October 27, 2008

Dear Children,

Dad and I had lots of fun with being in charge of the “Empty Nesters” Family Home Evening this week. We played Conference Jeopardy; it was a great reminder and review for me to build a game around this month’s General Conference. I used a resource on the internet but had to check facts several times as it wasn’t always accurate. The researching helped me remember messages that I liked. I guess that is a good memory tool, to make a game, which makes sense since many of you had projects like that in school when you were studying a theme.

Since Dad and I are trying hard to eat better foods, having a group over allowed me to make some treats. I had just recently received my shipment of orange chocolate from Sally Farb so I was anxious to try Aubrey’s Easy Oreo Truffles with that. They turned out pretty yummy and I only had to eat one!

The rock man came this week and “started” on our entry project . . . yeah! They got everything plastered and then left saying they didn’t know when they were gong to get back. Who knows what that will mean in construction language! It is going to look nice though. I had my fingers crossed that I could get Dad to do the stamped concrete in the entryway by Christmas so you could all enjoy it but there is good news and bad news about that project. In our planning, he said he would probably need to wait until February if business picked back up. Well, business picked back up.

It is a great blessing to have our Church membership and for Dad to be known as a fair and honest business man with great skills. The Vancouver church buildings are taking longer than expected (that is not so good since he has had obstacles that were not in the bid) but now the Temple needs some work done right now and President Richardson needs a small job done on his bakery. Right now Dad feels overwhelmed with work that needs to be done before the weather turns worse.

Speaking of blessings, I have been praying for Dad ‘s work and this week a man came up to the job site to ask Dad if he needed a worker. Dad came home so happy and said that a savior came to the jobsite that day and his name was Jesus, Jesus Gallegos form Acapulco! Dad looked at the jack hammer on the ground by his feet and asked him, “Do you know how to use one of those?” The man said yes and he has been working, very well, for Dad everyday since! Dad comes home everyday more relived that Jesus is working out so well. Thankfully, he has lived in Oregon since his high school years so his English is well enough for Dad to communicate with him. He is a family man who really wants to work and Dad likes his work ethic and the speed in which he accomplishes his tasks. He also has some distant connections with the Church and so he might be interested in knowing more about the gospel, which would be wonderful for his family. It will be good if he can travel to work on the Temple with Dad.

I love having the time available to go to institute! I had another great class this week. We studies John 7:17 “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” Our discussion revolved around the DO part so we read part of a talk from Loren C Dunn (June 1971 Ensign “Drink of the Pure Water”) where he gave a challenge to test out God’s law. For a space of three months he asked us to attend church (paying attention), have morning and evening prayer, obey the Word of Wisdom, stay morally clean, read the Book of Mormon each day and pray about it. He said we would know if the gospel was from God by then. We ended the class watching Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge’s very powerful general conference talk about Jesus Christ’s gospel being the easiest way to live. He told us to follow the Lord and be endowed by His power. He suggested we have two choices: the easy way (God’s way) or another way. Elder Corbridge graduated from BYU’s law school with Brother Stark, my institute teacher in the first class that went through.

Grandma and I traveled down to Albany and had a wonderful visit with Kyre and Klaire on Friday. It was a beautiful day. Kyre showed Grandma her place and all of her wildly producing tomato plants in her front yard. Klaire showed us her toys as she put them away to go to lunch. We were in shock to have her tell us her colors as handled the toys. Green is obviously her favorite color (like her Halmoni!) since that is the color she gets right every time! Even so, she knows what a color is since she goes through the color names to guess. I tried to help her cash the refund checks from Scott’s taxes last year and their tax stimulus check but both her back at Wells Fargo and my bank will not budge on handling a check with Scott’s name on it since she took his name off their account last fall. I spent a good amount of time calling around to get some advice. The banks said to go back to the IRS and Eric Green said that would be a nightmare. I had a thought to call Kyre’s payee that was assigned to her through her disabilities program. Previously, I thought that it was ridiculous for the government to pay someone $30.00 a month to pay Kyre’s three or four bills but now I am so thankful they do. Her payee said she can handle the checks with a letter signed by both Scott and Kyre. It will just take me writing another letter and driving to meet her in Corvallis. I will be SO glad to have this behind me.

We had a fun meal at Red Robin and then it was time to leave; it is always so hard to leave. Grandma escaped being late to her hair appointment only by me driving her there instead of picking up her car. We made an evening of it when I had to return to pick her up by going to the fabric store.

Katie has a trip planned to St. Louis in November for an interview with a newsroom there for an internship during winter semester. Keep her in your prayers; it would be great to get a good internship and of course, she is happy that it is close to her favorite baseball team, the Cardinals!!! Katie tried to do the interview over the phone but they insisted she come to Missouri. Thankfully, Joe will meet her there.

Speaking of the Cardinals, we had four missionaries over to dinner this week. When I have them I like to fix an easy “large group” meal so I can test out some recipes for when everyone is home for Christmas. One of the new missionaries, I think Spanish speaking, was so excited that there were Cardinal fans in the family. He was from Southern California so I do not know what his connection to the team would be; maybe because I do not understand the whole sports craze (unless it is BYU of course)!

Adrianne was in Las Vegas this weekend with her roommate Kenna. I forgot to ask if she connected with Aaron as she hoped on Saturday to see his new house (Morty was out of town). She described to me the wonderful meal, in too much detail, that was prepared by Kenna’s Mexican grandma! It made me so hungry. I talked with Aaron a lot this week as he has been helping Grandma and I with her Excel spreadsheets and also we are trying to coordinate Christmas travel so that we can, for a small moment, possibly get all the family together for a picture in Beaverton. Morty was watching the Ducks in Phoenix this week; they won. Shawn and Aubrey hear today if they are having a boy or girl!

With the autumn colors becoming more vivid and the leaves falling, Dad and I decided it may be a good time, while it was still fairly dry, to make a mad dash effort to prepare the garden for winter. We traded a leisurely Saturday for one filled with fast paced work to accomplish our task before stake conference meetings. I was able to pull all the vegetable plants and hang any remaining tomato and pepper plants by the shed (an experiment) to preserve any last growth until a bad freeze. I harvested lots of ripe vegetables and Dad suggested I check out the potato plant that “Sammy planted”. There were potato plant vines growing from the sand box under the Eagle’s Nest. Sure enough, Sammy must have stolen a potato, which she does often, and buried her treasure in the sand box. Her potatoes were the most perfectly formed batch there were! I think I will add more sand to my potato area next year! This picture shows her perfect red potatoes. It was very fulfilling to enjoy a meal after stake conference the next day with so many things from our garden; made me feel pioneerish!

Rebekah got her cast off last week; her elbow is still tender but now she can exercise it to get back her range of motion. Heidi and Bill’s stake was split. They are now in the Founders Stake. I think I forgot part of the name. Their ward name changed also with the stake change. They called Saturday morning to describe to Dad the huge curb machine that was working right next to their home to put in more streets. Dad was wishing he had one of those for the job he is on right now!

Our stake conference meetings were especially good this weekend. They went right along with what I had been studying in institute. Our Saturday night meetings revolved around making our family top priority and the center of our concerns. They spoke about the basics in strengthening our family. I liked the focus being on what we could do as individuals to weather the storms of uncertainty in the world by concentrating our energies in self strength building and to build up our homes. It made great sense.

We enjoyed a wonderful meeting on Sunday, a broadcast in which Elder L Tom Perry and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf spoke with two other general authorities. Elder Perry urged us to go back to the conference messages and use what we have been taught there. He suggested ways we can allow the spirit of those great meetings stay in our homes from season to season. He said to open up the November Ensign issue and assign future family home evening lessons to include the talks. He also suggested that we watch for themes in each conference; he suggested that the themes this past conference were unity and getting our homes in order for troubled times ahead.

Charles Dahlquist spoke to the youth (well, all of us) reminding them of four important points:

1-We are not alone

2-Stand in holy places (avoid places of temptation)

3-Keep our minds clean (more easily done if we fill our time with purposeful activities)

4-Learn to do hard things

President Uchtdorf bore a powerful testimony of Jesus Christ, the Church and having a living prophet both at the beginning of his talk and the end, except at the end he added his KNOWLEDGE that he knows God knows us and knows him personally. He also pleaded to any capable young men from Oregon who were not serving a mission to rethink that decision. He suggested that we continue to ask prayerfully two questions, listen to promptings about the questions and set goals to act on those promptings

What am I personally doing to increase my faith in Jesus Christ?

What am I doing as a family to strengthen the home and family?

He warned us that pornography, violence and ungodliness will destroy our families. When he suggested that we take a look at lds.org for study ideas to increase our faith, he warned us to be careful of the entrapments of the internet: time and unworthy sites. He left us with three challenges:

• Always have a current recommend
• Study the word of God daily
• Speak with our Heavenly Father daily

I haven’t ordered my conference CD’s yet but this weekend certainly reminded me to do so. Do any of you want me to order a set for you also? Let me know this week please.

Have a great week ahead. I love you! Love, Mom