Councils in the Church = Service

Today was busy. It started before dawn. My husband came downstairs dressed when it was still black outside on a Saturday. He talked about how much we had to get done today. Things to do included helping a young, single mother winterize her swimming pool, helping our 15 year-old son work on a science project when his partner couldn't make it over to work with him, getting my son and husband out the door to go replace a phone in a town an hour away, getting Christmas decorations out and start decorate the outside of the house, decorate my son's trumpet for a silly competition since he couldn't get back home in time (which he won), giving my husband a haircut, caring for the family in general, picking up a new cat, making sure I'm ready for my daughter's 14th birthday tomorrow, and after all of that, I needed to be spiritually ready for Stake Conference adult meeting tonight. I'm sure there were more things, but you get the idea. It was a very busy day.

So, tonight we had the adult session of Stake Conference. My husband was asked to conduct the music for the session. I wasn't able to sit next to him, but as I listened to the speakers, I felt the spirit, I felt uplifted, I felt happy that I was there, and I heard a lot of good testimonies of helping others make it to heaven. One of the counselors in our Stake presidency spoke with tears in his eyes about how grateful he was to a faithful home teacher who spent 15 years fellowshipping his father back into church activity and temple worthiness. We heard from our visiting authority (I can't remember his name) that the topic of the conference was that there is power in using the ward council to bless the lives of the people. My husband and I read Alma chapter 6 tonight. Alma had just finished what could be compared to a Stake Conference himself, and now that the conference was over, he had this to say:

     Alma 6:1 "And now it came to pass that after Alma had made an end of speaking unto the people of the church, which was established in the city of Zarahemla, he ordained priests and elders, by laying on his hands according to the order of God, to preside and watch over the church."

Look what he did. He created an organization of both Priests and Elders to both preside and watch over the members. He had a great love and concern for the members of the church and he wanted them protected. Then when we get to verse 6 he says:

     Alma 6:6 "Nevertheless the children of God were commanded that they should gather themselves together oft, and join in fasting and mighty prayer in behalf of the welfare of the souls of those who knew not God."

We see from this verse that it wasn't just the leadership who was responsible for the care and nurturing of those around them. The assignment to care for people was given to everyone in the congregation. That seemed to fit with exactly what we were being taught at our meeting tonight. I'm not on a ward council nor am I a Relief Society president, but I can care for members. I can help people in my neighborhood. I can lift. I can build. I can reach. I can serve.

A few months ago, our family watched a video that illustrates this topic perfectly. It is called "Lift". I'm sure that the sister in this video was the topic of many ward council discussions. Through that council, they were able to devise a plan to help her. The service provided by the many men involved blessed their lives and the sister they served. The church is run with councils, starting at the First Presidency. Working together in leadership combined with the spirit, the Lord allows his great work to be accomplished. Here is a link to the video:

I am grateful for this gospel and for the many blessings I receive because of it. The Lord has organized His church for the benefit of all and He has asked us to help everyone around us. It is perfectly set up in the organization of the church. This great work can be carried out by all of us if we have a willing attitude. It is my desire that this attitude to serve others becomes a permanent part of my character forever. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Someone Turned 9!

Well Jared is officially nine. It doesn't seem possible, yet it is true. I thought he was just baptized yesterday, not a whole year ago. He had to do a treasure hunt to find this present. Riley was his helper. He's been begging and borrowing Nicole and Riley's Ripsticks, and now he's got his own. He was thrilled. His is a smaller and smoother rolling board. It could be that the other boards around here have been used and abused and thus don't roll as well.

He obviously already knew how to use it. I have no idea how they do that, but I like to watch them. I also like that they get outside and get some exercise. It's not something I usually allow in my house....especially since "the hole in the wall accident". What a bunch of crazies I have!

Don't ask me why I got that look from either of them. The girls are just looking at each other like..."Boys!!" Jared you are loud, crazy, smart, a daredevil, and good boy and we're glad to have you in our family.

Butterfly!

Our kids were playing with their friends and they brought in a fat, green caterpillar. They wanted to keep it and see if it would turn into a butterfly. We got a jar ready and let them keep it. Things like this don't usually go well for me. The insect usually dies and then we have to go through a long explanation about why and what and all that. When it looked like it was making a cocoon the next morning, we were encouraged. When it was mostly black and looked really sad by the evening, I told them not to expect much. We decided not to throw it out yet, but to see what would happen over the next week or so.

One morning Sarah was getting ready for school and yelled. She scared me and I didn't know what she was talking about, but she said "It came out!!" Sure enough, this beautiful butterfly had emerged from its cocoon. We were all very happy it had survived and I'm glad I didn't have to explain why it died.

We let it go outside so it could be free and live a good life.

Here's what was left of the cocoon after it came out.

Snow Day!!

I know it's a bit late to be posting this, but I just uploaded these pictures and I was reminded about our huge snowstorm we had on March 28th! Winter is over by then, but we got the most snow I've ever seen here in OK. It melted the next day and we were enjoying 60 degree weather, but just look at the amount on the ground. Considering I've only seen it snow about four times in the four winters I've lived here, this was amazing.

Our Awesome Spring Break Adventure!!

We had so much fun on our trip. It felt like we had been gone for a month instead of almost 13 days. We went to Disney World, Ft. Lauderdale, and on a short cruise to the Bahamas. I'm posting a slideshow for your viewing pleasure. We definitely have to do something like this again!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Pinewood Derby

Jared participated in his first derby this year. He didn't come in first, but he didn't come in last either. He was somewhere right in the middle and that's just great for us. We're not engineers around here, but Jared had fun and that what matters. The leaders did a great job setting everything up and running it smoothly. I was very impressed.

Thank you great leaders!!

Everyone who raced had a lot of fun!

Court of Honor

Riley had a Court of Honor and was awarded his 2nd Class Rank and a few merit badges. He's doing well in Scouts, but we all need to get on the ball and finish up some badges he has in the works and get a few more things done on his 1st Class. He conducted this meeting to pass off a requirement for his Communication badge. He did a great job!

Here he is with his leader, Bro. Bingham and Jesse in the background.

I usually have a jacket with a collar when my kids get to "pin" me with something. I really am proud of him for putting for the effort he does for his scouting activities.

YMCA Basketball

Jared played basketball again this winter. He really enjoys it and I'm glad that he wants to do something so active. He really tries hard. Their team had a rough season, but ended up winning their last two games. I like it when I see a team improve. Way to go Jared!

This last picture is during the awards party at Mazzio's. I always appreciate the coaches who donate their time to help our kids.

Soccer Referee

Ok, I've been reprimanded again for not updating my blog. I'm a serious slacker and I apologize. I really do have a lot of exciting things to report, but I get overwhelmed easily. I'll do my best to catch up and keep up!

Riley really wanted to become a soccer referee this Spring. He paid for and took the class, passed with flying colors, and bought his uniform. He's refereed several games and gets paid pretty well for them. It will really help him with his own knowledge of the game and I love that he has ambition to do something that can be difficult. I wouldn't want those parents mad at me for calling something on the field. He started with U8 teams and will move up to U10 and become a line ref for the older U12 and U14 teams. Eventually he may ref for competetive teams, but that's a few years down the road.

I have a few pictures of him at his first game.



Great job Riley!

Nicole's Valentine

Make a Smilebox greeting

Sarah's Valentine

Make a Smilebox greeting

Kelli's House at Thanksgiving

We had a fun trip at Thanksgiving. I posted about the friends we were able to visit. I'm a little bit late, but here are some pictures of our time at Kelli's house.
McKenna's making a face. I'm sure one of my kids got this picture of her and she's being silly. McKenna turned 10 on January 5th and is getting very grown up.

Here are Kelli's other three girls. Avorie is on the left. She is very loud, but very loving and really enjoys life. Brielle, in the middle, is going to be a year on March 7th. She's getting around everywhere and has to be watched a lot. I heard she's walking a few steps at a time already. Marlena, on the right, turned 7 on November 15th. She waited for us to come so she could celebrate her birthday with her cousins around. I thought that was super nice to wait 10 days to celebrate. She and Sarah actually had a joint birthday party.

Here they both are just after blowing out the candles on their cake. I wonder what they wished for, they sure are smiling big.

Lance loves his baby. He's a great dad.

Avorie's waiting for something exciting to happen.

Marlena's contemplating something.

Like I said, we had a great time visiting with family. We played a lot of games and ate a lot of good food. The kids played in the snow and down in the basement for hours and hours. We love Kelli and her family!

Visiting Wisconsin

This post will highlight the part of our trip where we visited lots of friends from Madison. Another post is forthcoming about our visit with Kelli and her family.

We were able to eat lunch with my friend Cindy and her family. They are so nice and Cindy sure knows how to cook! She made the best rolls and sent two dozen with us on our trip. It's been a long time since I've had rolls that good. They are a great family and we had a nice visit.
Nicole is good friends with Sarah. They keep in touch on email and on Sarah's blog. I'm so glad they were able to spend a few hours together.
I was able to visit an old college roommate and her family. They were so nice to have us stay overnight at their place. We weren't able to spend much time visiting on the first weekend, but we stopped for a few hours and visited the next weekend. She made a delicious homemade salsa and we played Phase 10 and bowling on the Wii. It was a fun visit. It was fun to see her family and how well they're doing.
It snowed while we were in Wisconsin. We haven't seen much snow for a few years and the kids were so excited to play in it even though we didn't bring all of our snow gear. Sarah was so happy with the snowman that Riley helped her finish. She named him Bob.
We visited with some of our old neighbors and the kids had a lot of fun playing with their friends again. Two of the families who lived behind us shared yards with us. The kids would take turns going from playset to playset. Both families were able to spend a few hours with us and it was so fun to see how all the kids have grown and changed. Here's Nicole with Willie and Leah. Willie looks tough, but he's a big teddy bear and the kids all love him. He works as a security guard for the school district and the schools fight over him.
We ate lunch with the Oliphant family. Paul (center in the back) was our bishop before we moved. They have a big family and Mie (mint green shirt) made it look easy to feed 20 people. She's currently the Relief Society president and he teaches Seminary. The kids had a blast playing hide and seek in the basement. I miss having a basement.
Some other friends who used to live in Madison happened to be visiting the same day we were and the Oliphants invited them to eat over as well. They moved to England in August and it was a great surprise to see them on our visit. Here is a picture of Sarka and I. She's originally from the Czech Republic.
Sarka's oldest daughter, Misha, is good friends with Nicole. It was so good to see them again. They seem to be enjoying England and Bruce really loves his new job. He's a pilot for a large international airline. I can't remember the name right now, but he flies all over the world. It's been his dream for a long time.
For some reason we didn't get any pictures with the Kienitz family. They also had us stay overnight with them on the first weekend. We had so much fun visiting and catching up with them. We used to get together often and play games with them. We were able to visit again on our way home and we played some more games and had a Smarties war. Imagine flicking Smarties across the table at anyone who dared be there. It was crazy and fun.

As you can see, we were able to visit with so many people on this trip. We just showed up on the doorstep of some other neighbors who happened to be home and had a nice visit. We also went to church and saw so many people there and also noticed how much the ward had changed. We felt very welcome even though we've been gone for 4 1/2 years. We were sad that we didn't have time to visit with everyone and could only spend a few hours everywhere we went. We're so grateful to know such great people and that they're a part of our lives.

Just a Note

For all of my avid blog readers out there, I have just updated my blog. I know with me it isn't a steady stream of blogs, but I did try to catch up here. So read on down and you'll get filled in on what's happened the last few weeks. By the way, the gas prices are around $1.68 and the temperature's supposed to be about 45 today, so those things have changed as well.

We're going to Neenah, Wisconsin to spend Thanksgiving with Robert's sister Kelli. We're leaving tomorrow morning around 4:00. We're stopping in Madison to visit a lot of friends from when we lived there. We're really looking forward to the trip and I'll fill you in. You might get lucky and I'll blog about it while we're gone, but no promises. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and thanks for reading!

A New Blog is Born

I have asked Laura to post this, simply to let people know I am starting a different blog. I will gear it towards my spiritual beliefs. I simply can't talk about what I feel most passionately about in Sunday School. It just isn't the right setting, but there is sooo much I want to share. A good portion of this is simply for my own benefit. It is a way for me to sort out what I believe. So if you are interested, then take a peek. If it is not funny enough, too long winded or preachy, has bad spelling and grammar, then tough... get over it... (insert a tune in the background...) "It's my blog and I can write what I waaant to... ". http://lightsandperfections.blogspot.com.

Someone Turned 40!

Hmmmm....I wonder who that could be. Well maybe this picture will give it away.

It's sometimes difficult to get older, and I think 40 can be a tough birthday. Robert's had a kind of mid-life crisis. He felt the need to buy a good gun. That qualifies as a crisis to me, but he's having a lot of fun with it. We had a surprise birthday party for him with a lot of our friends. Thanks guys for coming and helping so much! He also got to have a homemade Olive Garden meal, which was by his special request. The food turned out really good. I hope he enjoyed his birthday, and doesn't feel too bad about his age. Everyone still loves him anyway!

Riley's Last Soccer Game

Riley plays soccer and really enjoys it. He does well at soccer and it's fun to watch him play. Here are some pictures of him just after his last game of the season. I couldn't get any good ones of him actually playing because it was pretty dark. The game was played at 6:30 pm on Monday, November 10th. It was a make up game and it was very cold and rained a little during the game. It had rained all day and we thought they might cancel, but there wasn't any lightning, so it was on!

I was glad they played anyway since they probably wouldn't reschedule the game again. Riley's team had a rough season. It started out with them getting beat pretty badly the first several games. I mean like 10-0. In soccer that's a huge score for the other team. They did have a few games in the middle of the season that they won, which was encouraging. Then they started losing pretty bad again. So they had this game and I was hopeful that they could finish the season with a win.

Riley usually plays center or midfield. It requires a lot of running, which he doesn't do much unless he's in a soccer game. There were only 11 boys at this game and that's how many play on the field at a time, so there were no subs. It was a long game, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Riley hadn't had a chance to score all season. The kids played their hearts out and pulled it off! They won 2-1! But this is the best part. Riley scored both of the goals! I was so happy and so was he. It was a perfect way to end a difficult season.

Halloween

Here are some pictures of the kids at Halloween, finally.
Jared is a Jedi (not sure which one). Sarah is a bat, who apparently likes to curtsy for pictures.

Riley is a hippie. I love the wig! It makes the whole outfit.

Nicole is also a hippie. Her hair just naturally fits.

The kids each wore their costumes three or four times. I like it when they use their costumes more than once. Thank goodness there wasn't any makeup involved.

Storm

On November 6th we had a storm. It came up pretty fast and was pounding rain super hard. You can see how big the raindrops were in this picture: Oh yeah. Look closely at that picture. Do you see anything strange? Like maybe a whole bunch of metal posts sticking out in weird directions. Well if you can't see it in that picture, have a look at the next one:I trust you can all see what happened. No, we don't have two trampolines. Several of our neighbors have trampolines and one of them decided to jump over the fence and join ours. Seriously, it had to climb over the fence and the neighbor's yard has a fence too. Somehow a big gust of wind got in there and swept it up and over. We're lucky a pole didn't fly through the boys' window. One of the poles was thrown and stuck into our trampoline mat.

This particular neighbor happens to be Jared's teacher at school and we've had a few laughs over it, since there wasn't any serious damage done. We needed to replace our trampoline anyway because my kids have worn it out. A few of the welds on the legs are broken and it's cheaper to buy a new one. I offered parts of ours to fix up theirs since they happen to be the same kind. Needless to say, it was quite a surprise to see that scene.