Glen and Lynne Tolman Missionary Blog

For those of you who missed the Lunar eclipse on Sunday night the 19th (due to cloud cover it was not visible in Salt Lake and Phoenix) here is a view from Sedona, AZ Sunday Jan 19 We attended Music and the Spoken Word as per our normal routine.   Today the Bells at Temple Square joined the choir and orchestra.  We try to get to the tabernacle by just after 8:30am and then get to hear the broadcast twice.  During the rehearsal we can take pictures as long as we don't use a flash.  So the picture below was taken before the actual broadcast which starts at 9:30am.  The length of the broadcast is supposed to be close to 28 minutes.  Their goal is 27 minutes and 56 seconds.  I time them most Sundays and they are normally within a few seconds. Notice the interesting light reflection on the organ pipes We attended our branch meeting at 1pm.   Sister Tolman had arranged for us to feed dinner to six young Elders. We had to rearrange our dining room table and this enabled u

Picture of the mountains east of the valley with downtown Salt Lake in the foreground Sunday Jan 13 We enjoyed Music and the Spoken Word at the Tabernacle in the morning.   Sister Tolman taught the Relief Society lesson during the second hour.   The lesson was based on Elder Gong’s message from October Conference titled “Our Campfire of Faith”.   The Sunday lesson time available is now about 10 minutes longer than in the past.   She spent many hours preparing for the class.   I talked to several of the sisters after the class and they commented on what an excellent lesson they enjoyed.   The content of what she prepared and shared is in a separate blog entry titled “Jan 13 Relief Society Lesson”.    We went to the Seniors for dinner.   Sister Tolman’s uncle Mark Ethington and his wife Ilene were there as well.   It was good to visit with them as well as see mom and dad Senior.   Mark and Ilene were classmates of Elder Tolman at East High School.   After dinner we played se

January 13 - Relief Society lesson given at the City Creek Branch Good afternoon sisters.   I would like to start out by telling you about three times when I have been in a position to be fully aware and remember the changes going on in the church.   In March of 1980 Becky blessed on the first day of the consolidated schedule.   Last week my husband and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting on the last day of the three hour block and this week I am giving this lesson on the first day of R. S. lessons on the two hour block. Challenge for me because Nursery leader 5-10 minute lessons Talk by elder Gong I remember listening to this talk-impressions How many of you have read this talk?   Of those of you that have not how many of you remember what this talk was about.    How many of those that did read it remembered what the talk was about before you started. Mention talk to anyone and they may not remember what the talk was about but mention the beautiful painting by Elder

One day this week, I saw a lot of pictures on Facebook of the island Maupiti where I had my first assignment during my mission in French Polynesia from 1967-1969.  I have added two pictures.  The first is a very similar picture that I took from the top of the mountain looking at the pass between the two small islands (motus). Sunday Jan 6 I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep as we just received on Saturday a branch assignment to determine which October General Conference talks to use for Priesthood and Relief Society meetings and the subjects for Sacrament Meeting talks for the first six months.   Previously the mission president had done this.   I worked on this before we left for the choir broadcast and came up with a proposal to review with the other branch leaders on Monday. We attended Music and the Spoken Word this morning and had to be careful walking to and from the Tabernacle from our apartment as we had freezing rain which made walking difficult an