The Pumpkin of Scooby Doo

This is my Subaru. It is a 2001 Subaru (Impreza) Outback Sport which I bought just last month. It's a nice car, and I really like it.

We took this car on our trip to Oregon, all 1500 miles of it. We didn't have a problem on our way to Portland, but we did on the way home.

About halfway between Pendleton and La Grande in Oregon, an odd sort of flapping noise started coming from the back of the car. We pulled over at the next exit, got out, and inspected the car. We didn't see anything amiss. One of my sisters suggested that it might be one of the little mud-flaps on the bottom of my car.

We were satisfied by that explanation, so we continued on with our journey. For a long time, it seemed that that was right, when the road curved a different direction, the noise seemed to lessen or cease, which further confirmed our theory. However, sometime past La Grande the noise started sounding different, or worse. I thought maybe the car was starting to backfire or something, but it wasn't. The grinding, flapping noise was much worse by the time we reached my cousin's house in Boise.

I was really worried about the noise when we stopped but my cousin told me not to worry, that we couldn't do anything about it that night and then we could take a look at it in the morning. When the morning came, my cousin crawled under my car and looked around. He noticed what it was and then had me crawl under it. Part of the axel was messed up. The following picture is of the undamaged part on the passenger side of the car:

So, the picture above is of the good one. These next two pictures are of the broken one. You can tell in the pictures of the broken one that the green part is not attached to the other surface.

At the risk of overkill, the next item is a video of the good side. The piece stays still, but unfortunately the camera moves.

The second video is of the broken one, you can really tell by how much it moves and how much the other didn't move.


I am not the most mechanically inclined, but the rods in the videos and pictures are my car's rear axles. The green colored part is also part of the axle, apparently it is the part that attaches to the rear differential. So my rear driver's side axle was busted. We stayed at my cousin's house on Sunday, and then Monday morning we had a very nervous, harrowing ride/drive to the mechanics.
The mechanic crawled under my car and took a look. When he came up he was swearing in surprise. He seemed amazed that we even were able to drive on it (I didn't tell him that we must have driven about a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles on it). The mechanic got on his phone to get some estimates on parts and much to our amusement he used a lot of entertaining lingo. He asked the person on the other end of the line how much it would be for a 'pumpkin' for an '01 "Scooby Doo." His use of the word pumpkin was for the differential or whatever the thing is called that the two axels go into in the middle.
Anyway, to make a much too long story a tad shorter, we ended up being in Boise for three days longer than we planned, and I ended up missing two days of work. We originally planned to be in Boise for a night, catch a sacrament meeting in the morning and then be in Logan sometime in the afternoon. But, we left Boise late on Tuesday and arrived in Logan early Wednesday morning, but I did make it to work that day for a full shift.
As much as I liked by vacation to the Oregon coast, being back is, well, never mind, I'd still rather be by the ocean! Anyway, after three extra days and $450 later, here is my new axle and differential:

Fun in Oregon and stuck in Boise

Right now I am sitting in my cousin's house in Boise, Idaho.  It is one of those lazy Sunday afternoons, and I am not going to buy a baker's dozen of cupcakes or go see the Chronicles of Narnia, so I thought I'd update my blog for once in my life.

On Friday, the first of August, two of my younger sisters and I loaded up my car and took off on our way to Oregon to visit our oldest sister.  We drove on Friday until we came to Boise and stayed at my cousin's house that night.

The next day we traveled through the remaining part of Idaho and then into Oregon.  Anyone who has ever traveled through eastern Oregon knows that it is not the lush green of western Oregon and it is really nothing more than a continuation of Idaho.  We reached Pendleton around one and wondered around until two-thirty.  At two-thirty we went on the Underground Tour.  It was quite interesting.  The guide led us down a flight of stair and into the bowels of the town.  We saw where the Chinese lived in the eighteen hundreds, we saw different workrooms of the city.  We were even led into an old brothel, which was, well, interesting with a very unsettling feel.  After the brothel we headed back under the town where we toured an old Speakeasy from the prohibition period.  I think the tour was worth the fifteen bucks that it cost, but I've now seen it once, so I don't feel like I'll probably ever really want to see it again.

That night we drove most of the rest of the way towards Portland, but we decided to stay the night at a campground in the Columbia Gorge.  There was a railway that ran by the campground, and apparently a train came by every twenty minutes blowing its horn.  It took a bit for one of my sisters to fall asleep because of the trains, but I was so tired, it seemed like I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. 

The next morning we hung around the campsite for a while, then we took off for Portland.  We bypassed my oldest sister's place and went straight to church where we enjoyed the Sacrament and Sunday School meetings.  Rather than go to Priesthood/Relief Society, we went to the Portland Temple and walked around the grounds and ate lunch on a bench outside the grounds.

We arrived at my sister's place around five and hung out for a while and then walked around Elk Rock Island.  The next day we went to Powell's City of Books, which is a massive bookstore in downtown Portland.  Later we went on the Willamette Jetboat Tours which is a tour of the Portland area on these sweet Jetboats.  It seemed better last time, but the driver was more crazy then, it was still incredibly fun.

On Tuesday, we took off and travelled through central Oregon until we arrived on the coast in the Newport area.  The closer we got to the coast, the greener everything became.  The skies were overcast and it frequently misted.  The younger of the two sisters who came with me had never seen the ocean before, so it was fun to have her see it for the first time.

For the next two days we camped in Beachside State Park, which is a campground just next to the beach, and spent time in Waldport and Newport, and wandered around the different beaches looking around the tide-pools.

I found out that I absolutely love tide-pooling.  I am like a kid in a candy store when it comes to wandering around the beach and sticking my hands in the water to pet an anemone or receive an urchin hug.  I also love to search among the rocks to see if I could uncover some little crabs.  I caught a couple, and one I nicknamed 'Barnacle Head' because he had a barnacle on his shell just above one of his eyes.

Thursday we left Beachside and travelled through Tillamook, where we got some cheese, and stopped at Cannon Beach, where we got some good clam chowder at Mo's, and then stopped at Seaside where we bought some salt water taffy.

We started for Portland on Friday, via Astoria and some beach that had the remains of a ship that crashed in 1906.  After the beach and Astoria, we traveled over the bridge to Washington where we ate lunch at Fort Columbia, an old military base, and then traveled back to Portland.  We watched the Goonies that night because it was filmed in Astoria, then around mid-day the next day we left Portland and headed home.

Unfortunately the adventure didn't stop there.  Sometime between Pendleton and La Grande, a weird noise started in the rear of my car, we stopped to check it out and didn't see anything out of place, so we were thinking it must have been my little mudflap type things flapping in the wind.  It got worse as we went along, but we did make it to Boise alright.  This morning we crawled under the car and saw that something was wrong with one of the axles/cv joint things attached to my back driver-side wheel.  So, I'm stuck in Boise today, but it hasn't been bad since we have been able to stay at my cousin's house.  Hopefully we will be able to get my car fixed tomorrow morning so we can make it back home.

Did you think to pray?

I was asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting last week.  Due to everything I had going on last week, I didn't get to it until Saturday, which was the day before the talk, but here is the result:

My earliest memory is of my family praying.  Just like an old photograph, it is fuzzy, slightly out of focus and yellowed with age.  However, the feeling of it is still strong and vibrant.  There is a warm, comfortable feeling, a feeling of peace and security, a feeling of love and rightness.

Another early memory is of my mother kneeling by her bedside, praying to her Father in heaven.  I being a little kid and wanting attention, I tapped her on the shoulder and tried other ways to have her focus on me.  She ignored me completely.  Only when I put my face up close to her ear and pleaded for her attention did she react with a kind, but firm hush, and a whisper of “I’m praying.”  She never seemed to get annoyed or upset when I bothered her when she was praying.  It was too important to her, and I saw how important it was to her as she sought daily inspiration through prayer.

It was important to her and she wanted it to be important to her family and her children.  She tried to have family scripture study and family prayer in the evening with regularity.  My parents also taught us to say are own prayers each night before bed.

Prayer is important.  My mother and my father cared so much for us young children then, just as they do now.  We are all children of God.  He is our father.  He cares just as much about you as he does me.  He loves us more than we can comprehend and His love passes all understanding. He desires to hear from us just as much as any parent.

I remember that mornings would be hectic, as my mother would try to get us all ready for school and to the bus stops on time.  But as far as I can recall, she always managed to have a prayer before we left.

When some of the children started going to middle school, they had to get up earlier than everyone else.  My mother knew that prayer would help us and so she put up a handmade plaque or sign by the door with the penetrating question: Ere you left your room this morning, did YOU think to pray?

I didn’t have a large vocabulary at the time, so I had no idea what ERE meant, but I did understand the question and that it meant, did you remember to pray this morning?

Later on as I recognized that this question came from one of our sacred hymns, it gave it more importance.  And I recognize my mothers example every time I hear it.  But there is more to the song than a reminder to call upon our heavenly father.

The first verse goes:

Ere you left your room this morning, Did you think to pray? In the name of Christ, our Savior, Did you sue for loving favor As a shield today?

In Alma 34, verses 17 through 27 it list many of the reasons, the places, and the times that we should pray.  In verses 26 & 27, it states:

         But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness.

         Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let you hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.

Prayer is a protection. Luke 12:6-7 says: “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?  But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”  Heavenly Father even knows and cares about sparrows, He cares a great deal about his children, and even though he will not protect us from all conceivable harm, he will help us.

President James E. Faust once shared a story of a family in Northern England.

“Family prayer is a powerful and sustaining influence. During the dark days of World War II, a 500-pound bomb fell outside the little home of Brother Patey, a young father in Liverpool, England, but the bomb did not go off. His wife had died, so he was rearing his five children alone. He gathered them together at this very anxious time for family prayer. They “all prayed … earnestly and when they had finished praying, the children said: ‘Daddy, we will be all right. We will be all right in our home tonight.’

“And so they went to bed, imagine, with that terrific bomb lying just outside the door half submerged in the ground. If it had gone off it would have destroyed probably forty or fifty houses and killed two or three hundred people. …

“The next morning the … whole neighborhood was removed for forty-eight hours and the bomb was finally taken away. …

“On the way back Brother Patey asked the foreman of the A. R. P. Squad: ‘Well, what did you find?’

“ ‘Mr. Patey, we got at the bomb outside of your door and found it ready to explode at any moment. There was nothing wrong with it. We are puzzled why it did not go off.’ ” 18 Miraculous things happen when families pray together.”

The second verse in Did You Think to Pray? goes like this:

When your heart was filled with anger, did you think to pray? Did you plead for grace, my brother, that you might forgive another who had crossed your way?

We all struggle with things.  God will help us to overcome our problems, like anger, if we let Him.  We will be able to love our enemies if we ask our Father in Heaven and sincerely try.  Jesus Christ, our savior, said in Matthew 5:44: Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Being free from hate and full of love can help us get through much in life. 

Joseph Smith was a good example of this.

Daniel Tyler, an associate of the Prophet, recalled an important occasion: “At the time William Smith and others rebelled against the Prophet [at Kirtland], … I attended a meeting … where ‘Joseph’ presided. I perceived sadness in his countenance and tears trickling down his cheeks. he turned his back and bowed upon his knees, facing the wall. This, I suppose, was done to hide his sorrow and tears.

“I had heard men and women pray—especially the former—from the most ignorant, both as to letters and intellect, to the most learned and eloquent, but never until then had I heard a man address his Maker as though He was present listening as a kind father would listen to the sorrows of a dutiful child. Joseph was at that time unlearned, but that prayer, which was to a considerable extent in behalf of those who accused him of having gone astray and fallen into sin, [was] that the Lord would forgive them and open their eyes that they might see aright—that prayer, I say, to my humble mind, partook of the learning and eloquence of heaven. There was no ostentation, no raising of the voice as by enthusiasm, but a plain conversational tone, as a man would address a present friend. It appeared to me as though, in case the vail were taken away, I could see the Lord standing facing His humblest of all servants I had ever seen. … It was the crowning … of all the prayers I ever heard.”

The last verse of the song says:

When sore trials came upon you, did you think to pray? When your soul was full of sorrow, Balm of Gilead did you borrow at the gates of day?

To many of us, if we are lax in saying our prayers, or saying them with real meaning, we usually remember to when ‘sore’ trials come upon us.  There is real peace in prayer.  I remember that when I was having a difficult time on my mission, prayer was a wonderful help.  God grants peace if we align ourselves right and strive to obtain it.

Balm of Gilead is an ancient healing balm that originated in the Arabian Peninsula as well as around Palestine.  It is also a reference or a comparison to the savior.  It originated in Judea just as the Redeemer did.  It heals wounds and so does Christ.

Of all the prayers ever offered, two are more remarkable and memorable to the entire world than any other.  One was when a young man knelt in a grove of trees on a beautiful spring morning.  The other was the most poignant of all, which was when Jesus Christ cried to His Father in a garden of olive trees and accepted the will of His father so that all of us might be able to have peace, to clean ourselves, and to live again.

Oh, how praying rests the weary! Prayer will change the night to day. So, when life gets dark and dreary, Don’t forget to pray.