Dad and Mom News

Aug Temple Activity | Posted by rmhewett on 10 Aug 2009

Pics: Whales & Such

Actually, this is a test to see if I can blog and add photos to this website!

But while I'm at it, I'll just fill you in on our activity for the past week. The first night back from temple break and vacation, there were at least 200 youth and their leaders who decided to come on the Tuesday opening night. We started at 5:30 pm and normally would stop at 9:30. That night we finished at midnight. The rest of the week was busy, but not as busy. On Saturday was a record day for us, with over 200 youth and adult leaders and over 5000 (the number is correct) baptisms and confirmations completed, each one doing about 10 names each for baptisms and confirmations.

Today was also an unusual day in that on Mondays the temple is usually closed. Today was a holiday for Ecuador and the President opened the tempe for 6 endowment sessions, scheduled the baptistry every 2 hours. There were 309 endoment patrons, averaging 50 per session and another 200 + youth cycled through the baptistry. In all of my experience, I've never seen the temple with so many who flock to it as here in Ecuador!

This last week has also been interesting in that much of the work we did was for family file names and individual family work rather than from temple name extraction and temple baptism/confirmation lists.

Now, let me see if I can attach some pictures. More to follow if this works!

Love,
Dad

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Flag Raising | Posted by rmhewett on 17 Mar 2006

Pics: Flag Raising

Each day I have to raise and lower the flag at the Institute. Some days i have the opportunity of having others help me and teach them how to fold the flag. That is fun too. Check the website for more.

Dad

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December 11, 2005 | Posted by hewett_admin on 12 Dec 2005

Dear Children,

The most important news of this week is the birth of Isabel and Eve on the 9th of December! We are grateful for their safe arrival, for the health and safety of Cami and Alisha and for the blessing of sweet children coming to be part of our family. We wish we could put our arms around you sweet mothers and hold the tiny budles of joy. It would great to hug you young fathers. We trust that the Lord will continue to bless you and that the extended family will help as they can. We are grateful to Cami’s Dad and Alisha’s mother for being available to help, especially to keep up with Carter and Elena while the mamas recover some. Eve and Isabel must have been such friends in heaven that they insisted on coming to earth at the same time.

This Wednesday we finished teaching all our classes for the semester and began wrapping up all the loose ends by taking down the teaching stuff we used, asking for books to be returned, adding up attendance, and making available the new schedule for the coming semester.

Thursday we helped with a registration breakfast and signed up 33 students in exchange for breakfast burritos. LDSSA provided the burritos and we set up tables, helped with registration and parking stickers, cleanup, etc. It was fun and we have a start on the registration process. The students mostly have their schedules and we want them to commit to Institute classes so they will start out with us in their schedules.

Saturday evening was the Branch Christmas party/dinner. We enjoyed eating and socializing with the kids. We sang carols and Van read the Christmas story. We left before all the members but they are good at cleaning up and we were tired. I have experienced a cold this week so have not been quite as peppy as usual.

Tonight, Sunday, we attended the Branch Christmas Concert for the Stake. The Students prepared music, Christmas Stories, Choir, quartets, trios, solos, harp, violin, etc. This was something of a sacrifice for the students as they are in the middle of their finals and end of semester papers, but they practiced faithfully and then gave a beautiful performance. It was a wonderful evening, much talent on display, sweet spirit, and they served nice refreshments. All in all it was a lovely evening.

Tomorrow we will go to get Dad’s drivers license renewed. This slipped up on him so we will take care of it tomorrow. We will also meet with Pres. Rose for Temple recommends as ours are expiring. The rest of the week will be full of planning and working on new classes. We will finish designing a recruitment plan that we will carry out the week between Christmas and New Years for potential students that live here in Lubbock but who are less active or just not enrolled in any Institute classes. The missionaries and some of the local active kids will help us distribute goodie bags, to these potential students, which will have a few homemade cookies, class schedules, invitations to join in the activities at the Institute and in the Branch.

Saturday is our Zone conference with the Mission We will take a day or two off to rest, clean, etc. In addition the Institute will be closed Dec. 23-26th and probably the 2nd of Jan.

We love each of you and hope that your plans for the Christmas Season are happy, sane, simplified, and that you will finish reading the Book of Mormon. Dad and I are starting Ether tonight. We realize that we have fewer distractions than you do, but we are so enjoying reading it together. It has been a long time since we have read it cover to cover and once again the power of the book is amazing. The promises of President Hinckley are powerful, as we follow him in this can do request.

Be of good cheer!

Love, Mom and Dad

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December 4, 2005 | Posted by hewett_admin on 05 Dec 2005

Thanks for your calls and emails this past week. We enjoyed hearing from you and your help in celebrating Dad’s birthday. It was fun at the institute and visiting with each of you. Saturday Dad found a wonderful “cowboyish/outbackish’ leather hat at goodwill which looks like new, fits perfectly, has a feather, and is rather jaunty. He will have fun wearing it!

We had a busy week teaching our classes and Brother Merrill’s classes for two days but we really enjoyed it and the kids were great. One neat experience we enjoyed was a visiting young man from El Paso. Paul was here to see his fiancée and so he came to Institute classes while she was working and then brought her with him to our Tuesday night class. After the class they stayed and talked with us for a long while and we discovered she was not a member of the church. When I asked, “What do you know about the church?” She replied, “Well, we took the Prophet’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year and we have finished it.” So we hope that Lindsey will let the missionaries teach her and that she will come out to church. We will call her and encourage her. If he lived here it would be easier but still there is a good possibility for her to participate. They took copies of the schedule for classes, the branch meetings, etc.

We taught about David and Goliath in the Old Testament class. We had a lively discussion on modern day Goliaths and the smooth river stones that we can carry to use in defeating them. The students were perceptive and thoughtful in the discussion and we learned from them as they learned from the lesson ideas. We also taught Joseph Smith’s first vision from the Pearl of Great Price. The lesson material contained many extra points from other accounts he had given at various times. It was wonderful to put them all together and see that he told the same main story but emphasized some different details in the various accounts. The Spirit was very strong as we read and discussed this vision that has changed our world.

We finish teaching our classes on Wednesday and begin planning for the new semester. We already worked up the new schedule and made some posters for advertisement. We will make up overviews for each class, reading schedules, etc. This takes more time than one would think. Then we will pull materials and begin preparing. Also we have a ‘dead day’ breakfast on Wednesday, Branch party on Friday, and Branch Christmas Choir program on Saturday evening. The whole Stake comes to this each year and we understand it is very good. We are hoping many investigators will come…

We love you all and pray each day that the Lord will bless and protect each one and that you will find joy in your daily lives.

Love, Mom and Dad Hewett

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Nov 2005 Mission Report | Posted by hewett_admin on 30 Nov 2005

Since Ben requested a weekly letter and reminded me how missionaries write weekly to their families, I will try to repent and comply. I will send a hard copy to Ben (limited email access) and post the letter on the Hewett web site. I hope that will be helpful.

Wednesday we were given some tickets to the Red Raiders basketball game and so we went to see them play. It was a lot of fun and there was plenty of room so we got to move down where we could really see the game. That is the first college game I have been to in about forty years…

We had a good Thanksgiving weekend but we missed seeing all of you! We helped to cook dinner for 23-24 people so that was fun. I made seven pies; two cherry, two apple, and three pumpkin. I also made eight dozen rolls from Mother’s recipe in the family cook book and the cranberry jello salad. They turned out wonderful!

Dad helped to set the Institute up like a home with the chairs in a conversational circle, etc. and the tables covered nicely. We also put together some delightful relish plates for the tables so everything looked nice. Dad went to the library and got several childrens’ books about Thanksgiving and we put them out for browsing. We took our 500 piece Salt Lake temple puzzle for the kids to put together (which they did) and Dad made a large turkey and colored feathers. We had every one write a thank you feather and glue it onto the turkey. It turned out colorful and fun.

Sister Merrill cooked 2 turkeys, 20 lbs. of potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, and green beans. No one went away hungry and we had lots of leftovers for today so the kids who came to the Institute feasted again.

Friday we went shopping for Dad an overcoat and got one at JC Penneys for 60 % off at their big before noon sale. We worked at the Institute in the afternoon, served in the Temple in the evening. Also served in the Temple on Sat. morning, shopped for food, worked on lessons, washed, etc. Dad took the car and washed it and got a battery for his watch. I washed clothes and rested.

Sunday we attended the Missionary correlation meeting, regular church block, and came home, made supper, ate, worked on lessons and a Christmas Card/letter. Dad went home teaching with Chris Abbs, a new member. It was a fairly light Sunday.

Today we prepared and taught our class and then put on a second feast of all the leftovers from Thanksgiving. We probably served twenty or twenty-five kids. Then cleaned up the kitchen, counseled with a young woman who loves someone that just wants to be her friend, made up a schedule of classes for the new semester, and a weeks calendar for the Branches activities. Brother Merrill will be in Flower Mound for meetings so we will teach three classes for him this week. As you can see, there is never a dull moment for us and we are very busy day by day.

We received some snapshots today from LeeAnn of Ben and Brad’s birthday party and some shots of Cameron and Carter. It was easy to see that Carter loves the little trains. She also sent shots of Becky’s shower with pictures of many of my work friends. That was really nice.

Ben also asked for some kind of a schedule for us so I have included one with this letter which will give you some idea of our daily schedule. Of course there are always changes to meet the flexible nature of life but this is the basic outline. We hope you are all well. We love you and pray for you each day.

Love,

Mom and Dad

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