044 Tuesday to Tuesday (Feb. 18-24, 2015)

I believe I have a little girl that showed up as fourth in our line of children. At St. Francis, we were able to bring our baby into the world. We were going to name her Beth Anne, but then because Pappy was so unhappy with the Biblical name we gave Adam and we hadn’t named our son after him, we decided to err on the side of caution and compromise with Mary Bethanne after Pappy’s mother, Mary Alexander Lenhard. I’m afraid our daughter has cursed us ever since that decision was made. It seems that no one could understand that Beth Anne could be combined into one name. It was constantly being misspelled and shortened. I still think it is very appropriate for the shortest kid to show up in our family. 

Amazing, she was ready to talk early.

Her 1st birthday.

I think that Bethanne and Adam became best friends growing up because Bethanne decided she could be just as tough as Adam. They played together constantly when little. After the older two went off to school, these two could get into so much. They were very competitive and to this day, Bethanne is still very much that way. She always wants to be the best, act the best, teach the best, you name it. 

By far, Bethanne had the greatest curly hair in the family. Katie was strictly straight, Amy had slight curls, but Bethanne had tight curls all over her head. She had light, almost strawberry blond hair. Many of her pictures show her with a bright smile, muscular little arms, taking on the world expression. I think her children have that same look. 

Such a sweet disposition

Attitudinal???????

Beautiful!

 This girl was quite an athlete. Many times we watched her challenge her opponents and come off victorious. In her pursuits, she never gave up, and she was quick to take advantage of her opponents. We used to laugh at her antics, but I know there were those who played against her who were not amused. She was and is just so darn cute when she gets the bit between her teeth. 

Bethanne was also a cuddler. She liked to be held, and she was a peace maker. She was also an incurable flirt. I laugh to myself every time I remember the first young man who came to our house to (what was he there for anyway). The living room was kinda dark with a light on beside them. They sat on the couch while I was fixing dinner and trying to discreetly keep an eye on them. I think he gave her a ring of some kind. Anyway, I think it was awkward, and he finally left. Bethanne tells me I have no idea how much effort she put into the flirting. 

Let’s get on with it.

We began Wednesday (18^th) with picking up Victor and taking him to the Genealogy Library. I think he must have found two sets of gggrandparents and one set of ggggrandparents. He is so excited. I watch him and encourage him to follow the hints, but he wants to go for the big guns and not waste time on searching the little clues. Before it is over, I think he will figure out how valuable it is to dig deeper and look in the unlikely places for clues he might have missed. Right now he is just getting the surface people, but eventually, he’ll hit a brick and he will start searching in a different way.

After we finished there, we came home to make some calls to members in the Branch who will need to be at Church the next Sunday because of a special meeting that will be held to tell us about the Branch realignment. We certainly don’t want to miss that. We then picked up some missionaries later in the afternoon and headed to the North Stake Building to help someone with genealogy. When we got to the building, no one was there, and we figured it was a no show. Eventually, he showed up. The missionaries were going to teach him first, so Craig went with them while I got the computer set up (I’d been having trouble getting it to logon at the Church). They were in a meeting for an hour and a half. I entertained myself. He and Craig hit it right off. This man had many questions of the type that only Craig understood what he was asking. The Elders told us afterward that they were glad Craig was there because they had no idea what was being said. By the time they were finished with their meeting, it was too late to do any genealogy. He and his wife were actually moving on Friday so we wouldn’t see them again. He was taking a teaching job in Virginia. Maybe they will find the missionaries there, and he will have a desire to know more.

On Thursday, I was totally immersed in the math work. Truly, this is a college class in the amount of work the students have to do. I feel like I need to know what is happening in case the teacher gets in trouble. It is a good thing that we have so many really good students in there who are so willing to help the others. As it is we end up staying late every week helping after the class time.

Craig had to go talk with someone about employment that morning, so he was gone for a while.

Friday, we spent time taking Omar for food. It was cold, and there was still a lot of snow on the ground. We were beginning to feel the need for a change in the weather. It is really odd to drive past lake after lake, and they are covered in snow and ice. We have heard that there may be a shortage of fish because they can’t live in the frozen water for one thing, and it is too hard to get to them.

We went with the other Senior Missionaries to Apple Hollow on Saturday morning for breakfast. We had actually planned to go to Denise’s that morning, but she called and had decided that she was going to take care of the kids by herself. She was going to make a contract with the kids to get them to act better and be more obedient and respectful to her. That left us free, so we called the other Seniors, and they had already left for the Kenosha (south of us) area. We love to eat at Apple Hollow. They have a great breakfast buffet. I need to get some sausage and make sausage gravy. Haven’t done it in a while. 

Elder and Sister Linsley, Elder Barley (wife went to inspect buffet), and Elder and Sister Carter on this side with me.

 That evening, we went to a local high school for a play. The other Senior missionaries and Dave and Virginia Armstrong went also. Bye-Bye Birdie was on tap for the night. I vaguely remember the movie with Ann Margaret and Elvis Pressley so long ago. I knew it was a musical, but if anyone had asked what it was about, I couldn’t have told them. We were pleasantly surprised at how good it was. There was a little chunky girl (I don’t know if she was really chunky or not, but every other girl in the production was rail-thin) who played the mother of the main character that Elvis played. She was the long-suffering mom who wanted her son to be a mother’s boy. We laughed at just about everything she said. She was good. I love this kind of entertainment. Before we left Utah we had discovered the school productions there, and we really enjoyed them. When we get back, we hope to see many more.

Sunday finally rolled around. We had a special meeting that morning where the Stake Leaders came in and disbanded the City Branch. We had a meeting that night that would give us the wherebys and wherewithals. It was sad to think that we would have no more meetings in that building. A person who had been baptized there many, many years ago told us that when the Church sold the building back in the 80s or 90s; the group that bought it painted over so much of the woodwork and tried to remove the Sacrament table and other things. We eventually bought it back, but it doesn’t look like its glory in the early days. But we liked it. The Spanish Branch will continue to meet there and will start their meetings in the mornings now.

That evening we found out our new ward is called Parkway. It is several miles from the City Branch building, but the roads are so much nicer. The majority of the Branch members will be in Parkway, but some members are zoned for the Milwaukee I Ward. Some of the Milwaukee I Ward members will go to the Lake Michigan Ward. No one from Lake Michigan had to move to another building. We are excited about our new home. After the meeting, President Cutler met with the missionaries and ironed out exactly where the missionaries would be going. We still live in the South Stake and will still go to a North Stake Ward. I still get it mixed up.

On Monday, we headed first to the gym and after coming home to clean up, we went to the Parkway building just to find out where we would be meeting and the best way to get there. We took the freeway next to the apts, got off at an exit and made two turns and we are on the road to the Church. Beautiful neighborhoods, great roads!

I spent 3.5 hours on math that afternoon and had to fix dinner for a young sister who had just had a baby. I actually did a good job. There is a place here called Baker’s Square. They make pies that are out of this world. I bought a peach one and even had dessert to take to the family.

Tuesday the 24^th found us meeting with a different District because the APs who usually meet with them couldn’t be there. There is a set of Sister missionaries in the District, and they aren’t allowed to meet with just one set of Elders. So we had to be chaperones. It was fun. The Sisters are two of our favorites. We had to leave at 2:30 to get to the other Stake building for math tutoring. We are busy like that. We didn’t get home until 6:00, and we were tired.

Our Scripture for this month comes from 2 Nephi 26:12-13 (actually, just the last few words from 12 and then all of 13):

     “Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God; and …. He manifesteth himself unto all 
     those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost; yea, unto every  
     nation, kindred, tongue, and people, working mighty miracles, signs, and 
     wonders, among the children of men according to their faith.”

Elder and Sister Lenhard