Once I regained my composure, I hung the calendar back up on my bulletin board.  March is still in tact, so once the calendar was hanging, you couldn’t tell that June through December were mutilated.  I think, though, that I’m going to leave this for someone else to have a good laugh.  I only wish I could be there to see it!  You see, I’m not going to change my calendar past May (the last of the undamaged months).  Then when my replacement comes in for my leave-of-absence this summer, she will probably go to change the calendar, noticing that it’s still set a month or two early (depending on when I leave).  I wish I could be there to see her face when she turns the page and tries to piece together this story!  After all, what kind of nut would hang back up a calendar that had fallen into the shredder?

 

I’m smiling now.  And my day is looking a little bit brighter.

Well I guess it's time for a new blog.  I don't know what to write, but I probably need something new.

 

What's new with us?  Not much.  We're workaholics these days it seems like, so we rarely do anything very exciting.  Once we get home from work and have dinner, it's usually time for bed.  So we don't do too much.  But we did have a nice weekend.  We got to spend a lot of time together, which was absolutely wonderful!  We also got to spend some fun time with John and a little time with Jason and Karissa.  We got to visit both families on Sunday.  It's nice to have some family around.

 

I did get some anniversary present scheming done this weekend!  I can hardly wait.  :)

 

Tory has helped me a lot this week and has helped me to understand grace better.  I've really, really been struggling with this ward choir calling.  It's basically the hardest calling I've ever had!  Really.   Anyway, it's so overwhelming and frustrating, especially under the current circumstances.  I don't feel all that well sometimes, so standing for an hour waving my arms around isn't exactly the easiest thing to do.  And the whole choir director thing itself is hard!  I don't know what I am doing.  I feel completely incompetent.  All things considered in our life right now, it's pretty overwhelming.  (Especially with crazed unpredictable hormones!)  Needless to say, I've been struggling.  So anyway, it's just been completely overwhelming to me this month, more than it usually is.  I've cried and cried and fought and cried.  I don't want to go, I don't want to do it anymore, I can't do it!  But my sweet Tory has been there every step of the way helping me however he can.  He's been so patient and sweet and understanding and encouraging.  He's also been praying with me and for me.  He keeps praying that I'll have the grace I need, to help me to do this hard thing.  Yesterday I saw a fulfillment of that.  As usual, I was not entirely excited to go to choir, and of course I started to feel lousy just before it was time for us to leave.  But Tory said his lovely prayer again, and we went.  Well it certainly was not the most perfect choir ever.  I felt lousy and incompetent.  But Tory got me a chair, so I was able to sit down the whole time and not pass out on them.  And you know what?  We made it.  I didn't die on the spot.  No one laughed me out of the building.  It wasn't perfect.  I certainly wasn't perfect.  But it happened.  And I suppose it was sufficient.  We're singing in church next week, and it's just before the temple dedication, so we're singing temple songs.  So I hope it will be acceptable, to bring the spirit to our ward members before they go to the dedication.  So I guess I've learned for myself--yet again!--that grace works.  (Thank goodness!  How could we get through life without a little grace?)  You'd think I would have learned that lesson 500 times over again by now, with all the times I have had to rely so fully on it before.  I guess that's what it means to be human.  Hopefully next time I'll just swallow it down a little sooner and let it work before I get so far down!  Thanks Tory, for reminding me of that.

 

This is probably a lesson I'll have to learn over and over again over the next many years of my life.  But maybe having our own little Katherine Grace in our home will help remind me to ask for help when I need it!

Well, Tory and I had another lovely weekend.  We went down to Las Vegas for my brother's wedding.

 

Since I have some travel restrictions from my doctor, we decided to leave on Thursday afternoon instead of making the whole trip on Friday.  We drove to Monroe that night and stayed with Tory's grandparents.  We had the loveliest visit there!  We sure love visiting them.  It was great.  We really wished we had longer to stay, and felt bad we had to leave so quickly.  But we really enjoyed being there while we could!

 

First thing Friday morning we set out on the rest of our trip.  It was nice to take it a little leisurely.  We stopped in Junction for just a few minutes.  We drove up City Creek and tried to do some sleuthing on property owned by Laban Morrill.  It was pretty fun!  I don't think I've ever been up there before.  We didn't even get out of the car, just looked at what we could from the road.  But I think we may have some good leads on things to check next.  :)

 

We also drove through Zion National Park on Friday.  It was really neat, even though we just drove straight through and didn't really have time to stop and look at anything.  We took a few photos from the car, though.  It was a nice drive.

 

We got to Las Vegas in the evening and settled into our hotel after finding some dinner.  Wow, that's a crazy place!  It's a little bigger and busier and crazier and stranger than any place I'd ever want to live!  But we were glad to be able to go and be there for the wedding.

 

Saturday was the day of the wedding!  We got up early and wended our way to the Las Vegas Temple.  It was an adventure getting there!  And I was rather struck by the extreme contrast--driving through the Strip (and all of its garbage!) and then going into the temple.  Quite a difference!  Yeah.  Anyway, the wedding was really lovely.  It was a beautiful ceremony.  We were really glad to be able to be there with them and also see so much family.  It was nice!  There were of course photos and everything afterwards, followed by a delicious lunch.  The reception that evening was also really nice.  It was great to be able to go and share that special day with them!  Libby of course looked beautiful in her nice dress, and Joe looked pretty sharp in his new suit, too.  They both looked really happy.

 

Yesterday we had our looooooooooooong trip back home.  We should probably have stopped and just gone part way like we did on the way down.  But we thought we should probably be back for work today, so we went straight through.  It was a really long day.  The hourly walks helped, but it was still really long.  Boy was I glad to be home!  But it was nice to take some of our stops at good places, like the St. George Temple and Cove Fort.  (We didn't have time to do much when we stopped, just walk around for a few minutes.  But it's a lot nicer to walk around the temple than a gas station!)  :)

 

We were very glad to make it home, but we were also really glad to have a chance to go!  Congratulations Joe and Libby!

Tory and I had a really nice weekend.  It was really good to get away for a few days!

 

We left on Friday morning and made it up to Draper in time for our reservations at the new temple open house.  It was really lovely.  Of course it was lovely.  But it really was.  I loved the sego lily theme throughout the temple.  And of course I loved the spirit that is unlike any other place.  I have some friends I wish could go have that experience.  I just don’t know how to suggest it to them under the circumstances.  But what a great thing that it’s available to so many people.  Tory signed us up for tickets in our ward, so hopefully we can go to the dedication, too!  That would be really cool I think.

 

Later on Friday we went to Cabela’s.  Of course we also had fun there.  We walked around and saw all the cool animals and cool equipment.  We got Tory some turkey stuff for his upcoming hunt.  He’s not at all excited about it.  (Just consult the three new turkey calls, the decoy, and the training video for confirmation!)  :)  I’m glad he has things like this to look forward to.  I love watching him plan and get ready for these kinds of outdoor activities.  It makes me happy to see him get so excited.

 

Saturday was a whirlwind busy day, but it was also really good.  We spent nearly the whole day doing work in the Family History Library.  We didn’t find the things we were hoping to, but we did find some other things.  It was a pretty productive day (hence the $20 worth of copies!).  I haven’t been to the FHL since I moved away from Provo, so it was kind of fun to be back.  We’ve been regularly going to our local Family History Center, but it’s just not the same to have to order films and wait for them to come in.  It was a lot of fun.  One interesting thing we found was that one of Tory’s extended family members (Hans Ulrich Bryner) and one of my emigrant ancestors (Neils Per Ipsen—also known as Neils Peter Ipson) came to America on the same ship!  It was big enough that they probably didn’t know each other (and they didn’t speak the same language), but it was interesting nonetheless.  And we more or less confirmed that two of Tory’s ancestors (Edson Barney and Milo Andrus) really did know each other and seemed to be friends, as they had previously suspected.  We also did find a few things on the Morrill research we were trying to do.  So it was a good, productive day.

 

We also spent a little time on Saturday at the Church History Museum.  Can you believe I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours across the breezeway and never made it in?  I was always too busy with the family history stuff I guess.  But it was really cool.  We enjoyed looking around and seeing the displays.  In fact, it was there that we decided to look into the Enoch Train (the ship that brought our ancestors to America).  It was neat.

 

On Sunday we mostly spent the day lazy.  It was nice, and greatly needed!  Boy was I tired!  But we started out the morning at Music and the Spoken Word.  It was a really lovely experience.  We were supposed to go meet up with Brother Newell afterwards, but we weren’t able to.  I’d made arrangements with him ahead of time to meet up with him so we could visit for a minute or two, and so he could meet Tory.  But after the broadcast, the ushers rushed us out of the building before we could catch up with Brother Newell.  We were rather disappointed, but we really enjoyed the broadcast anyway.

 

On Monday we wended our way home, but it was nice to meet up with Tory’s parents on the way.  They were on their way back to the capitol for the next week of the legislature, so we passed them on the way.  We met up for lunch and had a really nice visit.  (And we also really appreciated them letting us stay in their cute little apartment!)

 

It was really a good weekend.  The best thing was being able to spend so much time with Tory.  We really needed it!

 

I'm adding some photos, but watch Tory's blog.  He might post some that he took of the temple and the tabernacle.  :)

I've been listening to our Hymns CD today, trying to become a little more familiar with one of the songs we'll be singing in choir next month.  (It's always a good thing if the conductor knows how it's supposed to go!)  I just let it play past our song because I've been working on other things, and this one came on.  I've always loved it, but it really struck a chord with me today.

 

Zion stands with hills surrounded--

Zion, kept by pow'r divine.

All her foes shall be confounded,

Though the world in arms combine.

Happy Zion, Happy Zion,

What a favored lot is thine!

 

Ev'ry human tie may perish,

Friend to friend unfaithful prove,

Mothers cease their own to cherish,

Heav'n and earth at last remove.

But no changes, But no changes

Can attend Jehovah's love.

 

In the furnace God may prove thee,

Thence to bring thee forth more bright,

But can never cease to love thee;

Thou art precious in his sight.

God is with thee, God is with thee;

Thou shalt triumph in his might.

Last night I had a very interesting dream about my great-great-grandfather, Laban Morrill.  In my dream, Grandpa Morrill was still alive, and I saw him when we went to my grandmother’s house.  He was really old, which is perhaps understandable because he would be 194 years old if he were really still alive today.  (In reality he died in 1900.  This week, actually.)

 

I have long felt a special kinship with this wonderful man.  I took on his family as part of one of my family history projects while I was working on my degree, and I soon came to love him dearly.  In communicating with some of my extended family, I was told to leave him alone, and even that he had been “cut off the family tree.”  Wow.  Those are some pretty harsh words!  I don’t know why, but at least part of my family decided that he was a mean, evil, nasty man, and they didn’t want anything to do with him.  His family still fit the requirements for my project, however, so I decided to press forward, even if he was a mean, evil, nasty man.

 

Thank goodness I didn’t listen to those members of my family.

 

It didn’t take me long to discover that the embittered members of my family couldn’t have been more wrong about Laban.  As a young teenage boy, he was disowned by his family when he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Having nowhere else to go, he joined the gathering Saints in Kirtland and later in Nauvoo.  He served several missions, even one that took him back to his home (where he and his family made amends—but none of his family ever joined the church).  His wife and several children died in Nauvoo, but he married again before setting out to the Salt Lake Valley.

 

He helped settle several parts of Utah, and was instrumental in bringing the United Order to Orderville and to Circleville.  He ended up in Junction, Utah, where he planted the first orchard in that part of the state.  He was very faithful and active in the church, and he served in many capacities, including on the high council of Cedar City (where he tried to stop the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and was nearly killed himself for speaking out).

 

As I said before, I have truly come to honor, respect, and love this great pioneer.  Part of who I am is because he was my great-great-grandfather.  Despite what others in my family may choose to do, I certainly am not going to cut off this strong branch from my family tree!

 

During my research efforts, I discovered a few things.  First of all, I learned that I am a lot like him.  Or, at least, that my life has contained some of the same struggles and hardships that his did (specifically medically).  I cannot tell you how much strength I gained by knowing of his faithfulness during his trials.  It helped me to have greater faith, too.

 

Secondly, I came upon a passage he’d written one day.  He said that he hated to write certain things (pertaining to the Mountain Meadows Massacre), but he did it “so that my children’s children may know…”  It really struck me hard, that most of his children’s children don’t know…they don’t know how he felt about those events, or how he felt about anything else, either!  And suddenly, I felt this great weight of responsibility.  I knew.  I had that information that he wanted to share.  I am the one who needs to make sure the others know, too.  And if my large extended family does not want to know, then perhaps some of my closer family does.  If not, at least my own children, and my children’s children will know.  I will see to that.

 

Thirdly, I realized one day that I am likely the world’s living expert on Laban Morrill.  I doubt that anyone now living knows him as well as I do.  Again, I felt this great weight of responsibility, so I started writing his biography.  I thought what a great tragedy it would be, if I didn’t record all this for someone else.  If all I knew of him were to die with me, how many more generations would it be until someone else discovered him?

 

That’s how my project began.  I started to write his life’s story, so that it could be truly preserved and passed on, to others who may learn to love him and benefit from his life as I have.  Even if his family decides not to care, he is a very important character in Mountain Meadows history and also in Utah history.  So I got started.

 

Well, needless to say, other “life” things got in the way….and I got distracted.  It’s been a long time since I’ve worked on his book now.  Sometimes I feel bad about it, but there’s just so many other things demanding my time!  My dream last night gave me a change of heart, though.

 

In my dream, I met my dear Grandpa Morrill, which is something I have looked forward to for years.  Obviously the dream was not nearly as good as the reality will be, but it was enough for now.  I wanted desperately to tell him I’ve been working on his book, but I couldn’t tell him that.  But before the dream was over, I did get to throw my arms around him and tell him how much I really do love him.

 

“I love you, Grandpa Morrill.  I’m so glad I know you.”

“I love you, too.  I have loved you since the first moment I saw you, because I knew you would love me so much.”

 

Even though it was just a dream, it was such a sweet moment for me.  I think this was the first time I realized that, yeah, he probably does love me, too.  Even if it’s only because I am the one who cared enough to find him again, and to love him.  If he didn’t love me, he would likely not have lived the faithful life he did.

 

Thank you, Grandpa Morrill.  I do love you.  And someday I will finish your book, so that your children’s children may know.

Okay, so here it is, a month after our trip.  But I still thought it would be nice to share a little of it with you.  So, here it goes.

 

Well, we flew out to Phoenix on Thursday.  The most eventful part of the flight was the Grand Canyon.  We flew right over it, and got quite a view!  It was pretty cool to me, especially since I’ve never been there on the ground.  But Tory has, so he told me all about it.  It was pretty cool.  Then, like 20 minutes later, the annoying lady behind us squealed to her husband, “Oh, look at that!  The Grand Canyon!”  Well, even to me, who has never before seen the Grand Canyon, the canyon she was pointing out looked anything but grand.  To me it just looked like your run-of-the-mill ordinary, everyday canyon.  But they were taking pictures and really excited to show them to their family.  :)

 

Oh, and I got a little sick on the plane.  I thought I was going to throw up actually, but I didn’t say so.  I thought it would be kinder to not worry the man next to us until the last possible (by then, inevitable) second.  But then when I thought all was lost, the stewardess brought around some peanuts and soda.  With a little salty peanuts and Sprite in my stomach, I felt much better.  Lucky for the guy next to us!  :)

 

We actually stayed in Mesa, but it’s not at all far from Phoenix.  It didn’t take us long at all to get there.  We had reservations for the Courtyard Marriott there, which was really nice.  Except for the pretend free breakfast and the wretched towels.  (It was supposed to be a free breakfast with your stay, but it ended up costing like $12.  And the towels?  Don’t even start me on the towels.  They were really ragged, worn out, scratchy towels.  And they were teeny.  They were like the size of my grandmother’s towels she bought in the 60s.  It felt like drying off with sandpaper!  I was expecting fluffy comfy towels, but no!)  There was a cute little cactus garden at the hotel that we enjoyed perusing.  It was really nice. 

 

The conference didn’t start until Friday morning, so we had the rest of Thursday afternoon to ourselves.  We had previously decided we wanted to go to the temple while we were there, so we brought all our stuff with us.  We felt kind of weird, though, because of the way we were dressed.  I don’t have a black dress anymore, and I didn’t have room to pack an extra pair of shoes.  So I wore my brown dress with black shoes that I was wearing the rest of the time.  I thought I looked pretty dumb, but Tory felt a little underdressed, too, because he had forgotten to pack his tie.  But we both felt much better once we actually got to the temple and saw another patron.  He was dressed very nicely and appropriately—from the knees up!  He was wearing a nice white shirt and tie, with nice black shoes and socks, and a pair of black dress shorts!  It was the strangest thing I think I’ve ever seen!  Wowie. 

 

The temple was, by far, the best part of our trip.  We visited every day we were in town.  It was so beautiful and wonderful….but more on that in a bit!

 

Before we went in, we walked around the beautiful temple grounds.  They had a lovely olive tree, and all kinds of cactus.  It was a really nice large temple grounds, with lots of neat things to see.  We saw what we think were orange trees (with the trunks all painted white), palm trees, cool flowers and plants, and of course—lots of cactus.

 

Well the inside of the temple was absolutely gorgeous.  It was obvious they’ve remodeled and updated it a little from its original state, but especially the things they kept from the original plan were just lovely.  It’s supposed to look like Solomon’s Temple from the outside.  I can’t say I have been too impressed with it from the pictures I have seen in the past, but in person it is absolutely lovely.  And, like I said, the inside is also magnificent.  But of course the spirit there was the most beautiful and touching thing.

 

We actually got to be in the temple for a long time, which was so nice after the long hectic day of traveling, finding our way around, and such.  After I got changed, I hurried into the chapel, because Tory always gets dressed faster than I do, and I thought he’d be waiting for me.  I didn’t see him, so I just sat by myself for a few minutes.  Then a few minutes turned into 10, 15 minutes.  That was surprising, because Tory always has to wait for me, not the other way around!  But I thought that perhaps he just had to wait to get dressed because there were a lot of men coming into the chapel.  So I waited another while, and they ushered everyone in to the session.  I was a little surprised that I hadn’t seen Tory yet, but I thought he must be on his way.  Well, another 10 minutes or so later, I asked a nice brother (who turned out to be the officiator for our session) if someone could go look for Tory and make sure he was okay.  I was kind of worried by then.  I didn’t know what could have happened to keep him more than a half hour.  The brother was very kind and said he’d go look and see if he could find Tory.  A few minutes later Tory came in and sat by me.  “There you are!” he said with his sweet smile.  Well, apparently, he’d been waiting just outside the women’s dressing room for me.  Somehow I must have just barely beaten him out, so we missed each other.  So while I was waiting for him anxiously in the chapel, he was waiting anxiously for me at the dressing rooms!  :)  But by then it wasn’t long before they sent another session back.

 

Well of course it was lovely.  I was really touched to be there, as I always am, and I was truly taught things in my heart that I needed to know, for me and for our family.  It was a lovely, special experience.  I had a hard time leaving when we were done!  I just wanted to stay there and bask in that beautiful warm, wonderful spirit.  But we’d participated in the last session of the evening, so we finally decided to go so they could get things wrapped up for the night.  If only everyone in the whole world could feel that beautiful peace, the warmth of the spirit, that comes in the temple, I think the world would be a far different place.  Oh, how grateful I am for the temples!  And I feel so grateful that we have one so close to us here at home, too.  What a blessing!

 

The next morning we headed for the conference.  The Mesa Conference Center was really nice.  I was quite impressed.  It was also nice that everything (the temple, conference center, and several restaurants) was so close to our hotel.  It was pretty easy to get around with everything so close together.  We went to two classes in the morning, neither of which was particularly interesting or useful.  One we were looking forward to ended up being a substitute class because the original instructor got stuck in snow on the way down.  Well, it will suffice to say that the instructor who took over was not our favorite.  Enough said.  :)  The second class was some kind of product demonstration which was not something that is really useful to us yet.  So we actually skipped out early to find some lunch before my classes started!

 

I was really lucky, I thought, to have both of my classes on the first day, one right after the other.  That was much better for me, so once I got into the lecturing groove, I could just go with it until I was done.  And I didn’t have to keep worrying over until the next day, either.  So after lunch we did my military records class, had a short break, and did the tax records class.  I thought they went okay, and I did have a fun time lecturing.  It was a really good experience.  And actually, we may have made a bit of a breakthrough on one of my families because of the military class!  I used one of my family members as an example (well, actually, all the examples were from either my family or Tory’s).  It’s a family we’ve worked on for decades—my mom, my sister Ann, and myself.  We know quite a bit about this one particular man, who served in the Civil War (hence the use in my class), but we don’t go many generations back past him.  The next day actually, this woman came up to me.  She said she’d attended my class on Friday and really enjoyed it.  Then she said, “I lived in South Carolina for a number of years, and I thought you might like to know something about one of your examples.”  So then she told me that in South Carolina, they pronounce that surname differently than you would guess.  As soon as she said it, I said, “Oh!  Oh!  Of course!  That makes so much sense!”  Well the pronunciation she used would suggest a French origin.  That makes sense because the family they marry into (back around the time we lose track of them) is also French.  Cool beans and a half!  Now we have a new avenue to look into for them!

 

Anyway, we really enjoyed the rest of the conference.  We attended some really helpful and informative classes.  In fact, Tory is now an official genealogist.  In one class we attended (about New FamilySearch, which we are drooling over, since Utah won’t get it probably for another year!), Tory recognized that he was related to the guy presenting, based on a partial pedigree he displayed.  Haha!!!  You’re converted now, and there’s no going back!  In fact, we found the guy later (he had a booth in the advertising area) and talked to him about that family.

 

We learned about using photographs more effectively, which was really cool!  That was one of the most fun classes.  We also took a class about doing effective Swedish research.  It was pretty cool, too, even though Sweden is one of my “specialties.”  Tory got a good introduction, and I was reminded of a few resources to try using again.  We took one class about genetic genealogy.  It’s going to take a while for that to really take off, I think, but it could be a really good resource in the near future. 

 

We bought some good books, that will be fun and helpful, and we even bought a little wall quilt.  It’s pretty nice.  It looks like a tree, and you fill in your family!  It’s pretty neat.  We’re looking forward to making it.

 

On Friday evening, we wended our way to Cabella’s.  That was fun!  We walked around looking at all the animals, which Tory thought were really pitiful.  :)  Tory had fun playing the shooting game, and I got some new gloves, finally!  I have been looking for some, but I have been unable to get the kind I want anywhere!  Well luckily I found some there!  So we joked with the cashier as we checked out.  I told her we were from Utah and that we had to come to Arizona to find winter gloves!  She got a pretty good laugh out of it too, especially since it was so warm there.  (Yeah, can you believe it?  The middle of November, and the girl who is always cold didn’t even wear a jacket!  Not even at night after the sun went down!  Crazy, I know!)

 

Well by the time we left Cabella’s, it was already nine or later, but I was really hungry.  So we decided to try and find some dinner.  We stopped in Phoenix at this little Chinese restaurant.  They were about ready to close and didn’t have much selection left.  It was okay, but not great.  Just after we finished eating, Tory and I both had the same feeling very strongly: “Get out of here as quickly as you can!”  So we listened to our not-so-little prompting and left the restaurant.  We didn’t know what was going on, or if something was about to happen, but it just didn’t seem right.  We hurried to the car and even got out of that neighborhood as quickly as possible.  We felt a little better about things when we got back onto the highway, but we were still a little unsettled as we got closer to our hotel.  Tory, being the good priesthood leader that he is, listened to another prompting of the spirit and drove us to the temple.  It was way too late for us to go in by then, and we of course weren’t dressed appropriately.  But just being there, on those holy grounds, seeing the temple, and again feeling that beautiful peace of the spirit, our heavy souls were lifted, and our hearts were lightened.  What a blessing!  So we were then able to return to our hotel feeling much better.

 

On Sunday, after a really busy few days, we returned home.  It was such a fun trip and a really good experience, but we were really ready to go home.  I was afraid I was going to be sick the whole way home, after eating some 3-day unrefrigerated chicken-fried steak and shrimp (we realized too late that the refrigerator in our hotel room hadn’t been turned on), but I did fine, thank goodness!  It was really nice to be back home and sleep in our own bed again.  Although we did have to get up early for work again the next morning……

 

But we did really have a nice time.  It was a fantastic little vacation!  We really liked Mesa a lot.