Helen Comes: Our Wednesday with a Puppet Show, Jessica, Sarah Mable, and Phoenix ASC

This week we are lucky enough to have my mother-in-law visit. We had made a lot of plans for Wednesday that had to change because we thought that Helen's plane was going to land earlier than it was reported. Plus, when it landed, it stayed on the tarmac for over 45 minutes just waiting for their terminal to open up. So, by the time Helen got off the plane, it was an hour or so later than we thought we'd have time for.

So we ended up making a lot of changes to our initial plans, which after much discussion, was okay with us. One plan that stayed the same was that we wanted to visit with Jessica Yates so that Helen could meet this favorite person of ours. So we traveled to the temple, and while we were at the Visitor's Center waiting for our appointment with Jessica, we had the wonderful idea of having the Sister Missionaries at the Visitor's Center do a puppet show for us. We were worried that maybe they'd show us the David and Goliath one again, but they chose a different show: Daniel and the Lion's Den. Helen was delighted and so were we. “Kneel in prayer, kneel in prayer…” Those were the first lines of the song that Daniel and others sang in the song. It was so fun.

Jessica was so awesome, as she always is. She is just amazing and we had a pleasant conversation at Hope's Fry Bread restaurant. The food was great (we had a Navajo Taco and a Navajo Taco burger; both were so good). We talked about many things and Helen loved our friend and talking about the church and about Jessica's life, etc.

After that, we decided that we wanted to visit Sarah Mable Jensen. However, she wasn't ready for us to come yet. So we went to go look at Hole in the Rock, since Sarah lives in Tempe. Beautiful formation. After napping in the car in a office complex, we felt ready to go visit her.

At Sarah Mable's house, we enjoyed pleasant conversation. This was one of the people that Helen asked us to make plans with if we could. So she was filled by the conversation.

Then, Forrest had told me that at Phoenix ASC, the institute provides dinner right before we have ASC. So, Sarah, Helen, and I traveled to Glendale to enjoy our time with the before ASC institute dinner. We had sliders with salad and some cake. 

Another one of Helen's wishes was to watch me conduct the ASC choir. So, in the chapel, she sat in the back, while in the pews, Phoenix ASC worked with me to learn our music. They had an enjoyable time with me and Helen told me that I did a very good job in leading the choir and that I was in my element, which is something that in this semester I have been trying to do and preparing for this semester.

And that was our Wednesday!