Sunday August 2nd

This was a special Sunday.  Dad had asked everyone to come to his church meetings on the first Sunday in August a few weeks earlier.  He really wanted to go but was unable to, so he wrote out his testimony and had Craig give in his place.  So everyone was their but Dave and Marcie.  We had asked Donny Williams to stay with Dad while we were at sacrament meeting cause Dad wanted everyone their.  We were so so thankful for Donny to stay with Dad.  We were able to get the meeting to come in through the internet so that Dad could hear.  It was a wonderful meeting filled with the spirit all the children bore their testimony one last time for Dad, and also Mom, Grandpa, and Benny.  Then the siblings and Mom came back to be with Dad and spend time with him as he was nearing the end.  Well we were their one of Mom and Dads friends from California stopped by; they hadn't seen them in 20 years.  But they looked up their names in the phone book and felt compelled to stop.  They were not actively living the gospel principles, but Dad bore a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon, Jesus Smith and the plan of Salvation.  They stayed for awhile and ate lunch with us.  After we picked up the kids from primary and Dad wanted to have a meeting with all the Grandkids and spoke to each one of them individually and also bore his testimony of the gospel.  Dad talked to Jonathan about having a love for the violin and to keep playing.  He talked to Sarah about being happy and overcoming her anger issues.  He talked to Gordon about learning to play the violin which made Gordon so happy.  I had to feed Henry and he came running out and said "Papa said I could play the violin" with the biggest grin.
We had a lot of visitors to come see Dad that day from the Youngberg's, Greens, The Jensen's (who he had home taught for years), all of which he bore a strong testimony of the gospel.  Papa had given all the kids suckers, that was Papa's things.  He also gave the kids another treat of his Danishes; which of course everyone was excited about.  That night Papa gave Jonathan a Santa hat that had the Y on it, which Jonathan loved.  He also gave Gordon his BYU winter hat, which Gordon was thrilled about and loves to wear it!  There was one stipulation was that at the funeral Papa wanted to  At this time Papa was only having ice chips and swabs cause he would just throw up everything; he felt that the surgery wasn't success but it did prolong his life till now (which he was so thankful for and not upset about either).  He was on a high dose of continuous morphine and we just loved Dad's Hospice nurse, Robyn, Mom called her an angel.  She was wonderful and so helpful with everything that was happening.  The past Thursday we had talked with the mortuary that they had choose and picked out Dads casket with Dad their.  The casket was blue for BYU.  It was a wonderful day to spend with Dad.