Thanksgiving News

These guys sure had fun hunting on Thanksgiving morning. We ate the pheasant at our Thanksgiving dinner and it was tasty! Bruce, Joseph and Peter went with their cousins Joshua W. and Kaleb.

In the meantime, I was preparing dinner,
and Libby was drawing a picture, among other things.

Our meal turned out wonderfully, thank goodness.

The best part of the meal was the fresh apple cider. It's called liquid gold around these parts!

I took a long nap after dinner, and Bruce went horseback riding with Gary and Heidi, and then Peter and Kaleb. They took Lady, Mackee and Strawberry and Bruce said they all did great. We are still in the process of training them, so the more they go out the better, and we talk about "how they did" after every ride.

Later in the evening we watched Get Smart (very funny movie), and played games with Stephen and Kendra and family when they came over. We played categories, and this crazy board game where they made me jump from five feet off the ground blindfolded, and a "Famous Name" game. Despite family members getting a little too competitive (smile here), we had a really fun evening.

Well, Peter just came in to tell me the horses are ready, so I gotta go ride. Wahoo!

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!

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.