Grandma Anna

Well family, I was just reading Grandma Anna's patriarchal blessing and something really stood out to me that I just want to share--there's a part that mentions that because of her faithfulness, her posterity (me and you) will grow up in the knowledge of the truth as fatted calves in the stall.

I am so grateful for Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa's faithfulness in this gospel--because of them, my grandfather has a strong testimony of the church and raised my father in that knowledge. Now I am the blessed recipient of knowledge and light and truth.

I am so grateful for the example and faith of my grandparents, and I realize the importance of living a faithful, righteous life, so that I can continue this tradition of faith and my posterity will continue to grow in righteousness.

I love you all and am so grateful we are a family forever!

-Natalie

Dear Murray Family

Dear Murray Family,




I just put Jerry on the Airporter so that he could make his way to the Oakland Airport and then on to Salt Lake where Allison will pick him up and take him to our Provo home. Jerry and another friend, John Torrens, are going back to Salt Lake to visit an old friend, a former skiing buddy, bishop and stake president. His health is going downhill pretty fast, so Jerry and John wanted to get in a good visit with him. Also, Jerry and Neil will be finishing up the details on the sale of the Myton House. A BIG thank you to Neil and to members of his family who have had work parties out to the Myton House several times working on the house and yard. We wouldn't have been able to keep the house for as long as we have, without them.



Jerry and I have completed a month of our Church Service Mission at the CA Santa Rosa Mission Office. This certainly is not an MTC Mission, but we do get to live in our home and serve at the same time. We are a bit overwhelmed right now learning our responsibilities, but hopefully, we will feel comfortable with what we are doing soon. Right now, we are going into the Office 3-4 days a week, which makes for 8-9 hours each day, with commute time added in. We just attended an All-Mission Conference last Monday. Elder Kearon, of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy and Pres. Boyd K. Packer's nephew, member of our Area Presidency, were our speakers. We didn't think we were going to have any "perks" with this mission (other than living in our own home), but this certainly was a very spiritual and inspiring conference and good to gather with all the missionaries in this mission. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen very often.



I hate to boast...but...we have had the most spectacular weather here in Northern CA for about two weeks now. Who needs Hawaii, the Caribbean, Florida or Palm Springs when you can go off to work in the morning without even a sweater or jacket? I am just wondering if this will prolong our winter into spring so that we won't have all the beautiful spring weather we usually get from the middle of February through June. It does make us hang our heads a little when we think of those of you who are suffering through the snow and cold of the Midwest and Utah. It might help you to feel a little better when you think of all that we have to put up with to live here in California like higher prices, lots of liberalism, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer!



As for our family: Lisa and Bob are all moved into their beautiful new home in Morgan Hill. Well, there may be a room stuffed with boxes of things they don't know where to put or they just haven't gotten around to yet. Lyle has a temporary job that will hopefully turn into a full-time job that hopefully will turn into another full-time job that will fully provide for his family. Our family appreciates all those who have been fasting and praying for Lyle. Susannah and Kevin are STILL patiently waiting for a baby to adopt. Jerry and I know how it feels to have to wait so long when you want a baby so much. Please keep them in your prayers and your eyes and ears open to their cause. Jenn is going to the Caribbean this month and we get to granddog sit Nikki for about ten days. She has started another semester and is taking Physics. Allison is away more than she is home. In March she will come back to California for Austin and Michael's baptisms and then be happily on her way to Ireland with a couple of friends. Pretty soon she will have out-traveled her parents!



We surely love and appreciate all of you! We'd love to hear your family news on this blog. We enjoyed Christmas cards from many of you this year and we are still basking in the "warmth" of our Nauvoo Family Reunion last August. Take care and have a good February!



Love,

Marylyn (and Jerry)

Story Time!

Story Time -- Mt Logan Survey

By Neil R

One responsibility, as an employee of the Soil Conservation Service, was to assist with the snow surveys during the winter months. At that time we had five sites that we were responsible for. This story only involves one, Mt Logan. On this day the task of doing the survey on Mt Logan fell to me and Jim Carly. Jim was one of our Soil Scientists. Our job, whether we wanted to take it or not, was to make the hike to the top of Mt Logan and do the snow survey at the top. Since this was a walk on snow shoes all the way up you had to leave before the sun came up and you knew that you were not going to be home until after dark in the evening. I had been on this survey a number of times before so I was well acquainted with the hike. Everything went quite normally that morning. Jim and I arrived at the trail head at the determined time and began our assault on the mountain. It was generally a nice day for this type of activity. We got to the summit at about noon. We had been able to cross the slide area with out any problem, ( In time past two of our people had been caught in a snow slide at this location) had eaten our lunch and completed the survey. As a rule, on our return trip, once we left the summit we very seldom followed the trail back down the mountain but rather would take a short cut down the slopes by sliding on the back of our snow shoes. This day as I came to the first slope I paused and surveyed the area below. It was in the spring of the year, about March or even April, and there had been a lot of snow melt take place. This would be the last survey made for this water year. So, there were a lot of rocks sticking out of the snow below. As I looked I had already made up my mind that the slope was to dangerous to slide on. The chance of hitting one of the rocks below was very good. I had decided not to take the short cut and go back down the trail when Jim sat down on the back of his snow shoes and down the slope he went. As I stood there and watched about half of the snow on the slope followed him down. As I watched, Jim missed all of the protruding rocks and after a while came to a stop. It looked like he had came through okay so I found a likely spot and sat on the back of my snow shoes and down the slope I went. What snow had not slid off with him followed me and it seemed no matter how I tried to avoid a big rock below I was destined to hit it. I was going pretty fast and had no control over the direction I was going and yes, I collided with that rock. And, yes, it hurt. As a matter of fact it hurt very badly. I was not too fast getting up and when I did Jim said, “You are bleeding”. Well, here I was up on a mountain, miles from any one, and the only way to go was down. So, down we went. Needless to say we did not slid on our snow shoes anymore that day. ( or ever for that matter) We just walked down those slopes with every step hurting. Jim had a bad knee and by the time we got to the truck we were both hurting. When I got home I had to lay on my stomach and let Ella examined the damage to my sit down. She cleaned it up and put a bandage on it.

The next day when I went to work and Jim and I related our story, Boswell, my supervisor sent me to our government Doctor. I remember when I went in to see him his nurse was there with him. He told me to show him the problem. I said not with her in here. (She was in our Ward) She left the room and I took down my pants. He had me lay on the table and proceeded to take off Ella’s bandage. I guess she had used a lot of tape to make it stick. The doctor wanted to know who fixed it, I told him my wife. Then he wanted to know what she had against me. Yet to face, were the days of sitting or trying to sit while the wound healed and to write the accident report and tell how I hurt my sit down. All this was very interesting indeed.

Letter from Neil R

Dear Family January 20, 2011

This would be a good time to thank everyone for the cards, letters, e-mails and gifts received from you. Thanks so very much. It is always fun to get those cards and letter that have pictures of your family. What beautiful families. I put them in an album and that way by turning the pages fast I can watch your family grow up in kind of motion picture sort of way. For those of you who would remember the “Big Little Books”, well like flipping the pages of the “Big Little Book” and watching the action figure in the corner of the page.

It seems like January is, in many ways, a slow month because, due to the cold we pretty much stay inside and work at keeping warm. I guess if we were wise like the birds we would go south. I would guess the one thing that would be of interest is the process we are in of selling the property in Myton. I must admit it has been and is a hurtful decision but after weighing all of our alternatives we felt it best to move in this direction. While we will not be getting top dollar for the property we can have some peace of mind knowing that it will be in the hands of a family that loved the Myton homestead almost as much as we do and we can be sure they will care for it as we would have done. After all they are the ones that have been taking care of it for the past fifteen years.

We did consider keeping the property and having the buildings taken down. This would have reduced our expenses but we would have still had the maintenance of the property to take care off and we would probably have still looked to the Dennis to do this work. The other thing we looked at was fixing the house up as near as possible to current codes and then listing it for top dollar and while waiting for it to sell rented the property. Since property in Myton is, at present, taking a lot of time to sell the renting thing would probably go on for some time. From experience I have learned that most renters take but give very little

So looking at all of our options we felt it best, to do like Mr. Cederquest used to say, cut our losses and move on.

And life will go on with lots and lots of grand memories. And so goes the month of January 2011

Love,

Neil

From Anna and Wilmer Murray’s Journal January 2011

Wednesday, January 9,1980

Finished typing Anna’s history. It doesn’t look much better but will have to do. Picked up Fred to go to town. Dropped off Anna’s history to Shirley Mortensen then went over to renew our certificate at the bank. We added our savings to it making it $1,900.00 and put it on a 2 ½ year with 10.15% interest. There goes our rug or trip to Panama. Anyway Sister Talbot will be down to Panama until after March. Maybe we can go after the baby comes. Charlene called to tell us they have a sweet little boy. She sounded great. (Fred got a nose bleed while we were in Roosevelt)

Thursday, January 10, 1980

We don’t have much snow but we really had wind and it’s like summer. Today is John Tucker’s birthday. I intended on calling but waited too long so just went on working on the Mucukluk. Have John’s finished and will soon have LaVora’s done. Now I must get Charlene’s baby’s quilt done. I decided I better get the clover leaf on and send it to Boise so sister Talbot can take it to them, I will call her tonight. She wasn’t home so will try in the morning. And I forgot, Beverly Urisk called and said she would be at Afton Lewis’ getting her hair done at six.