I attended the Woodlands ward meetings on Sunday; their meetings began at 2 pm and ended at 5 pm. (I used Yahoo to find out that the LDS building is only half a kilometer away from the Newton transit center, so it was easy to get there.) It is an English speaking ward, although it is clear that for many of the members, English is their second language. During the announcements, they mentioned that three professors from BYU would be speaking at a fireside about family relationships at the stake center at 6 pm. (The Woodlands ward met on the second floor; the stake center is on the fourth floor of the same building.) One of the professors was named Jeff Hill; I wondered if this was the same Jeff Hill who I had known as a student at BYU. So I stayed in the area after the meetings; I ate a couple of protein bars that I had brought with me, and went outside to take a photo. Elder Nixon and his companion took a photo of me standing in front of the building, and I also got a photo of Shell checking out the building. While I took that photo, a taxi pulled up and dropped off several nicely dressed people who went in the building.
After my photo shoot, I went in the building, and used a restroom to wash the sweat off my face (yes, it is also hot’n’sticky in Singapore ). When I got to the fourth floor, Jeff Hill was walking around introducing himself. I hadn’t seen him for 30 years. We were students at BYU at the same time, and before that, we were both at the National Youth Science Camp in West Virginia in the summer of 1971. (He was one of the two students from Washington , I was from Idaho , of course, and the two students from Utah were both LDS, so there were four of us there who were LDS.) When I had a chance, I introduced myself; he remembered me, and reminded me of the “ West Virginia ” song by John Denver that they had used to awaken us at the science camp each morning.
At the fireside itself, Richard Miller spoke about having zero tolerance for verbal abuse in a relationship. Jeff Hill spoke about finding a balance between career and family. (He had worked for IBM for years, and had been part of a test program for telecommuting at IBM, where he worked out of his home in Logan , UT , but worked as part of the New York office of IBM.) Then the last speaker, Wendy Sheffield, from the Social Work department of BYU spoke. She wrote “The Family Enrichment Program” a number of years ago; it’s kind of an FHE manual for people who aren’t LDS. They had just been to Indonesia , where the Indonesian government had decided to provide her manual to all 280 million Indonesians. (And she doesn’t even get any royalties from it, she said.) She also told a story about meeting a lady on the plane, returning to visit family in Indonesia , who wanted a copy of “The Family Enrichment Program.” In fact, four copies, because she had three sisters. “And would you like a copy of the Book of Mormon also?” Sure, she said, and she mentioned that she had never taken the opportunity to speak to any of the young men who wear the white shirts. Wendy told her that she was pretty sure that she could arrange for that to happen, also.
After the fireside, I decided to ask her if she knew Rebekah Nelson; she said “I taught Rebekah!” And she said that she saw the family resemblance. She said that you had emailed her to let her know that you are starting the graduate program at Utah State . Before they left the building, I took a photo of Dr. Miller, Dr. Hill, and Dr. Sheffield. (By the way, Jeff Hill is still doing research on career/family balance. I told him that I would email him and let him know about this little adventure that our family is doing at the moment.)
All in all, it was a really enjoyable end to a visit to Singapore .
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