This has been a week of contrasts. One day we find a lot of people home and another day we find so few home. One of the funniest things of our mission happened toward the end of the week. We had an appointment and then decided to go to the Logan Tabernacle for a concert that had been heralded as a great evening of sacred music. The concert was all it was advertised to be but the aftermath was the funny part. It had rained some during the day and it was lightly raining as we hurried to get to the concert to hear as much as was left because we knew it had started earlier than we could get there. As we departed the Tabernacle the rain was coming down hard. We didn't take an umbrella or anything to shield us from such a downpour. As we started for the car, not only was the rain coming in torrents but the sprinklers had turned on and as we walked up the sidewalk to get to the car, one sprinkler hit us full force, almost knocking us down because it was an industrial sized sprinkler head that rotated into our pathway. A couple following behind us just began to laugh as they had avoided the sprinkler and we had not. We avoided one more sprinkler on the way to the corner but we were soaked to the skin. We finally made it to the car and drove home and made hot chocolate even though the temperature hovered around 70*.
  One of the sweetest things during the week was being invited to dinner with a family that has nine children and expecting number ten. The evening was quite nice and we sat outside and enjoyed a home cooked meal of baked potatoes, meatloaf, and beans from the garden. We shared a message from Pres. Monson about "What Matters Most."Among other things, he says, "Never let a problem to be solved be more important than a person to be loved."  The sweetest thing was as we were ready to leave one of the children asked, "Mom, can we have the missionaries come and eat with us again? We sent a letter of thanks to the family and the mother responded with thanks for us coming. She said every once in a while something comes up in the family and she asks, "What matters most?"
  We have had a great week of teaching. We enjoy visiting and teaching every time we can. Some of the visits are more like home teaching visits, which is fine with us. Several of the people we visit are older people and sometimes lonely. They appreciate our visits and our message. We feel good when we share a message and leave with a prayer and blessing in their homes.
  We really had a busy day today. We started with a ward council meeting this morning and then went to two sacrament meetings. Following our missionary correlation meeting this afternoon we had dinner with a family that used to live in our ward while I was Bishop. The children are growing up and quite enjoy having us come and talk with them. We then took one of our young missionary sisters to a ward teacher improvement meeting where she gave a great presentation on how to set the stage for people to feel the spirit of the Lord and then help them identify what they were feeling. She did a great job in explaining the concept.
  On the way home I turned on the radio and heard Bro Newell's thought from The Spoken Word. He was talking about finding happiness in life. He said, someone once observed that the most happy people are not the ones who have everything they want, but those who want everything they have. That is something we should all consider as we try to find happiness in each of our lives.
The greatest source of happiness in this life is to devote our energy in learning about the great blessing of Jesus Christ and what he has done to make it possible for our lives to be happy.
Have a great week!