Last night Kelly and I had our chance to volunteer at the open house for the new Sacramento temple that will be dedicated one week from now. We had attended training for our job as parking attendants months ago. Last night our shift was the last shift on the last day of the open house. The rumor at church today was that more people attended this open house that any other temple ever. It think they were saying something in the 170,000 neighborhood. It has been running for the last month and I have spoken to many non LDS-members who have been through. All of them commented among other things that the parking was extremely well organized. I stood at the head of one of three rows of parking and as one or two cars would pull out I would signal this to another guy who would direct the appropriate number of cars to my aisle. The goal was to keep the paved lot full to minimize having to send cars out to the dirt lot. Kelly was posted out in the dirt lot to keep cars as close to the temple as possible out there. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was fun but it was satisfying. Clearly people were coming from all different backgrounds but everyone I saw was polite and seemed to have a positive experience. We are so exited to have this temple open so near us. It has been under construction for so long. We will be going a broadcast of the dedication in lieu of church next week.
Kelly has had a nice bike as long as we have been married, but it has always had a broken front shifter that made it no fun to ride. She got it from her mom who used to ride it but it sat for some time it their garage before Kelly got it. It was a nice bike in it's day and was really in good shape overall. Except for the bum shifter it would have been a minor tune up away from good working order. After two years of Kelly bugging me now and then, and finally giving up on me ever getting around to it, and then threatening to take it down and have a shop do it, I was finally on the job. We went down last week and ordered up a pile of shiny new parts to bring it back to life. It only needed one new shifter but you know you can't just get one and it turned out that the brake levers are part of the shifter so we had to get new levers and the new levers only work with the new brakes so we had to get V-brakes as well and the saddle was kinda old so "what the heck" we got a nice new one just to top it all off. I put it all together in the living room and Thursday night we went for a great bike ride around the neighborhood. Kelly had a good time and we are looking forward to doing some fun biking as the weather cools off.
The last few weeks have been some of the most tumultuous of the two plus years Kelly and I have shared. They have been so filled with fear, sadness, anger and uncertainty that they have expanded the thresholds of my experience. Without going into detail, I will say that some resent days have brought to bear bad news and misfortune from multiple fronts; days so filled with anguish that they end with Kelly and I holding each other in exhaustion just wanting tomorrow to come wash over us. I do not consider myself to be acquainted with tears. As a whole my life has been one of joy and abundance. Some of these trials have already come to positive resolution, while others may continue to some degree for years to come. As I have struggled with these trials I am however constantly reminded of my blessings. I have had Kelly with me through it all. I have come home from a hard day at work and she has been my comfort. I draw great strength from my family. I have a good job that I enjoy for the most part. My mind is strong. I have plenty for my needs. I live in a beautiful and free part of the world. It is funny how it takes a bad day to generate a list like this. I guess that even the ability to see my present misfortunes thought the lens of my great blessings is a blessing of it's own.