Saturday is a Special Day

Saturday was a day for eternal blessings.  September 22, 2012 we were able to attend the Mount Timpanogos Temple where our family and friends gathered for an endowment session to do Rachel’s work.  We were joined by Jeremy and Karissa, Andrew & Cami, James & Chelsea, Shaliese & Mike, Phillip, Deborah & Jay – all of our immediate family but Daniel.  Mom and Dad Smith along with my siblings, Jill & Don Gubler, Ryan Smith, Jeri Burr, and JaeLeen Smith were also there.  What a surprise to surprise to find siblings from Georgia and South Carolina in the temple in Utah.  Patty & DeMar Young were there from the McKinney side of the family and served as witnesses.  On top of this wonderful turnout there were a number of friends and old roommates of Rachel’s in attendance.  Diane Clarke Nielsen, Sonya Reynolds (?), Cheri, Mary, and others I cannot name were all waiting to celebrate this special day for Rachel. Mary brought us a “Families Are Forever” embroidery that Rachel had given her when her parents died and returned it saying, “This is Rachel’s testimony.” We finally departed after many hugs.  Shaliese was the proxy for this ordinance.  Deborah had been proxy for the initiatory the previous week as John, Jan, Deb, and Jay performed multiple ordinances to provide family names for as many participants as possible.  We brought the sealing cards with us to Brasil to complete them in the Curitiba temple.

Later, Saturday afternoon, we had a barbecue that included all 8 of our grandchildren.  We celebrated Myles 9^th birthday and enjoyed each other’s company.  These beautiful, happy, healthy grandchildren are such a blessing.  We were very fortunate to be able to assemble so many of our family members together for a special day. Later, John and I finally worked on P-day stuff which involved packing and purchasing all the last minute items that couples from Brazil informed us were needed.  It was crazy.  I was suffering from a nasty cold shared by our district leader at the MTC.  The house did not get cleaned and much was left unpacked.  I hope Cami and Andrew can forgive us for leaving them such a mess.  We were really sorry that we were not able to attend Lindsay & Chris’s picnic in the park.  We just ran out of time.

The Brigham City temple dedication was broadcast into the American Fork East Stake Center.  That viewing was our Sunday meeting.  I was still loading programs on the replacement computer sent the week before. (Did I mention my computer crashed the previous month?  I had just finished reloading all programs when Dell informed me they did not have a replacement fan and would be sending me out a new computer instead. So I started over again!)  I was very blessed to have back up discs of so much information available but it took several days to get everything down loaded and I still left discs packed away un-copied.  President Ivins had blessed both John & I the help of our ancestors as we served our mission.  I was grateful to have access to stories, pictures, and connections to so many of these ancestors restored to my computer.  I had made a 43 page booklet of family pictures with the Proclamation on the Family in Portuguese to use on our mission.  Shaliese was wonderful as she took time to print and cut these pages to size for me.  Maybe the lives of these ancestors will touch the heart of someone here in Brazil and encourage them to study their ancestors.