Sunday, July 05, 2015
Happy birthday to my big brother Tyler! I just got back from visiting with him and
his family. A few of the kids and I took
him some chocolate cake. I sure
appreciate him and his good family. I love
them. I remember the summer Tyler came
home from his mission. Almost every
morning he would come and jump on my bed and wake me up (I had moved down to
the basement). He would tell me, “the
sun in up, the sun is up” and then I’d tell him, “so what” or some other
teenager response and then he’d tell me I had bad morning breath.
The last two weeks have been fun. We went camping June 24th -27th
at Bear Canyon Lake. It was a
blast. Our friends the Wilcox’s,
Sorenson’s, Bowen’s, Judd’s and Tsai’s joined us on 25th -27th
and Jace and Macaia joined us on 26-27th. It was perfect. We got to spend time alone with our little family
the first day and night and then we had a fun group to hang out with the rest
of the time. We kayaked, swam, fished, played
games, visited, cooked over the fire, etc.
It was a fun vacation. You can
see pictures of our camping trip HERE.
Last week in ward council we learned about the
Prophetic Priority for this year. My
nephew Jake also mentioned it in his last letter and he did such a good write
up about it I’m going to copy and paste his summary. “The prophetic priority is what all of the
council of the 12 and the 1st Presidency focus on for the year. Usually they
all meet together and think of the principles of the Gospel they need to focus
on for the next year, and then they instruct all of the members of the 70, who
in turn go and instruct all of the stake presidents and mission presidents.
Normally they have about 10-20 different things to improve on that will help
every member of the church. The cool thing is this year, they only have one.
And that one principle is Sabbath Day Observance. Pretty important if that is
the only focus they have as the general authorities of the church! In Preach My
Gospel it talks about the observance of the Sabbath day and its
importance. ‘Our Sabbath-day
behavior is a reflection of our commitment to honor and worship God. By keeping
the Sabbath day holy, we show God our willingness to keep our covenants. Each
Sabbath day we go to the Lord’s house to worship Him... When a community
or nation grows careless in its Sabbath activities, its religious life decays
and all aspects of life are negatively affected. The blessings associated with
keeping the Sabbath day holy are lost.’”
Monday this week I finished up all of our camping
laundry. That was BIG job. I looked online for some ideas for food for
Anna’s bridal shower that I hosted on Thursday night and I asked Brenda, Macaia,
Jennie, Susannah and Shannon to each helped with the food. Thankfully they were all happy to help. I knew they would be.
Tuesday Spencer had an orthodontist
appointment. Things are going well and
it looks like he won’t have to have the braces on any longer than the 10-12
month the originally predicted. Later
that day, I dusted the house and cleaned and organized my computer desk to get
ready for the bridal shower. That
evening for mutual the laurels did random acts of kindness. We took cookies to a few people in the ward, wrote
sidewalk chalk messages on the driveway of a girl who came to camp with us last
year, taped quarters on the water dispenser at Walgreens so people could get
free drinking water, bought drinks at sonic and paid for the people behind us. It was a really fun evening.
Wednesday the kids and I went with Brenda and Anna
and Tyler to Basha pool for Grammy Days.
It was fun. I paid the bills that
afternoon.
Thursday the kids and I finished cleaning up the
house and porches for Anna’s bridal shower that evening. The shower was well attended and Anna got a
lot of nice gifts. It was fun to
celebrate with her. I’m glad I got to
host it. You can see pictures of the
bridal shower HERE.
Friday the kids and I tubed the lower part of the Salt
River with a few friends from our ward. That
part of the river doesn’t get many other tubers. It was fun.
Tilly and I rode together in our little 2 man blow up raft. We tied Marlee to us and Karalee was tied to
us for part of the time until she decided she was brave enough to go on her
own. It was a really fun day. That evening the whole family stayed home,
picked up panda express and watched movies.
Yesterday was the 4th of July. I took the kid’s swimming at the Bowen’s
while Chad worked on his Elder’s Quorum lesson.
Then we all went to watch the movie “Inside Out” and ate at Café Rio to celebrate
America’s birthday. We got invited over
to the Hicks’ home, our neighbors, for fireworks that evening. You can see our 4th of July
picture HERE.
Today has been a wonderful Sabbath Day. I love Sundays. Even when I have a lot of meetings I still
feel the blessings that come from this Holy Day and I still feel rested and rejuvenated
to go about my responsibilities the rest of the week. We had ward choir at our home this Sunday; we
normally don’t host it, but just subbed for the family that usually hosts it. Last week the bishop changed around the time
for all of our ward council meetings so the ward council could support and sing
in the ward choir. He called me out and
said that he had me in mind when he changed everything so that I would be able
to go. So basically I just got a new
calling to sing in the ward choir, along with my other callings of YW president
and ward organist. J
That’s ok. I love to sing. I’m happy to offer what I can. We fed the missionaries tonight. I found out last night that today was Elder
Mauclair’s birthday. He is from
France. Last night I asked if they traditionally
do cake and ice cream in France and he said they do. I asked him his favorite, and he requested
chocolate cake and cookie dough ice cream.
I love it when people make requests.
It makes life easier. We served
hamburgers, French fries, zucchini and oriental cabbage salad. Then took videos and pictures of him blowing out
candles on his cake and emailed them to his mom.
My quote today comes from a talk by Elder Faust, Five
Loaves and Two Fishes. “It has been said that this church does not
necessarily attract great people but more often makes ordinary people great.
Many nameless people with gifts equal only to five loaves and two small fishes
magnify their callings and serve without attention or recognition, feeding
literally thousands… Some without formal training but greatly magnified, always
learning, with a humble desire to serve the Lord and the people of their wards.
… A major reason this church has grown from its humble beginnings to its
current strength is the faithfulness and devotion of millions of humble and
devoted people who have only five loaves and two small fishes to offer in the
service of the Master. They have largely surrendered their own interests, and
in so doing have found “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philip. 4:7).
I wish only to be one of those who experience this supernal inner peace”. This is my wish too. I love that the Lord can magnify my small
offerings to bless others.
Love,
Mindy
1 comment:
Loved this!! I'm excited for the focus we have this year of making the Sabbath day more of a priority. :)
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