Temple Night

 

How delighted we were that the temple was “open” and that we got to go with our boy. It was very special. 

Ethan has some men in the ward that he is close to, we invited them and their wives to come with us and of course they were beyond excited as well. Just being able to go to the temple after all these months was enough to make any of us giddy. But going with Ethan was even more special. 

Everything was so very nice. The workers were so very happy to be there. It was very private and quiet as we were the only patrons but that was super nice actually. They didn’t rush us and the spirit was strong. 

From left to right are: Katty who I love. David her husband was taking the picture. He is our bishop and he was Ethan’s seminary teacher for a year and a half. We love him.  Then Laurie (Jack was also there just not in the picture). They are Ty and Connor’s parents. Ethan has spent a lot of time at their house and is very good friends with the boys. Then there is Doyle and Diane Williams. He’s in the bishopric and Ethan really enjoyed his talks so I asked if he could teach temple prep which ended up being such an amazing experience. The Junker’s are next. Jackson is E’s Florida best friend and the boys spend as much time at their house as they do at ours. They are a great family. On the far left is Andy and Ashley Gooch. Andy was in the bishopric when we moved here and he and Ethan hit it off, they’ve played tennis together, gone on bike rides and had good chats. We got to have up to 16 people come and he knew just who he wanted to invite. 

If you can’t have your family I am grateful we could have our ward family. The gospel brings so many blessing into our lives and the fellowship of the Saints is one of those.

election day

 Oh boy.  People are nervous.  I am nervous.  What will our country look like tomorrow?  We took calls today in the guidance office from scared mom's who said their kids were asking to go home, reporting that there were lots of threats of danger and mayhem.  The peaceful transfer of power is supposed to be the hallmark of democracy. I think we will fall short of the mark this election. Unfortunately we are voting for the lesser of two evils.  I think everyone agrees with that.  What they don't agree with is who is the lesser.  

In other election news Tatum got selected for the student council! Whoo hoo!!  That's exciting as can be.

I went ministering today, for the first time since covid.  To be honest this year doesn't look that different than a typical year for me.  I struggle to be a good ministering sister.  I don't know why?  I don't like making appointments, then I don't want to go, and I try to think of reasons not to go leading up to the visit.  Then I go and have a nice time.  Today I visited Fabiola and we always have a nice visit.  She has come such a long way since her brain aneurysm and is such a joy to visit with.  We had a lovely talk, and drank  bai water, and ended with a prayer.  How is that not something to look forward to?  I actually have appointments set up with my other two sisters as well. 

So it's official Ethan will do home MTC.  I am happy to have him here until Dec 30.  (that's the bright side talking, I am equally bummed that he will miss out on the traditional MTC experience) We are praying that Spain opens and he can go then, but if not he will serve where he is called. I can't believe we are so close.  

Tonight for mutual we are having career night.  This week the YW invited speakers, next week the YM will.  

And for the record I have not bought a single Christmas present yet.  

Marshall helping his mom vote.  

Halloween

Like everything this year Halloween was different. People

made the best of it. I always enjoy Halloween on social media. I love to see the clever costumes and spooky foods people make. This year was no exception and I enjoyed peeking in and seeing cute little baby lions, families in themes, mummy hot dogs, homemade shoots for delivering candy, and all the other fun shenanigans.

Hannah made Ezra’s cute little chicken costume and she and Sawyer were the farmer and his wife. It was nice that Rob was able to go with them to trunk

Or treat, and that he got to stay an extra day and spend it with them. 

E hasn’t cut his hair at all during covid. He made a great Bob Ross and we had a fun photo shoot. He painted the landscape this afternoon specifically  so he could take a picture with it.

Dani and Greg were Mavis and Johnny! 💕 

Grace went to Katie’s house tonight. They all dressed like M&M’s including Lincoln and they went trick or treating and then came back to her house to watch movies and hang out.

Katelyn, Katie, Grace, Phoebe, Kaylynn and Bianca🧡🧡
 

The Royal Family.  Oh my gosh Clayton made me laugh that is so funny!

Little Bub and Biggest Bub watched Ohio state play football today. E and I also watched together. But the two togethers were apart from each other 

The Brants and Johnson’s had dinner together and then went out trick or treating. Too cute!

I like Halloween, the fun dress up, festive family time, cute pumpkins and Disney specials, it’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown kind of Halloween. I don’t like scary. This was a fun but odd one. 

How to party 2020

1.Clean and decorate your home to make it inviting. 

This morning the elders came over and helped Ethan move tables to the yard and put up lights. After we took them to Toasted for lunch.

2. Choose what food to have. We had pizza and soda and donuts, chips and cookies and brownies and a cute graveyard platter. The kids brought some and we did most. I don’t think anyone was hungry after and we have tons of candy left in case anyone goes trick or treating tomorrow.  Which I wonder about.

3. Light some candles and make a spooky play list and then invite your friends over. 

Make sure they all wear masks.

Grace had a pumpkin carving party tonight. She had her flex seal friends over. Everyone brought pumpkins and they carved them.

Then they came in and ate, hung out, watched marching band stuff of YouTube and were noisy and fun🧡🧡🧡

This is the view from Grace’s bedroom window. I love it!

 

in record time

 We had a combined YM/YW activity today.  It was really a lot of fun.  We called it "pumpkin and dunkin" and we, as you may have guessed, carved pumpkins and ate donuts.  

We had a good turn out and there was lots of happy chatter, smiles behind masks and good natured ribbing.  The pumpkins turned out cute and the youth had fun.

We tried exploding a pumpkin too but it didn't explode.  

So the record is for shortest time in grad school.  2 hours.  Yesterday was my first day.  I came home looking forward to starting and looked through my classes and syllabi and mapped out how to get thru the semester.  I left the "gate" class for last.  Liberty has gates that you pass thru for graduation, to make sure you are on track, they are an orientation for each section.  That's when things went awry.  First surprise, I was admitted into the college of behavioral science but at gate 2 I would have to be accepted into the guidance counseling program. This was a suprise to me, even my acceptance letter said it was to the school counseling program.  School counseling had 2 requirements that I hadn't read about before that disqualified me without a lot of additional work.  One you had to have a statistics class in college.  Which I didn't.  I didn't have it or the prerequisites for it.  So I would have to take those before I could go thru gate 2.  Also you have to have taught school for 2 years with a permanent credential.  I taught for 3 years but I had an emergency, and then a provisional credential.  When I started teaching CA was going thru an education crisis, they quickly reduced class sizes across the state to 20 or less, and hired 1000's of teachers with bachelors degrees but no education training.  That was me.  We had 5 years to complete our credentials and I was on track, and had moved from emergency to provisional but I hadn't completed all the requirements. So clearing my credential and teaching for two years, taking the math classes and then doing the whole program I literally would be looking at being 57ish when I finished.  I withdrew and am regrouping.  There are options, I just need to figure out what will be best for me and Rob in the upcoming decade and a half until retirement. I was willing to give up all my free time for 2 years to do this, but I don't know about 5 years, or even 4.  Today I was lamenting to my coworkers and I learned that there are some options out there I wasn't aware of that may work.  I won't be able to get around the statistics class but maybe that'll be okay.  

Speaking of Rob, he's on a business trip to CA.  His flight was safe and he had lunch with a friend and he’s having dinner with Bryan and Tami.

And we stayed home and ate a huge nacho platter for dinner.  

More

 

It snowed today in Utah and in Idaho! Meanwhile we are still in the 90's and the bugs are thick and the sweat is rolling down our backs and off our foreheads whenever we are outside.  You can't have everything I guess.

Our sacrament meeting was wonderful today.  Bro. Hill gave a powerful talk, and the passing of the sacrament was a sacred and special experience.  We are so blessed to be able to live the gospel during our mortal lives.

Tonight we had our first post lock down BYD.  We met at church, and by Zoom, and our speakers were Randy and Meredith Casto, who joined us by Zoom from MD.  They did a phenomenal job and it was exactly what was needed.  They shared their conversion story and bore powerful and meaningful, relatable yet specifically unique testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  Randy said several times that he found "more" than what he had before, and there is "more" ahead for all of us.  I loved it.  We left edified and uplifted. They were pastors when they were introduced to the restored gospel.  Randy a Lutheran and Meredith an Episcopalian priest, they gave up their jobs and even some family and friends, really all that they were used to they gave up when they got baptized.  

There was time for a couple of questions at the end and Bro Hill asked them what the greatest obstacle was for them in leaving their ministries and being baptized.  Bro Casto said "Martin Luther said "here I stand, and I can not do otherwise" when jailed, and criticized for his teachings.  He, Randy, said when he received personal revelation that this was God's church he felt the same.  "Here I stand, and I can not do otherwise.”

Meredith said that she was raised in a strongly feminist, extremely liberal house hold and thought that being a stay at home mom was the worst thing that could happen to a woman, that women don't need men, and that her career was her first priority.  Then she learned that the opposite was true.  She left a church where she was the priest and the authority to one where women can not be priests (and she added and I didn't even want to be because I now understood my role and it is so much more).  She said being in Relief Society was the best place to be because there she found the strongest, most valiant, women who knew who they were and what their purpose was. 

I know that the youth felt the spirit and felt the power of their message. I know I did.

Halloween Party

Before we get to the party let me just say I love this book. 

Tonight was our ward Halloween social. It went better than we feared. The YW were in charge of the concession stand and they worked hard handing out food and drinks. We had carnival games, a blow up screen for viewing scooby doo outside and the little kids dressed up. We had about 100 people come and everyone had a great time!

Ethan and Jackson only stopped by to show their moms their costumes. They had a different party to go to.