My week had barely begun and it started off very well. Church was delightful, there were wonderful lessons in all of the 3 hours. After Church ended, I joined the ward choir. The ward choir is conducted by Sister Ballantyne, Richard Elliott’s wife who happens to be the ward choir accompanist. We are singing “All Creatures of Our God and King” this week in Sacrament meeting, which they both arranged just for our ward choir. Bless their hearts.

 

On Tuesday, after I got off the bus from getting my new bus pass (which is working great), I ran in to somebody you might recognize. Do you remember Elder Strasser? His first name is no longer Elder now, rather it is now Levi. He’s doing great and was on Temple Square waiting for a friend to get off of work.

I enjoyed Wednesday afternoon’s devotional. One of the senior missionaries shared how President Hinckley endured through many things over the course of his lifetime especially when serving in the first presidency. He essentially took on the duties of two prophets as the Prophets and counselors then were ill and unable to serve and he did that for tenish years. Later, after he became the Prophet himself, his wife passed away a few years before he did and endured through his broken heart until the end. If a Prophet can endure through that, then I should be able to endure through other trials.

As requested, I’ll share how I was asked to become a Conference Center tour guide. I thought I was just going into the Center for a tour, but within 5 minutes of entering, one of the tour guides asked me to shadow along so that I can give tours in the future. I’m still waiting to get a call back from somebody to have an interview for being a tour guide. If I don’t hear back early this week, I’ll call somebody who knows more.

I have not yet heard back from the Tabernacle Choir President, Ron Jarrett, but I have emailed him with my thoughts and findings for transportation thus far. I attended Thursday night’s rehearsal in the Tabernacle in hopes of seeing him there but I did not see him. This week at the office, I started transferring records to wards and branches of the lost sheep that we’ve found either by calling or by searching for on the internet. Yesterday, I started working the phones for event ticketing. I was slightly nervous for my first call or two, but after that the rest of the calls went by smoothly. Most of the calls right now are about the Ogden Temple open house, then there will be a few week break, then we’ll take calls for the Phoenix Temple Open House, followed by the Savior of the World musical and the Tabernacle Choir concert.

There was an ward activity last night so I elected to go to that last night to meet more of the members of my new ward. It was a barbecue, any hamburger (especially homemade) is better than a McDonald’s hamburger (don’t worry, I haven’t been to McDonald’s or any other fast food restaurant since I’ve been here). Today I went to the noon recital of our ward organist, Richard Elliott. After the recital I had the opportunity to go up on stage with a few other guests to get an up-close view of the Tabernacle Organ’s console. With this opportunity, I got to ring the Nauvoo bell (there is a button in one of the drawers of the console to ring the bell). It reminded of me of when I played the Conference Center organ.  After I left the square I bought a bottle of oil for consecration from Deseret Book. Next I went to Walmart via the Trax system (light rail built for the 2002 Olympics) to buy a bike light. Then I went to Harmon’s for groceries, and to send this email to you. On Sunday, September 21, we won’t have regular Sunday church meetings. Instead, we are encouraged to attend as many of the Ogden Temple dedication sessions as possible. If I help with the Tabernacle Choir stage crew by then, I’ll only be able to attend two of the three sessions.

I have been losing weight, although my clothes are not noticeably baggy yet. The biggest place I’ve noticed my weight loss is actually in the arms as my sleeves are getting too long. I’ve switched all my sleeves to the other button to attempt to keep that from happening for at least a little while longer.

At the office, we employ a variety of websites that track the contact information of people. I’m not sure how those websites track them, but it is quite interesting. We primarily use the web but there are a few CSMs that call to try to find the lost sheep. We mainly focus on the United States and a little bit of Canada. So far I’ve only done endowments in the temple, but will do initiatories next week. As I am not officially on the Choir stage crew yet, I have not had my records transferred to the afternoon ward. I’ll take care of that when the Choir service starts.

I have not attended FHE or Institute yet. I need to meet with Bishop Daley to find out where Institute is. I ran in to a set of prostelyting missionaries a few days ago letting them know that I am interested in going out with them to teach and gave them my phone number. I haven’t heard back from them yet. I do not have a home teaching assignment yet, I’m guessing it might be a few weeks, as the Elder’s quorum presidency just got called and set apart the week before I arrived. I’ve been looking at the blog posts. Remember, when you insert photos, to click on create gallery on the left hand side. Then, from there you can press the upload text or button like thing. Also, when you create a blog post don’t forget to set an image as the featured image. Please be a little bit more creative with your blog titles as well.

Elder Blodgett