Old and New Missionaries

The weekend in pictures...
Our dear friends Todd & Kristie own a furniture store, and every year they invite a group of friends down to the store for a party. Todd is THE KING of fun games, and this was one that he talked all the guys into doing. The guy in the middle is Greg, and Bruce was the one in the middle right before this. Thanks Todd & Kristie for a very memorable evening of laughs and friendship!

Rosa got baptized!! This is such a wonderful story. Her husband Leonel got baptized into our Spanish Branch about a year and a half ago. He was a great convert, but his wife had no interest. The Elders said she couldn't get past Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. About six months after Leonel was baptized, their only daughter Caterina got baptized. The family then moved to a neighboring suburb for work purposes. She started working for my friend Gale, helping her in her new business. Gale and her husband Dan befriended Rosa and Leonel, and their influence and guidance helped Rosa start reading the Book of Mormon. Within a few weeks, she asked to be baptized. There are many other people and circumstances that also contributed, but it's too long to tell here.

Suffice it to say that Sean, pictured above with Rosa and Leonel, drove up from Utah with his fiance, to perform the baptism. The Spirit was so strong during the baptismal service. I'm so happy for this family, and can't wait to be in the temple in a year when they are sealed!

After the service, the hermanas of the branch Relief Society put on a dinner for all the guests. It was SO FUN to sit around and talk to some of the Hermanos from the 14th branch again.

As I said before, Sean drove up with Heidi, and also Stetson and Whitney. I had at least two or three people walk up to me after the dinner and tell me how fun Whitney was. Rosa told me she thought Whitney looked like a "princess".

Stetson & Whitney and Sean & Heidi stayed the night with us. We came back to our house and had fresh apple cider (they even tried apple cider floats), talked and played a game.

While enjoying the cider, we heard a knock on the window, and came to see what it was. We found Jesse and Brighton outside on the roof doing a dance for us through the window. You can't see it too well here, but it was so funny I had to at least get an image to help me remember it.


We had no idea a year ago when Sean and Stetson were here serving in our branch,

that they would be back with a fiance and a wife exactly one year later!


These are pictures from this afternoon before they left.

Jesse gave a great talk on Service this morning in Church. Here is a good quote from her talk:

Elder Russell C. Taylor of the First Quorum of the Seventy said, "Some mistakenly think that a commitment to service comes after a great spiritual experience. This is like the man who is cold, standing before the stove, and saying, 'Give me heat, and then I will put in some wood."

At the end of her talk she told a story of service in our branch and teared up as she bore a very sweet testimony. I'm so grateful for a daughter like Jesse.

And here's the NEW missionary part. Our nephew Devyn has been called to serve in the Washington D.C. South Mission! We are so excited for him. He opened the call down in Provo.

Here is the video of his parents hearing the call over the phone.



We drove 30 min to Stephen & Kendra's just to be there for this moment! Congratulations Devyn!! We are thrilled that you are "going forth" to share the wonderful good news of our Savior Jesus Christ and his gospel.

By the way, Mary's blog is mjhblogger.blogspot.com. Check it out!

One quick thought on today's Relief Society lesson on the Signs of the Second Coming. I was struck today by the fact that we know the Church will be strong, so will always have a body of Saints that we can turn to and be with. We can go through anything, as long as we have each other and the guidance of the Holy Ghost and prayer! Put me in the wagon train with the Saints - that is where our family will be found. And won't that be great!

I'm so glad to have this venue to record all the amazing experiences that we have all the time. Moments of joy, laughter, love, light and smiles. And yes, challenges in between. But these challenges are dwarfed by the happy experiences.

Libby looses her first tooth, and other updates...

This picture makes me want to throw my hat in the air and yell, "Wahoo!" it makes me so happy. I could look it for hours. Libby lost her first tooth! Here is her account:

Last night she went and asked Bruce every five minutes if it was loose enough to pull out. As you can see in the video, she is dancing around happy as a clam. I love the enthusiasm of children.

This beautiful girl went to her piano lesson last night and played Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Her piano teacher leaned back in his chair and said, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" She said, "A politician." He replied, "Do you have a backup plan, such as being a piano teacher or a musician? I wish you could be at ___ (the private arts school at which he teaches)." It was a nice compliment from him.

Joseph had to do the DWA (Direct Writing Assessment) this week. Their practice writing assignments were passed around the class and the students graded the papers on a scale from one to four. Joseph's paper had only fours written all over the top of it. He really is a good writer. One of these days I'll publish something on this blog, if he'll let me. And maybe even if he won't...

This handsome fellow is up and moving around without crutches or a cast of any kind! He can't run yet, but the surgeon said that walking around is his physical therapy. We are so grateful this has healed so quickly. He is playing The Morning Breaks right now on the piano. I LOVE hearing my children play hymns.

Peter goes out and feeds the horses every day, which is a huge help to Bruce. He is gung-ho on Cub Scouts, asking me to sign things off constantly.

Mary got all made up on a Sunday afternoon with Jesse's help. She has a blog now - I'll have to get the address for you later.

Bruce is a busy beaver, getting all sorts of projects done around the house and the property. I married an incredible man. I don't want to say he makes me happy, because happiness comes from within, but he makes it incredible easy for me to bring out that happiness from within! Like looking at that picture of him and Libby at the top of the post... I just look at that and feel the warmth spread through me. Have I mentioned that I like this blog? :)

Already into November!

I had a new experience this week - being on the other side of the table as the Teacher instead of the Parent at Parent/Teacher Conferences. I really enjoyed meeting the parents and putting the child with the parents. That was fascinating! The four hours each night went really fast. I really do love to meet people.

It took me away from home from 4-8 pm on Wed and Thurs., so that was hard. By Thursday night the house was in total chaos. Thank goodness I had Friday off. I took Libby on my lap and said, "I get to be with you all day today!"

On Thursday I took pictures of all my classes. These are the two wonderful teachers I taught with:
And some pictures of some of my classes.
I really had to talk them into taking these pictures.This class (below) loved throwing paper wads, and here they show them off. I can laugh about it now, even though I made them stay in the classroom after the bell rang on the last day.
The last night, walking out of the room, was tough. It gave me a small glimpse in to how women feel that have a career and come home and take care of children. What it also emphasized in my mind was that you care a lot about whatever it is you put your time into. I've given a lot of time, energy, thought and prayer to these kids for the last six weeks (perhaps not as much as I should have, but as much as my family commitments would allow), and what I found is that I cared deeply about what I was doing. Overall, it was a great experience, and I'm really grateful to have had the opportunity. And a bright spot is that I will be back again substituting in that class on Friday, as the teacher has a training that day, so I'll get to see them again. Yeah!

We left on Friday afternoon to go down to Utah for my Aunt Marzelle's funeral. I wanted to leave by noon on Friday, but the older kids didn't want to leave their classes. I finally conceded, thankful to have good students as children. In actuality, I really needed that time to play catch up around the house.

We left around four and got down to Provo at 10:30 pm. The party at the Robinson's was still in full swing. We were playing a game where you pass a disc back and forth between two teams and one person has to try to describe a word for the rest of their team to guess. Some funny moments:
- Grandma describing "kidney" beans
- Joseph describing "carbohydrates" as a C on the elemental table, and the Greek word for water (and this after being left out of the game at first because he was too young - ha ha)
- Jesse describing "happy as a clam" and saying "It's a simile", which made everyone laugh again about the kids being too young to play. (I wish I could remember everything Jarom and Craig said about this - they went off on it - it was hilarious).
- Mary had the word "unknown" and she started out by looking at the group and saying, "You don't know this". There was a pause, and then Josh Haycock pointed at her and said, "You're right, we don't!"
- Clarissa was so entertaining to watch, especially when her hubby was the one describing the word. The expressions on her face were priceless.

Then we sang some hymns and had some words and experiences shared from Grandma, Grandpa and Angie that were very inspiring. Mom and Dad looked so great, and it As we left, I felt that if we turned around and went back home the next morning, it would have been worth the drive just to be there for that two hours.

I love being with my brothers and sisters, and my parents. I feel, as Jesse's simile described, happy as a clam. Jeana, Clark, Julie, Angie, Chris and Craig were all there - 7 out of the 10 of us. And then Stetson and Whitney, Clarissa and Josh, Jarom, and our six kids. Darcy, Cristen and Lindsey all had dates (or close to it) that night, so they couldn't be there. Of all the things! We missed Cheryl also.

We slept at Sylvia's that night. They have a basement room circled with couches and spare bedroom downstairs which fit our family perfectly. She was so kind to let us use it. I enjoyed spending a few minutes the next morning with Sylvia, Lynn, Murlene, Emma and Stan.

We had a Whetten family brunch at Clarissa and Josh's - who were gracious hosts. It was so fun to see their cute and fun apartment. To see pictures of the morning, go to my Picasa Web Album.

The funeral was a wonderful tribute to Aunt Marzelle and her life. Rene gave her life sketch, and Cynthian told about her early life in Chupie. Sylvia spoke of Aunt Marzelle's gifts - obedience, gratitude, being a hostess, love of family, and peace. While she spoke, I thought of how similar these gifts are to her little brother Jean's. When Dad got up and said a few words, all were touched. He said that two words could be put on her gravestone that described her life, "She served". I love Aunt Marzelle, and I'm grateful for her love for me and being a great example of what kind of person I want to be.

Our trip home was long, but we made it home safely. I was grateful for Josh being able to drive! When we got home at midnight, Josh went upstairs and jumped on Bruce and made him yell. He thought there was an intruder in the house.

Bruce went hunting over the weekend with his friend Lane (who is also my fourth cousin, descended from Edward Stevenson, Mary Stevenson's brother).
They had a very harrowing experience, but toughed it out and made it out with elk meat in tow. Thank goodness they are home safely!