We met our son's roommates tonight. He decided to attend the University of Utah after high school and moved up in the middle of August.  He is living in the dorms and has a room roommate plus 2 "suite mates." I offered to have them all over for dinner and tonight was the night although one of the suite mates went out of town so we didn't meet him. But it was nice to meet the rest of them and get a clearer picture of what life is like in the dorms.  It's definitely been an atypical first year of college. Because of COVID, they can't eat in the cafeteria. They can't play ping pong or pool in the Union. Almost all of their classes are online. They basically have no social life outside of the friends they've made in the dorm room.  So it's definitely not what they could have hoped for. But no one is having the year they hoped for so that's a small consolation I guess. But they seemed to enjoy their visit. We gave them a home-cooked meal and played ...

 It's been a dry winter. So we rejoiced yesterday when we finally got some snow--enough to make a couple of snowmen and have a good time with our grandchildren who were visiting. I hope it snows a lot more. I also enjoy seeing the plant foliage with snow on it. And our old cherry tree log that has been sitting in our backyard for about 15 years.

Recently we visited Zion National Park. The  last time we went was in 2014.  It was a very short trip--we left Friday evening at 5pm and got back about 9pm on Saturday. We stayed Friday night in a Comfort Inn in Hurricane which is about 30 minutes from the entrance. Usually we are quite happy with Comfort Inn stays and this one was also good except for the breakfast. COVID has changed the buffet-style meals to whatever can be done in pre-wrapped single servings. The breakfast choices were: instant oatmeal, packaged muffins, hot chocolate packets, small yogurts, oranges, apples, and orange juice. We were looking forward to bacon or sausage, eggs, or make your own waffles but that is so 2019. So we ate from what was available and it was fine. We headed to Zion a little after 9am and got to the entrance close to 10 after waiting in line. Unfortunately at this time of year, the shuttles into the park are not running. This would not be a problem except that they close the Scenic D...

About a year ago, I felt like we should volunteer to help a refugee organization, Utah Valley Refugees. So I called them and gave them our information but nothing happened. About six months later, in June, someone called me and asked if we were still interested in helping and I said yes. So we were assigned to a family that lived really close to us. They had recently moved over from Democratic Republic of Congo. This family ended up being really hard to help for a variety of reasons. So the organization assigned us to a different family and that has been working out much better. This family is a single mother and her four children. They recently moved here from a different state, leaving a bad family situation. They have lived in the USA for several years so they know more English and have a better idea of what they need to do. I have been teaching the mother English over the phone and have also helped her in other ways--get groceries, take her to the bank, etc. Tonight we went over an...

 This last year we studied the Book of Mormon as a family. I also read the Book of Mormon on my own. As part of my study I decided to summarize each verse I read and write it down in a notebook, trying to use different words than the ones in the book. It was actually a great way to study and really kept me focused. It can be very easy to let your mind wander when you're just reading. But when I had to write down a summary, I really had to focus. It also didn't take as long to do as you might expect. So what's my opinion of the Book of Mormon after spending not quite a year reading and rewriting it? My opinion is that the book is what Joseph Smith said it was--a translation of ancient records. I don't think ANYONE could have made it up, let alone Joseph Smith who had very little formal education--three years to be exact. His wife said, "Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon....