February 7, 2000 Farmington, Utah

I can't believe our weather - it is just like Spring here except it is cold at night. I heard somewhere yesterday that it is like this so the workers at the conference center can complete the building on time for April conference. I don't REALLY believe that is the reason but they surely won't have any excuse for not having it finished in time. I'm excited for Virginia to come home and see how much has been accomplished while she has been gone. It is MASSIVE and will be a great thing for Salt Lake and the church. Roy and Patrice - you probably don't know what I am referring to - the L.D.S. church has built a huge building to accommodate about 21,000 people when it is completed and it will replace the former Salt Lake tabernacle for the bi-annual conferences and other things. It is right next to temple square and Virginia has a condo in a big complex that looks down on the gardens on top of the conference center.

I didn't go to work last Monday and they called me on Tuesday and asked me to come in so I worked all last week. They have had employees from Meier-Frank in all the stores helping the clerks with their registers and it has been crazy. I had a phone call about 9:15 p.m. from one of the girls and she said, "Barbara, if you want to go home tonight you will have to get someone to come help me" and she wasn't kidding!!! I had another call asking me to have a security guard walk a woman to her car and security was SO busy I hadn't even seen them all night. It seemed to me that all the customers in the store had turned against ZCMI - they were so rude and didn't accept the fact that the associates were all trying to learn a new system. I am only going to work three nights this week and I hope it will be better. They are still having many sales trying to liquidate all the ZCMI merchandise and make room for the Meier-Frank stuff.

They called me to work in the Bountiful Temple and I want to do that but they want me to commit to two days a week and I only want to work one day The shifts are six hours and it takes me thirty minutes to get there so that would make it a full time job. I don't want to work at ZCMI very much longer but I want to do other things like going to Little Rock when it get warmer.

I feel SO bad because I missed hearing Mary Ann and Sarah play a violin duet at their Stake Conference on Saturday night. Jeannie had told me about it but I didn't write it on my calendar and I completely forgot it. I wish they had called to remind me. Jeannie and Sarah came over yesterday for a little visit and Jeannie was SO happy because they had received a letter from Ricky. He has opened up a new area and is struggling to find people interested in the gospel - I remember how hard that was in Montana. Daddy would close certain areas where the people weren't helping the missionaries and after a little while he would send his best missionaries in to open it again and they ALWAYS struggled. I went to see Sarah "cheer" on Monday and that was fun. I am getting SO lazy - I get so comfortable up in my den and I have a million things I enjoy doing and I forget the more important things!!!

I don't really have any news for this letter. ANNIE - thank you for your e-mail messages - JOHN - thank you for your phone message - CLAIRE - thank you for your invitation to dinner at the Thai restaurant you have found (I believe Claire is going to Phoenix this week to play tennis with her friend Martha) - JEANNIE - thank you for your e-mail and phone messages!!! Those of you who remember Somjit in Bangkok - I haven't heard from her for a long time and last night I received an e-mail so she finally has access to a computer. She was such a sweet person to help me with EVERYTHING and she took Bob and John to Ratchaburi to the floating market.

I will get ready and go to "Curves" - I have to force myself to go but it is very good for me and when I don't go for several days it is even harder. I really believe I am getting bigger in certain places like my legs and I'm surely not losing any weight so maybe the muscles are getting stronger like they are supposed to do - Ha!!!