Programs and Preludes

Mary finished her map of South America on Monday made out of play dough of every color. This uncluttered our fridge considerably, as Mary had put each color of play dough in a big bowl and stuffed the bowls all through the refrigerator. Gotta love it!

This is Libby at her 1st grade music program. It was titled The Turkeys vs. The Eagles. Libby was an Eagle, and her line was, "Listen here you turkey birds!" I love her innocence and willingness in this picture. "Unless you become as a little child.." comes to mind.

On Wednesday night we went with Jesse to Young Women in Excellence. The program involved all of the Laurels speaking about one of the YW values, and as they talked about it, they put together a fruit pizza, with each value color being represented by a piece of fruit (the frosting - white, blackberries - purple, pineapple - yellow, strawberries - red, blueberries - blue, etc.) It was so creative! It was a great program, and I think Jesse got some good ideas for projects she wants to do. She got to go to Twilight yesterday, and then came home and re-read the book (for the third time) in seven hours. She is a FAST reader, without loosing anything on the comprehension end.

Josh also had a program this week for an Honor Choir that he was in. The choir was composed of students that tried out and then came together for two evenings and two days of workshops with a special conductor and then a performance. It was a great concert and they sang beautifully. I thought what a treat it was for him to perform with enough male voices!

We re-scheduled Joshua's Eagle Court of Honor! It will be Saturday, January 3, 2009 (wow I wrote 2009!) at 6:00 pm at our chapel. You are all formally invited. :)

Peter got the most pieces of candy at his Den meeting for having his uniform, his book, and his tin can ready to make his drum. He's a good Cub Scouter! You have to know that I had nothing to do with this - he did that totally on his own.

The discussion around the dinner table tonight was about the resources our family had to offer others (our ward in particular) in times of need, besides money - which we don't have. It was really interesting to hear their answers. One of my answers was that we are a family of faith, with cheerfulness and optimism.

I recently saw this quote by Brigham Young, and I don't think these are exact words, but it something like this, "The riches of this people lie not in our assets, but in our ingenuity and industry."

I told about our friend Lane, who was inspired to organize a group of men to work for three hours to move two jack-knifed trailers off a mountain road and in the process, opened up a way for an ambulance to get by to go and rescue somebody higher up on the mountain who had fallen and broken his leg. Lane didn't know this at the time, but that somebody was Dave, his dear friend and next-door neighbor who had had a horse step on his leg and shatter his ankle, and cause a compound fracture of his tibia and fibula. Having already laid in the snow for seven hours on the mountain, if the ambulance had not gotten there when it did, Dave might not have made it through (this is a whole other story of miracles). Lane used ingenuity and industry to get those trailers moved, and quite possibly saved Dave's life.

As a side note, Lane said of the whole group of men standing around waiting for the tow trucks to come (which never did), only about half stepped up to help. The other half just stood on the side and made negative comments. An interesting parallel to the mathematics of the ten virgins, no?

I really took a lot of short-cuts on this story - there is more to it, so if you ever want to know, ask me (or Lane or Dave).

Finally, I am highly recommending you read this blog - Mormon Soprano. It has a video clip of Elder Neal A. Mawell's Devotional Talk in 1978. It is absolutely fascinating to hear him describe our day in such detail. You've just got to hear it - and even better, follow the link to the actual talk and read it. I found it amazing.

Also, I recommend this blog as well entitled Article VI. It's especially interesting in light of Elder Maxwell's words!

Have a good week everybody!