Saturday, January 29, 2011

Mia Shalom...January Edition

Provo Central Stake Young Women and leaders get to spend June 28 through July 2 at beautiful Mia Shalom! We are camping in the East Area! Yay for changes! The buses leave our stake center at noon on Tuesday and return at 2:30 on Saturday. (This is for all of you who just cannot wait until our next meeting to find out!)

This morning we participated in Winter Workshop planned and carried out by the Mia Shalom executive committee. Thirty seven stakes attend Mia Shalom. This morning there were between 900 and 1,000 participants. Amazing!

President Carl Jensen told us that the basis for great miracles is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then Young Women with their mothers and leaders sang a beautiful song "Miracles" under the direction of our good friend A. B.

We were privileged to hear from President Steven Sabins of the Northpark Stake. He is the stake president over Mia Shalom. We were truly spiritually fed. I wanted to recap his remarks as they were so pertinent to what we are facing. Our girls have been bombarded with anti-family propaganda--they are surrounded with sexual impurity, encouraged to put off marriage even losing faith in marriage, encouraged to seek the things of the world without concern for eternal principles. We meed top help them prepare for eternity. We need to talk about the imminent importance of the family. The parable of the 10 virgins is a parable of being spiritually prepared. We cannot borrow someone else's spiritual preparation. We cannot borrow someone else's gifts. We cannot borrow someone else's skills. We can only strengthen and prepare our own. The power of the Priesthood can truly be experienced by each one of us individually. "You are women of promise, you have been endowed and with such comes every blessing of the priesthood." It was a wonderful talk and I really am not giving it justice. He went on to tell us that virtue is being just and true on who we are and what we do. He also admonished us to let our YCLs be the leaders. Being a shadow leader is not a role of abdication, rather it is encouraging them ot exerise their leadership skills. So, all of you campers out there, please help me remember to let the YCLs lead.

This message was especially important to me as I have been thinking since last summer that at camp this year we need to help our Young Women understand what it means to, "strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple and enjoy the blessings of exhaltation." Exactlty what President Sabins encouraged us to help the Young Women understand and live.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Best of the Boy

Sons are a wonderful addition to a family. Our son is the best! I talk a lot about his sisters, but he is never out of my heart.

Nate quietly goes about taking care of business and being the best at what he does: husband, father, son, son-in-law, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin, manager, stall cleaner. You name it and he does it.

He cooks, cleans, washes, mows, saws, shovels, stacks...if it needs to be done he does it.

He can snow boarding, ice skate, skate board, bike, golf...do all the fun stuff...but has given it up for now to be the best family man he can be.

Among those who love him are his girls, their cats, his sisters, his dog (who still prefers him over me after all this time), 2000 pound gentle giants, his Dad and most especially his mom.

Can you tell my buttons are popping off over this boy of mine?

He is the best!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Last year...this year

Last year at this time we were looking forward to this year when we would have traveled through and come out on the other end of health challenges! I have learned to not look forward in just that way as we are still in the midst of the trip.


Last year we celebrated Ray's birthday by bringing him home from the hospital. Megan shared a birthday cake from Schmidt's Bakery Cottage...yum...with us complete with party hats and noise makers.


This year we celebrated his birthday, grateful that he is still here with us, quietly with a snickerdoodle from Subway, a birthday call from H in Jax and a visit from J.

Last year we were looking forward to getting through chemo and one more surgery.

This year we grateful for good doctors.

Last year Lauren was six months into her mission.

This year she is returning in five weeks.

Last year we were looking forward to a visit from Nathan and Josie.

This year we get a visit from Nathan, Katie and Josie.

Last year Megan was looking forward to only one more year of school.

This year Megan is graduating from the University of Utah May 6.

Last year Katie was dreaming about driving a fast car.

This year Katie is driving a fast car.

What a difference one year makes!