Happy Birthday Conner!

Happy 11th Birthday. We love you so much
and have enjoyed having you stay with us
while school is out. You're very loving, kind,
helpful, and fun.
We will miss you Conner. So keep in touch!

At the Feet of an Apostle of Christ

Last weekend, Jill and I had a wonderful opportunity to sit at the feet of one of the twelve apostles. Our stake was being divided and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came to speak. On Saturday evening he spoke and told us that even though he knew very few people personally in our stake that he had been thinking about each of us individually. He spoke about adversity that often comes into our lives. He started out by saying he wondered if some of us were finding ourselves awake at 3:00 in the morning, having difficulty sleeping and wondering if the sun would ever come back up. He asked if anything seemed broken in our lives. He told us to be of good cheer because our Father in Heaven loves "broken things" and he is anxious to fix them. "From broken clouds come rain, from broken ground comes wheat, from broken wheat comes bread and with broken bread we nourish ourselves." "The Lord wants as an offering from us a "broken" heart and a contrite spirit." We all have challenges. He said that his biggest challenge is that he is so impatient. He said that there is such a thing as righeous indignation, why can't there be "righteous impatience?"

He encouraged us to "hang in there", things will get better, broken things can be fixed. He reminded us that our trials are for our experience and that is how we learn what our Father in Heaven wants to teach us. To have them removed would in many cases remove the very thing that is helping us became what we need to be. He likened our times of adversity to a boat tossed on the sea and suggested, "the first time the boat starts rocking because of the tempest by all means don't jump overboard". "Hang in there! Some people lack faith at the time when that faith is being tested and walk away." "I get so impatient!", he said and the congregation laughed.
He referred to the story of Jesus teaching the multitudes on the mountain and how afterward most of them, thinking he spoke hard things, wandered away leaving only his closest disciples. Of them he asked "are going going to leave too?" and Peter responded, "Where else would we go Lord?" He asked us, "When life gets hard, where else are you going to go? This the only true gospel and the source of our eternal hapiness". He spoke of how after the sermon on the hill, Jesus and his disciples traveled across the sea. The Savior must have been exhausted after the long days teaching the people and was sleeping on a pillow in the rear of the ship when a huge tempest arose. So great was the storm that Peter & James, who where fisherman by trade, feared for their lives. They awoke Jesus from his sleep and asked "Carest thou not that we perish?" To this the Savior asked "Why are ye so fearful, how is it that ye have no faith?" He turned the same question to us. I felt as if he was speaking directly to me.

There was tremendous power in his message. It was the power of the spirit; the spirit of prophesy; the testimony of the Holy Ghost that here speaking to us was a prophet, seer and revelator and one chosen to bear special witness of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

On Sunday, he spoke again. I won't discuss the total content of that speech in this writing but I do want to mention something that applies to all of you reading this message. He said, "I wish to give to all of you here today a special apostolic blessing. It shall be as if I was laying my lands upon your each and every one of you". He then said, "It has just been wispered into my ear that I should extend this blessing to those you care about and are concerned about. I extend this blessing to them as well as if I were laying my hands individually on their heads." He then proceded to bless us all. You may not have realized it, but you all received a special blessing from an apostle of Jesus Christ last week. Hang in there, endure your test of faith. Don't just endure it ---- endure it WELL!

Francis kids here for a month.

Conner making the bed. He sure has been a Big helper!
Tayler and Porter getting ready to play the WII together.

Finally the tooth is gone! Olivia trying to get into things but
Tayler is trying to get the spider web back on the doors. Conner
is so good with little kids. You can tell by this picture.

Kelli needed my help watching her kids for a month while the kids are out of school. Kelli just got a job so her and Tom are both busy working and doing online schooling. They tried but couldn't find anyone there in Arizona (where they live) to tend the three. I told her I would help her and try to make up for the times I didn't help when her back was sore or when she was sick with the flu and needed me. We try to be there for all our children but it dosen't always work out. But we try our best. The kids have all been very good. Tayler her front tooth a week ago. I had fun pulling it out :) I tried several times to post pictures but because of the thunder storms the internet was having issues. So now I'm back and will try to catch up.