Lara spent the weekend with Kimberly’s family in Melba, Idaho. They arrived late at night and Kimberly’s mother had all four of them hop on four wheelers and go look for some lost sheep. They were searching until after midnight Friday night. They woke up at 7:00am for family scriptures and then hopped on the four wheelers again to go coyote (pronounced “coy-ote”) hunting. I will send you pictures. Pretty legit!! I guess Kimberly and her siblings all raised money for college and their missions growing corn and table grapes and raising stock. Her dad is the assistant to the senator of Idaho and chose to live 40 minutes away from work so his kids would grow up in the country and have work to do. I want so bad to move to idaho and buy a 1,000 acre farm. ugh!!!
I am glad I caught you before you dyed your hair. lol
I love your quote from Elder Holland!! “Face your doubts…Master your fears!!”
It sounds like your ward is running like the piper airplane President Uchtdorf talked about in his conference talk a few years ago that could not even keep up with the traffic below.
How is your ward counsel and PEC going?
PS: Dad will never run a half marathon.
My next goal is to run one in Hawaii and then take the week after to recover….more on that later!!!
Where are you at in the Book of Mormon now that you have been reading 10 pages a day? You must be around page 170? Reading about Abinadi? WHAT A STUD!!
I like your analogy of the dark room and the slow onset of the light. I always wondered myself why I didn’t have an experience like dad did. I even farmed all y’all out one day with the intent of reading the Book of Mormon until I had a super duper experience like dad and was converted like he was. Ha ha ha!!! I had been married in the temple and had two kids that I stayed at home with AND I went to church and the temple and magnified my calling and went visiting teaching EVERY MONTH and I studied my scriptures with the Book of Mormon BYU Institute manual every morning AND wrote in my journal etc., etc. I WAS CONVERTED!! I was doing the DO and walking the walk and talking the TALK and repenting. I so get the analogy!! Every day the light get s brighter and brighter.
ChristiAnne gave a talk in Church today. I am going to mail it to you. THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG!!! She started crying when she bore her testimony of the Savior and His being with her during hard times. I bawled….Dad blubbered. It was amazing!!! Codi, THE GIRL HAS NO FRIENDS. She stood up for the right and I thought for sure her friends would repent and thank her….nope. But, funny thing. YOu know how every time the missionaries would come over and ask us all who we were working with on missionary work and ChristiAnne was like, “I don’t have any non-mormon friends…?” Well, yesterday her friend from track, Mackenzie, called her up and asked her if they could hang out. I guess Mackenzie’s best friend of 18 years and her had a falling out with a boy in the middle of it and Mackenzie was left friendless too. She went with us to the Denton animal shelter and then asked ChristiAnne if she would like to hang out again. The Lord’s tender mercies. I wish I could tell you the whole story. One day I will. ChristiAnne is so confident. She is truly converted.
Back to the construction subject. I really think you are onto something. I think Dad could set you up with some of Victor Myers’s subcontractors in the summers between college terms.
SNOW?!?!??! Lucky!!! I love snow!! Could you pray us up a really good snow day please? I think that snowball throwing is a good physical activity that could be considered missionary morning exercise???
sooooooo…nine more days with Elder Birch? What do you do while he is sleeping? That is too bad that he hates finding. Brother Merril had another Book of MOrmon study group tonight with the youth and their friends and there were 7 non-members there. One of the girls asked how she could be married in the temple. RAchel was like….cha ching!!! I think you are wise to focus on being charitable to Elder Birch and making the last memories of his mission wonderful.
insult? wrestle? hit? beat up? yes, you boys are super weird!!!
I am glad you found some gingers up there in the great Ohio mission.
Elder Mann and Elder Bowthorpe stay really busy with our less actives and part member families. That is a good idea to have them have super awesome home and visiting teachers.
Isaac had an ultimate frisbee tournament in Waco this weekend he scored a point and….he communicated that he needed a ride and got a ride home and didn’t die:) He is actually doing really really well. He wants to start drivers ed so he is being really good at communication and doing what I ask him to do.
Jonathan is trying out to be a dribbling hawks captain.
Rachel came in 64th in the seventh grade girls cross country meet. She learned this week that doing things we don’t want to do when directed by the SPirit lead to awesome results. She was invited by Maria Archibald and Sister Archibald to go and see Kerrine Tate and Kira Gansen in Fiddler on the Roof at briarhill Saturday night. She DID NOT WANT TO GO!! she fought it and fought it but gave in and finally listened to the Spirit and had an amazing time and made a great friend with Maria.
Tennessee is so into cheerleading.
Diana is learning to read really fast.
Jeffrey wants to live outside!!! All he does all day is go to the door and beg to go outside.
My favorite quote of the week is: “Make the decision before the decision makes you.”
we need to decide ahead of time what we will do or we will do in the time of decision what we haven’t decided.
So….about my race!!! I basically couldn’t walk this week and was super tired. Remember how I bragged about running the last three miles really fast? WEll… remember the scriptures in Mosiah 4 that says,”don’t run faster than you have strength?” Yup!! I totally get it now. Why? because it interferes with our ability to afterwards be self-sufficient so then I felt crunched and started micro-managing (PRIDE) then I lost the Spirit big time!!! It was a week long ugly mess!! Eccl 9:11 The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong…I should have just kept my pace and finished the race. 1 Cor. 9:24-27 “Every man that striveth for mastery is temperate in all things…I therefore run..” The reason I began running was to keep my body in subjection to my spirit. Then my silly body snuck in control at the finish and wanted to be faster and I paid the price. What good did that do? Its not like I was going to win or place or get a medal… Luckily my DEAR SAVIOR paid the ultimate price and I was able to repent and come back into good graces and have joy once again. Ugh Now I “run with patience the race that is set before me…” (Heb 12)
