Hosting Elder Costa

 

 

This has been a busy, but rewarding month after spending the first two weeks of February in Eugene helping in the home while Tiffany was gone to Europe with her family.

The highlight of the month was hosting Elder Joaquin E. Costa, a General Authority Seventy over the weekend for our stake conference. He was called as a General Authority in April 2016. It was delightful to host him in our home and he was so easy to have. He reminded us so much of Uncle Oscar. He is from Buenos Aires. We have been spiritually fed by his counsel, testimony, and spirit over the last couple of days. Crismon spent many hours with him as they drove around the stake Saturday and Sunday afternoon doing ministering visits. Elder Costa was so good in his way of connecting with the members and inviting them to make a change. It was a great stake conference. He was so warm and personal with us. He asked about me and I shared about my post polio. He was amazed by what I had gone through while raising nine children. He said, "How did you do it?" We both knew, of course, that I couldn't have done it without the Lord's help and sustaining influence. I hope I'll remember that sweet gesture he made of placing both hands over his heart as we spoke with me. We’re grateful for this sweet opportunity to be blessed by these good men that come in to our home as representatives of the Lord in his kingdom on earth. It was kind of funny, when I said let's take a picture, he said, "Let's do a selfie!" So we took a selfie with a General Authority!
For my own record, I served Wild Rice Chicken soup for lunch after they arrived from Crismon picking him up at the airport. I was so grateful to Ondalynn for coming two days before to help me prepare some of the food. She brought Paxton and he helped Grandpa clean up the yard. Thank goodness for sunshine! The rest of lunch included Caesar salad, yummy artisan bread from Fred Meyers that is so easy to bake, apple slices and yummy oatmeal cookies for dessert. He basically only ate the soup and cookies, but he may have been nervous, or something as he hardly ate while he was here. I prepared an Apple Pear Oatmeal bake dish for breakfast the next morning, with carrot muffins, banana bread, fruit, etc., but again, he hardly ate. It must be hard going in to different homes with a variety of different foods. After the Saturday night meeting he didn't want to eat but went straight to bed. Emily says Argentines each basically one thing in a meal.
Because of Stake Conference, we couldn't go to Evelyn's baptism in Hawaii. We felt so badly about that. She is such a special girl. I have enjoyed reading the Book of Mormon with her on a regular basis in the evening. We are three hours apart in time zones, but we make it work. We're glad Herb & Keren Williams were able to be there for this special day.
Dad was under a lot of pressure preparing for Stake Conference. Two days before our Elder Costa arriving we were given free tickets to the BYU BB game against the Univ. of Portland. It was a relaxing reprieve from the demanding schedule.