Sunday, March 5, 2017

Caracas, Venezuela

96th operating temple

2 Nephi 25:27-26:11

"Beware of Pride," Ezra Taft Benson, April 1989.

What are some prideful actions I might get caught up in and not realize it's prideful?

Alma 18

King Lamoni supposes that Ammon is the Great Spirit - Ammon teaches the king about the Creation, God's dealings with men, and the redemption that comes through Christ - Lamoni believes and falls to the earth as if dead.  About 90 B.C.

DC 38:21-31 - If ye are prepared ye shall not fear.

In what ways can we magnify our callings so that we may be able to teach and watch over each other?

Article: Lessons Learned in the Journey of Life

By: Joseph B. Wirthlin

December 2000 Ensign

General Conference

O How Great the Plan of Our God!

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Think of how you felt when for the first time you believed and understood that you are truly a child of God; that Jesus Christ willingly suffered for your sins so that you may be clean again;

that priesthood power is real and can bind you to your loved ones for time and for all eternity; that there is a living prophet on the earth today.  Isn't that wonderful and amazing!"

General Conference

"Come, Follow Me" by Pracicing Christian Love and Service

By Elder Robert D. Hales

"Brothers and sisters, if we have not fully done so yet, let us turn more toward forgiveness, kindness, and love.  Let us renounce the war that so often rages in the heart of the natural man and proclaim Christ's caring love, and peace."

Today Paula J. bore her testimony in our fast and testimony meeting.  She said she just celebrated her 62nd birthday by going to the temple for the very first time to do baptisms for the dead.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I had no idea she had never been to the temple.  You could tell it was a wonderful experience for her and I am so grateful she shared it with her ward family.

James also bore his testimony for the first time in a long time.  He bore testimony of the importance of keeping the Sabbath day holy and of home and visiting teaching.  I am grateful for a righteous priesthood holder in my home.

The Vernon ward building

Today my Primary class consisted of: Jace, Lianna, Colter, and Curtis.  Our lesson was on the printing of the Book of Mormon.  

It was a very cold and extremely windy day today.  As I was walking out to the car from the church after our meetings I felt like I was going to blow away!

When we got home we broke our fast with the green chili burros we got at Burger House yesterday.  After lunch it was nap time, gospel study time, and then reading to James by the fire and working on my blog. While I worked on my blog James did a little indexing.

Sometimes those words are hard to see.

I like my new fruit stand

I had a hard time going to sleep tonight.  I finally got up and ate a little something and took some Tramadol around 11 p.m.

Fun Photos:

Oran and some of his siblings

Kayla, Lola, Ivy, Addy

What a great guy!

One of my favorite pictures of Darrel

A Vernon Sunset

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Alma 57:1-16

1 - Ammoron wants to exchange Nephite prisoners for the city Antiparah.

2 - Moroni says no.  He would only exchange prisoners for prisoners.

3 - Ammoron says no, so the Nephites prepare to go against the city of Antiparah.

4 - The people of Antiparah left the city and thus the Nephites took the city Antiparah.

5 - Thus ended the 28th year.

6 - In the 29th year the Nephites received provisions, 6,000 men and 60 more Ammonites.

7 - The Nephites desire to battle the amanites guarding the city of Cumeni.

8 - The Nephites did surround Cumeni by night before they received a supply of provisions.

9 - The Nephites caped outside Cumeni for many nights.

10 - The Nephites take the Lamanites provisions.

11 - The Nephites send the Lamanite provisions to Judea and their prisoners of war to Zarahemla.

12 - The Lamanites eild up Cumeni to the Nephites.

13 - The Nephites have a huge amount of Lamanites prisoners of war.

14 - They had to slay 2,000 of them because they fought with stones and clubs to be free.

16 - The rest of the prisoners of war were sent to Zarahemla.

GC: "Refuge from the Storm" by Elder Kearon.

I finished reading "The Lincoln Hypothesis."

It was a beautiful overcast morning with rain.  James and I were both so tired from being out late last night that we went back to bed.  We slept a couple of hours or so.  It was after ten when we got up again.  I studied and fixed pesto flatbread and a salad for lunch.  

Eltz Castle, not sure where.

We left for the valley around 4:20.  We stopped for gas and to get our car washed again and then to Walmart to pick up my folic acid prescription.  I also got a big almond Hershey bar for Addy for her birthday tomorrow.  

This picture was taken a couple of years ago at

Chino Bandido's in Chandler.

James, Molly, and Ruby.

Lola is at it again, following Evan around.

James and I stopped at Burger House in Miami for dinner.  We ate in and then ordered some burros to go for lunch tomorrow for us and Terry and Cathi.  Tonight I had a chicken enchilada and some refried beans.  Good, but not as good as La Casita's use to be.

Guest/playhouse

We arrived at Cathi and Terry's around 9pm just like I told her we would.  We talked a little while with Cathi about the 25 million name marriage project FamilySearch has been hired to do by FindMyPast.  Cathi of course is working on it.

The view out our window (Not!)

This is Mt. Rainier

Sunday, May 3, 2015

A storm that we were not expecting hit the

Valley of the Sun during Sunday night.

 

James and I spent the morning getting ready for our Primary lesson.  I loaded up on Ibuprofen before leaving for church.

 

 

My favorite testimonies today were Michael Ellsworth's and Chris Braddock's.  Chris is a young man that was in our Primary class a few years back.  He has grow into a fine young man and his testimony of prayer was both powerful and sincere.  I am so proud of him!

 

Sister Evan's did an awesome demonstration of the wise man building his house upon the rock and the foolish man building his house upon the sand for Primary sharing time today.  The kids loved it and so did this teacher!

Sister McAfee let some of the kids wear butterfly wings during singing time.  This one was the cutest.



 

Our lesson today was on how Joseph Smith received the gold plates from the angel Moroni and a history of the Book of Mormon.  At one point we had all the kids sit on the floor and James showed them pictures and told them stories from the Book of Mormon.  It was my favorite part of the lesson!

I love how he is down on the floor with them.

I could never do that.

Hi Ryder.

 

When we returned home from church we kneeled by our bed and closed our fast.  For lunch we had pesto flatbread with tomato and cheese cooked under the broiler.  Delicious!

 

Today as we were leaving church Dave asked us to go home and do indexing, so we did.  I haven't indexed since December 2013, so I needed a little help.  I worked on Ohio obituaries and had to call Cathi to ask her a few questions but I got my batch done.  James had a difficult time downloading the index app so he gave up and took a nap.  When he got up from his nap he managed to get the app downloaded and did two batches. 

 

I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with walnuts for dinner.

 

We did not read from our novel today.  I told James I didn't think it was an appropriate Sabbath day activity.

 

Stacy read to me from "Return from Tomorrow" by George Richie this evening.  He had some incredible out of body experiences and he tells about meeting the Savior and seeing his life flash before him and being reminded of certain choices he had made.  He said he felt nothing but unconditional love from the Savior.  I wish everyone could understand how much we need the Savior and how much he truly loves and cares for us.

 





Thursday, January 16, 2014

I guess you had to have been there.

This sunrise was much better than it looks in this picture.

I jumped on the mini tramp 1500 times today.  That is some kind of a record for me.

I did some indexing today and came across these names: William Holden, Richard Burton, Eddie Cantor, and James Buchanan. 

James is still working on bidding the big apartment complex in Scottsdale but he took time to put the Christmas tree and wreath away. He also indexed 15 names.

I went visiting teaching this afternoon to Linda Diewald and Rosie Lauritzen.  I missed Linda's birthday last week.  I will have to bring her gift to her on Sunday.  Rosie had some news for me.  She is my new visiting teaching companion starting in February.  That is exciting news!  Also I got to meet their mastif, Conan the Barkbarian.  The biggest dog I've ever seen but he had the warmest brown eyes.  Brother Lauritzen is so proud of him.

After visiting teaching I went into town to get gas and a Whopper junior at Burger King.  It was 7pm before I got home after leaving the house around 4.

This evening James and I watched Downton Abbey and The Walton's Easter.  I did not like this episode of Downton Abbey.

I tried to capture the grandeur of the full moon but my camera never does it justice.

Lauri Myers, who is living in China right now posted this picture on Facebook and I thought it was worth sharing as you would never see this in the U.S. Lauri is a friend from Chandler.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

My morning gospel study

Today I read an article from the December Ensign entitled: "Helping Children Recognize the Holy Ghost."

It was awesome!  I hope my children will read it and it will help them teach their children about recognizing the Spirit in their lives.  I hope they are creating spiritual experiences in their homes for their children.

I also am studying from this year's Relief Society course of study about the teachings of Lorenzo Snow.  Today I read the lesson on tithing and I love this quote:

"The Lord will bless us temporally and spiritually as we obey the law of tithing.  I believe truly if the Latter-day Saints will conform with this law we can claim deliverance from every evil that may come upon us.  Mothers, teach your children to pay tithing."

Today would have been my Nannie's 112th birthday.  She shares her birthday with Walt Disney who was born the same year and in the same state that she was. Two of my favorite people.

It never got above 40 degrees today.  James worked out in it so I could stay home and be comfortable.  I am so grateful to him.

I am still moving boxes out of the basement to make room for years supply.  I stacked cans on the huge tool box James built in the garage and now he says he needs tools that are in it.  

I indexed 60 names today.  It's cold in our bedroom, except for our space heater.  When it's this cold I just enjoy staying at home.

James and I did go on a date, of sorts, this evening.  We left around 5:15 for town to deposit the check we got from Horne Auto.  While we were in town we went through the drive thru of Panda Express to get dinner.  We ech got a teriaki rice bowl with fried rice.  I read to James in the car from Mistress of Mellyn.  He loves it when I do that.  Back at home we watched "On Strike for Christmas", and "Hitched for the Holidarys, starring Joey Lawrence.   I started watching the stage production of The Sound of Music starring Carrie Underwood but will have to finish tomorrow.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

 Happy Halloween everyone!

The low this morning was 21 degrees, but at least there isn't any wind.

I love this quote by President Hunter.

I have discovered the Mormon Channel app for my phone thanks to my friend Karen Schneider.  Today I listened to an interview and song by Brooke White.  I also heard a story about a little boy names Ryan who is helping to raise money to build wells in Africa.  He started the project when he was 6 years old. Wow!

James had an appointment in town at 10 am today with someone concerning the Horne job.  I didn't go because I felt like I had too many things to do to get ready for our Young Women's Book of Mormon breakfast on Saturday.  Also I set a goal at the beginning of October to index 200 names and as of this morning I still had 67 to go.  I did finish!  I worked on a Maine cemetery project which was fun because the names were type writeen and therefore very legible!

James and I continue to read the Book of Mormon, a conference talk everyday, and we are re-reading Victoria Holt's "The Mistress of Mellyn."  When I was a teenager my grandma Strickland, Nannie, let me read her copy of The Mistress of Mellyn.  She is the one that got me started on Victoria Holt's books.  What do I like about them?  There is always a mystery to solve, some romance, which isn't too racy, and usually an old English manor to explore.  The Mistress of Mellyn contains all of these elements!

Max is learning how to cook.  This week he helped his mom make baked ziti for dinner.

Master Chef Jr. here he comes!

Guess who learned to ride a two wheel bike?

It's Miss Ruby!!

Since it's Halloween I wanted to post some Halloween pictures.

James and I took the left over candy from last night's Mutual 

activity to the Vernon Park where the Vernon School

was having a carnival.  While there we saw this monster:

Colter Hunsaker

Some more Halloween characters:

Michael the Fat Man, can dance!

 Halloween in El Paso.

Trick or Treaters,

Joshua, Evan, and Max.

Joe and friends, Carter and Cash.

 Max and Addy at the ward Trunk or Treat.
Max is a businessman and Addy is an angel. (She really is!!)

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Happy 86th birthday to James's mom Lois.  I call her Super Mom because she really is. 

 Lois with her great grandson Jackson Allen.

I found out today that I forgot to pay one of the concrete invoices for the Desert Highland job which was done in July.  Today I had to write a check to Ft. McDowell Material for $3,227.48.  I don't know how I missed this invoice.

We decided today that we would take the investors offer on the house.  During the 10 day inspection period allowed the buyer we will continue to try to sell.

This morning I read Crossfire Trail and from 1st Nephi with James.  For lunch we had homemade chili and cornbread. 

James had his boot off most of the day and his foot wasn't as swollen tonight.

I had a meeting with Diana Curtis this evening at 5.  She has been called to head up indexing with the young women.  She wants me to be her assistant.  We will serve for 5 months and will have 5 indexers who will serve for 45 days.  We are going to call four young women and James. 

During presidency meeting I was assigned to be in charge of the steak dinner for our Young Women in Excellence on November 13th.  We are planning on 50 people.  Yikes!!

We welcomed Alice Wilhelm into Young Women's  I gave the girls their handouts to encourage them to watch General Conference.

On the back of a Red Vines package.

I picked up Maddie for Young Women's.  She made brownies to share with the other girls.  The Young Women had scheduled to play volleyball tonight.  

The Young Men joined us.

I chased cows for the first time in weeks today.  

Here are some pictures I took off Facebook.

Kreed and Ruby digging for worms.

The Salt Lake Temple

The Arizona Temple