Note: Wrote this blog a while ago, but didn't publish. So here is some old, news.
Saturday morning, August 30th, we got to watch Max, our grandson, get baptized by his dad (our youngest's oldest). We figure we are the pilot for watching a baptism through FaceTime. We needed to prove that grandparents could be trusted to watch and be quiet. It was so wonderful to "be there" to watch him get baptized and confirmed. What a group with all of his brothers and sisters there (except Codi & Zach and their family) and most, if not all of Melissa's family there, too. Max is such an amazingly spiritual young man. His parents are doing such a great job of raising him and his brothers and sister. I have been a little down thinking that I was going to miss four baptisms while on our mission, but this gives me hope. Now we will just be missing our oldest granddaughter's high school graduation. Who knows, with FaceTime we might get to be there, too.
Our missionary work is moving forward. This month we met with the DTA of the area office about our plan for English for the Area office staff. Val and I had a very spiritual experience as we prayed about how to teach English to the Area staff. We have gone through about four different versions of the plan and just didn't feel right. One Thursday when we were home together we were talking about what to do and inspiration hit us. It was as if all of the answers where placed there for us to see. The most important feeling was that we needed a plan that helped the office to embrace and be responsible for English. That plan required that the departments each choose a language coach (someone in their department that could already speak English) and dedicate part of the work day to speaking and learning English. That was a very big commitment on their part and some of them, including us, were not too sure about it. We have never done a program exactly like this before. We can't promise that it will work, we have just felt inspired that this is what we needed to do. The plan has two parts: Basic English and Workplace English. For Basic English we are asking the employees to spend time at home doing online programs to get most of the basic English they need. For Workplace English, the departments will choose phrases and vocabulary to practice daily that they need and use to interact with each other and with Salt Lake. We will coach the coaches in vocabulary, interactive activities to do with the staff and ways to practice English. We would appreciate the prayers of all of our family and friends that we might have inspiration to do the work the Lord would want us to do.
