August 17, 2014
It has been a GREAT week.
Monday I did laundry as usual, went to the chiropractor and got a half hour
massage instead of my normal chiropractic visit. It was heavenly. I’ve been so tight lately which keeps pulling
my neck out of place so Dr. Haynes recommended the massage. Monday afternoon I did some last minute birthday
shopping for Bryant. As Tilly and I
walked out of Walmart we got rained on.
It was a quick little down pour, which was wonderful. We need rain so badly. Monday for FHE Chad taught us a lesson 3 from
Preach my Gospel. We want to get through
all the preach my gospel lessons before Karalee is baptized in November. Her baptism will be on the 3rd
Saturday which is November 15th so save the date!!
Tuesday was Bryant’s 10th birthday. Here is the tribute I wrote about him on
Facebook. “It is my Bryant boy's 10th birthday today. I LOVE
this boy!! He has so much enthusiasm for life. He is smart as can be and keeps
me on my toes. He is a deep thinker and asks thoughtful questions about gospel
subjects and pretty much everything. He’s
observant and kind and helpful. He is
silly. He is a good friend. He got an air soft gun and a pet beta fish
that he named Jimmy the 11th.
(We have not had 10 other fish named Jimmy in case you’re wondering.)” Bryant
and our kids love having a pet. Marlee
can’t ever remember his name and she keeps calling him Bobby the 3rd. It cracks me up. We also got Bryant a cowboy rope. He loved roping when we were in Snowflake a
few weeks ago. We need to set up some
sort of roping dummy for him to practice on. Bryant, Tilly and I went to lunch
at Subway on his birthday and they gave him a free foot long sub. For dinner that evening we got Panda
express. Later he had scouts and I had
Young Women’s but I came home early so we could have cake and ice cream before
bed time. I made him an Oreo cake and it
was delicious.
Wednesday Brenda
was nice enough to take my girls a little earlier than normal for Grammy Days
and I was able to make it to a session before Marlee needed to make it to
Kindergarten. I am sure thankful for
Grammy Days. They have been a huge
blessing in my life. Thank you Brenda!!! Wednesday afternoon Spencer did baptisms for
the dead after school on Wednesday with Brenda, Anna, Hayley and the Brooks
cousins and then they went out to dinner.
Chad had a basketball game that evening and the kids and I went to
watch. I love to watch him play
basketball.
Thursday morning
I made a quick trip to Walmart to get the final things we needed for our
camping trip. Then I went to lunch with
one of my laurels who is about to leave for college for her birthday. Then I came home and packed things up. We left to go camping around 4:30. We went to the upper Tonto Creek campground. It was such a nice camping trip. The weather was wonderful. The company was fun--Chad’s brother Jace and
his family came with us. I slept well
at nights and so did all of the kids. We
fished and I think the boys each caught 3 fish.
We went on a little hike. We were
even treated to a nice rain and an awesome Thunderstorm on Friday
afternoon. Thunder in the mountains is
amazing and loud yet Tilly slept right through it! Our trip was pretty much “perfectly perfect”. (If you’ve ever read the children’s book Moostletoe
you’ll recognize that phrase.) You
can see LOTS of pictures here. Several
of the pictures were taken by Jace and Macaia.
They have a nice eye for pictures and a great camera.
We got home from
camping early yesterday afternoon. I’ve
been doing laundry all through the day and night since then. Marlee got sick last night because she ate pizza
and other cheesy dishes at our ward potluck party yesterday evening without a
lactaid pill. I had to change her sheets
three times. Poor girl. I’ve come to realize that it really is true
that laundry is like interest. It never
sleeps nor sickens nor dies, nor does it take vacations and if you fail to meet
its demands it crushes you!! (I’m paraphrasing this quote by J. Reuben Clark Jr.)
We had a great
lesson in our laurels class today. We
went over the proclamation
on the family. Some of the girls
really opened up. Only two of my six
laurels come from two parent homes. I
taught that we strive for the ideals spoken of in the proclamation on the family
and they expressed anger that they have towards parents who don’t live up to
all their responsibilities. We taught
then that it is important to forgive, even though they will be held accountable
like it states in the proclamation.
Tonight we had a
back to school fireside. Pres. Derrick,
our stake president talked about safeguarding ourselves from pornography. He shared that a pattern of prayer and
scriptures EVERYDAY is important. He
mentioned it is particularly important for newly returned missionaries. He said that 8 out of 10 newly returned men
and women missionaries are neck deep in pornography within 14 days of coming
home from their mission and are no longer worthy of a temple recommend. 8 out of 10!!! In 14 days!!
He said it is because they stay up late telling stories of their
mission, then they wake up late. Satan
tells them they’ve done a good job and that they deserve a break and within 3
days their pattern of prayer and scripture study is gone. Then they start playing online video games
and porn pop up ads come up and they don’t have enough spiritual strength to
stay away. He said 1 out of 3 returned
missionaries are inactive within 1 year of returning home. That is so sad. He promised that “exercising faith in simple
ways invites the Holy Ghost” and that the Book of Mormon is a powerful
safeguard. He also shared that 3 Nephi
10:11 – 3 Nephi 23:1, where Jesus’ is speaking, is a chiasm. I learned about the chiasm in Alma 36 when I
was in seminary but I didn’t know there was another one. I’m anxious to study it. The central theme in the chiasm in 3 Nephi is
the Book of Mormon. Pretty cool.
My quote for
today is from the 2nd verse of As
Zion’s Youth in Latter Days,
“We know we can
withstand
The evils that would weaken us,
The sin that would destroy.
With faith, we hold the iron rod
And find in this our joy.”
I know this is
true. The iron rod, the Book of Mormon
and words of living prophets, bring joy, safety and power to withstand Satan.
Love,
Mindy
P.S.
I love Hymns. They are powerful sermons. I wrote a little post
about them on my blog this week.
1 comment:
Bahaha! I loved your comparison of laundry to interest--I've always liked the quote from President Clark, and hearing it describing laundry made me laugh out loud, because it fits SO perfectly!
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