1980

January 9  Apache Junction Arizona

Today was a very special day!  We got up early and was at the temple for the eight o'clock session.  It was a Spanish session because there were a lot of couples from South America.  The session was in Spanish.  We had ear phones and could hear it in English!  That was such a special privilege!  They had a film that was just beautiful.  The temple is a very beautiful and the grounds were like an oasis in the desert.  I enjoyed the session so very much.  When I went into the Celestial room as is necessary I remembered the things I was to say and the lady told me that it was "very good".  It made me feel so good-great!  The day was so special.  It has been raining all day.  Very soft and like a spring morning when we were out in it.  It has rained much harder this afternoon and the ground smelled so good because it was so dry and needed it so much.  It is so good to be with Ida and George.  A happy day!

January 17

We had a very good day on Wallace's birthday yesterday.  It was a very comfortable day.  Wallace and I went for a long walk together and then in the afternoon we went out to eat.  It was Sir Georges.  A place where you pick out what you want and can have all you want.  It was delicious food and we enjoy being with George and Ida so much.
All the kids called.  It was so nice to hear from them.  We did not hear from Patricia or Charles.  Evelyn had been out home and Brenda said Charles was not very well.  I wish they could find out what was giving him all of his trouble.  Glade talked about Kitty and Wallace asked him about Debbie.  He said he had a very nice Christmas.  We love them all so very much.  I love Wallace and appreciate him so much.  I am so proud that he honors his Priesthood and willing to live the gospel.  I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for such a good man.

January 19

Yesterday the wind started to blow.  It did not seem bad because I was used to the winds in Idaho.  Then it started to rain a real down pour.  Later in the evening we heard on T.V. that a tornado had gone through Scottsdale and Fountain of the Hills.  We have visited both.  It took out power lines and broke out windows and took off roofs and caused a lot of damage.  It was raining so hard when we went to bed there were puddles everywhere but this morning it does not even look like it had rained.  The ground seems to soak it up.  It also hailed in Phoenix with the rain.  It is a beautiful morning.  The sun is shining.  We slept all night with the window open and this morning just as it was coming light I heard a bird singing.  It was very much like our meadow lark.  It was so beautiful.

January 20

This morning Wallace & I and George and Ida went to McDonald's for breakfast after the men went to Priesthood meeting.  Then Wallace and I went to Sunday School.  Ida & George met us for Sacrament Meeting.  We had dinner here at home.  George & Ida had prepared it before they came to Sacrament Meeting.  It was so good.  After dinner we went for a ride.  We went into Superstition Mountain.  We went to Miami and Globe Arizona.  They are both open pit copper mining.  Especially Miami was.  So many shacks and trash.  the mountain was so beautiful.  So many colors and rock formations.  Globe was a familiar town because it has been in the news so much.  About 15 families are in a trailer court that is built on asbestos tailings.  This is a cancer causing substance.  The government (State) will move the families until their trailers are decomanitated and the asbestos moved.  It was a very pleasant day, warm & sunny and a very beautiful drive.

January 28

Last night we got back home from a wonderful trip.  We went to Tombstone Arizona.  We went through Florence, Coolidge, Tucson, Benson, St. David and then to Tombstone.  We stayed all night at Tombstone.  It is a town that they have tried to keep like it was in the gold rush days.  Board sidewalks.  We went into a home that so much of the old furniture and relics.  When the owner was a young woman she had been so lonesome in Tombstone her folks sent her the root of a rose tree from Scotland.  It was in 1885.  It is now the largest rose tree in the world.  It blooms each April with white blossoms.  It is the town where Wyatt Earp was Marshall.  We went into the Crystal Palace.  It had beautiful redwood but it had been rebuilt and now was just a large bar.  On the way home we visited the Casa Grande ruins just out of Coolidge.  They were adobe ruins.  They had found enough to know that they had lived in the area about 300 BC.  They were called the Hohokam Indians.  They built an irrigation system that is still evident.  It is really a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true.  I would have liked to have had some Book of Mormons and said to these people.  Read this book and it will tell you where these people came from and their history.  It was such a wonderful trip! The largest structure of this prehistoric Indian village is most perplexing.  This four story earthen building constructed approximately 600 years ago by primitive Indian farmers of the Gila Valley.  Their knowledge of farming techniques came from Indians who lived farther South in Mexico.  The Casa Grande is not a typical Hohokam building, instead it appears to be similar to structures found in Mexico.  Its thick walls are built of unreinforced coursed caliche-earth, a desert soil with a high lime content.  The four story building dominated the village in which it was built.  In 1889, Congress authorized the president to reserve lands embracing the Casa Grande Ruin, this was accomplished in 1892.  It was designated a national monument under the National Park Service in 1918.  Cultural similarities indicate that the Puma Indians, presently living nearby maybe the descendants of the Hohokam.

January 30

This morning we were up early and went to the temple in Mesa.  It has been raining.  Everything was fresh & sweet.  The birds were singing.  It was a very small temple session, but it was very nice.  Wallace is out fixing a machine to fix his rocks.  He has enjoyed making beautiful gems out of rocks.  He just came back from a long walk.  We get a letter from Patricia and she said Russell had just been ordained a Deacon.  She said Brother Beers ordained him.  He asked Heavenly Father to bless him that he might use his talents and that he might be a guiding light for his brothers and sister and family.  She wrote such a special letter.