Saturday, March 15, 2014
10:25pm
I keep putting off my letter.
Sunday’s are so busy… most days are busy, but there are memories and
experiences I want to record. I may need
to plan a new day to write my letter.
The week of Feb. 24th had its ups and downs. Spencer had a history project due for the 6th
grade history fair. He had to make a
replica of Stonehenge. He made it out of
salt dough, with Chad’s help. Puring
fell and hit her head that week. She
called me to let me know about it. She
had to get 10 staples in her head. She
lost a lot of blood too and had to spend a night in the hospital to get a blood
transfusion. Bryant had a blue and gold
banquet for cub scouts. The cub leaders
planned a really fun night with a winter Olympic theme and games. The dinner was really good too, smoked pulled
pork sandwiches. Yum! That weekend was the temple cultural
celebration and dedication. It was a
busy weekend with many great experiences.
I already posted some of my feelings.
One other thing I would like to add is how I felt to be able to sing for
the Lord and for the prophet. It was
amazing. I had a hard time keeping my
emotions in check, but I did well most of the time. Beforehand I joked that I was probably a
waste of a choir member since I’m such a cry baby and it’s kind of impossible
to sing when you’re crying. I was so
honored to be in that choir. I never
earned any personal awards or honors in high school or college for music and I
felt sad about that, but being a part of that choir was better than those
awards would have been. One cool
experience was President Monson’s comment to us after we finished our first
song. The first word out of Pres.
Monson's mouth after hearing us sing was “Excellent”. At our first
rehearsal our choir director shared her favorite music quote from David O.
McKay. “Music is truly the universal
language and when it is excellently expressed how deeply it moves our
souls.” His comment of excellent meant a
lot to our director and to us, because excellently expressing the music was our
goal.
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| Marlee was so cute leading the music in our FHE |
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| Building Stonehenge |
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| We went to watch Chad's flag football game. They won. |
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| On Sunday March 2nd we hosted the Sanders' monthly birthdays. Marlee's birthday is coming up!!! |
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| Everyone wanted a turn to hold baby Clark, Devin and Suzannah's cute baby. |
The week of March 3rd was one of recuperating …
kind of. I did have to go to our rental
house 3 or 4 times to pay workers and clean things up to prepare it to list on
MLS. Spencer’s Deacon’s quorum did
baptisms for the dead in the new Gilbert temple on the first day it was opened. On Wednesday night Chad and I didn’t have any
commitments or meetings away from home so we decided to run to the temple to do
a session. It was so nice to be so close
and to save an hour of driving!! One
interested thing happened in our session. The woman who was part of the witness couple
passed out while she was at the altar.
It was so sad. She was ok, but
probably lost circulation while kneeling down.
Since the officiator was in our ward, Chad and I were asked to be the
witness couple in their place for the rest of the session. Karalee had a field trip on March 5th. She went to the aquarium at Mills Mall. Spencer was chosen as student of the month
for his class and got an award at flag ceremony on March 6th. He’s never been student of the month
before. He came home and said I got it
just in time, since he’s about to move to a new school next year. That same evening we got to go witness my
nephew Jake as he was ordained as an Elder.
Sure love that Jake.
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| On Monday we lazed around and I stayed in my PJ's all morning. |
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| We love walking to the park |
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| Our cute little rental home is all ready to sell. |
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| The note Spencer's teacher wrote sure did this mother's heart some good. This month's virtue was courage-loyalty. He said Spencer is a bright and wonderful student. He is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. He is a good friend and looks for opportunities to make new ones. He is strong in his desire to do what he knows to be right. |
March 8th was the start of our Spring break. We drove to California on Saturday afternoon
after Spencer’s football game. We
actually had him leave at halftime since his game was so late and we had such a
long drive. We got to Jeff and Kayla’s
house around 10:30pm. We woke up the next
morning and attended their ward at 9:00am.
They had excellent meetings. My
quote at the end of the letter is from a talk I heard in their sacrament
meeting. In Sunday school the teacher
gave an excellent lesson Abraham and how he was asked to sacrifice Isaac. My mind recalled how Sis. Tidwell, the lady
who wrote the TCC production, also had kind of a similar sacrifice when she had
to sacrifice the production she had written for a stake dance festival because
it was canceled and then in the end her production ended up being used of for
the temple cultural celebration. It was
interesting to me that the Lord uses that pattern of sacrifice to test and to
teach his children. I’ve noticed it in
my life as well. For example, I decided
to go on a mission because I knew it was a worthy sacrifice, but my heart
wasn’t really in it and I really wanted to be able to meet the right person and
get married. It was only after I had the
faith to go forward with my mission plans that I met Chad. I remember
at Brandon and Jennifer's reception, a month and a half before I met Chad, going
for a walk around the Main Street church and praying that if it was Heavenly
Father's will I would serve a mission, but that I would rather be able to get
married. After church on Sunday we
spent all afternoon relaxing and playing at the park that is in Kayla’s
apartment complex. We also went to the
beach to take some pictures. We didn’t
stay long at the beach because it was so crowded and because Kayla and Jeff had
an “It’s great to be 8” meeting with Rachel which they invited Karalee
too. I’m excited that Karalee and Rachel
and Malia, my niece on Chad’s side, will all get baptized this year. Their birthdays are all within 2 months of
each other.
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| We had so much fun staying with Kayla and her family. I think we looked forward to staying with them just as much as we looked forward to going to Legoland. Plus we probably had just as much fun at the Larson's house as we did at Legoland. Thanks again for letting us stay with you Kayla!!! |
Monday morning we woke up and drove to Legoland in Carlsbad, CA. We met Chad’s sister Shannon and her family there. We spent two days in the park. We had a nice time. Wednesday morning we went swimming at our hotel pool and then drove home. As we drove through Yuma I saw a sign for the Yuma Territorial Prison Museum and we decided to stop and check it out since I had two great-great Grandfathers who were prisoners there because they were Polygamists. That was interesting to teach my children about that situation. J They had a nice touch screen with brief histories of all the Mormon polygamist prisoners. They also had a huge banner of William J. Flake hanging in the Museum. You can see pictures our tour HERE. I took pictures of the histories of my two grandfathers so you can read them at the link above.
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| Notice Spencer photo bombing Karalee's picture!! He's funny. |
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| We sure wore Tilly out. She crashed for a long time. |
Today we had a nice experience in the Gilbert temple. Spencer was baptized for my Grandma Flake's
cousin Sven Hellberg. I found his name
when I was reading my great grandmother’s book "You May Take My Life, But
Never My Faith." He is mentioned
with his age on page 142. We also did
some work for Puring’s family. Puring
watched as Spencer and I were baptized and confirmed for her deceased daughter,
mother, grandmother, son, father, and grandfather. It’s pretty neat that 7 people have now been
baptized from sharing our tomatoes with our neighbor. It is such a miracle for our family. You never know what blessings will come from
small acts of kindness.
I loved this quote by Elder Marion D. Hanks that I heard in
Kayla’s sacrament meeting regarding the broken bow experience. Emphasis added. “Nephi went to his father and said, ‘Dad, the Lord has blessed you. You
are his servant. I need to know where to go to get food. Dad, you ask him, will
you?’ Oh, he could have gone to his own knees. He could have taken over. I count this one of the really significant
lessons of life in the book, [Book of Mormon] and, I repeat, the pages are full
of them. A son who had strength enough, and humility enough, and manliness
enough to go to his wavering superior and say, ‘You ask God, will you?’ because
somehow he knew this is how you make men strong, that wise confidence in men
builds them. Lehi asked God and God told him, and Lehi’s leadership was
restored” (Steps to Learning, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year
[May 4, 1960], 7).
Love,
Mindy
P.S. What do you think of these pictures I took of my kids at the beach? I like them.
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