Oh my...part 3

At the end of January I went to a Women's Conference orientation meeting. It was very interesting to see how they do things. Apparently about 200 women will be speaking over the two day conference on various topics that relate to the overall theme. They described the process of how we came to sit in the room among those 200 women. We were put in small groups with a general board member leader. After listening to Sister Beck, President Samuelson, Sandra Rogers and a beautiful musical number, we were given a packet of information and some time to coordinate with our partner speaker. My partner wasn't able to attend, so I chatted with Sister Cook of the RS general presidency about Mongolia since she and her husband were the first mission president to start missionary work in that land. It was a lovely evening and a great chance to find out what is going to happen and how things work.

Here's some info I found out:

• Our topic "The Humble Seeker of Happiness (Alma 27:18): Finding Joy
  

• I share a 50 minute session with a woman named Betty G. We will each speak for 25 minutes. She starts and I follow. Her little bio states: Mother; University of Utah graduate, wife of cancer survivor, Relief Society Counselor, mother of former drug addict, depression survivor, happy. On the way home from Logan a few weeks ago, I stopped at her home and met her. We figured out how we will divide our topic and what we would each like to talk about. She is a very fine woman and it will be a privilege to speak with her.
  
• On both Thursday and Friday of the conference, they start and end the day with general sessions in the Marriott Center at 9:00 am and 3:45 pm. In between the two general sessions, there are concurrent sessions at 11:00, 12:30 and 2:00. During the concurrent session hours, participants select between 16 venues offering sessions on a variety of topics.
  
• Our room assignment is in the BYU Conference center room 2258-2260 with a room capacity of 400. We will speak on Friday, April 30 from 2:00-3:00.
• I will be given one additional complimentary full-conference badge and five free one-session guest passes. I've already promised these guest passes to my family. Additional guest passes may be purchased at $8.00 each before April 2. If you would like to purchase one of these one-session guest passes, please let me know and I'll order one for you. Everyone has to have a conference pass to attend any sessions of the conference.
  
• The cost of the full conference is $42. A one day ticket $25. Prices rise to $49 and $29 after April 2. (I'm not sure why they charge so much, but they didn't ask me.)

I think it would be fun to have lunch that day (Friday) with whoever is in town for the conference. We can meet in my office conference room and chat from 12:00-12:30 or 1:00. I'll order in some food from Brick Oven. Let me know if you're interested in coming to lunch that day.

News from Chile

Another huge earthquake in the world last night. 8.8 in Conception, Chile. We just got this email from our friends Ted and Cheryl who live in Santiago, Chile. He is the temple President there. We served with them at the MTC for about a year before they got their new calling in Chile. What a terrible experience for them and all the people in Chile. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them.

We can state unequivocally that we're fine. We can also state with the same emphasis that riding through that quake in our rocking fourth-floor apartment was for me the scariest experience I've ever been through! I was sure we were about to die - that either the ceiling would fall on us or that we'd collapse through the floor. It truly was an emotion I'd never experienced before. My whole body shook for the next two hours, and after that I couldn't stop crying. We didn't even have the presence of mind to get out of bed during the quake. I felt paralyzed, staring at the ceiling and wondering when the earth would stop rolling. It was the longest two minutes of our lives! We could hear things falling out of cupboards, and pictures falling off the walls. But the sound and the movement was the worst.

Our sturdy building held up fine. Just lots of dust and a few broken dishes. But elsewhere, as I'm sure you've seen on the news, people didn't fare as well. Lots of damage. Virtually no stores open. Most parts of Santiago still have no electricity. Collapsed overpasses have closed major highways. The airport is closed because of damage, and planes have been rerouted to northern Chile or to Argentina. Our new missionary doctor was to arrive this morning, so I don't know where he and his wife have ended up.

What a joy to walk into the temple and find it in perfect condition. We just had to close a few drawers and straighten a few crooked pictures. It felt so good to be there in that peaceful refuge and find normality. Moroni did lose his trumpet, however! That was the only noticeable damage.

How grateful we are for how well the Church takes care of us. We've often thought the 24-hour emergency lights in our building were excessive, but we were surely thankful for them at 3:30 this morning as everyone was evacuating the building - including the missionaries downstairs in the MTC. It was so disconcerting to get out of bed in the dark and stumble over fallen items in the bathroom. We got just a taste of what the Haitians have suffered, though their damage and deaths have been so much more devastating, even though their quake a weaker one. So far here they're reporting 123 deaths, but we assume the toll will climb.

We had to decide what to do about the temple. We had every session booked for the day, and wondered if people would arrive. We met with one of Ted's counselors - who had arrived at 5:00 for the early shift, as faithful as ever - and our registrar. We knew it would be difficult for the employees and workers to get to the temple and there was not electricity at the time. One faithful laundry sister came a great distance to help, but there was no gas for the dryers, so she had baptismal clothes from last night lying out all over the laundry. The temple has an emergency generator which roars into action the second the power goes out. But we learned that it runs on petroleum which lasts only four hours. By 8 a.m. we knew we were about to go dark again, so we made the decision to simply close the temple for the day. Then, just in the second that the lights began to dim, the power came back on! (We've learned since that we're the only section of Santiago that has power yet.) So then we decided to hold just one session, since we had three out-of-town couples staying in the hospedaje who were expecting to receive their endowments and be sealed today. We mustered all the missionary couples, along with a group of faithful sisters who work the late shift on Fridays and then stay over for the Sat morning shift. We had a most moving morning. The quake had brought such a sense of unity to workers and patrons, and the Spirit was amazing. I've seldom had such a moving experience at the veil - with three consecutive young sisters who were receiving their endowments.

Right now we're sleep-deprived, and Ted has already gone back to bed. We were out until 1 a.m. at a wedding reception. We try our best not to go to those, since they last so long, and involve some really weird traditions where the bride and groom don't arrive until two hours or so after the appointed time. You're expected to stay, to eat a major meal at midnight, etc. So we only got a couple hours of sleep. Then the stress of the rest of the night has left us exhausted - but we're alive and well! We're still feeling aftershocks - called "replicas" in Spanish. They're reported about 25 of them. One just rolled by as I was writing this.

So, that's the report. After some rest we may venture out and about to see what we can see.

Thanks for your love and concern.

Ted and Cheryl

Simply delicious

These juices are simply the BEST juice I have ever tasted. Rick and I are addicted. My personal favorite? Simply Limeade of course! I LOVE that tart tangy taste. They tasted almost like I had made them myself, chock full of zesty and tangy citrus flavor and very refreshing.

Now February isn't the time of year I would normally talk about lemon and limeade but these make great drinks for any time of year. With their tart, real citrus flavor they bring some excitement to what would normally be a boring drink. They're on sale this week at Macey's grocery store, so stock up!

Mongolia, here we come

Check out the interesting information HERE to learn more about Mongolia on their official tourism website. We're leaving in a couple of weeks! I can hardly stand it I'm so excited.

This from their website:

Mongolia is located in the heart of Asian Landscape in which has immeasurable huge grass of steppes, sand dunes, rocky and forest Mountain ranges. Traditionally, Mongolian lifestyle is based on nomadic lifestyle in which consists of vary kind of nomadic tribes. Moreover, we are the people who live under the blue sky that is remarkable sunny country enjoying 280 sunny days per year. The climate is such extremely wide open and because of the location, Mongolia is far from seas and oceans in the lee of surrounding Mountains, so that it is very dry and cold as well as diversity of natural environmental country. In summer time, average temperature 20 celcius and – 24 Celsius in a winter. In each part of areas has its own different feature that you will never forget if you visit there once.
Territory: 603908 square miles Population: 2,951,786Highest Elevation: 14350 feet Terrain: Vast semi –desert and plains, mountains are in the west and southwest, the Gobi Desert is south and southeast.

Climate: There are four well-defined seasons, and on average, the sun shines for well over 250 days a year. The climate is extremely continental with low precipitation. Average summer temperature is +20’C, average winter temperature is -26’C, average rainfall -200-220 mm. winter lasts from November to late April. Although winter is cold with lot of snowfall, it also has many sunny days.

Government: Parliamentary republic State structure: Unitary state administratively divided into 22 provinces and a capital city.

Capital: Ulaanbaatar (population approx 1 million)

Economy: It is traditional based on agriculture livestock breeding and also mining (mainly gold, coal, copper)

Language: Mongolian Language. Common spoken foreign languages –English and Russian

Religions: Buddhism is dominant, but traditionally we accustomed to have focused more attention on shamanism. Some elements of Christians and Muslims are available as well.

Currency: Tugrik, All major currencies can be exchange at banks and licensed exchange centers in Ulaanbaatar. Credit cards are accepted at biggest hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. Food: There are varieties of restaurants in Ulaanbaatar serving Mongolian, Chinese, Russian, European, Japanese, and Korean, Thai and Latin American foods.

BYU Television

I don't know if many of you are aware of BYU - TV. It has so much to offer and is a great channel to watch. It's available as a cable TV station in most areas, as well as being available to watch live over the Internet. I watch the BYU weekly devotionals in my office each Tuesday at 10:00 am over the Internet. I know, I'm lazy because I don't walk over to the Marriott center, but having it available over the Internet makes it very convenient. If you're busy doing work around the house at 10:00 on Tuesdays, just turn it on and listen while you work! You can learn something new and have great ideas to think about. It's an amazing service and very good programming. A new building is going up to house the expansion of BYU television. It is located just north of the Bean museum and the framing was just finished on the project. It's going to be a great addition to BYU and a great way to get quality programming into more homes. Give it a look!
BYU Television is celebrating 10 years of success and in 2010 will be expanding their vision. BYU Television, a service provided by BYU Broadcasting, is often confused with KBYU TV. While KBYU TV is a public service limited to Utah, BYU Television reaches audiences across the world on 650 cable systems–reaching more than 50 million households in the USA and millions more internationally.
BYU-TV’s new tagline, “See the Good in the World,” describes their mission to provide good content with LDS values, including content from BYU campuses and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Programs often include BYU devotionals, BYU sports, General Conference, and various religious and educational series. Four original series produced by BYU-TV will launch in January:
The Generations Project is a genealogy-based show where individuals with compelling stories trace their roots. In this reality show, individuals discover things about their own family at the same time the audience does.
Messiah: Behold the Lamb of God follows the life and mission of Jesus Christ from the pre-mortal life to the final judgment.
Iris is a documentary biography series.
The Food Nanny is a make-over show where family mealtimes are rescued in order to help families connect more.
BYU-TV has about 70 full-time staff and over 200 student employees. The station will also be overhauling their Web sites and reaching out through social media to better connect to audiences and to make a richer BYU-TV experience.
BYU-TV is a good source of family-friendly television programming.
Learn more about BYU-TV’s new strategy at LDS Living.