MTC

We entered the MTC on Monday May 16th. We dropped Andrea off in Layton on our way and checked in at about 10:30 am. We had snow through Sardine Canyon.

Here I am as we enter the MTC. It was a week of intensive teacher training. We were told when we pulled in that we had been assigned to the Marriott Hotel downtown. Others commented "Oh, you have soft beds".  We registered and then were given an introduction and tour of the MTC. Missionaries are known for gaining weight at the MTC cafeteria. Paul was told to see the dietician about gluten-free meals, but she had the week off. He was given a menu for the week with all of the foods containing gluten crossed off. He will probably be the only missionary to loose weight at the MTC.

Tuesday we were divided into districts. Ours consisted of three couples. Our morning teacher was Brother Harmer. Our afternoon teacher was Sister Rodrigues. We decided to sing in the MTC choir for the Tuesday devotional. The guest speaker was Elder Richard G. Hinckley. His father (Pres. Hinckley) told him about Adam taking two of his sons to the wall surrounding the Garden of Eden and saying, "This is where your mother ate us out of house and home"

Sister and Elder Rydalch

Our district leader was Elder Rydalch. Elder and Sister Rydalch are from Idaho Falls and are going to the Kenya Nairobi mission, but will be serving in a small branch in Tanzania. Talking to them and their new adventure reminded me of my brother Richard and our trip through Kenya and Tanzania.

Elder and Sister Rowland

Elder and Sister Rowland are from Orem, Utah. They are going to the California Fresno mission. They will be working in the Sequoia area of California,  activating members in the ward there.

Elder and Sister Wheeler

Elder and Sister Wheeler are from Logan, Utah and will be going to the Canada Toronto East Mission, Portuguese speaking (but you already know that).

Sister Rodrigues

Brother Harmer

Our teachers made it fun to go through Preach My Gospel and role-play teaching techniques.

Wednesday Diane played the piano for the general meetings. We had our first teaching experience by giving the first lesson (The Restoration of the Gospel) to a  widowed investigator who moved to Utah from California (at least that was her role). Her name was Catharine Judd from the Saratoga Stake in California. She asked if Paul were from San Jose. He said no, but he had a brother Richard from San Jose. Another mistaken identity. Her husband was a distant cousin of Diane's. We ended the day with Portuguese tutoring. Paul met with Marcel Souza from Curitiba and Diane met with Talita Bejarano from Brasilia. 

Talita with Sister Wheeler

Marcel Souza

 We had two nights of tutoring in Portuguese. Talita set up a learning plan with Sister Wheeler, whereas, Marcel talked to Elder Wheeler in various role play scenarios (in Portuguese, of course).

Thursday we had another teaching experience. This time we taught a second lesson  (The Plan of Salvation) to Joy Lundberg. On the way to the MTC we stopped at the Sister's Missionary Mall and purchased a small wooden puzzle on the Plan of Salvation (the Portuguese version). We used it in the lesson and it worked very well. We often took short breaks to walk around the MTC (in spite of the rain all week). Since we were staying in the Marriott we would leave by about 7am and not return until after 8pm.

Sister and Elder Wheeler tracting with Samuel Smith

Friday was our last day at the MTC. We had role-plays activating members of the church. We also took some farewell pictures of some of the missionaries. Diane especially liked meeting with so many people and feeling the missionary spirit. She could see the gospel spreading throughout the world as she found out where the senior missionaries were going. Paul enjoyed interacting with the younger missionaries. He only used Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Mandarin, Thai, and Russian with other missionaries. Two sister missionaries going to the Philippines wanted to give a street contact in Cebuano (they had to do 15 of them to practice). Paul surprised them (as well as himself) when he interpreted what was being said before the companion could translate.

Group picture of those who hadn't left yet

District map picture

 We returned to Logan on Friday afternoon. It was slow going because of multiple accidents on the freeway. Arriving about 7:30 pm we commenced to pack and load up the car. When we were ready to go to bed we noticed a police car in front of our house with its lights blinking. It was not long before there were three other police cars. They stayed for several hours and we didn't get to bed until about 2am. They never came to the door, so we didn't need to be bailed out of jail. Apparently, there was a man with a 17-year-old girl creating problems. The MTC week is over and we will soon start a new phase of our mission.

Ate logo

Paul and Diane [Elder and Sister Wheeler]

Setting Apart

Today has been a special day. At 8:30 this morning a neighbor that used to live in Hawaii came by and brought us each a flower lei. They were real flowers. They said that it means farewell not good bye. If you throw the lei in the water it will always come back. That was such a special thing for us.

We spoke in church and Andrea surprised us by being the musical number. She played a hymn medley of "More Holiness Give Me", "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go", and "How Great Thou Art". It was nice to have several family members there. We had Steve and Lisa, Richard and Virginia, Jericho, Garrett and Emilie, and Ken and Kate. Then there were many other friends.

My topic was on the divine signatures of the Lord in my life and Paul's was why he was thankful to have me for a companion. A newly returned missionary from Brazil was the first speaker.

We were set apart in the afternoon by President Wallis and many of the family members were able to stay for it.

We have felt such a wonderful spirit all day. We are now offically Elder and Sister Wheeler. We report to the MTC in the morning between 10 and 11 a.m.

Our leis

with Andrea

with Richard and Virginia

Honors, Cleaning and Moving

This week has been busy. On Tuesday night the Electrical Engineering Department had a dinner at The Elements restaurant in Logan. It was for the department to honor and to say good bye to Paul. We had a nice dinner but the best part was that the secretaries in the department had searched out former students and others that Paul had worked with and had them write up their memories of Paul. They had them spiral bound and presented them to Paul. It made him feel good when he read them later that night. He decided that maybe he did some good in the department.

On Wednesday I had a doctors appointment to finalize my medications for the mission and when I got home Paul was busy cleaning the windows. He had already cleaned the light fixtures. I then started to help by cleaning the grout between the tiles in our entry, main floor bath, and kitchen. We accomplished a lot that day.

We are gathering, storing and cleaning. Many places look rather bare now. On Saturday we moved the organ across the street to our neighbors for the next 18 months. A member of our ward manages the Bishops Storehouse and brought a cart over to help us move it. We got the organ out the door and then onto a board that created a ramp from the top step to the cart. Once the organ was on the board we slid the board onto the cart. We had some neighbors come help. It was quite a site to see this organ being wheeled across the street.  Cars would slow down and look. We repeated the process at the Francis home only this time we were going up the steps. We then went back and got the pedal board and bench.

The Francis family are excited to have it in their home. We know it will be loved while we are gone. This morning I thanked one of the neighbors and he mentioned that we should have taken a picture. Why do we never think of these things at the time. Sorry there is not a picture for you. We will try to do better.

The Hand of the Lord

This week has been interesting for us concerning our mission. We received news that there were several possible apartments available. We looked at the list then we received a phone call telling us about two of them. We decided that we will take the apartment that is only one bedroom but larger. It is also in the same apartment complex as the Portuguese speaking Elders. The only problem is that it is not available until July 1.  In all of this though there is the hand of the Lord.

There is a single sister there that is having some health problems and felt that she needed to go home early but her contract on her apartment is not up until July 1. With the mission combining in July she asked if it might be possible for her to leave a month early. The mission president said that it would be all right. Now she needed to figure out what to do about the apartment. When she heard we were coming she said that we could move into her place as soon as we get there. That solved her problem and ours. We were e-mailed the forms for the apartment we want and we filled them out, scanned them and e-mailed them back. The mission office will take care of what else needs to be done to secure it for us. We will probably have to reimburse them at some point.

On Saturday we had a couple, the Adams, come over. They were visiting in Logan for a reunion. They are the couple that we are replacing. They have been home for about two years though. They were able to tell us all about the people in the ward. There is a sister from Brazil that taught Portuguese in Brazil and helped to teach Sister Adams while she was there. They have her all lined up to help tutor me.

Everyone sounds very excited about us coming. This has been a testimony to us that this is where the Lord wants us to be at this time and why it was not possible for us to go at the end of May. All of this needs to take place as it now is. It is wonderful knowing that this is what the Lord wants us to do.

Wedding and Award

April 16th was a good day. Diane had a Stake Relief Society Conference in the morning. It included at brunch and then a musical production call "Women at the Well" with music by Kenneth Cope, Julie Azevado, and others. It was a wonderful start to a good day.

In the afternoon we went to Layton for the wedding of a faculty member. She is from the northwest part of China near Turkey. She is Uyghur which is a minority in China and have more in common with Turkey. She is Muslim and married a man who is Turkish. Their religious wedding was on Friday and we went for the secular one that was needed to make it legal in this country. She asked me to play prelude music and a special piece from the movie "The Piano" just before they came in. Some of the songs I played were songs from her culture. Paul helped me by playing the melody on our bowed psaltery. People were very curious about it.

The groom and his parents

The bride and her father

The cloth with the design is silk and the design is a traditional one.

After the ceremony there was a dinner and dancing. She wanted Paul to dance a waltz with her. We tried to get a picture but they were just moving too fast and they were all blurry. We enjoyed spending this special time with her and her new husband.

That night was also the Robbins awards. These are awards that are given to the outstanding teachers, advisors, researchers, etc., for the whole university. Paul was up for the Advisor of the year because he was given the award for the advisor of the year for the college of engineering. We did not plan on going to the ceremony because the wedding was more important. Besides we figured that the award would go to someone else. Paul found out two days before that night that he was going to receive the award. We still did not go to the ceremony but it is a nice honor for Paul as he retires.

Craziness

I have been going to update this blog for two weeks now but never could find the time. March was a crazy month. It began with a nice spring break to Moab and enjoying Arches National Park. The weather was cool but that is perfect for some of the hikes.

Looking at Delicate Arch before walking out to it.

 We did our traditional hike to Delicate Arch which seems to kick in my vertigo now. We also made our trek through the Fiery Furnace by ourselves. Some of those rocks and tight squeezes are harder to climb over and through. Maybe it is because I am getting older and weaker.

Paul holding up a natural bridge

Climbing over rocks and through crevices.

The next week we enjoyed having our grandchildren visit. They were here for the best weather week even though it rained a bit. They still seemed to enjoy going outside even in the rain and snow. Paul and I also walked a 10k with Andrea to meet her fitness challenge.

The end of the month brought medical procedures for both of us. A colonoscopy for me which the results were good and an endoscopy for Paul. Here they discovered that Paul has Barretts esophagas which is cause by acid reflux and can become precancerous if not treated. He has been treating it but this just confirmed that it will be a life long treatment.

Paper work, insurance for the car and medical that will cover us in Canada have been part of our tasks. Paul applying for Medicare and trying to get the retirement all worked out are some of the items also.

We have been cleaning out closets, making many trips to Deseret Industries as well as packing our attics as we make room for our house sitters to move in.  Needless to say we have gone to bed each night exhausted or at least very tired.

BYU Mens Chorus

This week the BYU Men's Chorus came to Logan. Two stakes were asked to host the choir members and ours was one of them. We volunteered. We went to the concert and enjoyed a variety of music. Afterwards we met up with Igor Marcus and Stephen Patterson. It turns out that Igor is from Curitiba, Brazil and Stephen  is from Minnesota. Igor's English was so good that I would not have thought that he was from a different country. He served a mission in New Jersey Spanish speaking. Paul kept trying to get me to speak in Portuguese but my mind would go blank and I couldn't form sentences. We were able to ask about the pronunciation of some words we wondered about and that was very helpful. Stephen has a mission call to England speaking Mandarin. Both boys really enjoyed our musical instruments and we were up until almost midnight playing instruments and talking. It was a good experience for us and I hope that it was for them also.