April 24, 2011
Dear Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Benjamin, Abraham and Christian!
I hope that Rosalynde and her family survived the fierce storms that rocked St. Louis this weekend. (I called her, and everything is okay. No problem in her neighborhood or ward, but they have had lots or rain, with a threat of flooding.
I hope your Easter week has been wonderful and worshipful. Mama has made Easter wonderful for us. She made a small crèche display on the buffet with a crown of thorns and palm leaves. On the kitchen table, she set a place for Elijah, together with paintings from Holy Week. See the attached pictures. Today she made a seder dinner: shank of paschal lamb, wine (cranberry juice), bitter herbs (horseradish), sweet herbs (broccoli), and oranges and yoghurt representing another dish. She also made delicious hot cross buns. This afternoon for Easter, I listened to "Messiah".
Today at Church we had a wonderful Sacrament meeting. Paul Morrison gave a wonderful four minute talk on Holy Week, well crafted, thoughtful and meaningful. Then the primary children sang, led by Lindsay Henriod. It was a difficult piece for primary children, with two little girls with solo parts, including her daughter. They sang beautifully. I told Lindsay her daughter is on the way to the Met. Lindsay, herself, sings beautifully. Then the Ward Choir sang a wonderful joyful song – Alleluja – with bells and trumpet accompaniment. It was also wonderful. The trumpeters were two priests from La Crescenta Ward and Verdugo Hills ward. They played the trumpet very well – I was impressed. Then Davis Hansen gave his homecoming talk. He arrived from Korea on Wednesday. He is a fine young man.
This afternoon, mama decided to replace the talk she had written for Kaitlin’s baptism and write a new one, which she has been doing. Kaitlin attended church with us this morning. We attended her baptism this evening. Mama arranged the baptismal dress for her. Mama also brought refreshments for the reception. Kaitlin did not have an easy time at home. She told her parents yesterday, although she had tried to broach the subject earlier. They took it as a personal insult, and told her that having the baptism on Easter was just sticking a finger in their eyes. She called Mama and they cried together on the telephone. But she was resolute and came. The Harricks picked her up for the babptism and took her home. The baptismal service was wonderful. Christian chose the hymns, and was given credit in the program. After the opening hymn, I gave the prayer. The institute director at PCC gave a nice talk on baptism. Then Kaitlin and Davis Hansen sang “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”. The baptism followed, with Br. Harrick baptizing Kaitlin. Then Mama gave a wonderful illustrated talk on the Holy Ghost, and as part of it gave a “comforter” that she had quilted to Kaitlin as a baptismal gift. The room was full. A number of her friends from institute came. Christian, the Vargas young man came (he sang with you in LACC and I have forgotten his first name.) he is attending PCC. He wants to get a degree in choral conducting or composition. We enjoyed some light refreshments afterword with the cookies and cakes that a number of people brought. Mama made lemonade with lemons directly from our tree. I have attached a couple of pictures.
Friday evening, Eva went to the Mormon Prom with Brian Grigg. I came home by 6:00 PM and accompanied them to the Church where everyone met. Eva looked beautiful. She pinned a boutonier on Brian, and he presented her with a wrist corsage. They went to the Natural History Museum. Eva enjoyed the evening and had fun. They danced for awhile, and talked with others, and ate food. We had left the car at the Church for her to drive home in. since Bryan does not drive, Eva drove him home. I asked Lynda Grigg today if Bryan had a good time. She said yes he did have fun and he thought eva also had fun. Joe and Lynda had been telling Bryan he had the responsibility to make sure that Eva had a good time and to be a gentleman. So Lynda was very happy with how he evening went. See more pictures on our blog site.
Afte we dropped Eva off at the Church and watched them all climb aboard two big busses, Mama and I went to the Hansens’ for a reception for Davis, who just returned two days before. We enjoyed it and enjoyed talking to him and to other ward members there. Mama and I did not stay too long. When we arrived home, I had a little daylight left. So I took my field striping machine and went to FIS to stripe the field for the soccer game the next day. It got dark before I finished, but with the help of a couple of flashlights, I could see the faint lines from the week before well-enough to finish the striping. Then I decided to wash Mama’s car. I drove to the church and returned with her car. I washed the outside, and the windows on the inside before I took it back to the church.
Saturday morning, I cleaned out the inside of Mama’s car. I still need to wash the mats, but I did not get to that yet. I also washed the mat in the backseat of my truck. I went to my office for awhile and did some legal work. In the meantime, I made some calls to make sure La Canada Jr. Baseball had not scheduled use of the field outside the times set forth on the website. Unfortunately, LCJBSA had scheduled something. But I was able to contact Jim Harvey from the High School and find out that the high school soccer field was available. So with email, facebook and twitter, I let everyone know of the change of venue. We had about 26 come out to play. I enjoyed it.
The highlight of the evening was dinner at Randy Huff’s house in Altadena. He has taken over from Joe Bentley as the Chair of the Council on Mormon Studies. It was a farewell dinner for Richard and Claudia Bushman. I need to thank Randy Huff for sitting us at a table with Armand and Ruth Mauss and Richard Bushman. What a treat. They were very interested in all the teaching that Mama does. I told him that Benjamin is off to Columbia for his Ph.D. in physics. He will also be in New York during the academic year teaching a class at Columbia and working on two of his books. The major project is a cultural history of the gold plates. His other book is a history of farming in New England. But when I told him about Benjamin and his work in crystals and solid state physics, he wanted to know if Benjamin knew about metallic crystalline stricter. He had a reason for asking. For the past quite a few years, he has been conducting a summer seminar at BYU. He has used this to mentor students but to also help some of his own research efforts – including Rough Stone Rolling. This summer, the focus is on the gold plates. He is interested in the metallic crystalline structure of metals and how thin plates made of gold or gold alloy could have the properties to hold inscribed characters. He has a young woman engineering student, who is only a sophomore, as part of the seminar, but he would like someone to mentor her, who has greater experience and knowledge. So Benjamin, if this is something you might be interested in (and I encourage it, along with everything else you do), I will but you in touch with Prof. Bushman. In any event, he would be happy to be in contact with you in New York. He will be part of Columbia housing, so there is a possibility that you might be in the same ward. He also expects to be doing a lot of temple work at the Manhattan Temple during this time. I have said this before, but I will reiterate it. Armand Mauss, in particularly, and Richard and Claudia Bushman are Church and moral heroes. They have been linchpins (along with a few others – such as Leonard Arrington, Hugh Nibley, and other I could name, including some closely related to family members) in supporting the church in academic and the elite journalistic enterprises. They are fully devoted to the gospel, with strict fidelity. They have helped many young scholars along the way, including doing all they can to nourish testimonies and show how one can be both a scholar of integrity in their fields as applied to the church and faithful disciples of Christ. I hope at the appropriate time, BYU will have a seminar/conference in honor of Armand Mauss and publish a collection of essays in his honor. I also hope at the appropriate time, the Ensign will publish an article about him and his work and his contribution to the Kingdom of God.
Otherwise, I just worked this week. I missed Mama’s Wednesday evening class, because my soccer game started at 7:00 PM. I enjoyed playing, despite the knocks and bloody nose (but I gave as good as I received – the blood nose occurred as I took a wicked shot on goal, and a defender crashed into me trying to defend, and unfortunately, he did block the shot), and despite the fact that we lost 6-3. We started a player down and played for some time with only 10 players. Then at the end, one of our players got a second yellow card (undeserved) and so we were reduced to 10 players at the end. With about 10 minutes to go, the referee finally saw the blood on my hands (all dried by that time), but under the rules, the player must go off the field and wash the blood off.
For all pictures, go to the blog spot: http://christie-russ.blogspot.com/.
That’s all for now.
Love Daddy
Dear Rosalynde, Gabrielle, Naomi, Brigham, Rachel, Benjamin, Abraham and Christian!
I hope that Rosalynde and her family survived the fierce storms that rocked St. Louis this weekend. (I called her, and everything is okay. No problem in her neighborhood or ward, but they have had lots or rain, with a threat of flooding.
I hope your Easter week has been wonderful and worshipful. Mama has made Easter wonderful for us. She made a small crèche display on the buffet with a crown of thorns and palm leaves. On the kitchen table, she set a place for Elijah, together with paintings from Holy Week. See the attached pictures. Today she made a seder dinner: shank of paschal lamb, wine (cranberry juice), bitter herbs (horseradish), sweet herbs (broccoli), and oranges and yoghurt representing another dish. She also made delicious hot cross buns. This afternoon for Easter, I listened to "Messiah".
Today at Church we had a wonderful Sacrament meeting. Paul Morrison gave a wonderful four minute talk on Holy Week, well crafted, thoughtful and meaningful. Then the primary children sang, led by Lindsay Henriod. It was a difficult piece for primary children, with two little girls with solo parts, including her daughter. They sang beautifully. I told Lindsay her daughter is on the way to the Met. Lindsay, herself, sings beautifully. Then the Ward Choir sang a wonderful joyful song – Alleluja – with bells and trumpet accompaniment. It was also wonderful. The trumpeters were two priests from La Crescenta Ward and Verdugo Hills ward. They played the trumpet very well – I was impressed. Then Davis Hansen gave his homecoming talk. He arrived from Korea on Wednesday. He is a fine young man.
This afternoon, mama decided to replace the talk she had written for Kaitlin’s baptism and write a new one, which she has been doing. Kaitlin attended church with us this morning. We attended her baptism this evening. Mama arranged the baptismal dress for her. Mama also brought refreshments for the reception. Kaitlin did not have an easy time at home. She told her parents yesterday, although she had tried to broach the subject earlier. They took it as a personal insult, and told her that having the baptism on Easter was just sticking a finger in their eyes. She called Mama and they cried together on the telephone. But she was resolute and came. The Harricks picked her up for the babptism and took her home. The baptismal service was wonderful. Christian chose the hymns, and was given credit in the program. After the opening hymn, I gave the prayer. The institute director at PCC gave a nice talk on baptism. Then Kaitlin and Davis Hansen sang “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”. The baptism followed, with Br. Harrick baptizing Kaitlin. Then Mama gave a wonderful illustrated talk on the Holy Ghost, and as part of it gave a “comforter” that she had quilted to Kaitlin as a baptismal gift. The room was full. A number of her friends from institute came. Christian, the Vargas young man came (he sang with you in LACC and I have forgotten his first name.) he is attending PCC. He wants to get a degree in choral conducting or composition. We enjoyed some light refreshments afterword with the cookies and cakes that a number of people brought. Mama made lemonade with lemons directly from our tree. I have attached a couple of pictures.
Friday evening, Eva went to the Mormon Prom with Brian Grigg. I came home by 6:00 PM and accompanied them to the Church where everyone met. Eva looked beautiful. She pinned a boutonier on Brian, and he presented her with a wrist corsage. They went to the Natural History Museum. Eva enjoyed the evening and had fun. They danced for awhile, and talked with others, and ate food. We had left the car at the Church for her to drive home in. since Bryan does not drive, Eva drove him home. I asked Lynda Grigg today if Bryan had a good time. She said yes he did have fun and he thought eva also had fun. Joe and Lynda had been telling Bryan he had the responsibility to make sure that Eva had a good time and to be a gentleman. So Lynda was very happy with how he evening went. See more pictures on our blog site.
Afte we dropped Eva off at the Church and watched them all climb aboard two big busses, Mama and I went to the Hansens’ for a reception for Davis, who just returned two days before. We enjoyed it and enjoyed talking to him and to other ward members there. Mama and I did not stay too long. When we arrived home, I had a little daylight left. So I took my field striping machine and went to FIS to stripe the field for the soccer game the next day. It got dark before I finished, but with the help of a couple of flashlights, I could see the faint lines from the week before well-enough to finish the striping. Then I decided to wash Mama’s car. I drove to the church and returned with her car. I washed the outside, and the windows on the inside before I took it back to the church.
Saturday morning, I cleaned out the inside of Mama’s car. I still need to wash the mats, but I did not get to that yet. I also washed the mat in the backseat of my truck. I went to my office for awhile and did some legal work. In the meantime, I made some calls to make sure La Canada Jr. Baseball had not scheduled use of the field outside the times set forth on the website. Unfortunately, LCJBSA had scheduled something. But I was able to contact Jim Harvey from the High School and find out that the high school soccer field was available. So with email, facebook and twitter, I let everyone know of the change of venue. We had about 26 come out to play. I enjoyed it.
The highlight of the evening was dinner at Randy Huff’s house in Altadena. He has taken over from Joe Bentley as the Chair of the Council on Mormon Studies. It was a farewell dinner for Richard and Claudia Bushman. I need to thank Randy Huff for sitting us at a table with Armand and Ruth Mauss and Richard Bushman. What a treat. They were very interested in all the teaching that Mama does. I told him that Benjamin is off to Columbia for his Ph.D. in physics. He will also be in New York during the academic year teaching a class at Columbia and working on two of his books. The major project is a cultural history of the gold plates. His other book is a history of farming in New England. But when I told him about Benjamin and his work in crystals and solid state physics, he wanted to know if Benjamin knew about metallic crystalline stricter. He had a reason for asking. For the past quite a few years, he has been conducting a summer seminar at BYU. He has used this to mentor students but to also help some of his own research efforts – including Rough Stone Rolling. This summer, the focus is on the gold plates. He is interested in the metallic crystalline structure of metals and how thin plates made of gold or gold alloy could have the properties to hold inscribed characters. He has a young woman engineering student, who is only a sophomore, as part of the seminar, but he would like someone to mentor her, who has greater experience and knowledge. So Benjamin, if this is something you might be interested in (and I encourage it, along with everything else you do), I will but you in touch with Prof. Bushman. In any event, he would be happy to be in contact with you in New York. He will be part of Columbia housing, so there is a possibility that you might be in the same ward. He also expects to be doing a lot of temple work at the Manhattan Temple during this time. I have said this before, but I will reiterate it. Armand Mauss, in particularly, and Richard and Claudia Bushman are Church and moral heroes. They have been linchpins (along with a few others – such as Leonard Arrington, Hugh Nibley, and other I could name, including some closely related to family members) in supporting the church in academic and the elite journalistic enterprises. They are fully devoted to the gospel, with strict fidelity. They have helped many young scholars along the way, including doing all they can to nourish testimonies and show how one can be both a scholar of integrity in their fields as applied to the church and faithful disciples of Christ. I hope at the appropriate time, BYU will have a seminar/conference in honor of Armand Mauss and publish a collection of essays in his honor. I also hope at the appropriate time, the Ensign will publish an article about him and his work and his contribution to the Kingdom of God.
Otherwise, I just worked this week. I missed Mama’s Wednesday evening class, because my soccer game started at 7:00 PM. I enjoyed playing, despite the knocks and bloody nose (but I gave as good as I received – the blood nose occurred as I took a wicked shot on goal, and a defender crashed into me trying to defend, and unfortunately, he did block the shot), and despite the fact that we lost 6-3. We started a player down and played for some time with only 10 players. Then at the end, one of our players got a second yellow card (undeserved) and so we were reduced to 10 players at the end. With about 10 minutes to go, the referee finally saw the blood on my hands (all dried by that time), but under the rules, the player must go off the field and wash the blood off.
For all pictures, go to the blog spot: http://christie-russ.blogspot.com/.
That’s all for now.
Love Daddy
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