Seminary Graduation

Tonight was Seth's Seminary graduation. These are some of his other friends who also graduated. His high school graduation is Thursday. Seminary has been a blessing in the lives of all my children and I am so grateful for that. It will be a blessing to them all their lives. They are armed with knowledge because of their time in Seminary and the blessing of knowing where to find the answers to some of life's most difficult questions...in the scriptures.

"The objective of seminary is to help youth understand and rely on the teachings and Atonement of Jesus Christ, qualify for the blessings of the temple, and prepare themselves, their families, and others for eternal life with their Father in Heaven."

"We have a great responsibility ... in the Church to make sure our own members, our own young people, do not fall into that unfortunate category of being blinded, of being good, fine, worthy young men and women who are kept from the truths of the scriptures because they do not know where to find those truths and because they do not possess confidence between the covers of their standard works.... We ought to have a Church full of women and men who know the scriptures thoroughly, who cross-reference and mark them, who develop lessons and talks from the Topical Guide, and who have mastered the maps, the Bible Dictionary, and the other helps that are contained in this wonderful set of standard works" Howard W. Hunter

45 Years

My brother Rob would have been 45 years old today.

 Leukemia is an awful disease.

 I still miss you Rob.

Someday I'll see you again.

How Well I Remember

Late last night almost about as I was getting ready for bed, Seth and his friends found their way to my kitchen. They attended a senior banquet/yearbook celebration last evening but apparently weren't ready to go home yet.

They wanted to read what everybody wrote

 in their yearbooks and have some ice cream.

It was a delight for me to watch them.

Time just passes so quickly. I was editor-in-chief of my high school year book. Every once in a while I pull mine out and look at it again. I think I look at mine differently than anybody else in the class would. I say to myself, "I should have chosen a better grade paper that would have held up better 30 years later," "Why did I put that picture there?""Too bad that picture didn't print out better" "Boy, I'm glad we made that deadline!" etc., etc., etc.

It's hard to believe that I graduated high school 35 years ago. It doesn't seem that long ago. My memories are still fresh for so many things. I do remember how wonderful it was to get my senior yearbook and how much I treasured reading what people wrote.

 Some things never change I guess.

What's Up With All These Dates?

Jim called me earlier and asked me to go to lunch with him AGAIN. We went yesterday too. Last week he invited me to go to the movies with him in the middle of the day.

Whatever is going on...

 I like it.

Blessings All Around

As the years pass, contemplation of a lifetime of accumulated blessings causes me to be humbled by God's infinite capacity to bless. Here are just a few recently noted:

Jim and I attended the scholarship

 awards ceremony this morning at Seth's school. 

 

Seth received a $5,000 scholarship to attend BYU in the fall. 

That is added to the $500 one he received two weeks ago.

His good friend and our neighbor Kristina

 also won the other $5,000 scholarship to BYU.

 Great blessings for both our families.

Sarah was here the other day with Nathan and Gregory.

Her pregnancy is progressing well.

We're looking forward to little Hannah in July.

Gregory has placed in the top 20% 

of his BYU law school class this semester.

Good for him. Congratulations Gregory.

Our healthy, delightful grandson Nathan is growing well.

He likes to play in my dirt so I decided not 

to plant deck flowers this year.

Ian e-mailed today while I was gone. He sounds so good. I am so grateful for the blessings of missions. It is impossible to describe the great blessings that come because of missionary service. God is kind, wise, and very loving to offer the blessings of missionary service to those who desire it. Read on...

"Dear Family,                                                                                          May 30, 2012

As you are probably starting to see, the day that I write my e-mail probably won’t be so consistent for the next two transfers. Yesterday was transfers and we spent a big part of the day with the new missionaries. We went and got them at the airport at 7:30 in the morning and then we went to the mission home. We had breakfast, gave trainings, ate lunch and the new missionaries got assigned to their new areas and they met their new companions. It was a great experience. I got to translate for the new missionaries and I noticed that my English is getting quite a bit worse. It is a good thing that I don’t have to take an English class after the mission, I am pretty sure that I would fail horribly. 

...we spent this last week in Bauru (a city in São Paulo that is close to the last city that I was working in) doing exchanges with the missionaries....We baptized a girl their that was part of a family that my companion had baptized when he worked there as a zone leader but didn’t live with them at the time, now the just the father needs to get baptized to complete the family. When I got called as assistant, I was really worried about my ability to be able to do these exchanges well as they are a large part of our responsibilities as assistants but with every exchange that we do, I am feeling more and more confident that I will be able to do what the Lord wants me to do in this calling...We are working hard and we are always super busy but I am loving it. It is great that we are so busy, it helps me to stay focused. I really love the mission. 

I know with all my heart that the Church is true. I know that we have a living prophet. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that through him God restored His church to the earth. I had an interview with Pres. Tavares this week to renew my temple recommend and as he asked me if I had a testimony of various truths of the restored gospel. I was able to see a little bit just how much my testimony has grown in these past 21 months and how my testimony has deepened and been enriched. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve as a missionary. It is truly a great blessing; I am learning so much, it is so wonderful to be able to serve God’s children for this time. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior, that He lives, and that He loves us. 

I love you all very much."

How do you thank God for a constant stream of blessings? I guess I will just try to show my gratitude by doing what He asks of me and by trying to serve others. I am most grateful.

Memorial Day

We had a lovely day here celebrating Memorial Day. We attended the annual Memorial day breakfast at our church this morning. That's always enjoyable. We also had a barbeque this evening and invited a few guests. I'm very tired but it was as lovely a day as one could hope for. The weather was perfect.

I took this last evening in the military section of the cemetery.

 I am always touched by this site in the veterans section.

Wow

My Mom sent this tonight.

What a great picture. Missionary work in all its forms is such a great blessing. She's right in the middle of this picture in the turquoise jacket. They all look so happy. Good for them.