So, most of this week I felt so tired. I was productive but not nearly as much as the week before. Wednesday was our anniversary. Jon made us all breakfast in bed (well he just brought yogurt and a banana for George but we had blueberry french toast). I went visiting teaching, our home teacher came over and I went to institute choir and then we went to olive garden for dinner. I actually ordered something for the chicken. Thursday evening George and I went over to our home teachers home. We were babysitting their son, so the parents could celebrate their anniversary with dinner, a night away and breakfast. That went well. Friday I cooked lunch for institute (simple salad, heart attack rolls, normal marinara pasta, a sage/pumpkin pasta and a chocolate mint trifle). Saturday we went to the church to help with a deep clean. George and I worked on a bathroom. I let him play with the toilet brush (he likes pretending to clean or splash with it) and I cleaned the mirrors, toilets, toilet bowls, walls, and then another lady came in to help and George and I cleared out and she did the sinks and mopped the floors. Today was our primary program and my team teacher wasnt there,so I had to wing the lesson. We tried going over what pure means. (I told them to imagine I was doing the suggested demonstration with pouring salt in my hand-pure and then mixing in pepper. Then we talked about how doing wrong things makes us not pure.) We talked about super heroes. The manual asked questions like, does your hero always obey the law? Do they use bad words? And 2 others. The lesson suggested they find other heroes, but I thought that was possibly a little harsh. So I said if our superhero saves the world, can we pretend to do the same? If our superhero said a bad word should we do that too? No. So who is our perfect example? Jesus. So if our hero does something Jesus wouldn't do, should we follow or pretend to do that thing? No. Anyways, I think they got the picture.
Thoughts. .. I'm reading general conference and I'm reading through Sunday mornings talks. Russell m Nelsons was on righteous women and speaking out. And the next person also talked about speaking out. A few quotes, "You are the women he foresaw! Your virtue, light, love, knowledge, courage, character, faith, and righteous lives will draw good women of the world, along with their families, to the Church in unprecedented numbers!"
"President Packer declared:
“We need women who are organized and women who can organize. We need women with executive ability who can plan and direct and administer; women who can teach, women who can speak out. …
“We need women with the gift of discernment who can view the trends in the world and detect those that, however popular, are shallow or dangerous.”8
Today, let me add that we need women who know how to make important things happen by their faith and who are courageous defenders of morality and families in a sin-sick world. We need women who are devoted to shepherding God’s children along the covenant path toward exaltation; women who know how to receive personal revelation, who understand the power and peace of the temple endowment; women who know how to call upon the powers of heaven to protect and strengthen children and families; women who teach fearlessly."
And then from the next talk, referring to Peter, "Many heard his words and felt the Spirit, and 3,000 souls joined the ranks of the early Church. This is powerful evidence that one man or woman who is willing to testify when the world seems to be going in the opposite direction can make a difference."
Oh, I also had a "movie night" on Thursday. I say that in quotes because we never turned on the movie. I have great friends here. One has a lesbian sister and a gay cousin, both of my friends who came are still single and about 40. Anyways, all three of us, when we heard the new handbook about homosexuality, our first instinct was to accept it. One prayed for understanding because she didn't fully understand it, but the difference between her and so many others is, sure, she may have questions, but she accepts it on faith and then seeks understanding. Anyways, the other is in her relief society and they had an interesting (almost bad) lesson last week. The teacher was good but didn't know how to handle a certain comment. (It was on pride and how we need to be humble. One lady said we shouldn't be humble because then we're submissive and door mats and slaves.) My friend, stood up and spoke out in an email. She said she was thinking about things and how one dictionary does make it sound like humility is more of a weakness, but then used scriptural examples to bear testimony that we are not expected to be slaves or door mats (she didn't use those words) but she defined what she felt the scriptures want us to think of humility as. Anyways, with the two talks on a row and everything going on, now is the time to stand up. To speak out. We can make a difference.
Pictures of George: the one with the remote- he looks like he's zoned out watching the TV. That's partially true, but the TV is off.
He now climbs on everything. The toilet included and likes to stand on top and dance and stamp his foot (usually his left foot). He has also climbed up onto a dining table and was scaling a folded up chair. I ran over because I was afraid it would fall when he got to the top. Anyways, he climbed onto the piano bench and actually sat when I said "sit down please" and this was his face when I said, "say cheese". He then played the piano for a bit.
