We spent three evenings this week that reminded us of the sweet gifts that friends bring. We also celebrated the birthday of our daughter, Lisa, who is also our dear friend. On Thursday night, January 7, 2016, Darrell and Nancy Moench joined us for dinner at P.F. Chang. We happen to be relatives, but we are also long-time friends, who spent a happy evening laughing and talking. Nancy and Darrell drove to Nauvoo this fall to check out what they will be doing on their mission, which starts this March. Darrell will probably work as a guide at the Nauvoo print shop, which was founded by his pioneer ancestor, Richard Ballentine. Darrell owned a printing business himself.
After dinner, we checked out the statue of Richard Ballentine, which is on the corner of 300 South and 300 West, just outside P.F. Chang. Richard Ballentine was the founder of the LDS Sunday School, as well as a pioneer printer. Darrell told about trying to clean the defaced statue of his ancestor with a bronze cleaner, which made it look even worse. He was just finishing the job when a son of the sculptor, Aarvard Fairbanks, happened by and was offended at the treatment of his father's statue! The Church had forgotten that the statue belonged to it, but Darrell got the statue back into repair and onto the rolls of the Church.
On Friday night, we went with old friends, Paul and Julie Emmer, to the reception at the BYU Museum of Art for the Norman Rockwell exhibit. Rockwell was famous for creating covers for The Saturday Evening Post. We posed for Post covers ourselves.
The Emmers' daughter, Jana, is a curator and education director at the BYU Museum of Art, and she was in charge of the evening's reception. There was live jazz music, to celebrate an ongoing exhibit on photographs of jazz musicians, and Boston cream donuts to celebrate Rockwell's New England heritage. Jana showed us around, in between keeping track of docents, food, and the mass of guests.
We had many favorites, among the paintings. Jana arranged for this little girl, portrayed in a Rockwell painting of the Civil Rights Era, to give a talk at BYU about her memories. The girl (now a woman) said she didn't understand what was going on at the time, as she walked to school in New Orleans between federal marshals. She thought the rallies against her attending school were one of the numerous parades in New Orleans, celebrating some unidentified holiday.
We also love this painting, illustrating "Freedom from Want," one of the four freedoms proclaimed by Franklin Roosevelt.
On Sunday night, Mike and Heidi and the Eberts joined us for Indian food, to celebrate Emilie's humanitarian trip to East Bengal. She spent three weeks teaching English in a village 20 miles outside Calcutta. The sponsor was YMAD, a leadership training organization for teenagers. At our Sunday night supper, we had great homemade mango lassi, chicken marinated in spiced yogurt sauce, and kulfi (Indian ice cream flavored with cardamom and pistachios). The naan and samosas were bought from our favorite Indian grocery store and restaurant. After dinner and Emilie's presentation, Michael showed his own beautiful photos from his trip to India.
Another friend whose life we celebrated this week was our daughter Lisa. Her birthday was January 8. She is a delight to us. Christmas was sweet this year, with Lisa, Camille, and our other children enjoying visits with us and with each other.
