A WONDERFUL MAN DIED LAST NIGHT

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, died December 1, 2008

Young Joseph and his sisters. Joseph and Elisa on their Wedding day.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin died last night. He was 91. Here is his last conference talk, "Come What May, And Love it." Here it is in written form. Even if you are not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon Church) you will enjoy this talk. He give great advice, some good laughs and gives us some insights to how to handle life when it doesn't go like we've planned.

He was one of my favorite General Authorities of the Church. He will be missed.


Here is the link where you can read or listen to conference talks in many languages, from Amharic to Korean.

THE ABC'S OF GRATITUDE--E THROUGH G

E--Eggplant Parmigiana from Ottavio's restaurant--69 East Center Street, Provo, Utah. It is truly delicious. I brought half of mine home and told Phil he couldn't eat it. Sorry honey. I'm only selfish with this one thing. And computer time. And...well, let's not talk about it. F--Farmer's Markets. We went to the Provo one today on 5th West and 1st South--open through October 25th, starting at 9:00 am. There are all kind of vendors, not so much today because it rained all day but I found what I was looking for, which was bell peppers for my chili sauce. We were there three minutes after they opened because I needed to get home and get my tomatoes picked before Conference started at 10:00. I love farmer's markets. So many lovely people, selling things to make a little cash or as a business. Everyone is friendly and the prices are always great.

We bought a tamale from this vendor. It was really good. These giant peppers were two for a dollar, for the green, and a dollar each for the red. I didn't grow bell peppers and if I did they wouldn't look like this. They'd be pathetically puny peppers.
I chopped all the vegetables and put it all in a turkey roaster and put it on the porch! It had to cook for four plus hours and I decided the neighborhood should smell like chili sauce instead of everything in my house. It rained all day so the neighbors didn't even know it was there.Bottles, being sterilized. I am grateful for a mom who taught me how to can. I got seventeen half-pints. It is delicious and looks like liquid jewels. G--I am grateful for grandchildren. Here are just two of them, eating at Ottavio's tonight. Phil was at Priesthood Conference so Gilmore Girl and I sneaked away for dinner.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to buy ice cream and root beer for root beer floats and the store was full of men and young men in suits. Priesthood Conference had just ended--the men watched Priesthood Conference at Stake Centers--and a good lot of them were buying ice cream and root beer!
We didn't start out to eat at Ottavio's but the Heap's parking lot was FULL and so we drove off and one of the grandchildren--that I'm grateful for--wanted to eat where we could hear the accordion player and that was at Ottavios. The accordion player was a delightful gentleman.My dad played the accordion and Kraut inherited it. I hope he is learning to play* because I could think of nothing nicer for him to do, in honor of Grandpa Rasmussen. And he could have a nice retirement job somewhere, playing for hungry restaurant customers, maybe even in Italy. By the way, President Monson announced today that a new temple will be built in--among other places--Rome, Italy.

*Just in case Kraut reads this--hint, hint, nudge, nudge. I am also grateful for obedient children. Wink, wink.

MY ABC'S OF GRATITUDE--A THROUGH D

I am going to post A to Z, things I'm grateful for. We'll see how far I get today.

A--Artichokes. I love artichokes but they have to be dipped in mayonnaise, lots of mayonnaise so I guess I will not love artichokes as much as I used to when mayonnaise was considered (by my cousin, Jim, who used to eat mayonnaise sandwiches) a food group. In fact, I will not eat artichokes at all so I guess I will not love artichokes but maybe will love armadillos, instead. I don't know why. I just think they are cool and there is that new commercial about the armadillo who gets so frightened he rolls into a ball and his wife knocks on his shell and says something like, "Honey, it's all right, you can come out now." Is it a Capitol One commercial?

B--Baths. I gave my kids baths every night before bed. They smelled so good and were so warm and clean and when I tucked them in I breathed in their cleanness.

I loved baths as a kid. I would stay in the bathtub for an hour, emptying and refilling the water as needed to keep it steaming hot.

Now, there isn't time for baths? (I have to blog, after all.) And, not so much of me is submersible. Who wants to see large portions of the anatomy sticking out of the water? So I do not love baths as much as I used to. Or at all.

I will love the color Black--for "B"-- instead, which goes so well with white pants but winter is coming and the white pants will have to be put away so even black isn't as much fun as it used to be.

I wonder, is anything as much fun as it used to be?

C--Conference. Tomorrow is our semi-annual General Conference--two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, broadcast from Salt Lake City for us to watch on TV,--and the same on Sunday. We hear talks from our Prophet and the General Authorities. These two weekends (1st weekend in April and October) are my favorite ones of the year.

Tomorrow, during Conference I think I will have to make some chili sauce out of my very ripe tomatoes. I will watch Conference while I work.

One year the kids and I made apple pie filling during General Conference. We made a huge apple mess in the kitchen and Kraut threw apple peelings all over us and yelled, "Happy New Year." We laughed and laughed. It is one of my finest memories. I don't think we listened to much conference but we did have the TV on all the time. We bottled over 60 quarts of apple pie filling and it was delicious but we didn't make one apple pie with it. We heated it as a side dish. Maybe Apples should be my "A" word.

D--Dessert. I have a friend who, in her personal computer cookbook, has more dessert recipes than all other items, doubled or even tripled. I love to look at pictures of desserts on cookbook sites. Because of the nature of what happens to the body when you eat desserts, I don't eat them much. See "B" above about why eating lots of desserts and then having baths are not a good idea.

So, maybe I will forgo being grateful for Desserts to being grateful for Dogs, which we do not have. We used to. His name was Sebastian and he was Lord Bumhampton's dog. When Lord Bumhampton grew up and left home he left his dog here.

Sebastian was an obedient dog. He loved to howl at fire engines and ambulances. I would go to the bathroom window in the middle of the night and tell him he could not howl, and he would howl-whimper, and then I would tell him again and he would just whimper. He wanted to howl so much but he acquiesced to my wishes and muttered, in a high pitched sissy sort of way, deep in his throat, but didn't howl.

After he died, I often found Phil, standing at the slider in the kitchen, just looking out at the back yard. He'd say, in a quiet little voice, "My dog died." It broke my little heart.

So, I'm grateful for one very funny dog who wanted to be in the house so bad that he laid on the top step in the dead of winter, with ice on his fur, shivering almost off the step, instead of going into his HEATED dog house because he thought there might be a chance we'd let him in.

Which we did.