The deer saga is over – Laura got up this morning and found that our gate had been opened and our “pet” had left. Now onto the real news of the day.
I mentioned yesterday that I (we) had an stake interview today at 8:30 A.M. – they first separated us, letting President Eggett chat with Laura to get to know her, as he had done with me weeks ago, September 1. At the same time I met with President Taylor. He asked me to pray and as soon as I finished he asked if I had gone to ward conference. When I said that I had he said, “Wasn’t that an incredible meeting?” I agreed and told him how Laura and I had talked about it and Laura had lamented not really understanding gathering since she had missed both ward and Stake conference when it was discussed due to sick children. President Taylor offered to come to our house and tell Laura all about it. He then did a brief worthiness interview and then President Taylor asked if Laura would be supportive of a time-intensive calling for me. I assured him that she would and then he stood and said that we should invite her in. When he opened the door Laura came in followed by President Eggett and President Martin. The three of them sat facing us and President Eggett reported tot he other members of the presidency that he had found Laura to be a have a strong testimony and be very supportive of whatever they had in mind then President Taylor got down to brass tacks – he extended the call to have me serve as president of the Elder’s Quorum. The whole rest of the day was like being wrapped in a warm blanket – we talked about me calling counselors and how that process would go. The call will be sustained in two weeks but I need to choose counselors within the week so that those calls can be extended. Laura and I set up an appointment for President Taylor to come visit us this afternoon.
During testimony meeting I was very gratified to hear our babysitter, Rachel Olsen, bear her testimony and express her love for our kids and her admiration for us. I’m sure Bishop enjoyed hearing that as he undoubtedly knew already that this call had been extended. I had a great lesson in Sunday School on the importance of having a prophet and how we could and should follow the prophet. I told them how much I loved each of them and expressed that my singular desire for our class was that they would know how much I loved the Savior and hoped that they could also feel His love for them and develop a personal love for Him.
After church I had a short home teaching visit with Melody Starmer, John Mills and I gave her a blessing as she and her husband Dean, who is in California right now, face bankruptcy because of the economic downturn of the last year. I left that and came home just as President Taylor was expected. He arrived just as Laura was finishing her lunch. I introduced him to each of the kids and explained that this was the man I had asked them to start praying for two weeks ago and he spent an entire hour with us telling us more details about gathering than he had been able to share in any of the ward conferences. Laura loved it. He also invited us to share our feelings about where we were are a family. One of the things that I told him was of the great affinity I had felt for Bishop Tueller and him even before the call and how much I was looking forward to working with each of them.
This evening we has a sing-in, which we plan to do monthly. We arranged it after President Taylor left but we managed to get Mom, Grandpa, Bill and Lisa, and JP and Marie. We had cookies and sang hymns and talked. I told people about the calling. When I mentioned President Taylor Mom asked what his name was. I told her it was Brian Taylor and she asked if he had seven kids (he does) and told me that he was the man that had rescued her the night in January when she got stuck in the snow down the hill from my house. I remember digging her car out from the stake center parking lot the next day – I love the idea that he was the one who rescued her. Mom emailed the details tonight of who rescued her and the date – it was January 2nd – 8 days before he was called as Stake President.
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