Quorantined boredom and Zoom

One can only sit in an apartment and do Indexing and Family Search for so many hours a day!!  It truly becomes a physical, mental and emotional monotony.  At least twice a day I just have to get outside, breath fresh air and do some walking and mind clearing.  Thankfully our Heavenly Father has made some beautiful sights to see.

Spring has sprung

Historic home with spring blossoms next to our apartment.

Popcorn from our balcony

We were able to get into the JSMB (Joseph Smith Memorial Bldg) where we normally work to copy some flash drives for leaving missionaries.  It is interesting to see our training spaces totally empty of people and seemingly begging us to stay, learn and work.  But alas, we could only be there a short while.

Our desks are the ones by the pillars.

Our empty training lab where we can train up to 30 missionaries.

The awesome part of the week was of course General Conference!!  OOOHHH what an amazing spiritual and edifying two days.  We were able to watch all 5 sessions in our apartment and truly enjoyed it.  A few of our takeaways were:

Debra's insights -

1.  The restoration is ongoing.  I had thought of it as an event with Joseph Smith and the first vision.  I understood that revelation was ongoing and would continue but I did not realize that revelation is the restoration and will continue till the great Jehovah says the work is done and the Savior returns.

2.  Hear Him was very much a recurring message.  I liked President Nelsons, Hear, Harken, and Heed.  Do something with what we hear.

3.  For our missionary service the message from Elder Holland "We didn't come this far only to come this far."  Even though our missionary service is very altered for now we will endure and continue on.  We still have much to learn not only about the work but also about ourselves.  We will endure to the end.

Bob's insights - 

- Hear HIM!

  How do I hear HIM?

  Harken, Hear HIM, Heed HIS words!

  Hear and follow HIM!

- Unity

  Choose to Unify with Christ.

  Unity with each other.

  Unity in marriage.

- HE is the source of all Joy.

   Christ is Joy

- Do not loose hope.

  We did not come this far only to come this far!!

There were many other touching feelings and thoughts, but these are the ones that resonated the most with me at this time and at this place that I am currently in.

Of all the businesses that are closed of only partially open, construction is still going full bore.  The Salt Lake Temple construction is moving quickly along.  The have this huge crane that is here to take down the Angel Moroni and some of the spires for structural fixes, strengthening and giving Angel Moroni back his trumpet.  Our 5.7 earthquake and the hundreds of aftershocks did some damage to the temple that I don't believe was foreseen.  Our God works in mysterious ways.

Large crane in resting mode.

Workers on Southwest parapet removing one of the loose decorative spires.

I love watching the big backhoes at work.

This gives a small perspective of how huge this crane is.

This picture does not show how scary this looked.  This huge back hoe was balancing on his roller wheels down into a very deep hole and pulling chunks of cement and debris out to put in the long dumper truck.  We estimated it was a 25 degree angle.

Today the training zone did its' first online zoom meeting training.  Sis Kay, one of our best teachers,  taught about reverse indexing.  It is new from the BYU family history training lab.  She did an amazing job.  There were 74 missionaries in on the training.  We are now working on developing other classes to share with the entire mission to help them learn and fill their time as they are confined to their apartments.  We never knew when we were called to this mission that we would have to learn so much technology, computers, power points, and now zoom meetings.  It is so amazing, though, how good it is to see the faces of missionaries we don't even get to see at church now.  The Lord has truly blessed us as we give our best effort.

We were even able to have a zoom meeting with all of our kids at the same time on Thursday April 2.  We are planning to make that a weekly gathering for now.  We pray for our family and friends that we will all make it through this corona virus well and still sane on the other side of this.  We are grateful to be able to join with the world in fasting and prayer on March 29 and now again this Good Friday, April 10.  I know the Lord will hear our prayers.