Portland Temple Visitors Center Dedication

 Our prayers have been with Grandma Lewis who has not been feeling well as of late. She has a sincere desire to finish her history, and she has been faithfully working on it for years. We are so grateful for her example. We hope and pray she can receive added energy to keep working at her computer and blessing our lives by her faithful example and love.

Emily with Grandma, June 2012

The highlight of the week was talking with Emily on Monday as she had a 4-hour lay over at the SLC airport on her way to Argentina. It was wonderful to visit with her and she had a chance to talk with nearly all her siblings, which she absolutely loved, too. It was a delight to hear that she arrived safely and to receive her first letter.

Emily and other missionaries on their way to Buenos Aires.

We have been enjoying beautiful sunshine, warm, pleasant, gorgeous days. Along with the green and the abundance of flowers everywhere, Oregon is spectacular this time of year.

I left on Tues. June 11th to fly to Phoenix to help Meredith with her 3 busy children while Bryan is in his last week of studying for his Boards. As you know, it is extremely intensive, and Meredith has been a trooper to be a supportive, good wife, and give Bryan the time he needs to study, while she manages everything at home without any breaks. More on my visit with them later.

We had a most interesting and wonderful experience last Sunday evening. We hosted Bess Wills and her husband, Bob Avila at the Portland, OR Temple Visitors Center Dedication. Each stake president was asked to invite a prominent person in their community to come to the dedication. Many mayors, civic leaders, political leaders, and religious leaders were present. Bess is the President of the Gresham Chamber of Commerce (that Crismon belongs to), and is the General Manager of Gresham Ford, referred to as a “The Dealer with a Heart.” She is amazing women, donating all the time to organizations for people in need. Her husband is retired, but is the Pres. of the Rotary Club in Gresham.

Presiding Bishop Gary Stevenson was here to give the Dedicatory Prayer. Before doing so, explained about our Humanitarian efforts, about temples, about missionaries and our sharing of testimonies. It was excellent, and then gave a beautiful dedicatory prayer. We then showed our guest around our small, but very nice Visitors Center, and walked around the temple grounds. We had a lovely evening with them. We got to speak personally for a few minutes with Bishop Stevenson and he asked where I was from in Cache Valley. He knew Geoff and Peggy very well, as Peggy use to work at his company. Then he was thrilled to hear that Crismon was Malin & Myreel’s son, as he had heard about them all his life. He said, I’ll go home and email my father tonight and tell him. He’ll be so thrilled. He is now 85 years old. His father, Evan Stevenson, was a missionary in Ajo years ago and had a great love for the Lewis’s.

Bob Avila & Bess Wills with Crismon

Temple grounds with Bess Wills & Bob Avila

Other events have been helping Ondalynn at their home so she could get some much needed projects done and attending Sydney’s music concert where all the 4^th grade classes played the recorder and the marimbas. They were fantastic! What a terrific music program in their school.

Cute Sydney Vance with Grandma Lewis, 4th grade concert.

Friday afternoon, June 7th we attended a temple endowment session and sealing for a couple in our stake, Jim & Rita Dunnihoo. She joined the church about a year ago and he became reactivated by Pres. & Sister Watts when they returned from their mission while they served as their Home Teachers. A special highlight was walking down the temple hallway and seeing Elder Quentin L. Cook. He was gracious to stop briefly to shake our hands. What a treat! He was there to perform a sealing.

Crismon met with the Pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist in Pleasant Valley last week. He originally was only going to give him 15 minutes, but visited for an hour with him, walked him out to his car and shook his hand about 3 different times. Crismon has had some good experiences becoming acquainted with many pastors and leaders of other denominations in the area. His association in the Chamber of Commerce as well as reaching out to these churches in an effort to join together in a Day of Service in September has opened many doors in further relationships with other faiths. Some have shown an interest, and others say they already do their own service activities, but it has been a great experience for Crismon to get to know these good people in the community.

Sat. afternoon, June 8th we attended the Retirement Party for Koni Riedel. She taught all our children music (except Ondalynn & Seth) at West Gresham Elementary School. She is another remarkable person.

Then we had the fun of having Clark, Daisy, and Kaeley here in the evening while their parents had a night together. We love having some of our grandchildren close to enjoy.

Bedtime stories with Caudle grandchildren.