November 1, 2015
Today is Karalee’s 9th birthday! I sure love my oldest daughter. I just tucked her in and told her about her
birth story and how much we love her in our family. She is smart, beautiful, kind, spunky, strong
willed, loves clothes and shoes, knows exactly how she wants her hair to look,
diligent, a good worker, and loves to help me cook. I’m so grateful I get to be her mother and I
hope that she and I will have a good relationship forever.
Monday I went to Zumba and then my visiting
teachers came over. Karalee gave us a
nice FHE lesson and then the kids picked out Halloween costumes from our costume
box for our activity.
Tuesday night was our Young Women in Excellence
program. The decorations and desserts
were very simple and it didn’t take too long to set up during the day. For the program we had each girl get up and
either perform a talent or explain what she displayed from her personal
progress efforts this year. The girls
ended up being the main focus of the evening.
After all the girls were finished we recognized all those who had earned
value ribbons since new beginnings. Several
girls earned ribbons, two mothers earned ribbons, and even I earned three
ribbons. After the ribbons were all
recognized or awarded the bishop awarded four YW and one mother of a YW their
medallions for completing their young womanhood award then he had all of them
get up in sacrament meeting today to be recognized in front of the whole
ward. It was fun to have so many young women
finish at the same time and earn their award together. The bishop finished the evening by giving
closing remarks and he spoke of how important it is not to compare our talents
or abilities with others. It was a
wonderful evening. Probably the best YW
activity I’ve helped plan. We have
wonderful, beautiful, talented young women.
I’m grateful to be a part of their lives.
Wednesday Tilly had Grammy days since Brenda was
in town for a while and so I got to go to the temple. That evening I had a meeting with a counselor
in the bishopric and one of my counselors (the other counselor couldn’t make
it) to discuss girl’s camp for next year.
This year we will be having a ward camp for the first time ever. I’m very excited about this opportunity for
the girls because we will be able to get to have a real camping experience and
do many more adventurous things than you can do at a stake camp with 400 young
women. It is going to be a lot of work
though. Our ward is so awesome and so
willing to help out so we will have lots of help to run the activities. I’m hoping we can do kayaking, horseback
riding, rifle shooting, a hike, a craft, rappelling and then have great devotionals
and firesides to tie our activities to the gospel.
Thursday Spencer found out he made the 8th
grade basketball team! We’re excited to
watch his games. Bryant had a band
concert that evening and he is doing well on the trumpet. His band sounded great.
Friday we had our ward Halloween
extravaganza. Chad’s strawberry
lemonade, root beer and red cream soda were a big hit. He made 16 gallons of soda and 4-5 gallons of
lemonade and all but one gallon of the red cream soda were consumed. The kids had a wonderful time playing games
and trunk-or-treating. I had a good time
tasting all the different kinds of chili.
I made a new sweet and spicy chili combining two recipes and I thought it
was wonderful, but it didn’t earn any awards.
It was all gone by the time the evening was over though so that was a
good sign that people liked it.
Yesterday morning we had a big project in the back
yard. Our HOA notified us that we had to
cut back all our cat claw vines growing on our back rail fence so they could paint
it. I was so sad because our vines are
big and beautiful. I asked what the fee
was if we just didn’t want to get it painted, but they said if we didn’t take
it down the painters would and we would be charged $1000. L I was kind of bummed, but we agreed to live by
the HOA rules when we moved in and I sure appreciate living in a neighborhood
where yards are maintained and there isn’t a lot of junk in people’s yards so I
don’t feel too badly. Plus the vines
should grow back. Yesterday evening the
kids got to trick or treat again. Since
Chad couldn’t go around trick-or-treating with the little kid this year and
since Spencer is too old to go trick or treating, we invited all the youth in
our ward to come hang out and play in our back yard and a member of the ward
set up his movie screen and sound system so they could watch “Watcher in the
Woods”. There were several youth who
came. The girls and I had fun
trick-or-treating together and Bryant went trick-or-treating with a group of
his friends.
Today during testimony meeting Bro. Fulton, our
second counselor in the bishopric, shared how the spiritual thoughts in
bishopric and PEC were about recognizing the hand of God in our lives. That was something we challenged our laurels
to look for this week and were going to follow up on in class today so I got up
and shared my testimony and how I had noticed the hand of God yesterday when I
was trying to mow the lawn. It happened
when I couldn’t start the lawn mower.
The last time I had used it was when I scalped the lawn so we could
plant winter rye grass. I didn’t take
care of the lawn mower and so it was probably clogged up with a lot of dust and
grass. I cleaned out the filter on the
side of the lawn mower, which is the only “repair” I know how to do, and it
still wouldn’t start. I tried pulling
harder and harder to get it to start but I still didn’t have any luck. Finally I said a prayer to be able to get it
started and I had the thought to use the blower to blow all the dust out of the
engine. I tried that and it started
right up. It was really kind of just a
little thing, but to me it was important because I wanted the lawn to look nice
for Spencer’s party. I know that the
Lord prompted me to use the blower and that He knows me and He is aware of my
big and my small needs.
My quote for today
is from our gospel doctrine lesson today.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks said: “Consider
the power of the idea taught in our beloved song ‘I Am a Child of God’ (Hymns,
301). … Here is the answer to one of life’s great questions, ‘Who am I?’ I am a
child of God with a spirit lineage to heavenly parents. That parentage defines
our eternal potential. That powerful idea is a potent antidepressant. It can
strengthen each of us to make righteous choices and to seek the best that is
within us. Establish in the mind of a young person the powerful idea that he or
she is a child of God, and you have given self-respect and motivation to move
against the problems of life” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1995, 31; or Ensign,
Nov. 1995, 25). I know this
is true. I am grateful for this
knowledge. It helps me move forward past
the hard times and back into the good times.
This has been a great week.
Love,
Mindy
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