March 26, 2020

Elders,

Good morning! Snow, two days in a row? Ah spring in Utah. The funny thing is that my kids are on spring break this week and so we are just letting them be teenagers and sleep in. Yesterday I am talking with one of them and mentioned the snow and she said “What do you mean, it didn’t snow…” I had to show her pictures (that I had sent to my Louisiana team) to convince her. We’ll see if they see the snow today.

How did your first Sunday sacrament go? It was a special experience for me. I am sure that it will become commonplace the more that we do it, but it was a real honor to administer the sacrament for my family. That personal experience of standing in for the Savior in breaking, blessing, and passing the emblems of the sacrament was touching. An added bonus was getting to have my whole family (that live with me) together for the sacrament. That hasn’t happened for a long time.

The bishop has authorized us to perform the sacrament for our families again this Sunday as well. I hope that you take advantage of this opportunity to fill your house and your lives with sacrament of our Savior.

Missionaries: With the church recalling many foreign missionaries we have two that have recently made their ways home. Mack Muhlestein is back and in quarantine before getting reassigned to a state-side mission. Tommy Keys has completed his mission in Japan, is home in quarantine, and will not be reassigned. Since we are not able to hear from them in a sacrament meeting or visit with them personally, the bishop has suggested an inverted missionary parade. It will give everyone an opportunity to get out of the house and show our support for these great young Elders that have served the Lord faithfully – all while practicing appropriate social distancing….

Here is how it will work…

From 12:00 – 12:15 on Sunday, pack everyone in the car and join the parade. You will want to be driving on the same side of the street as the house – so you will need to go down Timpanogos to drive past the Muhlestein house (6378 S Timpanogos Way) towards the clubhouse. Elder Mack will be on the porch of their house and you can wave to him and yell any words of encouragement and thanks. From there continue down Timpanogos and then go up McKinley or Everest so that you can come back DOWN Mt Hood and drive past the Keys’ house (6384 S Mt Hood). There, Elder Tommy will be on the porch of his house and you can wave and send any words of encouragement. 

If all goes well, this will cause a bit of a traffic problem on Ivory way as families intersect – but we can all figure out how to merge and make it work. Set an alarm on your phone for 12:00 on Sunday. Do it now or you WILL forget ?. 

I hope that you will come and participate and make a long parade of cars circling the neighborhood. I know it sounds a bit different – but let’s give it a try. Crazy times call for crazy experiments – why not an inverted parade?

This week in our Come Follow Me we are studying Enos – Words of Mormon. We are also preparing and building up for the following week (April 4,5) for General Conference and then Easter. I started my study of these chapters this week with maybe not as great an attitude – Enos prays and then a lot of “I didn’t write much”… I have come out of it with a new found love for these chapters and the authors. Not everyone can be a Nephi or a Jacob and write as much as they did, with the detail, passion, and style. Enos chose one very powerful episode from his life and shared it with us. It is a powerful lesson on the grace of God, the atonement, and the power of prayer. The authors in Jarom and Omni, were not prolific writers. They didn’t “journal every day”. They wrote only a little but their words and messages have endured the centuries. Our efforts too – even if small can have long term rippling effects.

Stay safe. I hope that you are adjusting well. If you are struggling (it is harder than I thought) please reach out to your ministers / ministering families / your leaders. We are all in this together and with each other’s help we’ll grow closer as a ward family and make it through these challenging times. A phone call, a text, an email, or a note on a plate of cookies can change the day for someone – maybe even the person doing the service. Writing to you has been a great blessing for me – whether you read it or not it blesses my life.

Thank you for all you do. Reach out if I can be of service. I have an extra computer monitor if someone who is now working from home realizes that the laptop screen is just too small to be productive all day long. 

Thanks again!

President Oldroyd
801-573-6828