Stake Conference

I love our stake presidency. Tonight was the adult session of stake conference. The last few times the stake presidency has done something unusual - and tonight was no different. Tonight they taught us how to ponder....

President Lee introduced the steps to pondering the scriptures:

1. Visualize - see it happening... How did they feel? How would I feel? Where would I be if I were in there?

2. Pull out the principles from the story.

3. Receive revelation about those principles - What about that? I need to... What is to be done?

We went through a few scripture stories - Alma the younger, The battles in the Book of Mormon, and Numbers 13-14 (when Moses sends spies into Cannan). Then we figured out the principles and received the revelation. Literally - we. They pass around the microphones and we share our thoughts. It's like a stake discussion lead by the Stake Presidency. I love them! They are so inspired and follow that inspiration! It is so wonderful to know that they are leaders. I trust them and love them. I feel like I know each one personally. We have such a good stake. It feels so good. As I look back growing up, it kind of felt like I was going through the motions. Go to church, go to stake conference, take notes, go home and go back to doing what I was doing before. Now as I sit here, thinking about this evening, I think - I didn't realize church could be this good. I just feel so alive when I am surrounded by the people in our ward and in our stake.

So good!

School blessings

Brian gave us blessings tonight to start the school year. I was blessed with:

• an increase of love, patience and strength when I need it
• the knowledge the Lord will not leave me in trying to do what He wants me to do
• that I may have my love increase and that I will remember that love when I get frustrated
• that I can separate the roles of being a mother and teacher
  

My blessings talked about me following the subtle promptings of the spirit and making a decision from that inspiration.

Elijah was blessed with the joy of learning and that he can have strength as he overcomes obstacles and that he can remember the feeling after he overcomes them when he meets another.

Quianna was blessed with the strength to work with her brother and help me.

And so it begins...

We started moving furniture around today. The corner desk ... from the downstairs office which will soon be our closet and music room - Quianna wants it to be a baby's room, however, that will be quite a while... anyway, the corner desk has been moved upstairs in the living room so we can prepare for school.

The next step is to figure out our office - soon closet. Then we'll move onto our bedroom and then finish with our garage. It will be really good to declutter and organize our room. I have been doing 27 boogie. Every week I go through the office throw away another pile of stuff. I also need to put a bunch of text books for sell online - which I think I'll do right now.

The exciting thing is we have the desk upstairs- which was the first step. Hopefully it will be like as snowball and we just keep going! It is really nice to be typing this at a (clean) desk upstairs with the family. I think this was a good decision.

side note - we had the missionaires over today with an investigator that is getting baptized in October. It was good. Elder Ericho - who hardly eats - ate 3 hamburgers! He ate them so quickly! It was like I turned around and he was asking for another one. It was a good time.

Testing, Testing, 1-2-3

Ok. So not that kind of testing, but for the last couple of days, the kids have been doing placement tests so I can figure out what classes to put them in for k12. Today, we finally finished! The kids tested for at least 4 hours yesterday and at least an hour today. Quianna did more today, but I finally decided where she was going to be.

Elijah is going to be in 3rd grade math and language arts/literature; Quianna will be in 5th grade math and language arts/literature. I am going to try and do 3rd grade history and 4th grade science so I can teach them that at the same time. I am hoping the teacher I am supposed to be working with will let me do that. She I haven't spoken with her yet - and I can honestly say that I have done my part. I have done pretty much everything except for going to her office or home and ask her my questions. I am getting really impatient. HOWEVER, I think was really patient for the month that I had to wait for the initial information to get to me. Depending how this year goes, I might go with WAVA, or maybe see if I can use MCP in the tri-cities just for the k-12.

So the best part of my day is that I am starting to figure things out for school. yay!