Willy Trekking On

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Wily really enjoyed trek!   He loved his family at trek.  He had fun starting the camp fires, walking, and working.  Here's a few of the pictures his trek parents took.  I say thank you to all the leaders for their hard work in the heat of the summer.  I felt blessed to have witnessed the sharing of testimonies.  The spirit was strong and I felt that I had stepped onto higher ground, a holy place.  Thank you

Sunday Wrap Up

I love Sunday afternoons.  I love sitting around the table after we have eaten our Sunday meal and chatting.  We seem to start talking about the talks in sacrament meeting.  Then about each of the classes that each of us attended.  It's so awesome as each recalls something about the church meetings.  I love how the others chime in about about the various topics and by the end it turns into laughing and teasing.  We tend to linger longer together then at any other meal during the week.
  Today Willy made some wonderful BBQ'd chicken breasts mashed potatoes and corn.  He really knows his way around the grill.    I think it's so awesome that he just stepped up and began lunch.

It was a day full of goodbyes for Jessy.  I loved hearing from others how excited they are to see Jessy leave on her mission.  I am grateful for the words of wisdom given to me especially that the next eighteen months will go by quickly and that the Lord will take good care of her.  We have packed and unpacked her suitcases so many times.  50 lbs is not that much stuff we have found out as we have weighed and weighed the luggage.  We'll have to keep working on this luckily we have two more days.  She will have a great flight early early from Baltimore and arrive in SLC about 10:00am and then catch a shuttle from there directly to the MTC in Provo.    She is still waiting for her visa to come and pray that it will come in a timely manner.

The next couple of days are full of happy events!

Less Than A Week

Jessy Beautiful Missionary 

New Family Picture 

It's a momentous occasion when your son or daughter give their farewell talk to leave on a mission.  It's a time of excitement, panic, questioning, and packing.   (and a new commitment to blog so that she can see what is going on in our family)   To be honest I think I've felt every emotion possible for a mother to feel towards and about her child.  I thought that sending her on her mission would feel the same as sending her to college, but it's more.  It goes from elation to depression and back.  I question myself about what we have and have not taught, what we have done and haven't done, and then I realize that she has made good choices and all that is good comes from God.  I feel reassured that Jessy is in his hands and she will make good decisions and she has so much to give.  At father's day Jessy made a plaque and gave it to us that says " A missionary leaves her family for a short time so that those she teaches may be with their family forever." That's what it's all about.  She will leave here bright and early July 24th arrive at SLC at 10:06am and report to the MTC about noon.  On Sept 3rd she will leave to Barcelona Spain, if all goes well with her visa.  

Trek

Here comes Willy!!! Trek is calling his name.  I think Willy is game for all types of activities and I think Willy would have made a great pioneer.  I think of all the types of youth conferences trek is the most difficult one to send your youth on.  I don't know if it's the heat or the hard work or the opportunities that Willy might have to stand up and deliver that makes me consider what he knows and what he will do .  Oh I know that he will be awesome but, it makes you wonder if each of us could of done what was done for us by our pioneer forefathers.
 I think about what the pioneers did and how the Lord used their experiences to help them turn to him.  He knows that when we are at the lowest or at the most difficult moment that we turn to Him with the most desire, need, want, and at that moment we are most willing to give Him everything, our heart soul, and actions.  I think that at that moment we let the spirit in and we connect with heaven in a way that speaks loudly to our heart.  The experience of trek is planned so that each participant can feel and connect with the spirit so they can receive the message Heavenly Father has for them.  So I pray for Willy and the other youth of our stake that each of them with there individual challenges and spiritual journeys that they will connect with heaven and feel the fire of the covenant and truly live.

Missionary Daughter

It's been an exciting experience...... waiting...... waiting........ and waiting..... for the missionary call but it finally arrived.  It's fun to see the guesses about where she would go so many places to go spread the gospel, so many cultures, languages people.  Jessica is going to Barcelona Spain.  She leaves the 24th of July to the MTC in Madrid Spain.  I  know I am a little slow in writing about this exciting news so everyone knows already but for posterity I needed to express my Joy, my gratefulness and my feelings.

   Jessy has wanted to go on a mission for as long as I can remember.  She has always had a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In school she has stood for the right.  She always asked to be excused if a teacher was showing a R rated movie in class.  She found friends who had high standards.  She invited friends to youth activities and shared the gospel with them.  She loved that Virginia-Rose went on trek one summer.  Jessy has always had the light of Christ so many people would stop me and tell me what a special little girl I had and that there is something different about her.  This was told to me by her great grandma Ward at a few different occasions.   She will be a wonderful missionary.  I'm glad to be her mom!

Sisters

I know it's Thursday already and I haven't written here but I have had a week where I have seen the hand of God touch my life.  the problem is that I cannot remember what happened what days so I am going to write about all of them today.

On one day this week I think it was Monday I felt an impression to call a friend and take her to lunch, however my phone had had problems over the weekend so I didn't have any contact numbers for anyone let alone my friend Kelly.  I knew that she had been dealing with some unpleasant bug like creatures and in order to get rid of all of them there was tons of washing, vacuuming, and other unpleasant tasks.  It was enough to send someone into hysteria, of course I am speaking from experience, and from someone who went hysterically crazy in that situation.  I was not to be deterred not sure she'd be home I drove to her home to see if she was there so I could take her Chick-Fil-A.  She was in good spirits, but had had that hysterical crazy moment days before but everyone needs to eat lunch so we picked up Chicken sandwiches and nuggets for the kids and enjoyed lunch together.  It was so great to catch up on everything.  I think I need to invite myself to lunch with a friend more often it just lifts your spirits.  Hopefully it helped Kelly forget about those creatures if just for a little while.  By the way I did volunteer to help clean, she said she had it under control. Sometimes you just have to forget about it for a minute and it gives you strength to get through it.  

On Tuesday so many things happened, like usual I went to the gym for my swim class.  unfortunately left my active link devise in the bathroom stall where I changed.  When I got home to shower I noticed it was missing so I called the gym to see if they had had one turned in.  I didn't feel confident in this so I went back to the gym looked around the locker room and where I thought I had left it and it was no where to be found. I had a pleasant conversation with the man at the front desk.  He was so kind and even looked twice through the lost and found for me.  I left my name and number and hoped that it would show up.  Unknown to me one of my friends had picked it up for me and left me a message on my answering machine.  I guess she happened to use the same stall as me and picked it up thinking it was mine.  Small little miracles.  She returned it to me the next day!

Kelly and I had planned earlier in the week to surprise a friend by taking her lunch for her birthday.  I hurried home from the gym,  not having found my active link, to make my homemade chicken noodle soup.  All of the vegetables and chicken were boiling and the noodles were rolled out on the counter Kelly called and said that we weren't going to do the lunch thing but later we would take cupcakes over. Well this is kind of silly I made two pans of soup one for my family for dinner and one for lunch, so I had one to give away.  This was not a problem because earlier Janet called me and she had some coupons for me and I could just give her the soup for her lunch.  This is sounding kind of crazy but it really did happen this way.  After another phone call I took the soup to Janet and picked up the coupons she saved for me. and we enjoyed chatting for a few moments.  Then I picked up Kelly and we took cupcakes to Kerstie's to wish her a happy Birthday.  We chatted for a little while and wished her a happy Birthday.   I look at this part of the day and see how being part of the gospel of Christ made each of us think of each other.  Kelly thought of Kerstie's birthday and wanted me to be part of it.  Janet thought of me by saving her coupons I thought of Janet because I had soup.  Even my active link was found by Jen who I connected with at church.  I thought of all the love and thoughtfulness that occurs because we are connected as sisters in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I am grateful for my sisters that have done so much for me through the years.

Changing feelings

Today I guess you could say that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed,  I'm not sure that's possible if your bed is pushed up against the wall, but that's the phrase my mom would have used .  I woke up feeling grumpy, out of sorts even a bit hostile towards the world.  The kitchen was a disaster, the dishes were dirty and all over the counter and when I opened up the dishwasher it hadn't cleaned the dishes so it was time to dig in, clean all the dishes out of the sink fill them up with water and get to work.  Oh did I say I was grouchy well this had only made it worse.  Now I became loud and began to command the kids around.  Usually doing the dishes calms me down but for some odd reason I began to fume.  If smoke really could come out of our ears and nose that is what you would have seen at that precise moment.  I knew this was so unlike me and I wanted to calm down so I took a deep breath and looked out the window at my kitchen sink.  My arms up to my elbows in suds and my mind racing with everything on my to do list I took a deep breath cleared my mind of all of it and watched a squirrel scampering along the back fence. I felt a clear message, sit down and work on your Sunday School lesson.  My first reaction was that's crazy but as the last dish was washed my legs took me to my Sunday bag and back to the kitchen table.  I sat there for a few moments thinking how come now with all the things I needed to do and my grouchiness.  Then clarity happened.  I stopped and prayed.  The feelings I had of needing to get everything done went away, my grouchiness dissipated and all of a sudden the house was quiet. My previous feelings were replaced with love peace and joy, feelings of the spirit.
  I had been preparing this lesson for Sunday School for weeks now but I had not been able to decide in which direction to take it.  As I calmed and feelings of the spirit entered into my heart I realized that the lesson I needed to give had just been given to me.  Given to me to teach me about how to learn from the Holy Ghost.