Stake Conference Week

Elder Koelicker and Elder Garns were our visitors from the Church.  They released our Stake Presidency and called three good men to succeed them.  I am always amazed how the gift of prophecy works through priesthood holders with the help of the Holy Ghost.  They knew no one in the stake when they arrived and after interviewing the bishops, high councilors and a few others, they had a consensus feeling who was supposed to serve.  Our new stake president is Michael Youngburg from Ketchikan.  His counselors are Bishop Calderwood from the Juneau 3rd ward and Benjamin Gilbert who had been on the high council who also lives here in Juneau.  (He also is who we went to for our dental check-ups a couple of weeks ago. 

The week has been extremely crammed with reading and studying for this week's Institute lesson.  We cover the final 19 chapters of Revelations.  It has been a journey for me.  I suspected this would come my way last year and bought a book about Revelations to study.  I have since dug into JFS Doctrines of Salvation for further insight.  I have discovered that you have to get into Isaiah, Joel, Job, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Malachi.  And then you have D & C 77, 101 and 45 along with JST Matthew 1.  And then there is a great outline by a Brother Wilcox and a talk given by Gerald R. Lund.  I am afraid I have so many papers in front of my I'm going to get lost in the presentation.  But if nothing else, I think I understand it.  I know I understand that the Book was given to us because we are loved.  Jesus gave this revelation to John for the benefit of his followers, his sheep, the sheaves of wheat.  It only stands to reason that a loving Savior would warn his flock before following through with the events that John recorded will happen. 

Diane and I had a wonderful visit with Allison Holtkamp while eating a Mexican meal at a downtown Juneau restaurant.  She was a special student of mine while I taught at Brighton H. S.  She is still a special person. 

On the sad side, two of our Juneau regulars have passed that age where they have been asked by the Stake Presidency to move into the regular wards and participate in the Single Adults programs there.    We will miss A. J. Collins and Stacy Storres a great deal. 

A couple of our Juneau seminary teachers needed a break.  So I taught the sophomores on Monday and Tuesday mornings.  I enjoyed working over the 2nd book of Peter and 1 John chapters 2 & 3 with them.  The kids were wonderful and contributed with some good comments.  Diane taught for Sister Kirkpatrick this morning.  Her work schedule is putting some strain on her mornings. 

What a wonderful surprise we had Monday evening at YSA Family Home Evening.  We had 15 new faces show up.  These are students who have picked up tourist season jobs with Princess Cruise Lines through the summer.  They quickly showed a bond with one another and with our branch .  The first cruise ship comes into the Juneau dock tomorrow.  Next week they begin coming daily, sometimes three or four a day.  We are looking forward to meeting even more of these summer workers in the next week or two. 

The weather has been solid rain for a week.  We even had two days of heavy, slushy snow over the weekend.