Faith is the key!

3 Nephi 19:35,36 -

This is when Christ appears to the Nephites, after his crucifixion, after 3 years of teaching and setting up his Church in the old world AND performing many miracles.

And it came to pass that when Jesus had made an end of praying he came again to the disciples, and said unto them: So great faith have I never seen among all the Jews: wherefore I COULD NOT SHOW UNTO THEM so great miracles, because of their UNBELIEF.

Verily I say unto you, there are none of them (NOT Peter, Paul, none?) that have seen so great things as ye have seen; neither have they heard so great things as ye have heard.

FAITH is the key to everything. 

I love the story in Mark 9, of the man with his son. It's very emotional when you realize what this father has gone through for years. Christ tells him in v. 23, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believe. v24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

It makes me realize that I need more Faith. 

George is now 1!

Saturday we made a lasagna, and a shrimp pesto alfredo dish, and Jon made panna cotta (gourmet Italian jello-pudding) and then we got a mix of Ceasar salad and added in some olives and purple onions. We went early to set up two tables and set the table with a tablecloth and centerpiece and nice disposable plates, cups and silverware. We even found small disposable dessert dishes for the panna cotta. We had a lady who made two fresh loaves of French bread- really good. We cooked for 14 people including our Temple President and his wife, Mission President and his wife, Stake President and his wife, Stake Presidency, Elder Hallstrom and Elder Dudley (visiting General Authorities). It went pretty well, but it got a little busy. I was supposed to be back with food right when our babysitter showed up. I gave her a quick run down and left her my phone number and told her to text me if she had any questions (even if it was to just find something). Dinner went well and the adult session was good. The topic of the conference was "The Work of Salvation". Elder Dudley spoke about Ward Council and Family Council and one lady who spoke, spoke specifically about family council in her family. She mentioned how they had a problem once and brought the matter to everyone's attention in family council, then they dismissed everyone for a few minutes and had everyone retire to their rooms to pray about the problem. Everyone came back and they started youngest to oldest with their solutions. I don't remember all of them, but the youngest girl thought they should ask Grandma to come help (so they did). One of their boys came up with another plan and they incorporated his idea. They used everyone's idea and got through the problem. I thought that was great- how everyone in the family was expected to pray and come up with an idea and everyone's idea was implemented, in some way or another. Elder Hallstrom spoke about the Sabbath Day. It made me realize I need to change some things. Sunday is the Lord's Day, not just a day of rest. It's a day to rest from the cares of the world and focus on the Savior. It is not enough to merely refrain from doing certain things, but also to fill it with uplifting things. It was mentioned that appropriate Sabbath Day activities will change from family to family. One family spoke of how Saturday is a very hectic day getting ready for Sunday and they have different activity centers set up for their kids for Sunday, including a family history area in their home and a place set up with coloring stuff to send pictures to grandparents (from the smaller children). Anyways, Mom's blog post last week had a meme that suggested appropriate activities, such as reading a conference talk or a random act of kindness, writing in your journal or calling someone who is sick. It reminded me of my mission and how Sundays were not a relaxing day. It was filled with worrying about which investigators were coming to church and meetings and teaching (just like any other day). I guess our Sundays should be more like mini missions- whether we're studying, ministering, teaching, doing family history- we should make sure that we are doing the Lord's work on Sunday. (Spending time with family is part of the Lord's work too, or can be.) Besides making a few goals for better Sunday worship for myself, I was also impressed that family council and Sabbath Day were the main things they talked about with a theme of "The Work of Salvation". I felt like improving our Sabbath Day worship and family council are very important parts of attaining Salvation and Exaltation- so they're things I need to improve on.

Conference weekend, we had a friend stay with us and her son (who doesn't love George- her son is an introvert and George doesn't understand how someone could want personal space). Anyways, we invited her and her husband to eat lunch with us before heading home (they live in our stake but about an hour away). Then we got Jon's mom from the airport that night.

This week, lots of birthday preparations and lots of grandma time. We went to the library and the store and Tuesday we went to Babies R Us to look for a present for George from Grandma Patsy. I don't remember day to day, but his party went great! Mom sent lots of cool stuff and then we put everything up. Only 5 kids came, but George went from sad and wanting to be held to his face lighting up and wanting down so he could play. We had lots of cars to play with and balloons and a craft (precut stickers to put on an outline of a car which can be made into a magnet) and a pin the headlight on Mater. The cake turned out well and the food did too. We just did a picnic on a blanket in the front room.  George learned how to use his toy from us (Jon and I) his first car ramp thing and had lots of fun. He crashed afterwards. Friday we had a down day but we did go to Once Upon a Child, where we bought George some clothes and I found this animal zoo I've been looking for (on Amazon it's $75 and on ebay it's $70 used so I was happy to finally find it at Once Upon a Child for $15).

We set up all his presents and wrapped the good stuff from Mom. It looked like Christmas- but I think it was more exciting for me than for George. When we went to open presents he was more interested in the computer where Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Julie and Aunt Bug were watching. But he loves his new toys. He got a tool set from Mom and a magnet set that we haven't gotten out of the box yet, but he likes the music it plays so far. And he liked carrying around his movies (Fantasia, Fantasia 2000 and Make Mine Music with Peter and the Wolf on it). He's so fun to watch and play with now. After opening presents we went for a drive to a small town about 30 minutes from us called Nashville. We went to a puppet/marionette show for his birthday. It was a Halloween show and was really well done. Afterwards the lady told us to come to the Christmas show in Indy. She told us they normally say 18 months and up but that George was so good and watched this whole show that he'd be fine at the Christmas one (if we want to). I enjoyed it and George laughed and he got to high five one puppet and she had an alien puppet that landed on his hand. Then we ate lunch, got fudge (which Nashville is known for) and headed home. Jon watched George while Patsy and I went to the Women's Broadcast.

My thoughts have been on Grace. A really great talk is from Brad Wilcox -
His Grace is Sufficient
www.byutv.org/watch/49475abb-10d4-4f45-a757-7000b9945468
(Pretty impressed with myself that I was able to put the link in there. I would love all of us to read that talk - over and over again.
The price has been paid - in full - for our sins, through the atonement. We are given grace. We worship and honor and keep commandments because we want to thank Him. Because we love Him! As we do, we become like Him. The plan is perfect. We shouted for Joy!
Please read the talk.

And I've been thinking about the phrase "heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers". Thinking about Katie, my heart is turned to her. I think of her, I spiritually reach out to her with my faith and want to give her strength and courage or any drop of faith or power I may have. I feel the Savior's comfort and strength in my own life. Katie I know is turning her heart to our Heavenly Father. He has all power and will guide her and give her all she needs. As we focus on our Savior, our bonds are made stronger and we feel closer to the Savior and to each other.

It's that constant yearning that makes me a better person. That makes me love having a missionary, even though I find myself turning my ring around and around and ....

 An arrangement I made for Sara's Bday.
I missed Katie.






And this is a meme I sent to the Beehives, but since we
all need to strengthen ourselves in keeping the Sabbath
Day Holy, I thought I'd include it.







Here we are at the UCLA vs BYU game. The new BYU-I President is just two rows in front of us - big BYU fan!
And Tanner's mom is one row up and over, so needless to
say we were in Cougartown and it was a lot of fun!
We should have won, but you've got to have respect when only
losing by one point.

And this is all the stuff I made for George's 1st Bday!!!!

Busy, busy, busy (from September 9th)

So this last week has been lots of busy stuff. I organized a babysitting group so we can take turns watching the kids and attending an institute class with our spouse. I watched the first time, last Friday and it went well (5 kids, two were sick and didn't make it). People brought kids between 6 and 7 and came back at 9. I made mac n cheese (though they had all eaten and weren't hungry till 8:30- so I fed them then). We walked through the house at first and I told them to grab any toys they'd want to play with. Most were downstairs already. Then we gated off the kitchen and stairs and just played. It went well.

Saturday we went to an art festival (and actually bought some art prints for George's room) and a garlic festival. Then we went shopping. I bought a bookcase for George for both toys and books. A fun rug for a reading corner and a rug for our bathroom and a recliner chair for George. (I wasnt thinking recliner at first but it was I think my second cheapest option of things that would last or hold its form. For some reason I couldn't find regular bean bags for cheaper. ) we ended up buying a king size mattress so George doesn't kick us just by moving. They sold Jon's grandma Ann ' s condo and Jon's dad split up his share between his kids.

Anyways, our stake conference is coming up.  We're singing in the choir. We've been asked to cook a nice meal for the visiting general authorities. I'm also cooking for institute this Friday and I'm going to host a book show for my friend and we've decided to throw George a birthday party. (All that in September). I think we're going to do a car theme. Second choice was jungle/safari, but I think my ideas would be better for him when he's at least two. He doesn't need much so it'll mostly be an elaborate play date. (Cut pool noodles in half to make ramps to send cars down, there's cheap road tape to make a maze of roads in our place and then food: I'm thinking hot "rods " (dogs) and car"bun"etors and paint (ketchup, mustard. ..) and wheel mac n cheese. Printouts that make juice boxes look like gas pumps. Normal cake and make a road with crushed oreos or something. Favor will be a car for everyone to play with and maybe a few other things. Most of George's friends happen to be older, so there will be some stuff above his level, but I think it'll be fun. I'll send pictures.

Yesterday, i wasnt home much. Woke up, showered, went to visit teach one lady, then another. Home for 30 minutes then went to help another lady. Ran some errands, came home for about 30 minutes again and then went to relief society.

We're getting settled in our place and hanging up pictures and George is doing well.

We have a new family in the ward from Venezuela - they don't speak any English. The mom has come in with her son to primary (he's in my class). This Sunday was on loving one another and one of the stories was about a girl who moved from a different country and didn't know the language. I didn't tell it but I mentioned how we had someone in our class who didn't speak English. Helped them suggest getting to know him. He was a little shy- didn't tell us his favorite food but his favorite color is orange. I think it was a step in the right direction. :-) (I tried saying a few things in Spanish but had to look up a few things).

George likes trying to find things that are his size "seats" like baskets, under the stroller and such. He's so funny. :-)

Cleaning (from September 2nd)

I don't remember all that happened last week. Our ward had a game night and George walked all over the place. We went to an opening social for our Married Student Institute Class. I've been cleaning. George's room is almost functional and then I'm going to make a reading corner for him and decorate it and buy a thing to store toys in so we can play in there come winter when we'll want to be upstairs.

We still have not settled in yet, but I think I know where I want to hang everything and almost everything is stacked neatly in closets so I can go through things slowly but still function and enjoy our place. George doesn't seem to notice much.

George is getting really good at going down the stairs. Occasionally he'll go backwards but most of the time he likes sitting down, scooting forward and standing up on the next step down.

The other day we went to lunch at in Indian place. There's a street here that is pretty much just restaurant after restaurant. There's Cajun, Thai, Italian, (there used to be an Ethiopian place), Turkish, and several others. Yesterday we went to an Indian place and they had a buffet. George went right for this potato dish and the guy comes in and was like, "WOAH! He likes spicy?!" He then told us what most kids like- George didn't like those ones, but he did like the potatoes in the spicy one and he liked their mango juice. I have decided I really like Indian food. Jon bought some lamb at Sam's Club the other day and so I decided to try an Indian dish. I started looking up recipes but didn't think I'd have time with George. I was right. But most seem to use onions, garlic, tumeric and garam masala (which I happen to have). One used tomatoes and stuff, so I just added stuff, threw in potatoes and some chopped lamb and we'll see how it goes. (It was pretty good and George really liked it).

The Finger of God - Sept. 13, 2015

On Sunday, July 26th, a couple weeks before Katie left, I was in Sactrament Meeting. During the Sacrament I thought I would read the sacrament prayers. I opened the Doctrine and Covenants and was flipping pages.  For some reason I stopped at Section 100 and started reading. It warmed my heart to know that the Lord is there and He loves me. I'm going to insert my name. (verses 1,2,12 & 15).

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, my friend, Jo Dee, your family is well; they are in mine hands, and I will do wih them as seemeth me good; for in me there is all power.

Therefore, follow me, and listen to the counsel which I shall give unto you.

Therefore, continue yur journey and let your heart rejoice; for behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end.

Therefore, let your heart be comforted; for all things shall work together for good to them that walk uprightly, and to the sanctification of the church. 

Today as the opening prayer was said I heard the words "Our kind and GRACIOUS Heavenly Father". I thought what does Gracious mean. If someone is gracious they are giving, of esteem. I looked in the Bible Dictionary and didn't find Gracious, but found Grace. "The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ. 

It is through the grace of the Lord Jesus, made possible by his atoning sacrifice, that mankind will be raised in immortality. It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts. 

It reminded me of the talk from Brad Wilcox, "His Grace is Sufficient" that I now want to reread.

The speakers then spoke on Grace. 

I know as a parent you give your child more than they deserve. As soon as they have the slightest appreciation, desire, achievement or even a change in attitude you want to give them more. You want to give them everything you can. I'm sure this is how our Father is.

What is the Lord trying to tell me? Teach me?  Are tough times ahead? Are there things He wants to give me? I don't know.

I know that we can see the hand of the Lord in our lives, but more often we see his thumbprints. Today I feel like I saw the finger of the Lord. I'm going to try to grasp it and maybe someday I will walk hand and hand with the Lord. Until then, I know He's there.

xo Mommy

PS And He loves me!

Impressions From the Week - August 31, 2015

Jamie thinks she's the only one that looks at the blog, but she's not. And I don't write as much as she does, but I do write.

I don't know if I'll always do this, but instead of a travel log/journal entry (like Jamie does), I'm going to write some impressions that I've had this past week.

- This time of year, being the beginning of the school year, I think of priorities, schedules and things that need to get done. I remember hearing a story once where someone got up and did all the little things they had to do and THEN tried to fit in the things they wanted to do. It never fits.
This is an object lesson where you take a big jar and you put things like sand, rice, small pebbles for the little things that consume our daily lives. Then you try to fit in the bigger rocks and they don't all fit. But if you put the big things in first (prioritize), all the little things fit. So remember to do the things that are most important eternally and surprisingly, you will find time to fit in the little things.

- During the Sacrament today there was a few moments where the song ended and the Priests hadn't finished breaking the bread. I was touched by the Spirit when I wondered what it felt like when the Priests were tearing the bread. We are all broken. We come to Sacrament to come/worship Jesus Christ. We let him in by partaking of the bread and water and it is like a medicine, he heals us.

- Erin Chismar gave her homecoming talk. She said one time she was having an interview with her mission president and he said, "You don't know Jesus Christ." She was so hurt by that. Of course she knew him. She was a respresentative of Jesus Christ, she testified of him daily. But she listened. She didn't let Christ help her, change her. There's a lot of time we don't know why something is happening, but that's alright because we need to know that Jesus Christ will help us. He loves us and always wants what's best for us. Sometimes it may not be what we want or like, but it is always best.

- And concerning your choices on the Sabbath Day, you can always ask yourself this question, "What kind of signal do I want to give to the Lord by this action?"

I hope that if anyone else reads this that it may stir up some thoughts in you.

...and Jamie, I'll just say "I love you" (since it's just you and me kid).

xo Mommy

Fort Wayne

Alright, so this week was busy. Monday- spent the day with a friend and her boy while jon taught in Illinois (the friend lives about an hour away from us and Illinois but it was oh the way from Jon's job in Illinois to Fort Wayne). We got to Fort Wayne late Monday night (we were staying with a host family for Jon's audition/interview process). Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were similar. George and I drove around town looking at apartments  when he wasn't sleeping and we occasionally hung out with jon. They did a recital that we went to and a tour. I know they were trying to sell us on the city and it worked. Parts of it are growing but there's the historic section as well. They have a great library with kids section- the second best genealogical library (next to salt lake). They have an awesome baseball stadium (though it's a minor league team, but that also means cheaper tickets). Johnny appleseed was buried there and they have a park for that. They have an interactive botanical garden with stuff for kids. They're currently making enclosed pedestrian walkways throughout downtown so you don't have to go outside during winter. They have a really good zoo (as of next summer, they will be the only zoo in the US with Tasmanian devils). And they have a lot of music stuff. There's a sales company for musical instruments that people travel to (they sell everything but they're best known for their guitars ). The church also seems strong there. There's two wards in town but 3 others close by that claim parts of Fort Wayne.

Jon was definitely the best tenor, but we still have to see what they decide. Everybody loved George and our host family would love to have us move there. Jon's dream is to perform. And his patriarchal blessing says he will be placed in front of large audiences. Performing though is not great for family life here in the states (Europe, you can actually get hired by a company and not have to move or leave for months at a time for rehearsals). Anyways, so he's been getting his doctorate to teach (more stable) and planned to perform on the side. This company would allow him to perform full time. They want singers with a classical background who can sing opera, but they want to do everything (from classical/opera to jazz to pop to Broadway to kids ). They aren't asking for a long commitment but they're hoping people will join the group setting it as a possible career. So we don't have to commit to more than a year but if it's working out we can stay for longer. They hope to expand more on the future and Jon already mentioned that if they pick him and want to expand further he's sure there would be a market for it in California/Utah and he'd be willing to start it up ;-) . But if this works, we're looking to stay in Fort Wayne for a few years. They won't expand nationally until they know it's working with hiring full time vocal artists and performing regionally.

Because there's a possibility of long term, Friday I showed jon my top 3 apartment complexes but we also met up with two realtors. The market is really good there and the town is growing. Buying would mean lower monthly payments (than renting) and since it's growing, it should be easy to sell when we move. We aren't completely sure yet but we've been praying to know what's right.

Oh George and I went to the zoo in Fort Wayne. They had lots of monkeys and lots of babies. George got really excited with the monkeys, giraffes and the lion, which was shooting really close to the glass.

Sunday was the Indianapolis indiana temple dedication. Jon sang in the choir for the cornerstone ceremony. George and I got to go. Eyring and Ballard came. Then we drove home and Jon attended a broadcast at 12 and I went at 3 (George wasn't allowed to the actual dedication part ). Eyring said he liked the detail inside and that he's never felt so much detail drawing his eyes up before as a symbol of where we're going. One person mentioned how temples are a war memorial and we remember the war in heaven, the battle at Gethsemane and the cross where Christ won the battle over death, the ongoing war between Satan and the righteous. It was an interesting take on temples.

Eyring told a story of his ancestors in Nauvoo. How when the persecution got bad Brigham Young said they were to leave the temple and leave the city. The story goes that Brigham left the city. Eyring chuckled as he said his ancestors were disobedient but they loved the temple. In the end, Brigham was inspired to return and they did work in the temple before leaving. A story was told of a family traveling from Southern Mexico to Arizona to receive their endowments and be sealed. Their bus broke down. They had a very unique and rare radiator that broke. They all prayed and they found (in the middle of the Sonoran desert ) off the road, the exact radiator they would need, just propped there. Anyways, it was a really good experience.