Les Miserables, LLU Graduation Ceremony, and Church Callings *(updated)
This past week has been quite an exciting one for us. Beginning on Thursday, we went to a LLU Graduation Ceremony Dinner for the graduating students. It was nice. I was part of a video presentation that was displayed during the evening and we fortunately arrived and were able to watch a couple of segments that I was in. But then we left during the presentation when we were done with our dinner (which was a great for a vegetarian meal) because we had tickets to go see “Les Miserables.” I’ve wanted to see it for sometime now and Marlene had already seen it twice but since this is the final tour of the traveling show Marlene decided to get tickets for my Birthday (a couple of weeks early) and it was great.
Here is a copy of the ticket and the playbill that we had for the play. It was a great show. The memories of listening to my parents copy of the music was nice. “Can you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men…” “I am Jean Valjean!” Cosette’s and Eponine’s songs were both great. Our seats were fairly close but not extremely. We were on the first floor. Marlene and I got home late that night and we were grateful to our neighbor for watching Oscar and Lily. The drive to and from LA isn’t bad when there is no traffic (only an hour). The show started late enough for most of the traffic to have filtered out.
The next big event to happen was a visit to some friends in Victorville about an hour away toward Utah. It was nice to get to know some of my co-workers families from Cuidar-SB (the parenting class I have been teaching out of Cal State, San Bernardino. We had a nice time swimming in their pool and having dinner together. Oscar and Lily enjoyed the pool and the food.
Next on our list was this mornings graduation ceremony from Loma Linda University with my Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. Marlene took some pictures (she is miraculous to have been able to take them while at the same time struggling with both Oscar and Lily by herself primarily). It was an early morning ceremony so that we were still able to make it to church at 11:30 am. The guest speaker at the Graduation was Gordon Beitz, president of the Southern Adventist College, and surprisingly (I didn’t know anything about him) but he gave an excellent talk about the importance of faith within the field of sciences and how to integrate the two by not relying solely upon ourselves or the scientific method. He used an example from the movie “The Matrix” (I have not seen it) about how Neo was given the choice between a red pill or a blue pill and depending on which he took. He could go down the rabbit hole and find more truth or he could choose the blue pill and remain unenlightened state. The idea that faith can help enhance our knowledge and further our ability to perform the sciences and gather knowledge.
This is Russ Decker and I after our Graduation Ceremony this morning. I met his family and he met mine for the first time. We have worked in the LLU Marriage and Family Therapy program together for the last three years. I also have been involved with the Cuidar parenting program because of him. He and I also worked on the Parenting Apart program for about a year together. He has been a good colleague and friend.
This is Colwick Wilson and I also after the graduation ceremony. He has been my mentor at Loma Linda University for the past year and half. I have enjoyed working with him in Statistics classes as a student and as a teaching assistant. I have also been able to do some work for him with his Guyana Health Study and started some of the literature review for his medical doctors, stress, health, and families study. He has been a source of encouragement and strength through the PhD classes I’ve already taken at Loma Linda. It was good to see him today.
Also news of late that I don’t think I’ve told many people is that I was released from my calling as Elders Quorum President in the Redlands 5th ward. It came as a bit of a surprise being a little while before we were moving to Utah. But they haven’t waited too long because this last Sunday I was asked to be a temporary Sunday School teacher for the 12 and 13 year olds in the ward (current teacher is about to deliver her second child) and I was asked to do it for a few months. Marlene has been in and out of the Nursery as a substitute and she likes it.
Well that is some of what happened to us lately. Have a good week.
