August 2, 2015
What a whirlwind the last few weeks have
been! But it has been a FUN
whirlwind. My last letter left off on
July 22nd. Well on July 23rd,
the second day of school, Chad and I got the kids out early and headed up to
Snowflake so we’d make it in time for the Virgil and Gerda Flake Reunion at my
cousin Tom’s Pond. It was such a fun
reunion. The kids swam in the pond, Chad
played some serious basketball, I got to visit and watch Chad play basketball,
and my brother Tyler and cousin Ben Caldwell light off fireworks. Since fireworks scared Tilly really badly, I
took her into Tom and Angie’s awesome 11,000 square foot home until the
fireworks were over. While I was in
there my cousins Suzy and Heidi came in to admire their home so Angie graciously
gave us a tour. I sure love Tom and
Angie. They are gracious and willing to
share what they’ve been given. They
allow everyone in town to come to their pond and yard. Their yard is awesome--full size basketball
court, a grass volleyball court, covered ramada, a zip line and a large pond
for swimming and fishing.
Friday the 23rd was the Flake Family
Rodeo. It was awesome. Best day of the year. Bryant and Ryan won the 10 and under stick
horse keg race and got t-shirts. Spencer
and I competed in the 11 and older stick horse keg race, but sadly I slowed
Spencer down too much and we got out the 2nd round. (Spencer’s been faster than me for several
years already.) Spencer did the grocery
race with some of our Brimhall cousins and fell off the horse twice, luckily he
didn’t get anything more than a few scratches and had a fun time participating. After the Rodeo we enjoyed visiting with
everyone at the luncheon, then we took the kids to Josh’s birthday party and
then I attended the Flake program for a while.
After that we stayed at my Mom’s long enough for dinner with the family
and then we headed back home before the rest of the Snowflake celebration was
over so we could attend Hayley’s wedding the next day.
Hayley’s wedding, luncheon and reception were
wonderful. I was sure happy to be there
for it all. It was fun to see
Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.
Nick and Hayley make a wonderful couple and I’m excited to have a new
brother-in-law.
Last week was good to get back into a routine a
bit. I’ve got carpools worked out pretty
well for school so I don’t have to drive too much. On Tuesday Tilly and I went swimming with our
Lonely Baby Club (LBC) that my friend started for the Mom’s in the ward with
only one baby left at home while all their other kids are at school. We invite all women to come though, not just
the ones with only one baby left. We
meet on Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday
I went to the temple and did a session while Tilly went to Grammy Days. While there I had a thought to write a
poem. I don’t usually write poetry, but
thought it would be a good thing to do.
Later during the session I thought I should write it about a scripture
and my thoughts turned to 2nd Nephi 2 since it goes along with the
temple endowment. So when I got home
this is what I wrote:
The Garden
By
Mindy Flake Sanders
In the
Garden where life began
Are
God’s greatest lessons for man.
There’s
opposition in all things.
Utterance
from which mortal life springs.
Taste
not the sweet without the bitter,
Pain
grants pleasure, there’s no plan better.
Men
are that they might have joy.
Falling’s
essential, it needn’t annoy.
In
another garden, Gethsemane,
Redemption
comes, we can be free.
Liberty
and Life or captivity and death,
Choices
last while we have breath.
Late Wednesday evening I found out that we would
get to have the newlyweds Hayley and Nick come stay with us for three nights
since they had to come back into town for their wedding pictures and for Anna
and Tyler’s wedding. I was so excited to
have them as house guests!! I love to
have house guests. Thursday I spent the
day cleaning to get things ready for their stay.
Friday I went visiting teaching and had my
visiting teachers visit me. Nothing like
the last day of the month! Chad and I
went on a date that evening. We went out
to eat and then went grocery shopping.
Then we came home and I read a little bit and fell asleep on the couch
while he watched a movie. We are getting
old, but it was still nice to go out together.
Yesterday was Anna’s and Tyler’s wedding, luncheon
and reception. Their sealing was
wonderful. I loved the thoughts the
sealer gave about initiatory. He
mentioned that even if all we got in the temple were the first three initiatory
blessing that would still be amazing. I
loved his thoughts about how we are blessed to not speak guile. I am thankful for and want to better use that
blessing. I know I can do better. He explained that the men’s blessing on the
shoulders is different than women’s. He
taught a lot. I loved it. Chad was in charge of making homemade root
beer and homemade red cream soda for the reception. They both turned out great. He loves those types of assignments. He’s very diligent about getting everything
just right.
Today has been busy with lots of meetings. By the time I got home from a meeting right
after church I went and lay down on my bed and Tilly and Marlee came in and
asked what I was doing. I told them I
was going to “take 5” and invited them to lay down by me if they could be quiet
and hold still. They did for a while and
then we all got up and I started to make dinner. We had homemade bread sticks, goulash and
peas.
My quote for today is from a gospel doctrine
lesson a few weeks ago. Elder M. Russell
Ballard said: “We should strive to change the corrupt and
immoral tendencies in television and in society by keeping things that offend
and debase out of our homes. In spite of all of the wickedness in the world,
and in spite of all the opposition to good that we find on every hand, we
should not try to take ourselves or our children out of the world. Jesus said,
‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven,’ or yeast (Matthew 13:33). We are
to lift the world and help all to rise above the wickedness that surrounds us”
(Ensign, May 1989, 80).
Love,
Mindy
PS. If
you’re interested, here is a spiritual thought I gave about marriage in ward
council a couple weeks ago.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Observe
There have been several times where I’ve had
different words of the temple sealing prayers stick out to me. When that happens, I ponder a lot about those
words and do my best to apply them to my life and to my marriage. About two weeks ago as I was in the temple
doing sealings the word observe in
the marriage sealing prayer stood out to me again...it has stood out to me
before at least once. So while in the
temple I thought about how observe can mean both to do and to watch, or notice.--I
have since looked up the definition of observe and it has 12 definitions in the
Webster dictionary. I love it how the
Lord can teach us multiple things with one word.
Fast forward to last Friday night at girl’s camp
when Pres. Derrick talked to the young women, he had his wife come up and speak
with him so the young women could observe
him and his wife together. He shared how
the only sealed couple he was able to observe before he got married was his
mission president and his wife since he is a convert to the church. His remarks confirmed to me the importance of
the impressions I had in the temple a couple weeks ago. [He also shared how he and his wife dated for like 2 ½ years because he
was wanting his wife to be pretty much perfect and to have one foot in the
celestial kingdom before he came to his senses and realized what a good person
she was. He said he was SO lucky she was
patient with him.]
His remarks also brought to mind a talk by Elder
Clayton called Marriage:
Watch and Learn. In that talk it
says, “We can learn so much by
watching and then considering what we have seen and felt. In that spirit, let me share with you a few
principles I have observed by watching and learning from wonderful, faithful
marriages. These principles build
strong, satisfying marriages that are compatible with heavenly
principles.” He goes on to talk about
five principles that strengthen marriage.
My first spiritual thought that I gave in ward
council when I was called to be YW president was about marriage. The topic of marriage has been on my mind a
lot over the last year or so because Chad’s parents are recently divorced. It was just finalized a few weeks ago. It has hit really close to home. I feel like Chad’s and my marriage is strong,
but I sure want to keep it that way.
While we don’t have the same obstacles his parents faced, it is
important to me that I listen and do my part to keep my marriage happy.
I know that as we observe good marriages and apply
the good things that we see, it can keep our marriages strong and
happy--although it is not guaranteed to do so. I’ll close with a quote from Elder Clayton’s
talk. “Marriage is a gift from God to
us; the quality of our marriages is a gift from us to Him.”
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