Companions for a Day

We were in Linda for the weekend to see Josh's last soccer match of the year, celebrate Laura's 12th wedding anniversary, see the Jon and Josh in their primary sacrament program, and of course let mom see Jillian. You know mother and babies.

But for me it was a special weekend as I finally got to meet someone from my mission. Elder Lawrence Cole and I have gone through training together and still meet weekly with our "West Coast" buddies from training. So this was a kind of reunion of two missionaries who have never met. We turned a few head as we went around to the three meetings of the block together with our badges on. Laura - thanks for taking the pictures.

Mission Progess - Not bad. I took 14 phone calls in 3 days and have done 3 emails today. Strangest call - a lady concerned about a genealogist who contacted her grown daughter on Facebook and had the family genealogy down to a marriage 2 weeks ago. Her husband was sure the Church was publishing their private lives. I assured her we weren't and gave her some tips on where to look to see if their data was posted somewhere online.

Prop 8 - The update is an up and down thing. We won! But the battle is just beginning. Protest marches everywhere. Chaples and temples picketed and spray painted. This may become a good test of faith precluding the last days. I am sure we will all have more to experience on this topic.

Birthdays comming up: Heidi the 14th and Maree on the 16th. Hey, have great birthdays daughters. Don't even breath a word as to your ages - it just makes me feel older. Funny, we started and ended our family on the same week of the year. Love you all!

California Proposition 8 - A Must Yes Vote

Probably the most important election day in my lifetime will be tomorrow (Tuesday, November 4th). It is essential that we, and all we know, actually go out and vote tomorrow. Today's Fresno Bee had two entire 1 page adds supporting Prop. 8.

We had a visiting GA in our ward yesterday, visiting his son who lives in our ward, Elder Tad Callister of the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy. The entire teacher's quorum went up as it was Testimony Meeting. The son of our 2nd councilor in the bishopric is a jokester and went on and on about Prop 8 and then said don't forget to vote NO and then paused. I wish I could have read Elder Callister's mind at that moment - then the youth said - Just Joking - Vote YES. It was amazing how many of the youth have taken an interest in politics for the first time because of this issue. Here are two links about Prop 8.

This first one is from the web site Protecting Marriage.com - go to

http://protectmarriage.com/tell

The other Maree sent showing a mile and a half of Poway Road near her house being "signed

by supporters of Prop 8 -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mZo-I_HTY

Are we headed into the last days? You would have to have your eyes and ears closed to not realize this is an obvious example of where our society is headed. Put with it the shaky credit situation our nation is in and the signs become clearer every day.

Hey, but don't be discouraged, just do what is right and let the consequences follow. I heard that somewhere (Ha, Ha) but it is the right advice.

Grandpa Jim is 100!

Today would have been my father's 100th birthday. It has been almost a quarter century since he died. Time has really flown by. The sad thing is amost none of us even remember him in this life. I am going to post some pictures of him in his memory today.

Grandpa Jim had a rough life as a young man. His father died in a mine accident when he was just 10. His widowed mother went to live with her mother in the Pima Valley of Arizona and also lived in the Los Angeles area around the time the LA Colleseum was built. He went to high school in the Pima Valley and they got a car. He charged kids from around their home a fee to cover the cost of the rides so that they could afford to have the car. He went joy riding one day during school with the stake president's son and got pulled over by the cops. They were taken to the town magistrate, Spencer Kimball, who read him the riot act. He said one lecture from Spencer was sufficient.

If you have a grandpa Jim story feel free to add it.

More On Maycee

Here are a couple of videos taken on my little Flip camera last night. You've got to love her and yes 6 pounds 9 ounces not the other way around.

So day when Maycee gets an Emmy or Oscar she will remember she made her screen debut on this web site!

Newest Family Addition - Maycee Renae Givens

Today (Oct. 16) Rob and Cody presented us with grandchild 11 - Maycee Renae - at 4:44 PM - weight 9 lb. 6 oz. and 19 3/4 inches. She is adorable and so mellow. She hardly cried the entire time we were in the room. Plus she is sooooooo cute.

California Proposition 8 (Preserving the Definition of Marriage)

The November general election is a significant event in California because of Prop. 8. I hope everyone who reads this blog entry and vote in California will consider voting yes on this propostiton so the traditional definition of marriage can be returned to law in the state of California. I encourage all my family members to blog this important topic on their blogs too. We need to get the word out in California. This might be the most important vote you ever cast come November. This proposition isn't aimed at descriminating against anyone, it is strictly about defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Vote Yes on 8.

No Longer a Trainee Missionary

Maree asked me in an email how being on my own is going and this was my answer. I decided you all might enjoy it.

On my own is taking a little time getting into full swing. I have had some computer ISP trouble and we pinned it down to our DSL modem beginning to die a slow death. Because of that I have been reluctant to take live phone calls as I HAVE to have access to the online data base (Kanisa) where all the knowledge documents with answers to questions are found. My Mission Leader Assistant (the one in Murietta who is visiting taught by Sophia's mother - not Sophia) says she is happy to wait too. I was going to switch TV to Dish TV today but called ATT about the modem and they talked me into going with their own fiber optic TV package and bundled a higher speed internet with it giving me a free new modem and $200 back after three months to do that. They also lowered my phone bill and must have put caller ID on because my first phone call was from Aimee and the phne announced in a voice that Aimee's charter was calling me. Wild! Anyway they will be out Monday afternoon to install all this so it will be next week before I probably take phone calls live.

In the mean time I have been picking up a couple of emails each evening to work on. The first two I picked up on Sunday night. Wrote out my replies and then had to email them to my MLA for her to review before they could be sent out. She was very impressed with them. They answered the questions correctly and were written well. Hey, 39 years of teaching grammar - I should be able to write. Anyway she said I could take other emails and after researching them at my leisure I can (if they have a phone number attached call the patron with the answer. This doesn't need her supervision as the finding of answers is the hard part of the job. She feels confident that I can actually find answers - and that is the big problem with new missionaries.
So last night I picked two more emails out. I do this at night because during the day there are hundreds of missionaries working and the emails get snapped up quickly. In fact according to the tracking numbers they got over 1000 yesterday alone and this doesn't count the phone calls which outnumber the emails.

When you pull up the email to work on it, it goes into a program called Clarify. The clarify screen shows the case number, name of the patron, email address, phone #, etc. and gives you a place to record the topic the request is on and guides you to the answer and and a place to compose the answer and send it. SO - when I opened the second email I had randomly chosen based on the subject line of the message I was floored to find it was from Kathy Burrow's mother Barbara Hammond in Indiana. You should know the Burrows. Kathy is a really good friend of mine since we travel in the same genealogy circles.

I had attended (in an Adobe Conference) a devotional last week where the speaker said as missionaries we would be guided to the patrons who needed us specifically to answer their questions. I think this was a case of that but to show me (not the patron) how that works. No matter what it was bizarre. I am going to call her (and the other patron from Canada that I picked up last night) this morning and discuss with them how to solve their problems. The church really wants us to make contact by phone as the satisfaction level of the patrons goes way up when they are contacted by phone. I get a bonus if I do that because I don't have to be reviewed by anyone right now if I call them back so it is a win - win for everyone.

So that is how it is going.