Tuesday, April 9th, 2019

Gilbert, Arizona

142nd operating temple

Dedicated: 2 Mar 2014

By: Thomas S. Monson

Jesus Christ, Divine Sonship

Moses 2:1, 26

1 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Behold, I reveal unto you concerning this heaven, and this earth; write the words which I speak. I am the Beginning and the End, the Almighty God; by mine Only /begotten I created these things; yea, in the beginning I created the heaven, and the earth upon which thou standest.

26 And I, God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and it was so. And I, God, said: Let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Book of Mormon

Mosiah 4:4-15

New Testament "Come Follow Me"

Matt 17:14-21; Mark 9:14-29 Luke 9:37-42

General Conference

"The Eye of Faith"

Elder Neil L. Andersen
"If we pick and choose what we accept in the proclamation, we cloud our eternal view, putting too much importance on our experience here and now."

I read an article in the Ensign today by Brian K. Ashton, "Three Lessons on Love, Joy and Peace". This quote is from that article: 

By consistently doing the small things, we yield our hearts and minds to God, which purifies and sanctifies us (see Helaman 3:35).This purification and sanctification changes our very nature, little by little, so we become more and more like the Savior." 

Today's bunny report. "I saw none of the bunnies this morning. Either they are hiding or they got carried away by a hawk or owl. Thanks James for that visual image! 

Kathy, my favorite, and Kris did the Book Profits webinar this morning. They both are so very successful it's hard to imagine that we will ever be there. One of the things Kathy stresses is to set goals. She said her goal for her first year in the business, 2017, was to sell $100,000 worth of books. She actually ended up selling $150,000. James and I have a goal to make $2,000 a month our first year. Now we have to sit down and figure out how many books we have to sell per day to accomplish that goal and how much we need to make from each book. 

We had Marie Callendar pot pies for lunch. I had chicken and James had beef. When I looked at the calories on the back I thought it said 400 and something. Well that was for half a pie. The entire pie was over 800. I let James eat half of mine as well as his. He loves pot pies. I saved the rest of my calories for a gingerbread mix I made topped with Coolwhip. Delicious especially while still warm from the oven.

After nap time I walked and finished watching "Christmas Next Door" and started "Surprised By Love" another one of my favorites. Tim Conway is pretty funny as the grandpa who pretends he can't talk to avoid dealing with people. Hilarie Burton and Paul Campbell are always great and this movie is no exception. I think it's one of Kim's favorites too.

This girl can really play the violin.

I enjoyed the music in this movie.

I have three Hilarie Burton movies I love and this is

one of them. The other two are Summer Villa with Victor

Webster, and a Christmas one where she plays 

Krissy Kringle.

I walked over 17,000 steps today until my right knee started hurting and I had to quit. 

James and I both bought books today. I also paid all the rest of the bills on James's last construction project and some personal bills too. I paid down our Amazon Store Card so we could order books and pay with this card instead of using our other credit cards. 

We waited until late to go to the post office today. James went in and a few minutes later he came outside and asked for my help. We had 14 packages of books. Wow! 

James opened all of our packages of books and "cleaned them up" while I started getting our other books ready to ship. Amazon created three shipments from our one shipment but two of the shipments only had one book each. The other shipment going to California had the other 16 books.

James has been doing alot of repricing on books in our inventory and wants me to remove some of them. I can't make the removal process work so I guess I need to call Amazon tomorrow. It worked the last tie I had to remove books but a message keeps coming up that there is an error and they are taking care of it. It's been a few days now and nothing has happened.

It's like Christmas everyday!

These look brand new but we can't sell them new,

we can only sell used books.

Ben's Email:

I love this baby and her happy face. She is cutting

teeth and I can hardly wait until we can see them!

 Lunch with dad at the park.

 Dave and Laura visiting Kevin's family in Texas

Monday, November 12th, 2018

Star Valley, Wyoming

154th operating temple

Dedicated: 30 Oct 2016

By: David A. Bednar

Jesus Christ, Davidic Descent of

Acts 13:23

Of this man's seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus:

Book of Mormon #1

3 Nephi 27:13-33

*How can we strive to be more like Christ?

- President Ezra Taft Benson said: "The entire ministry of the Master was characterized by His voluntary subordination to His Heavenly Father's will, and in the Savior's own words: 'I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me...for I do always the things that please Him' (John 8:28-29). 

Christ was not only perfectly obedient, but maybe even more importantly, perfectly trusting. So if we choose, like Jesus Christ, to trust more completely, to follow more obediently, and to make doing the will of our Father the core motivation behind decision-making, focus, thoughts, actions, and if we make understanding His will our very purpose, what could the ripple effect of that be? Would we become more like the Savior? Would we be cultivating and deepening Christlike virtues such as truth, wisdom, patience, kindness, gentleness, love, godliness, faith, and self-control? Would we be more completely and exactly following the Savior's example? Would we experience deeper peace, happiness, and joy? Elder Maxwell said: 'Only by aligning our wills with God's is full happiness to be found...progression toward submission confers.an enhanced capacity for joy.'"

Book of Mormon #2

Alma 15-17

Old Testament

Ezekiel 41-43

General Conference

Believe, Love, Do

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"We achieve that abundant life not by focusing on our own needs or on our own achievements but by becoming true disciples of Jesus Christ - by following in His ways and engaging in His work. We find the abundant life by forgetting ourselves and engaging in the great cause of Christ."

For Him

Joy D. Jones

"We realized that we were sincerely striving to serve this family and to serve our bishop, but we had to ask ourselves if we were really serving out of love for the Lord. King Benjamin made clear this distinction when he stated, 'Behold, I say unto you that because I said unto you that I had spent my days in your service, I do not desire to boast, for I have only been in the service of God.'"

In site of the cold weather, the high was 33 today, I am feeling so much better than I did last week and the week before. 

I stayed inside and was nice and cozy because James built a big and and kept the house warm all day.

James moved his office upstairs this morning instead of at the end of the dining room table. He's making phone calls about this job in Mesa that he is supposed to do next week, or the week after.

James came down to fry up some venison for lunch. He gave me the steaks and he took the heart and the liver! I made a salad.

While I was walking this afternoon James left for the Howard's.

Besides walking I also made Trina's Levian Bakery cookies, and worked on our book biz. I learned how to change our shipments  from merchant fulfilled to Fulfilled by Amazon. This is supposed to be better but I'm not sure why because it is quite costly.

Oh my gosh! These cookies are delicious! I need to get them out of my sight!

This batch was the best.

While talking on the phone with Sister Howard about our lunch date tomorrow she told me that James fell off a ladder today, hit Tom and they both went tumbling to the ground. James hit a rock. 

Funny, when he came in earlier he never mentioned falling off a ladder. When I asked him about it, he admitted he wasn't going to tell me and then proceeded to tell me he thinks he cracked some ribs. I think I might have noticed that he was in such great pain.

I heard from Stacy today and from Sister Price reminding me about card making class tomorrow. I said if she was here I was going but I had to leave early for a lunch date. 

Along with Ben's email and his answer, I texted Max today and shared with him Alma 36:3 -"And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day." Max texted me back and said, "Thank you, that was awesome." I talked with Ben a little bit about Max and how he is feeling and told him I thought Max needed to have his faith strengthened and would he, Ben, please help. He said he did and wondered why his family was going through such trials. He shared with Max one of his favorite scriptures, Helaman 5:12 - "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which e are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."

Every week when I email Ben I am going to also send something uplifting to Max.

Tanner is in the hospital with mesenteric adenitis, inflammation of the lymph nodes located in your mesentery. The mesentery is the membrane that attaches your intestines to the inside wall of your abdomen. Lymph nodes are collections of tissue that filter bacteria, viruses, and waste substances from the bloodstream. We said a special prayer for Tanner this evening. 

Hate to see this guy down. He is always

so full of life and energy.

For FHE we listened to Sister Jones's conference talk, "For Him," one of my favorites. I love Sister Jones! 

Afterwards we watched a new Hallmark movie, "A Veteran's Christmas." Fitting for veterans day.

This shirt is one that I got Scarlett for

her birthday. She looks so cute!

 So excited for Kris and Kristine. They are such a

sweet couple!

I have to have my Charlie fix everyday!

 Enough cuteness....I've got to take a nap.

Future athletes of America
Lola and Ruby