Letter - Miraculous Super Saturday

I'm a little late getting my letter up on the blog.  I was too tired on Sunday night after writing it.  I don't think anyone even reads my blog anyway, but I like to keep it here for a digital family history for my posterity.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

What a week!!  I had some amazing experiences.  It feels like Monday was ages ago, but I’ll try to remember what we did.  Monday the kids didn’t have any school in honor of Presidents Day.  In the morning I took Spencer to Sports Exchange in Mesa to redeem his voucher for football pants, socks, etc.  After that we stopped at Bosa Donuts since it was in the same parking lot to buy a dozen donuts to take home.  Then we went over to our rental house to do a few things to prepare for workers to come in and fix up the house so we can sell it.  After that we stopped by my friend Chani’s house to say hello for a few minutes and to share our donuts.  It was nice to see her again.  I talk to her on the phone fairly often, but we rarely see each other.  She’s a friend for life!!  Monday afternoon our ward’s youth had the unique opportunity to go assist the newly called Gilbert temple workers.  We were asked to show up at the front of the temple at 4:00pm.  We weren’t sure what we were going to do.  We ended up putting shoe coverings on all the temple workers as they went into the temple and then took them off of them when they came out.  Afterwards we asked and were very fortunate to get a special tour of the bridal room.  The YM got to come too.  They YM will probably never get a chance to see that room again, but hopefully all my young women will be back there when they get married in the next 5-10 years or so.  It was definitely an amazing experience.  I felt the spirit more strongly that day with the youth as they were being so reverent than I did when there was a constant stream of tourists during the open house.

Spencer crashed out on the chair after waking up early on Monday morning to go play basketball with Chad and some of the YM in our ward.  They played for 3 hours.

 On the temple grounds waiting to assist the Gilbert temple workers with their shoe coverings.

This week Chad and I hired my nephew Ray to remove the old carpet and tile from our rental house.  He did a great job.  He said to tell everyone that I got the manliest nephew out there.  He “got er done.”  We will be listing our home soon, after we make a few improvements.  If you know anyone who is the market to buy a nice little 3 bedroom first home send them our way.  Its major crossroads are Horne and Brown in Mesa.  It’s in a nice quiet little neighborhood.     

Wednesday I went to the temple during Grandma Days.  In less than a week I’ll be able to drive over to the Gilbert temple instead of going to the Mesa temple!!  It’ll probably be really crowded for a while though, but that’ll be so nice to have so much temple work being done.  Wednesday evening I watched Amy’s kids and fed them dinner while she and David went to the Keg restaurant for their free birthday steak dinner.  Chad and I were both able to spend that evening at home.  It was so nice. 

Thursday I had parent teacher conference for the three school kids.  They’re doing well and their teachers enjoy having them in their classes.  That night Chad had his first game for a Mesa flag football league that he was invited to play in.  He plays basketball on Saturday morning with the man who heads up the team.  I think half of the men in our stake have a man crush on Chad since he’s so amazing at sports.  J

Friday my visiting teachers came to visit me.  We had a nice visit.  After the school kids came home, I took my friend’s eleven year old daughter to the church building to listen to and observe her playing the organ so I could approve her to play postlude in Sacrament meeting.  Since I’m the organist in my ward, my bishopric member wanted me to make sure she was ready to play.  She did a great job and played postlude for me today.   Our stake President has asked that we help more youth learn how to play the organ.  I start the youth with postlude and prelude.  I think one of my laurels is probably ready try playing the closing song now too.  It’s fun to teach them the few skills and tips that I know.  

I entitle this "Mastering the art of Multitasking".  Friday morning I wanted to read my scriptures and get some exercise in so I could shower before my visiting teachers arrived.  While doing that Marlee and Tilly asked me to blow up their balloons.  So here I am reading my scriptures, while riding my exercise bike and blowing up a balloon.

Yesterday was our TCC super Saturday rehearsal.  It was a long, yet miraculous, rewarding day.  We met at our church building at 6:30am to carpool over to Discovery Park.  All morning we rehearsed with our region for our first regional practice.  Then in the afternoon we met as the whole temple district and worked on staging for the performance and then did a run through of the show.  While we were doing the staging I was feeling a little grumbly and hot and tired.  I kept my feelings to myself, but sadly I was more like Laman and Lemuel than Nephi.  I was thinking and said to some of the other YW leaders, I’m glad this is a once and a lifetime type of event.  I was so tired.  Then all the youth did a run through the show.  I watched my region perform our dance from the top of the hill, behind a different region because I was about to go run to check on some of the youth back at our “camp” but stopped to watch our dance.  As I watched our region’s tumblers start us off with cart wheels and back flips and other amazing gymnastic feats then as all the rest of our youth ran onto the field to do our Babylonian warrior fire dance all the other regions gasped and cheered.  It was SO cool.  I was overcome with emotion as they ran onto the field.  I couldn’t stop the tears from coming.  It was kind of embarrassing.  All the preparations, sewing, meetings, rehearsals, etc. were worth that moment.  It was miraculous and changed my murmuring heart.   Then at the very end of the dance as our youth all yell out with their warrior yell all the other regions cheered and yelled loudly.  They loved it!  I’m probably biased, but our dance is the most exciting and it is really fun to watch and do.  I can’t wait until they get to perform it for the prophet and for all the parents and family members who will be watching the broadcast this Saturday night.  I still can’t talk about that experience without emotion.

Waiting for rehearsals to start.  To help with traffic congestion our stake was assigned to arrive at Discovery Park at 7:00am, one and a half hours before rehearsals started.

This is our first time rehearsing together as a region.  We are region 4, which is comprised of 4 stakes.

There were so many youth my camera couldn't get them all.

This was how many pizza's it took to feed all the kids in our stake!!

I copied this aerial photo of all the regions rehearsing together off Facebook.  It's awesome!!!

For those of you who are interested, ABC15 is providing two ways for the public to view the 7 p.m. cultural celebration on March 1.

·         The celebration will be broadcast on ABC15's Antenna TV. You can find the channel over the air on 15.2, Cox Cable 95, Century Link 815, Prism Channel 16, Orbitel Channel 764 and Mediacom Channel 10.

·         The celebration will also be live streamed on www.abc15.comand within our ABC15 mobile app.

It will also be broadcast to the stake centers in our temple district.

Marlee taking some photos of our relaxing Sunday afternoon.

Isn't she so cute?!!

Well that’s my week.  I’m going to forgo a quote for tonight.  I’m ready for bed. 

Love,

Mindy