OUR FAMILY: Wednesday, February 20th, 2019

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

94th operating temple

Dedicated: 16 July 2000

By: Gordon B. Hinckley

Jesus Christ, Divine Sonship

DC 68:25

And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized,that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.

Book of Mormon

2 Nephi 10:18-11:8

These verses show that we only have two sides to choose between: the Lord's side, or the Devil's. Why then is it so difficult for us to make the right choices when we are presented with what the devil wants?

- "If it wasn't difficult for us to make the right choices we would all be translated, and there wouldn't be much purpose to our being tested. the plan, the one we voted for, gave us the option to choose for ourselves between good and evil vs. 23. If we are smart we will make more agency choices that bring us closer to God." (Sue_heugly, Instagram bofm365.)

New Testament "Come Follow Me"

Matthew 5:13 Why did the Savior compare His disciples to salt?

"Perfection Pending" Russell M. Nelson, October 1995

Ensign

"A Mighty Force for Good," "You Really Can Make a Big Difference," "Influence the World," "Women in the New Testament - Anna."

General Conference

Becoming a Shepherd

Bonnie H. Cordon

"We want our sheep to be gathered into the fold of God. To do so, we must consider where they are on the covenant path and be willing to walk with them on their journey of faith. Ours is a sacred privilege to come to know their hearts and point them to their Savior."

Happy 44th Birthday Sheri!

Sheri with those she loves the most

James left for the valley this morning at 6 for a pre-construction meeting for the Chacon job in Mesa. He took Sheri's birthday card, a jar of peanut M&M's and the Chili's gift card he got for his birthday. When he went by Sheri's work to take her card and candy Ian was there getting his eye dialated. James invited them to go to lunch with him at Chili's, which they did.

I think this was a special birthday for Sheri. Ben got to skype the family and offered the family prayer while the entire family was there. Sheri said she and Ian were bawling their eyes out when it was over.

James also went by to see our friends Reed and Janis Willis. They need some work done on their patio roof and he is the man for the job. He did another roof repair for them a few years back and the insurance agent told them that whoever did that job is the one you should get to do this one because that's the best job he's ever seen.

Kerri and I had planned to go to Flagstaff to see Marie R. I am communicating with her ministering sister and dear friend, Marilyn Tice. When I tried to call Marie's phone, the one that her husband answered the other day, no one answered. Marilyn told me that Joel, Marie's husband, is meeting with the doctor today and Marie may be coming home. Well Kerri took the day off work and I didn't want it to go to waste. She came over this morning with the March birthday cards for me to sign and we got out our list of possible people to visit. I tried to text one sister but never got a response. When I saw the name Candace Sommer I remembered I had told Tamara I would visit her. I knew her mother, Aggie Brown who passed away a few years ago. I found out from Collin DeWitt that Aggie went to Creighton School just as Collin and I did. She was several years older but still, I felt a bond with her because of that. Aggie's husband always greeted everyone out in the foyer when we came to church. I miss them.

Candace lives way out near highway 61 which is the highway that goes to Concho and St. Johns. Kerri had the address on her GPS. The map showed two different routes and of course we took the wrong one first. It took us to the property but we were on the wrong side of the fence. We took "Buddy Blvd." a dirt road out in the middle of nowhere and found the house. We knocked on the door but no one answered. There were three medium sized dogs on the porch that greeted us but thank goodness did not try to jump up on us. There was also one tiny dog that had a bone. He kept coming around the other dogs trying to make them jealous of his bone.

Soon a woman came around the side of the house. We introduced ourselves and asked her if she was Candace and she said yes. She was a very nice woman, about my age. She told us about her miniature horses. We went down to look at them with her. She had two sorrel mares and a goat or two. She said the goats were going to go to someone else. We had a nice visit outside in the cold. I asked her if she preferred Candace or Candy and she said Candy at which point I handed her a Hershey's candy bar. She laughed.
Kerri happened to have a "Come Follow Me" manual and we asked if she would like to have it. She seemed excited and said yes. She said she would come to church but she works on Sunday's as a dog groomer at Pet Sense.

Before we left we met Candy's son, Bruce. We talked for a few more minutes and then we were on our way.

We stopped by the Vernon library to see if we could borrow Tamara's key to go into the clerk's office and look at the map on the wall that Brother Diewald created. We had to go to Tamara's house to get the key from Jordyn, then on to the church.

We are the last numbers on the far bottom right.

We wanted to visit the Neubert's but we never could find county road 3009.

While I was at the library I bought three books and spent $2.10.

Kerri took me home. I had leftover spaghetti and a salad for lunch and took a quick nap. I walked today and ended up getting over 22,000 steps.

I got a text from Marilyn this afternoon that Marie made it home safely. She was very tired and went straight to bed. Her husband will be staying her for a week before he goes back to Houston.

James got home at 5:45. I am always so grateful when he makes it home safely.

In the last 30 days we have done $135.76 in Amazon book sales.

I got a call from Brother Curtis. He set up a training meeting for our family history consultants with the stake on Sunday at 3 pm at the Vernon building. James was pretty happy because he is anxious to receive some training.