Autumn Leaves

Today, our "beauty walk" together (Note: it doesn't work that way any more) brought a nostalgic/sad sensation. Reason: the leaves. Looking old, they are, the leaves--kinda ragged. Most look stressed; many are coloring; some falling. Oh it was warm, the weather was, but there's no mistaking: Autumn's here--it just is!

Want to know what rankled me? The sense we're are on the home-bound slope. Wasn't long back and we had the whole mission ahead--months and months of it still to go. Like young kids, we had time yet--for everything! With the end lurking now, we've got to shift thinking!

Only "yesterday" and it was all so new. And fresh. And we were savoring and exploring new neighborhoods; new friends; new quarters; new towns--one vast, rich treasure. Now? it's all still wonderful, and what's best it all now "belongs" to us. We'd just like to keep it that way--forever.

Don't cry for us, there's still months ahead; we're just assessing that wells aren't full forever. And the leaves verify that.

Thank Heaven for the massive adventure of Mormon missions!

September 12, 2009

Today is a lovely day. Sitting here at my desk with the window open before me, the sun is shining, the sky is blue (though it was overcast and foggy early this morning), and the air is crisp and fresh. There is a hint of autumn colors and soon our vision will be assaulted with the brilliance of autumn in the upper Mid-west.

We have finished our second week of the fall semester. Our institute serves students attending several different institutions of higher education: Michigan State University, Cooley Law School, and Lansing Community College. In our University Ward and in our two apartment complexes, students hail from coast to coast, from China and Korea. John and I are each teaching one class at the Institute: John teaches Doctrine and Covenants on Wednesday evening, and I am teaching New Testament: the Gospels on Thursday afternoon. We view the BYU Devotional on Tuesday at 1:00 and conduct a short discussion following. On Fridays we prepare a meal for the noon class. We are spending 2-3 hours each day at the institute building in hopes more students will utilize the building if we are there and availabale. We are finding student contact rewarding. In addition, we attend other classes which are taught, particularly a class taught for the adult members of the Lansing Stake, thus giving us the opportunity to associate with others our age.

On Labor Day the senior missionary couples met at the mission home and enjoyed a few hours eating and visiting. I made a cheesecake. Having never made a "real" cheesecake, I was very pleased with the outcome. So to try to match Erin's blog and her culinary art pictures, I will try to include a picture of my cheesecake.

Love,

Ranelle

Frost

Only insane highschoolers will lust after stingey, severe cold conditions. I know they will because I was once one of them. We wanted it so cold the mink furs would fill our rich and full.

I know better now.So here I am way up north, and I shiver at the very thought, and I cannot yet even see my breath! But then, August just passed, and every one knows that's way too soon for winter. But that's only because they have not lived in Michigan.

But then is it? Not when you live in Michigan, it isn't. And we've been experiencing the onset of autumn for the past week, plus a day or two. No changed leaf colors yet, but I'm certain they're not far away!

So whoever you are; wherever you are, savor your lower latitude, and feel blessed that you've got a few more weeks before you begin scraping car windows.

Michigan Summer - August 8, 2009

For years I watched our children finish the school year, June saunters by, we celebrate the 4th of July, and the next thing you know the children are headed back to school and the summer is over. Of course, with school not dictating our lives, we are not ordered quite that way now. Except, of course, that we happen to be serving as Church Education System missionaries. And once again, our lives are dictated by the school year. In just two weeks we will finish the summer semester and begin the fall semester on September 2.

For the summer semester John has taught a class on the Pearl of Great Price. My subject has been Teachings of the Living Prophets which has been a wonderful experience. After a few basic "learning-how-to-study" classes, the remainder of the classes have been based on talks by the First Presidency and members of the Quorum of the Twelve from the April General Conference. I have loved my teaching experience and though student attendance has varied from week to week, those attending have had much to contribute and we have all been edified. I am amazed at what I personally have gained from this indepth study. The Prophets and Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are truly directed by our Heavenly Father and what they teach us will bring joy and progress to our lives as we integrate those principles.

From early spring through the end of August, the Student Living Center (which is owned by the Church) where we live has been undergoing a great deal of renovation. It has been a bit intrusive, but we are almost finished. We have new windows, new furniture, new paint, new carpet, new doors and by the first of September, we will have a full residency in both buildings.

The summer has not been all "work and no play." In May we enjoyed Muncie company (the Hobans and Ryan and Betty Jo Shrack). The end of May we traveled two hours northeast to meet with the other Senior Missionaries for part of a day in Midland. We spent the 4th of July weekend in the far north (Mackinaw area) with two other couples from Lansing. And two weeks ago another of our "Muncie children," Stephanie (Baker) and Tim Turner, came to visit us. We saw them off to their home in Ohio on Friday morning and immediately boarded vans with 18 other people from the University Ward on a very short trip to Nauvoo. John recently elaborated on that wonderful experience, but I have been caught up in the "thick of thin things" and haven't taken the time to write. Nauvoo was a different experience for me than other times when I have been there. We saw the pageant, City of Joseph, on Friday night, plus other entertainment programs presented by the senior missionaries and summer youth missionaries serving in Nauvoo. In the pageant, the story of Nauvoo was retold by the characters who lived it in the 1840's. The pageant ended with the main characters coming forward to speak to us in this current day to remind us of our heritage and responsibility. Having at least four of my great-great grandparents (the Knights, the Averetts, and the Bairs) driven from Nauvoo in 1846, this touched me very deeply. I went to the Lands and Records office Saturday morning and was able to come out with many records, dates, newspaper articles, etc. recorded on a CD pertaining to these ancestors. What a privilege it was to make this trip to Nauvoo with the young single adults and the bishopric of the University Ward.

Today, August 8, we have spent the day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a training program for seminary and institute teachers in the three stakes for which our supervisor (Brother Draut) is responsible. We speak in Sacrament meeting tomorrow morning and in the weeks ahead will have speaking assignments in other wards in the Lansing Stake.

It was just one year ago today that John underwent the extensive surgery to correct the massive injuries he received as he was loading a large cherry log. While that was a most traumatic and intrusive experience, we have been able to continue in life with less disruption than one would suppose. We have been greatly blessed!

We are well, busy, and very happy. John recently said: "We give a little, and ten times that comes back to enrich our lives." We commend each of you to serve the Lord to the fullest extent possible in your individual circumstances.

We appreciate your comments and emails. If you desire to write, our email address is j_rodell3@msn.com, our mailing address is 4912 South Hagadorn Road, #26, East Lansing, MI 48823, and our phone number is 517-862-4805. Ranelle

Lessons in Sainthood

One mark of True Religion is that God exacts covenants upon those who occupy His church. Really! God personally sees to it that one does not just fall into full membership/fellowship in His kingdom with mere consent, and passive attendance. It's that same way with serving God--one actually pays for the privilege!

Outrageous? Check it out! God is not looking for a cadry of applauders, but a team-ful of beefy players, and a full count of second- and third-stringers who can--and do--freely substitute!

This reality became clear, last week, as Ranelle and I stepped out of the van that drove us to old Nauvoo. Upon realizing the magnitude of where we were, we suddenly saw the vast irony involved. You see, just six months earlier we had laid on the line not only our wealth, but also our Eternal security should we not do the job! No hint of anything in return--nothing. And now this: a free trip to Nauvoo, and Carthage. Suddenly, there at the van's doorway we glimpsed the generosity of our kindly God.

So for part of two days we walked the streets of that wannabe City of the Saints, and there we sensed the screaming and hateful mobs that once trampled the very turf upon which we stood! Our presence there was an unbelievable gift, and we wore ourselves out just walking and looking!

Then at second days' end, Sister O and I re-entered the van, and with our group hauled off to nearby Carthage. There, we visited the jail. In the tour, Elder O'Dell stood for twenty minutes at the very window where God's Latter-day Prophet Joseph Smith received two bullets. As his riddled body crashed through that very window, he received two more bullets from the courtyard below, then another as he lay dead where he landed.

Me, I was sobered. Sobered at being there, and sobered to think that not one lawful finger was ever pointed at the 150 "brave" mobsters who did it.

Leaving Carthage at 6:30 p.m., our group of 13 hunkered down for an eight hour drive back home. Wonderful trip!

Michigan America, U.S.A.

If a child had any idea of how much of his adult-hood success he owes to his teachers, he might take a different attitude toward schooling. Example: Last night (Saturday, July 4, 2009) at this time (8:00 p.m.), Ranelle and I were standing in the vicinity of where Father Marquette marked some of the history he is credited with making. And who is Father Marquette, you ask? He is one of the very people Miss Anna Krause brought alive to her sweaty-skinned "recess freaks." Yet somehow she penetrated that mis-direction, with some of it sticking in our brain--even to this ancient date! My sincere gratitude, Miss Krause. Unthinkingly, I fear I was too pre-occupied with the prospect of summer vacation to even say "good-bye," and certainly I did not say, "thank you."



Father Marquette, in case you do not remember, was/is real. So too was/is the vital history that occurred in Upper Peninsula, Michigan, USA. And last afternoon and evening, as Chris and Neil Barncard, and Julie and Eric Hancock, and Sister and Elder O'Dell motored along, here and there a roadside sign gave us terse glimmerings of the perfidy that once transpired in that sacred (and magnificently beautiful) land. Example: One marker hailed some famous treaty that is still unknown to me. There on that supposed very spot, the French magnanimously deeded back to the mighty Chippewas an entire three square miles of a vast area they once freely claimed--and roamed. Why? So that that once-great people could hunt and fish there, just in case they might need the food to feed their families! Once the extortion was complete, I have a feeling the French never even considered saying "thank you."


Re-crossing the five-mile-long Straits of Mackinac bridge, we looked down on three-city-block-long ore ships passing on the waters there beneath us. It took some concentration to imagine match stick-sized (by comparison) birch bark canoes that formerly plied those same waters. Once again back safely on mainland Michigan, we paused and witnessed Fourth of July fireworks before arriving sleepily back "home." (which, Saturday night, and the night before, was the lakeside family cottage of our hosts Chris and Neil Barncard.)

Next morning, church. All the way to Cheboygan (MI) we went. Fast and Testimony meeting. As I sat listening, something prompted me: "1959?" "And this is 2009?" "And which day is this--July 5th ?" So consulting with a note I carry along, I had "inadvertantly" verified that it was exactly fifty years ago, to-the-very-day (maybe even to-the-very-hour!) that I was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! So there marches I up to the pulpit announcing to a roomful of strangers that this was the golden anniversary of the second-most important day of my life. I also testified to them that I firmly knew that on that day fifty years ago, that I had joined the Lord's only--and own--true church!

After church, and it being Sunday, and it being Chris's day to cook, she fed us sumptuously on roast pork loin, fat potatoes, and delicious salad. With our bellies full, Neil and I covered their jet-ski boat anchored out in the bay, then Ranelle and I changed into travel clothes. We heartily thanked out hosts and the Hancocks for such a glorious weekend and left for Lansing, Michigan, U.S.A. Many times during the next few hours of driving, I mentally contrasted the verdant greens and blues of this great state, with our lizard-skinned west. And I thanked Heavenly Father for the unspeakable privilege of being an American. May God bless America--and may He also bless Chris and Neil Barncard, and Julie and Eric Hancock for being our friends.