For Thy Bounteous Blessings

We love Thanksgiving and the stately cadence of many of our thanksgiving hymns. A favorite is the Primary round For Thy Bounteous Blessings:

(1) For thy bounteous blessings,
(2) For thy wondrous word,
(3) For thy loving kindness,
(4) We give thanks, O Lord.

The words of this round pretty much summarize our deep gratitude for our many blessings and for the grace and teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We just finished Thanksgiving Week, and we have much to be grateful for.  Among the most important are our testimonies, our mission, each other, ours sons, Michael and David, our daughter-in-law, Wendy, and our grandchildren, Faith, Hailey, Noah, Ammon, and Elizabeth (Lizzie).  Then we can continue on to brothers, Ron, Thyce, Kenneth, Michael, and Jeffrey, parents, aunts; all of the extended family. Add our dear converts and investigators and friends here in Georgia and back home in Utah. We can't leave out our health, this country, and the beauties of nature. The list goes on and on, and it includes scriptures, prophets, revelation, temples; again, on and on our blessings go. All of them come to us through a loving Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Our blessings and activities the past two weeks have been many and varied. Each and every day in the mission office is a blessing. We love serving the elders and sisters. We've had a big baptism month, and we experienced a slight change in the schedules for Transfer Week. Because of Thanksgiving, the released elders went home on Tuesday morning, the same day we picked up a new group of elders in the afternoon.  That meant two trips to the airport with the cargo trailer behind us. We were fortunate to avoid the heavy holiday traffic which seemed to jam in the opposite directions we traveled through downtown Atlanta during the day. Elder Williams, one of the Assistants, was among those departing. We look forward to working with Elder Edmunds (from Ogden, UT) who will now work with Elder Hanny. More changes lie ahead this week. Elder and Sister Bolt, our volunteer missionaries from Lilburn, who have been the Finance and Housing coordinators, will be released at the end of November (after extending for 7 months!)  Elder and Sister Hall from Orem arrived in Georgia on Friday. They are a delightful couple, and we know we will enjoy working with them. There will be training this week, and then we'll bid the Bolts farewell. We will miss their talents and Elder Bolt's "tales."  But since the Bolts live in the Lilburn Ward, we will continue to enjoy their good company. We hope they can slow down a bit and will be able to now spend weekdays at their ranch in South Carolina and weekends at their primary home with their ward family (it's been the opposite during the mission and very tiring for them.)

We took the Halls to dinner on Friday evening to Dos Hermanos, our favorite authentic Mexican food restaurant, and helped them settle in a bit. On Saturday we introduced them to their assignments as we met a U-Haul truck at the Mission Office. It was filled with furnishings for missionary apartments donated by the Collins Hill Ward, about 15 miles east. We escorted the truck to the mission's commercial storage sheds and helped with the unloading. The three storage units are pretty much filled, and we are accepting donations from five stakes over the next five Saturdays and anytime donations from the Lilburn Stake as they arrive. Why all the donations?  President Wolfert has been working with the six stake presidents in the mission on strategies for integrating 70-100 additional missionaries in the next 6 months. Potentials include 70 new sisters; we now have only 14. What does a potential 60% increase in missionaries mean? Lots of new apartments and furnishing and supplies for them, additional vehicles, increased correspondence, paperwork, and mail, creation of new mission areas, nearly every missionary becoming a trainer, and logistics for leaders at ward, stake, mission, area, and Church levels to anticipate and administer. It's going to be great fun! As of today, however, our January arrivals are at normal levels.  Where do we store all the "stuff" in the meantime?  When will we know for a certainty how many, who, and when? We smile as we ask these questions and look forward to 2013 with anticipation and a commitment to work together.

Lisa Kotter, the Ward Relief Society president invited several investigators and new converts who did not have other family plans to her home for Thanksgiving dinner. Many of their children are friends, and it was a great fit for the families. (Lisa is the daughter of Elder Cornish of the Seventy.) The Clarks headed with the Obers to Texas for dinner with their son's family. After talking to the Stowells, a wonderful senior couple serving in Jonesboro, we decided to invite them to share Thanksgiving Day with us. They, too, couldn't find a good "we'll cook dinner for you fit", and had hit that point where a change of view felt welcome to them. So they became our Thanksgiving project. Rather than cook a meal, we spent the morning at Stone Mountain Park.

The park was not as crowded as it may have been on an earlier fall weekend, allowing us to enjoy a few highlights, some photos, and the tram ride to the top of Stone Mountain. We definitely need to take one of our Saturday exercise outings to take the hike to the top! We then joined the senior Kotter family (all 35 of them) for dinner. It was a full house, but the feeling was relaxed and informal. We then parted to our various apartments to connect with family by phone. Mike and Wendy and the kids were enjoying dinner in Arizona with Wendy's sister's (Jacque) family. Dave didn't return our voice message until Friday. He spent Thanksgiving alone at home - resting and giving thanks and finally posting online some enriched comments and pictures for what I'll explain next about Canguro Racing's November achievement.

I'll use David's words to tell the history of Canguro Racing: Canguro Racing formed somewhere in the mountains of Northern Utah. Or maybe amongst the saguaros of Baja, Mexico. It might just have happened on the slickrock mesas of Moab. The truth is that there is no exact date when Canguro Racing was created. Ten years ago the six of us were complete strangers. Through a shared love of the venerable Toyota Land Cruiser we all became friends. Each of us has been active in the off-roading community for over 15 years, traveled thousands of dusty, washboard miles and have served in local and national leadership positions for various volunteer organizations. Sometime over the past 18 months the timing finally worked out so we could join together for our Baja 1000 adventure. We’re excited for what lies ahead of us and are grateful to all our friends, family, and supporters, without which this would never happen.

Dave and our mutual friends, Ryan Davis, Darren Webster, Kurt Williams, Marc VanTassell, and Dave Helm (sitting in for original team member, Will Carroll) completed their goal to run and cross the finish line in the 2012 Baja 1000. The race:  Started about 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday, November 15; about 200 miles for each driver; 1100 miles in all; 42 total hours; one broken power steering belt and voltage regulator; rough track conditions from rain and hurricane damage; sheer joy in their faces in the photos on the grandstand. Only one in three starting cars finished the race - the longest off road event in the world. We watched (when we could) by checking in periodically on the internet to see the marker for car #1404 (Mathilda) move along the tracker application's map route. The GPS updated their location about every two minutes. We held our breath when they stopped at places other than check points; we cheered after check point stops and as they changed drivers and continued on. And we did all this while we slept and did our mission work. Somehow in our periodic checking we hit the highlights of their movement even though we missed hours at a time.

We were at a soccer game with the Clarks (Izzie's last game of the season) on Saturday morning. We watched Mathilda jump to the finish line on our cell phone's browser about 8 a.m. The Clarks were mildly appreciative; they were much more engaged in the soccer game. But we knew what a big deal this was; a difficult challenge physically, mentally, and financially. It was the culmination of the hard work of dozens of friends. And these men are our friends, too. They finished - safely and successfully! It was cold and windy at the soccer game; Linda lingered in the backseat of the car after the others stepped out to watch the game. They thought I was hiding from the wind; I was actually crying a prayer of gratitude for the accomplishment and for the competitors and their families that I love. Our prayer (many prayers) for their safety and success were answered.  There will be much online chatter and pictures about their adventure. We'll miss most of it; but hopefully we'll be able to catch up when we get home (or watch them do it again another year!)

The satisfaction in David's voice was tangible as we talked to him after Thanksgiving. Our feelings of gratitude for the race success was stronger than we expected. It was not what we anticipated would be a 2012 thanksgiving highlight. But it is. It's more than pride in achievement; there is something noble about the friendship, and sacrifice, and determination that was part of the effort. Like the sacrifice and dedication our son, Michael, gives and receives in his role as husband and father, it is evidence of God's gifts to his righteous sons. Good comes in many forms; we see and hear of God's love every day. It's important that we acknowledge, both privately and publicly, our "bounteous" blessings.