Deja Vu' Weekend

This past Friday, David and I attended a 30-year reunion of the 2nd Branch at University Village. It was fun to visit with people that we spent so much time with when we were newlyweds and newly parents. There were a few marriages that didn't make it and a couple of deaths but for the most part we were all still happily living life together. David was remembered as the "Golden Husband" by some of the women because he used to vacuum back in the day. (He still does when I need his help.) The event was held at George and Anne Pingree's home. The highlight of the evening was hearing about their years as mission president in Nigeria and Anne's service in the RS General Presidency. Afterwards we met up with Jonathan and Rebecca Smith and Quinn and Sue Parker and laughed about old times and caught up on current events.

Leann pregnant with Talya and Matt. Our apartment window was directly behind my head.

Family photo up Big Cottonwood Canyon

Christmas Day 1979

Sunday was Stake Conference. Our visiting general authority was Cecil O. Samuelson who happened to be our Stake President during our years at University Village. His spoke about the temple -- specifically the Jordan River Temple and how it was financed. His story went something like this -- He was a newly called Stake President when he was issued an invitation to meet with the First Presidency one Sunday morning. At this meeting, the Stake Presidents of SL Valley were told about the Jordan River Temple and that it would be funded by the members. He was told he would receive a letter in a few days indicating the amount his stake would need to contribute. President Samuelson had in his mind an amount he felt his stake could raise. The letter came and it was the same amount only it had some additional zeros at the end. He was concerned about the amount but his bishops reassured him it could be done. The bishops were then instructed to ask every member to contribute what they could. We remember sitting in President Benson's office (President Pingree had been released at this point) and being asked what we could contribute. David was in school full-time, we had two children and our monthly salary was about $400. We prayed about it and felt that we could come up with $100 cash and sell our car if more was needed. The cash was graciously accepted and the offer for the sale of our car was put on hold. President Samuelson indicated he expected feedback from the bishop's requests but the feedback was completely different from what he anticipated. It was positive. He said that the money began to come in along with an offer to sell a car to help raise the money. Before long the report from his stake indicated we had met the contribution requirement from the church and, in fact, exceeded it. President Samuelson was humbled when he realized the amount we exceeded was the same number as the original amount he felt we could raise. No, we didn't have to sell our car to help build the temple, but the Jordan River Temple will always have a special spot in our hearts because we gave all we could to help build it.

The car in question -- Datsun 710