Mormon Blogger

I recently put my blog in to be listed as a "Mormon Blog," and realized that I had yet to actually post something related to my religion here! So, I took a few minutes to back-post a couple of relevant entries, from the weekend.

I'm still up after having finished installing the Dishwasher (see previous post), and I think I better get to bed. Or else I will be crashing my head on my keyboard at work tomorrow.

New Dishwasher

I've spent the past two evenings up to my elbows in plumbing and electrical. Monday night I thought I might be able to swap the old dishwasher out without too much trouble. Man, was I ever mistaken. I installed it myself about 6 or 7 years ago, and compared to the kind of work I do these days, if I had hired myself to do the job back then, I would have fired my own self, it was so sloppy. It was definitely not "plug and play." Putting stuff back together went sort-of OK, except the hot water connection to the dishwasher now had an unstoppable leak (the seal on the supply line was probably toast). That wasn't too bad, until I realized that I had also managed to re-install the old dishwasher without re-tightening the outflow line, so if we ran it and it started pumping out the wastewater, it would have been all over the floor. Great! It was clear that the evening was well and truly up the spout along with the dishwasher.

I was up last night to 1 am after discovering at 10:30 pm that one of the water supply valves was toast --- thank goodness Fred Meyer is open until 11 pm and has such things in hardware, or else I would have had to keep the water turned off in the house until Home Depot opened at 7 in the morning! Can you imagine everybody trying to get ready for work in the morning without water? Wow. Anyway, as much trouble as it has been, ultimately it is an enjoyable activity cramped in under the sink laying in water leaking from pipes, trying to tighten connections in tight quarters with a big pipe wrench. I only had to re-tighten one connection after restoring water pressure last night about midnight, so it went pretty well, all things considered.

Tonight I came home and rebuilt part of the electrical system providing power to the dishwasher, as well as to the garbage disposal and stove (it's gas, but uses electricity to ignite the burners and such). It is now very much more safe and Electrical Code Compliant (probably). Once this was done I plugged the new dishwasher into power, water, and gray water. And Lo! and Behold! it works! It doesn't leak!

Now, about that mess in the kitchen... Shudder.

A Temple Day

I spent much of yesterday attending and working in the Seattle Temple. Got home finally sometime past 11 pm. For the most part I was doing actual Temple "work", that is, officiating in a somewhat minor capacity rather than attending as a patron, and it was great! Besides the rewarding work, there were frequent "breaks" between sessions, and I took the opportunity to begin to re-read the Book of Mormon. So, between the scriptures and the Temple service, it was a very spiritually rewarding day.

Church today was likewise pretty rewarding. It was Fast Sunday, which, if you're not LDS, is a first-Sunday-of-the-month worship service in which members of the Church are invited to come to the podium, as they feel to do so, and express their "testimony" -- or knowledge of the truth --- and feelings of gratitude and committment to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Church, and the Gospel. I'm the Ward Clerk and it is my task to keep minutes of the meeting, which includes recording the name of each speaker. Anyway, we had a number of very good testimonies, and the meeting was very uplifting. During the rest of the meeting time (Sunday School and Priesthood Meeting) I spent the time in the office getting "stuff" done.