Coachman Inn, Regina, SK

When my cousin announced several months ago that he would be married in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, we decided to use the opportunity to make a trip out to Regina. Mary looked through the Regina Yellow Pages and phoned various hotels until she found what seemed to be a good price. Coachman Inn had the cheapest prices and was very close to downtown (where our tourist destinations would be). She reserved a non-smoking room for us a couple of months in advance. They told her to phone a little closer to the time to confirm our room.

Shortly before we left last week, Mary phoned Coachman Inn to confirm our room and they told her that none of the non-smoking rooms available. They also denied that she had been promised one. They told her that if she phoned the morning we were coming they would put an ozone machine in our room to clear out the smoke. That should have been our first clue.

Before we went to church this past Sunday, Mary phoned Coachman Inn to let them know we would be arriving that afternoon between four and five o'clock. They said they had already placed the ozone machine in the room. We thought this was a sign of good customer service. Read on to see how wrong we were.

We arrived at Coachman Inn around 16:15. I should have realised that since it was east of Broad Street, we would have been in trouble. I brushed it off. Mary and my mum, who was travelling with us, waited in the lobby for twenty minutes to get our keys. Finally, my mum found a housekeeping staff and said no one was at the front desk. Finally, someone arrived and apologised, saying he had been indisposed.

The counter staff at the Coachman Inn finally gave us our keys and we went to our room. Our room still smelled of cigarette smoke. As well, there was a smell of mildew in the air. The carpets were filthy. There were no hangers. There was no phonebook. There was no deadbolt on the door. The TV had six channels and they could only be accessed by pressing the 'FAV' button on the remote control. When we opened up the fridge, a very strong mildew smell permeated the room and I became nauseous.

We went back to the Coachman Inn front desk and complained of the smell and the TV. He said there was nothing he could do about the smell, but he would look at the TV.

While we were waiting back in our first Coachman Inn room, he phoned us back to let us know that a non-smoking room just became available after a customer cancelled. We took it.

The new Coachman Inn room smelled better than the first, and there were three hangers, even though only one of them was whole. The TV worked properly. Those were the best qualities of the new room. The room was accessed off the alleyway. There was no kitchenette. There was no deadbolt on the door. The curtains did not close all the way. The beds were very old and the box springs and mattresses did not match. The mattresses were very soft. The carpet was still filthy. The bedspreads had holes. The pillows were very thin. The bathroom sink took forever to drain. The air conditioner eventually froze over with a layer of ice.

During what was to be our first night at the Coachman Inn, our children became sick. Regan threw up around 23:00 and roughly, every hour, at least one of them was vomiting. At that rate, it did not take long to use up our towels, washcloths, sheets and bedspreads. I went to the front desk to get some new towels and a pillow. The new front desk attendant said he would come back to our room with them. He did show up with new towels and a new pillow. Three hours later, I had to go to the front desk again asking for more. He refused to give me any and told me to buy paper towels at 7-Eleven.

We woke up in our Coachman Inn room around 08:30 and got things cleaned up. We decided we should try to give the children a bath. The showerhead leaked when you turned on the faucet. The plug for the tub was covered in some brown film. The tub had black mildew in the corners. The plug did not seal and the tub leaked during the bath.

We decided it was time to phone around for a new place to stay. We could not stay at Coachman Inn for two more nights. We found Victoria Park Motor Inn was a nice place. It was less than 20 dollars more and was a brand new motel.

Mary and my mum went to the Coachman Inn front desk to get our money back. I stayed in our room to pack up. After I loaded everything in the van, I decided to check around the room to make sure I did not miss anything. That is when I noticed one of the box springs had "19.99, 1 pc" written on it in a Jiffy marker. It is also when I noticed not only garbage under the bed, but a mousetrap as well. That was the last straw. We were out of there in a flash.

The Victoria Park Motor Inn was a motel on a different level. It had a real lobby. We could use a baggage cart for our luggage. Our rooms were next to each other and had never had someone light up a cigarette within them. We had mirrors that we did not need to duck to use. Our air conditioning worked. We had a brand new TV with more channels. The blinds closed. The beds were firm. The curtains and bedspreads matched. We had a table and chairs. We had a closet. We had a laundry stool. There was a hot tub and fitness centre downstairs. There were laundry facilities. There was a free continental breakfast (toast, bagels, muffins, cookies, juice, etc) each morning. There was free Internet access in the lobby. There was an elevator. There was an ice machine. There was a complimentary newspaper each morning. When we needed new bedding and towels in the middle of the night, they had them ready for us at the front desk.

As soon as we were unpacked, the four of us laid down on our beds, shut off the lights and slept for several hours.

Our stay there was a much better stay. We decided at that point, that there is no value in going for the cheapest price when choosing accommodations. We refuse to stay at Coachman Inn in the future, and will likely chose Victoria Park Motor Inn as our place of accommodation every time we visit Regina in the future.

Hello to all

Well I tried and tried to just cut and paste my post under the other intro but it wouldn't work. I have been sitting here for last 8 hours working on my calling and getting things set up so I can leave tomorrow morning to spend some time with Kim and his family. I keep telling him if he lived here then it would make it so much easier for him to pop over and help me when I get stuck on something. But of course that would mean I would have to move away from the computer and let someone else have access to it and I don't know if I am ready for that lol.

I love learning and am always looking for ways to increase my brain load. I love this blog site as it makes me think everytime someone says "what do you think about this scripture". Many times I holler at the computer to whoever posted and say doesn't anyone ever read just for the sake of reading.???? But I guess if we did that with our scriptures we surely wouldn't learn as much.

I truly enjoy church history and can never understand why others don't feel the same way. We have our oldest son and his 7 year old son living with us this summer and we have been finding ways to incorporate the gospel into their lives (our son is inactive and has been for about 12 years). Our grandson now asks for his turn to say prayer and Sunday night he announces that when he turns 8 he wants to be baptized like his cousins. I spend so much of my time worrying about doing member missionary work "out there" that I forgot I have my own family to work with.

It has been great having a daughter and SIL that are active living so close distance wise with us as our son spends half of his time there. They have the same "rules" as we do, family prayer, family home evenings, church on Sunday etc and he is seeing that there is a part of his life that is missing. We talk a lot just in every day conversation about the church, our callings and what is going on so he can see that he is missing a lot. I sincerely hope that he finds a place to move to that is in our area still.

Well that is it about me. I of course, am not as opinionated as Kim is and am more tactful when telling people off (lol) but I am very proud of the work Kim does and his never ending need to learn and study.

Reading

My mum posted over at her personal blog asking who else is taking part in President Hinckley's challenge. I'm not. I was writing up an explanation why I decided not to, but it got so long I decided to do a post.

First, I finished reading the Book of Mormon last year. We finished in companionship study this spring. We finished it in family study this summer. I think I've had my fill.

Second, I am studying the Doctrine and Covenants right now. I have spent way too much time on the Book of Mormon the last few years that I have spent little time on the other books (yes, we do have more scriptures than just the Book of Mormon).

Third, I do not read the scriptures just for the sake of reading them. It is not a reasonable goal to read just because. If the scripture were meant to only be read, they would have been written by novelists. I can see how just reading it would be helpful for those who rarely or never read it, but I don't see the point of it for me.

Fourth, I do not have the time to study the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. On my mission, I did. But other things take up my time now.

Lastly, I am reading The Book of Mormon: A Reader's Edition. It is a much easier read and one gains a better appreciation for the structure of the book and the words of the Lord than by simply reading it in the conventional form.

I understand President Hinckley's reasons for extending the challenge. It will benefit a lot of people. I just don't see any reason for me to do it.

Who goes there?

Hi, my name is Rick Beres.

Kim was kind enough to invite me to post here, and I thought it might help if you knew a little about me.

My two children and wife (of eleven years and counting) live in Magrath, Alberta and they're kind enough to let me live there too - if I behave myself. I was born in Lethbridge and raised in Magrath. And to answer the question that I'm sure is burning inside you, I am not a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. My wife and children are LDS though, and I'm sure you can imagine how happy my in-laws were about my wife marrying a non-member; but all that is water under the bridge, as they say.

I work in Lethbridge as an IT Manager at the largest law firm in town (insert shameless plug for North & Company here), and have various hobbies related to graphics, design and computer programming. I am a geek.

I enjoy a good discussion on most topics, especially social policy, politics and the eccentricities of members of the LDS faith.

That's me in a nutshell.
I'm looking forward to contributing to this blog.
-rick

Two New Bloggers

All of us at Our Thoughts would like to welcome two new bloggers to the fray. One of them as been a regular commenter here for over a year and the other is more recent.

Sally Haysom (some may know her as Smiles) is from Vancouver, BC, and has commented frequently here. She is also my mum. I felt a little like President Hinckley during priesthood session of the last General Conference when he was talking about his son becoming a general authority. Everyone else seemed to be down with it, so we decided to have her aboard. And we finally broke out of Alberta boundaries.

Rick Beres is from Magrath. Since Larry Bates has some ties to Raymond (a well-known rival of Magrath), we may get to see some good ol' church ball worthy words. Rick has only recently been commenting here, but he has a unique, strong viewpoint that we liked and thought he'd make a good addition to the team.

I'll let them introduce themselves. Please welcome them out.

If you are reading this and are LDS, Canadian and living in Canada, drop me a line if you'd like to blog here.

Creation

It seems common among the Church membership—at least based on my limited experience in three Canadian province and three US states—to reject evolution in support of creationsim.

I have to wonder how creationists reconcile Abraham 4:21:

And the Gods prepared the waters that they might bring forth great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters were to bring forth abundantly after their kind; and every winged fowl after their kind.

Every living, moving creature (and birds) came from the water?

Be

I was reading in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11 this morning when I came across verse eleven:

Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

I have read this verse several times, but as I reflected on it this morning, one other scripture came to mind.

This scripture is found in 2 Nephi 2:25 and is Lehi's counsel to his son Jacob:

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

I hardly ever pay attention to such simple verbs as the conjugated 'to be', but these two verse make it stand out.

According to these two verses, we exist because Adam fell and we also exist so that we may attain joy. Paul seems to say that a man cannot "be" without a woman. In other words, he cannot attain joy without marriage. This is an interesting thought given what we read in D&C 131:1-4:

In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; and in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; and if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.