The two highlights of this week were, # 1) the Cook O Rama. Nick and Sara came for the dinner, but no one else could make it. I was really hoping to see Nan and Christine, but Nan went out of town at the last minute and Christine somehow didn't get the newsletter with the date, or the reminder. Laurel Jorgensen (1st cousin) and her husband, (David) came and we had a good time catching up. She is Grant Cook's daughter. You all should know Debbie Bori. Laurel is her sister. The Grant Cook Family have had many challenges. Apparently, Debbie has been taking care of her daughter Jennifer, who has been very ill. It has been a blessing in disguise as Jennifer and her husband (at her husband's instigation) left the church and have had little contact with Albert and Debbie. Sheri, Debbie's sister, also left the church, years ago, and joined with a very strange cult. Laurel said that she has given all her money to the leader of the cult, and he has felt it his right to come and use the condo that belonged to Sheri's mother, where Margaret (another sister) is still living. They have tried changing locks, getting restraining orders, and other things to protect Margaret (she's quite backward and is very dependent on others). Sheri is very ill also. She has a feeding tube and cares for herself. Of course, no one in her cult has offered to help her out.
Last year, at the Cook O Rama, my Aunt Lois and her daughter-in-law, Kay Canning, came. The speaker was much better this year. It was Bryson Cook and his wife Janis, recently returned from their mission in Zimbabwe, where he served as mission president for the past three years. Janis told of how they received their call. They lived back east and they got a phone call where they were told that Elder Bednar wanted to speak with them. They went into Boston where they were connected to him on a large TV monitor to be interviewed. He asked them a lot of questions then said, "We might call you on a mission, we might not...don't call us, we'll call you." Later they got a phone call from President Eyring. They got a list of English speaking missions that needed mission presidents. The joke in their family was that they would be called to the last place on the list--Zimbabwe. Of course, it didn't turn out to be a joke. Bryson spoke on his mission experiences. I wish I had taken notes, but I didn't. I think it was recorded on someone's cell phone, and I saw Janet Porter (family genealogist) taking notes, so I will try and add some more information on his talk later. He talked about the faithful missionaries, the spiritual receptiveness of the African people, their poverty, and the joy they found as missionaries, sharing the gospel there. He read us a letter from one of his missionaries. He praised the young man (African) and his writing ability. He said he wrote far better than the American missionaries because they all write like they text--no caps, no punctuation. The young man wrote that he knew that the Lord was in charge and was always watching over them. He told of an experience one day that they had while waiting for a bus (a van really, that is made for 10 people but usually transports many more than that at a time). They got on the bus and, the young missionary said, "the people were fighting. And guess what they were fighting over, President,--they were fighting over where the spirit goes when it leaves the body. I said, 'Everyone, be quiet! We have the answer to that question!'" The missionary then proceeded to teach everyone in the van the Plan of Salvation. He said that everyone was completely silent. While the one missionary taught, the other quickly wrote contact information on all the the pamphlets they had. All of the people on the van made the missionaries promise that they would come and teach them more.
The 2nd highlight of the week was General Conference. I have some more thinking to do before I can tell you which talks stood out the most to me. I was so impressed with the new apostles. Yes, we are related to Elder Rasband. I have heard from several of you that you received many texts from friends asking you that question. Roy is 2nd cousins once removed, which makes you all 2nd cousins, twice removed. He is 2nd cousins with grandpa Rasband.
Dad and I had a good time waiting for General Conference. Crista didn't want to drive down for Conference, so we decided to go watch a session with her. We thought it would be fun to stay at the Anniversary Inn the night before, watch the first session at the hotel, and then watch part of the afternoon session with Crista. It turned out well for Crista and Matt, because they were able to buy a piano for a good price in South Jordan, but she needed a way to get it to Logan. She had some piano movers bring it to our home and install it in a trailer, and we drove it up there for her. It also worked well for us because we had a little alone time. I told Dad maybe we shouldn't spend the money to stay there as it's a little expensive, etc. He said it was worth it to him because he has my complete attention for a few hours. Plus, we had a coupon. We stayed in the Fire and Ice Room. At first I didn't think I liked the room. The air conditioning was on full blast when we got there, and with the icicle decorations, let me tell you--the room looked and felt freezing! We turned up the heat and filled the tub with hot water, turned down the lights, and then it was warm and quite romantic with twinkling icicles all around the room.
The first picture was taken with the flash, but you couldn't see the icicle lights, so I took the 2nd one without the flash.
After checking into the hotel, we took the piano over to Crista's. She had prepared a nice dinner for us. Tomato soup, potatoes, and salad. The tomatoes in the soup and salad were all from her garden. We got to enjoy Ruby for a little bit, too.
Saturday morning, we watched the first session of conference, and at noon we went out to lunch with Matt and Crista. After lunch we watched conference with them for another 1 1/2, then we had to leave to be able to make it to Ollie's birthday party at 5:00 (pictures at top of page).
Following the party, Roy, Caitlyn, myself, Nick, Dan, and Jieun and the girls went to our house. The men watched the priesthood session of conference while the girls played some violin and piano, and cards. Crista and Matt had not planned on coming down, but Matt's mom had a special event going on. She had commissioned Annie Henrie to do a painting based on the Proclamation of the Family. Crista and Matt were models for the painting. The debut of the painting was the focus for Ladies Night Out at Deseret Book. Janna bought the painting, but the deal she has with Annie Henrie is that she gets a portion of the proceeds, as it was her idea. Annie was a friend of Elise's in Jr. High. She's made quite a name for herself in the LDS art world.
Of course, Sunday we watched both sessions of conference, and then we had Sloppy Joes with several members of the family. We were able to see everyone but Elise, Andy and Max sometime during the week. However, we did receive a cute picture of Max today. You can see that he had had enough of General Conference as he fell asleep right in his lunch. :)
We are so grateful for all of you! We are greatly blessed!
Sounds like everyone had a blast this week. Miss y'all. Hope you get better soon mom. We're all scared.
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