December Happenings

 Today we had our dear friends Greg & Rachelle and their children over for dinner.  We celebrated the one week birthday of their new little baby boy - Max! What joy a little one brings.

Peter started fiddle lessons this week from David, a friend of his who is an awesome fiddler.  He's really excited about it!  Last week Peter told me that he wanted to be a professional violinist/fiddler.  Wow, I didn't expect that!  But I know he has been having fun with it - picking up the violin and playing all the time.  When you do that, you start to get good really fast.  When it's fun, and not a chore - what a difference that makes!  Peter had about a month of it being a chore (practicing for school), and since then, it's started to be fun.

Mary had a miracle happen this week.  Because of some service that she has given, she found out about a performance team doing couples dances, and she was invited to participate.  We went last night, and afterwards, she told the instructor that she had a dream to be on the BYU Ballroom Dance Team.  He was very excited and talked to Mary for about 20 minutes about what she needed to do to prepare.  He said if you dance for 10,000 hours, you are a pro.  To put that in perspective, 40 hours a week for a year is 2000 hours!  So you can imagine how many hours of dancing that is.  He challenged her to start out with 10 hours a week.  Thankfully we have this mini-dance studio upstairs that will work perfectly for that.  What a blessing!  He also was very positive about training her and bringing in the right people to teach her dances and getting her ready.  After that conversation, we both got in the car and said, "Wow!!".  She feels like it was not a life-changing conversation, because she was already headed that direction, but it really focused.  And now we feel like she can get the direction and help that she needs.  Yeah!

Joshua is staying in the same area for this transfer with Elder Z.  He was happy about that, because he wanted to complete the training with him.  Their investigator Manuel didn't get baptized this week because he wanted to provide a "refrigerio", or refreshment for everyone at his baptism, and he couldn't afford it yet, so he wanted to wait.  Joshua tried to explain to him that it wasn't necessary, but, Josh said, "He is old.".  :)  This means he likes things done traditionally.  I'm sure his time will come soon enough! Joshua also said something profound in his letter, and that is that "the only way to take advantage of that atonement is through the gospel, the obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel."  And he referenced Doctrine y Covenants 84:19-21, which says,

19 And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God.

 20 Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.

 21 And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh;

In our Stake Conference last Spring, the visiting General Authority, Elder W. said that the power of godliness means the power to become like God.

Joseph got to go through a session in the Temple with my brother this week.  That makes me so happy.  The other days of the week he has gone and done baptisms for the dead - only now he is the one doing the baptizing.  He is heading into finals this week, so we will pray that he does well.

Jesse had a miracle happen too!  She was very stressed out because the local community college had not sent in her transcript for the college credit that she had.  She called them and got the run-around for 2-3 days and many, many people.  She was so frustrated!  But in the end, she had done the best she could and the transcript was still going to be postmarked two days late.  She just prayed and left it up to the Lord.  The due date was on Sat, December 1st.  Well, on Monday morning she learned that the priority deadline for BYU applications had been extended to the 3rd, since the 1st was on a Saturday, so that left the transcript enough time to be postmarked that day!  What a relief!  It wouldn't have been the end of the world to not get the application in for the priority deadline, but it was important to her, and her prayer was answered.

Libby - in between reading books

Libby is in to the Warrior series, by author Erin Hunt.  She and her friends at school act out the roles in the book every day at Recess, and they've set up an elaborate game that has been going on for months with intricate rules, roles and competitions.  It's pretty amazing!  She read a whole book in one day this week.  Hmmm... this reminds me of some other little girl at ten years old reading Nancy Drew books in a day.  That was me.

Bruce has had crazy days with work this week.  He is the "problem-solver" at work, and gets a long list of problems to fix every day.  He also has a release coming up, which makes for long days on the computer.  He is amazing at his work.

I have had a great week working with people and learning a lot.  A lot!  I had some great experiences with understanding the power of working with the feet.  I am so grateful to be involved in work that keeps me learning, allows me to meet new people, and gives me the chance to deeply connect.  I shake my head every day in wonder that this is what I am blessed to do.

Our family is so thankful for our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We love our Heavenly Father, and our grateful for his constant care in our life.  We are thankful for the guidance of the Holy Ghost.  What a miracle to have on our side the three most powerful beings in existence.  How can it get any better than that?

Family Happenings

Quiz: This is a baby picture of one of our children. Any guesses which one?
Libby got a kite at a friend's birthday party, and one evening, she wanted to fly it. In my limited experience, kite flying has not been successful, so with the little dollar store kite, I didn't have much hope. But I've obviously never flown one in windy Idaho.

It went right up and Libby and I had a fun time flying this kite!Here's Josh singing with the high school Madrigals at the 100 year celebration of our town.
Later on the same day, Josh went to Prom with Mary. I've been hoping Josh would go out with Mary for a long time, because I like her so much, and this was the right time. They doubled with Jancen and McKenzie, Josh and Krissy, Sterling and Hannah, and Dallin and Jayme. For their "day date", they rode tandem bikes on the green belt. After gathering for pictures, they went to dinner at a fine Italian Restaurant, and then to the dance. I am continually grateful that Josh has consistently chosen good friends, and these are no exception.

We thoroughly enjoyed General Conference! I felt that the theme of the conference was how to teach and guide the youth. This is not surprising seeing that I'm in the throes of doing that very thing.

The next week, Joseph was asked to speak in Church. He took all these talks from General Conference and coalesced them into a wonderful talk. He said that when he wrote the talk, he felt that it was exactly what he should say.

Jesse went to a clogging competition. We didn't get to go with her because I wanted to be here for Josh's prom date, but she had a good time. I was so glad to see her when she got home!The same night as Prom, we had an Un-Prom party for Joseph and his friends that didn't go to prom. It was fun - we had teenagers in and out of the house all night long. One time I went out on the back porch and found two of them on the roof! (It's easy to access from our back deck). Needless to say, they were asked to come down. I had to smile later, though, when I overheard the girl telling her friend that when they were up there talking, she was testifying the guy about the importance of serving a mission. :)

I've been having so much fun with Young Living Essential Oils. I set up a new website this week that I'm really excited about. It's lorena.vibrantscents.com and lorena.myningxia.com. It's explains a lot why I love these essential oils. The myningxia.com website is about NingXia Red, which is a juice that is very high in nutrition and anti-oxidants. We drink it almost every day as a family, and love it.

Bruce and Peter went horseback riding almost every day last week, and Joseph joined them one day also.

The last two days have been WARM with no wind. Absolutely heavenly. Spring has sprung!

Bruce, Jesse, Mary and I are starting a Health Challenge this week. We get points for not eating refined sugar, exercising for 60 minutes, not drinking pop, eating a healthy breakfast, drinking at least 80 oz. of water, eating a handful of vegetables, and doing all these for six days a week. The challenge lasts for 7 weeks. Each participant puts in $10. Whoever has the most points at the end of the 7 weeks gets the whole pot of $$. It's community wide, and 32 people are in it so far. Jesse said earlier, "All these adults think they're going to win, but they're not because I'm going to win." Ha ha. Since there are four of us in the household, I think we are going to be pretty competitive about it! If you want more details, I can send you the blog address. I don't want to publish it here because it has the name of our town on it, and I try not to publish that in this blog.

One last word - Mary gave a wonderful talk in Church today about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. She was a really good sport too, because I knew about the talk on Tuesday, and forgot to tell her until late Saturday night. Yes, it's true - Saturday night. We got up at 6:45 this morning and worked on it together. Thankfully it was an easy topic with easy material to find. I was proud of her though, because she just got up and gave the talk and didn't say anything about who called her to speak, or when, or how she prepared it that morning. She just dove into the talk. Good job Mary!