Toppenish Church Building

You may wonder why a post with a picture of the church building. Well, I have been thinking just how much my life has revolved around this and other church buildings. Of course I have been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all my life. The first building that I remember, of course, is the old Mapleton Ward building. I went to Primary and Sunday School there and later Mutual. I left for my mission from there and returned home there.

There were different church buildings from my mission. I remember well the chapels in Curitiba and Santos. I also remember meeting in rented houses that, while not as nice as the church buildings did provide a place for a growing church to meet.

After I returned from my mission I remember attending church now and again at Franklin and at Whitney because my work schedule at Del Monte sometimes prevented me from attending my home ward during the summer months.

After Teri and I married we went to church in the Preston North Stake Center for a while and then in the 3rd/7th Ward building in Preston. When we moved to Burley we went to the Star Ward Building and even after we were changed into the Burley First Ward we continued to meet in that same building. One of the memories I have of that building is going to get the kids from Primary and standing in the hall waiting for them. The Primary was singing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" (" O How Lovely was the Morning"). There I felt the spirit renew my testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith. We later moved into the city of Burley and attended church in a relatively new building there.

When we moved to Zillah the building in the picture accompanying this post is where we met and still do up to this day. I served as Elder's Quorum President here, and then bishop and then on the stake high council. Of course there are other buildings of the church which have influenced me too like the Logan temple where I went for the first time prior to serving my mission. There is the Ogden temple where Teri and I were married. The Boise Temple, the Provo Temple and the Columbia River Temple have also been important church buildings to me.

The church is not the buildings but they each one represent a period in my life that I can reflect upon and think how good God has been to me.

End of May

The month of May is fast drawing to a close. I can not believe how fast this month has gone by. I would expect that summer would soon be upon us but today does not indicate that it is very close. It has been cool and rainy again and that seems to the norm. We expect to have peas come on sometime in the middle of June. I am getting the ingredients together now so that they will be ready when the peas are.

We finally got the garden planted. The cool spring has just not prompted me to get out and get it done. We planted a few less things this year. The garden spot is not large enough for a lot of squash, pumpkin and the like. We do like to have some tomatoes though so we planted those and lettuce, carrots, and peas. We did have a pretty good crop of weeds coming until we roto-tilled the last time.

H-O-T

It is hot today!!!! It got up to 98.2 degrees F. today. Almost sounds like a body temperature doesn't it? Just Monday it was only in the 60's so it has been quite a shock to our system. We started up the air conditioner yesterday afternoon. There are things I should be doing outside but it is just too hot to do it.

Toppenish Murals

The city of Toppenish is famous for its murals. Here are just a couple of them. The swimming pool scene is on the side of the dressing rooms at the municipal pool located just across the street from the LDS Church. There are many such murals located all around the city. I just walked a little way from the church one day while Teri was practicing the organ and snapped these pictures.

Wild Life Photo.

This picture was taken at Mother and Daddy's house the first week of April while we there on spring break. The deer were on the hill behind the house. Zoom lens and digital croping brings them in really close. I wanted to get some pictures of the wild turkeys too but on the second day when I had the camera the turkeys did not show up.

Annie-Z Center Stage

The Z Center Stage Production of Annie began last night. Here are a few pictures of Glen and Rose.

Things Happening in Zillah

1. Pizza Hut opened last week (it is just a take out but hey this is a big thing in a little town)
2. We had supper last night from Pizza Hut
3. The price of gas is 3.779 at the Chevron
4. Community days is coming up this weekend
5. The Z Center Stage production of "Annie" starts on Friday. It runs Friday and Saturday of this week and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of next week (two performances on Saturday the 17th)