CATCHING UP

Dear family and friends,

Pool at the Getty Villa

We have had a busy two weeks. On our P-day, Monday September 16, we went to the Getty Villa. This is not the more well-known and larger Getty Center, but is at the site of J. Paul Getty's Pacific Palisades home. As it filled with his private art collection, Getty opened an adjacent gallery. Quickly running out of room, he built a second museum, the Getty Villa, on the property down the hill from the original gallery. The villa design was inspired by the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum near Pompeii in Italy and incorporated additional details from several other ancient sites. It opened to the public in 1974. After the completion of the newer Getty Center, the Villa was remodeled and dedicated to the exhibiting Getty's collections of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. The Villa is a wonderful work of architecture, with marble floors and walls done in the classical style, gardens, courtyards, and a wonderful ocean view. It is very peaceful and beautiful. The collections are priceless and are exhibited in ways that make the museum both educational and interesting. It has a very nice restaurant where we had lunch, and a Greek Theatre. It was a nice day.

At the Villa

Mary with the statue of Mercury

In our stake are three Spanish-speaking wards; we were invited to the Hollywood building where they had a Spanish fiesta on a Saturday night.  The food was from Ecuador, Peru and Mexico and was delicious. The entertainment included the members wearing beautiful costumes as they performed in typical Hispanic dances. The emcee spoke only in Spanish.

Mary with Peruvian dancer

Work in the FH Library continues as before. We still enjoy helping people and teaching them the basics of family history research and of the FamilySearch family tree on the Internet. That week our stake had a temple day. We did baptisms, confirmations, initiatory work, and sealings for some of the people in Mary's line that she continues to find, and attended a chapel meeting. 


We also follow the directions received in a recent zone conference to read the Book of Mormon again and mark it with colored markers. We have a study schedule indicating which chapters to read every day (about 1-4 each), and to finish before Christmas. We are to mark the passages that relate to faith in Christ, faith in his atonement, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We have kept up with the schedule so far and find that the focused approach helps to increase our understanding and testimony of the gospel. 

We left here Friday afternoon to fly to Salt Lake City for a quick weekend to attend Nicholas Gillen's funeral. It was sad, but hopeful, knowing as we do, and as Nick's family does, of the plan of salvation, certain of our faith in a life after this one, in the resurrection of the dead, and that we will all again be together again.

We went to church in our home ward on Sunday and had dinner at our house with David and Becky, Joe, Laura and Jared, Emily, and the grandchildren that could come. We flew back to LA on Monday, our last P-day. We arrived early enough to do the laundry and go to the grocery store. We started again at the library on Tuesday and learned that our P-day has changed to Wednesday. Now we can visit the Getty Center, the Griffith Observatory, and the Newport Beach Temple, all of which are closed Mondays.

We went to the Temple again this week and on Saturday attended a Mission zone conference at the Westwood building here next to our apartment house. It was the last of three zone conferences in our mission and the last of seven days touring three missions by Elder Kent F. Richards of the Seventy. Elder and Sister Richards taught the missionaries important, fundamental lessons about how to teach the gospel: keep it simple and brief. Teach President Hinckley's four essential truths: (first) faith in Jesus Christ, (second) the first vision, (third) the Book of Mormon, and (fourth) the priesthood. They left early to catch a plane back to Salt Lake City and President Weidman took over. It concluded with the vision for the stake by our stake president, then with a lesson on the "eye of faith" by Sister Weidman. It was all very well done and inspiring. We ended with lunch with the missionaries in the cultural hall. Since Max has a cold, he spent most of the rest of the day relaxing and resting. We did take a walk in the cool of the evening.  

Elder and Sister Hurley, Elder and Sister Chandler, Sister and Elder Evans, Sister and Elder Dorius

Also on Saturday, Mary went to the Visitor's Center where she could view the Women's Conference on the big screen.  It was very inspiring to hear the Relief Society leaders, the message from President Monson, and the wonderful sister missionary choir.  Today was fast Sunday in our ward, because of General Conference next week and our stake conference the following week. It is also the fifth Sunday, so we had a lesson on families from our bishopric. We have been resting the rest of the day, hoping Max will feel better tomorrow.

The ancestor we want to focus on is Edward Lisle, Mary's mother's grandfather on her father's side.  He was the developer of the Star Motor car in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England in the 1890s and 1900s.  He started out designing bicycles and tried his hand at airplanes, then settled on a touring car.  Most of his children worked in the business (He had 12 children).  

Edward Lisle

1920 Star Car

1922 Gold Medal winner

Love you all,
Elder and Sister Evans