Hmmm...

So I guess when a blog receives a lengthy negative critical personally insulting comment it is a sign that the thing might have some merit?  I just read a comment and then deleted it because it promotes a spirit of contention.  When I first started this activity I said that it is my blog, I will write what I feel like writing, and if readers don't like it they can choose to not read it.  I reserve the right to delete any comments I feel are negative and promote a spirit of contention.  Period.

I will say that if I have said something that is offensive, I am sorry.  But that does not include being sorry for saying something that somebody might feel offended by.  As Brigham Young is reputed to have said:  He who is offended when offense was not intended is a fool.  He who is offended when offense was intended is also a fool.

I had a sweet experience yesterday.  Our former mission president is now working to build the self-reliance program in the Caribbean.  He lives here in PR and he has an office in the same building, just down the hall, but he spends most of his time during the week in the Dominican Republic.  So it was a thrill when I actually found out that he was in his local office. As usual he wrapped me up in a big hug, which I also felt for him. His daughter is attending school at BYUI, so when I reminded him that we are from Idaho he quickly suggested that we should get together when they come to visit Rexburg in October.  We will.

One of his many strong suits as president has been the love he obviously has for the saints out in the small islands.  The islands are so different from Puerto Rico it is hard to imagine them in the same mission, but the islands are not really big or numerous enough to have their own mission, they are part of this one. There is a West Indies Mission that takes in many islands as well as Surinam and Guyana, but I think it would be a huge task for a mission president to have to travel to all those islands for interviews and to put out fires.

That is just one of the many administrative challenges as the Church grows throughout the world.  We are all blessed to know pioneers, sometimes as stories of our ancestors and sometimes as personal relationships with the living modern kind. Blessed, honored pioneers!

So I will continue to write what I feel like writing, and all y'all out there in cyberspace can do what you want with it.  Five more days and we head back to the cold north country.  I think we are going to freeze.  Stay tuned.

These are some of my favorite things Puerto Rican.

This is a mail box.