For some reason, I can't add captions to the photos right now. But we have the solar eclipse photos, from april 8th. The kids got off school, and Travis got off work, it was pretty cool to see a total solar eclispe. Samuel and his date (Olive) to the sadie hawkins dance are pictured above. Lots of pictures of Caleb's different activies, band, choir, and tennis. The rocks he painted for general conference are also pictured, as well as our easter pictures coloring eggs. (Betsy won this year)
Joseph and Jessica moving in with us on Feb 28th. It turns out Joseph was supposed to be going to drill the first weekend of every month here in Texas starting in January. So we helped them make arrangments to get out of their apartment and fly here to Texas with their cat. We had them stay in the backyard in a tent, due to allergies to cats that we have, and there unwillingness to get rid of the cat. They were able to find an apartment that they could get into April 2nd, and moved in to their own apartment, and Joseph shipped out to "fat camp" as we call it, to get ready for basic training on April 8th. We are very happy that they have their own place now, and that Joseph was able to get a job. We hope and pray this will work out well for them.
In february Caleb and Austin both had birthdays. Caleb is a teenager now! He went to Xtreme jump with Malachi and Travis for his birthday activity, then we had friends over for games. He had a good day, and enjoyed his presents and cake as well. Austin turned 21, but we weren't able to celebrate since she is at college, but she said she had a good time with her roommates.
Gideon has his surgery to have his adenoids removed, and tubes put in his ears Feb 12th. Travis and I were both able to take off work for it, and the surgery went well. Gideon loved getting to eat lots of ice cream and popsicles for the next few days and enjoyed a few days off of school watching T.V. and playing video games. He is able to hear much better, and we are grateful everything went well.
Caleb's been enjoying tennis more match-won 2 doubles matches, challenged teamate and won to move up a spot
The last few months I have been more busy then probably any other time in my life. I was going to school, working an internship, had 24 piano students, primary president, and my responsibilities as a chaplain spouse, wife and mother. Thankfully, Betsy hasn't been working, and has been helping me around the house, and running errands, and helping with the kids. I have decided I don't like being that busy at all, and have no desire to do all that again. Luckily, I just finished school, my internship, and was released as the primary president. So, now I can focus on getting ready to move to Georgia this summer.
For my religion class, I made a goal to try and heed spiritual promptings and then write them down each week, here are a few that I wrote down.
Jan 24 2024
I loved working on receiving and following spiritual promptings this week. I was really worried about finding time to ponder, and even receive revelation, as things have been so busy for me, but if I remembered to pray that morning to receive inspiration throughout the day it would come. One morning I was driving 5 minutes to go to work, and I was listening to a conference talk, when the apostle mentioned we need to stay in sacred places, like our dedicated places like our homes, churches, and temples. I had the thought to ask the people that I minister to if they have dedicated their homes, and maybe even bring it up in ward council, to see if ministering brothers and sisters can reach out and see if any of the people they minister to need help with dedicating their homes to help protect us from Satan and his followers. I knew I wouldn't have time to follow up on the thought right then, as I was about to walk into work, but I quickly wrote it down in my notes section in my phone so that I can do it later.
Jan 31 2024
One experience I had this week was with my son, Gideon. He was really hyper, and in primary was having a hard time holding still and not bugging the people around him. He spotted me and ran and jumped into my arms without slowing down almost knocking me to the ground. I thought about scolding him, but then the spirit whispered to me that he needed this outlet to be able to sit in primary, so I gave him a tight squeeze and rocked him for a few seconds and sent him back to his seat, he had to repeat this every few minutes for the rest of primary, but it is what he needed to be able to have a few moments of reverence in-between each of his "hugs". A few hours after church, he crashed and slept for 5 hours. Travis asked me why I was letting him sleep for so long, and I could only respond with I have a feeling he needs this sleep, so I let him sleep. He woke up for an hour to eat dinner with us and have family council, then went to sleep and slept all night long. He woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and had a good day at school. The spirit gave me personal revelation to know what my son needed to help him get through the day.
Feb 7th 2024
This week I recorded several spiritual promptings that I followed, but one that I would mention here, is that yesterday morning I was getting ready to walk my two youngest sons to school like I do every morning, and my youngest, Gideon was begging to ride scooters instead. We have ridden scooters before, but I don't like doing it, because we lose out on the talking together time we get while walking. I have been so busy lately, that I feel like walking them to school in the morning is one of the only times I get to really talk to them. I felt prompted to keep that time as our talking time, and told my son "no" and explained that I loved holding his hand and talking to him on the way to school, and I wasn't willing to give that up. We ended up having a wonderful gospel discussion on how we can prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and how Gathering Israel is one of the most important things we can be doing on earth each day. Then we talked about what each of them (me included) can do every day to Gather Israel and be prepared for Christ to come again. Gideon said he could “learn to read” to help gather Israel. He has really been struggling to read, and been refusing to do it, and saying “he can’t”. This change in attitude was a miracle, “Jesus” truly is the answer to everything. It was a sacred, special time with my boys, and if I hadn't listened to the spirit to keep that walking time together, we would have missed out on that inspired conversation.
Feb 21st, 2024
On Sunday, Travis and I attended a youth fireside on the Youth program. I received a program for the meeting and noticed that my son, Samuel (age 17) was on the program as one of the speakers. This surprised me, as I had had trouble getting him to come to the meeting. When I showed the program to Samuel he said that he wasn't told he was speaking and he wouldn't do it and left the room. As I was sitting pondering what to do, a thought came to ask my other son (just turned 13) if he would be willing to speak in his brother's place. Caleb (my 13 year old) was hesitant at first, but after helping him figure out an experience he could share about making goals in the youth program, he agreed. When it was Sam's turn to speak, Caleb got up and shared his experience making a goal to pray for my husband's soldiers' baby who was born with a bad heart and would die without a heart transplant. He told the story of how even though he never met the soldier or his baby, he prayed daily for JD (the baby) to be able to live and receive a heart transplant. After 2 years of praying, JD finally received his heart transplant a few months ago. At first, everything went well, but then JD started rejecting the heart. Caleb fasted and continued to pray for JD that his body would accept the heart. His prayers were answered, and JD has stopped rejecting his heart and is doing better. Caleb bore a sweet testimony that even though your goal may be hard and you may want to give up, Jesus Christ will always be there for you and help you with your goal. By the time Caleb finished speaking, many people were moved by the spirit and crying. It was a powerful testimony, and I'm so grateful that even though Caleb was nervous he got up and bore his testimony, and that I listened to a prompting from the spirit to give him that chance to speak.
Feb 29th 2024
One experience I have had this week was with one of my primary kids. One of our sunbeams was riding on the tractor with his Dad on Sunday, and they hit a bump and he fell off. He didn't have any broken bones, but he did puncture his lungs and was in the ICU for 4 days, and is still in the hospital today. His mother is pregnant with twins and is due to be induced March 11th. I was the nursery leader when Wyatt (the sunbeam) was in nursery, and he is a super shy kid, and it took me months before I could get him to sit on my lap and read a book. He is the sweetest, most well-behaved little kid and I love him to pieces. When I found out about his accident, there was already a lot of people helping their family, and I'm so busy I wasn't sure what I could do to help other then to pray. I prayed for ways to be able to help them. I received a prompting to send the mother the song you played for our devotional last week, the one by Hilary Weeks. I sent it to her, and she responded later with how it came at a perfect time, and helped her. Then I was able to pick up their eggs and deliver them for her (they have a little farm that sells eggs). Then I felt prompted to ask if I could come visit Wyatt. His mom said that he would probably love to see a familiar face. I reached out to the rest of my primary presidency to see if anyone wanted to come with me, they were all unable to, but dropped off books and and other things for me to bring to him when I visited. I came and visited him today, and he was doing so much better. He was sitting up in a chair when I arrived. He was so excited to see the books and other things I had brought him. He talked with me and smiled and laughed and we had a great visit. His mom told me at the end of the visit, that he hadn't interacted like that with anyone else, and it made her so happy to see it. I'm grateful Heavenly Father helped me connect with little Wyatt, and bring comfort to his mother. I'm grateful the spirit helped me to know how to serve and help those in need around me.
March 9th 2024
Last week, my oldest son, Joseph sprained his ankle really badly while walking home. By the time he got home, he said it hurt so bad he couldn't put any weight on it. By the evening, he said he was worried he had broken it, because he said he had never had a sprained ankle hurt this bad. This was really bad timing as Joseph is preparing to ship out for basic training for the National Guard and needs to be able to work out and get ready, as well as be able to continue to work at his job and make money to get an apartment for his wife before he leaves. He was getting more and more upset about it, and after I put the rest of the kids to bed I felt the Spirit help whisper to me that he needed a priesthood blessing. I asked Joseph if he wanted one, and he perked up and said that would be great. Travis was able to get the Elder's Quorum president over to our house to assist him in giving our son a blessing. It was a beautiful blessing, and I felt the spirit strongly. He was blessed that his ankle would heal more quickly than it normally would, and he would be able to do everything he needed to before shipping out. Joseph has been healing quickly and able to do what he needs to. I am grateful I listened to the Spirit and suggested a Priesthood blessing.
March 13th, 2024
This week I experienced personal revelation on how to spend my time. My kids are out of school for spring break, and my husband took work off for the week. We made it a "screen free" week. The only people allowed to use screens are those over age 15, and only for essential functions. We have been able to spend a lot of time together, and also been able to get some projects done, due to the distractions of screens not getting in the way. I feel like it is easier to listen to the Holy Ghost when screens are not so prevalent in our day.
March 25th, 2024
I love this time of year! I love focusing on Easter, the new life of spring, and preparing for General Conference. The talks this week are helping us to prepare for Easter. I love the new focus on Easter, and making it as special or even more so than Christmas. I have been working on making new traditions for our family the past couple years to follow the teachings of our prophet. Last year we tried an authentic passover meal, with a script to go through it. I discovered it was a little over the top, as I spent days cooking things, that most of the family didn't even like, and to try and get our family with many boys to sit still for the hours long meal it was supposed to be as we went through the script, we decided to simplify it more this year. Crackers, grapes, cheese and reading a few scriptures is a much better tradition for our family. We started our preparations for Easter on Ash Wednesday (Valentines' Day). We have a poster that we scratch off a circle each day and have a scripture or word that we focus on to help us remember Jesus that day. We also have a hosanna candle wreath that we have 12 candles on, that each goes with a name for Jesus Christ. We light one candle a day and read a scripture about that name of Jesus and talk about it. Another tradition is during holy week we have a devotional each day about that day of the week in Jesus's life leading up to Easter, the Church's Easter study plan is a great resource for this, and we have several other books and visual aids to help us with it as well. Each person in the family takes a day to prepare the devotional, and then leads the discussion that evening. I feel like our focus is on Jesus Christ, and less on the Easter bunny and eggs. We still have our annual easter egg hunt and easter egg roll, but I feel the spirit more in our home, and we know we are following the prophet and feel heaven's help with our good desires.
March 31st, 2024
This past week has been great, as we have been talking more of Christ as Easter draws nearer, one of my favorite nights was when my son Malachi (age 10) was in charge or our easter devotional for the evening. He talked about how Jesus taught us the parable of the Ten virgins, we had a good discussion and even made little vessels out of clay. Most of the time when I ask my kids to give the lesson for FHE they don't seem to put much care or thought into it, but for the easter devotionals they seem to really care, they get excited and love to share what they love about Jesus. My other favorite evening was my son Samuel (age 17) getting his Patriarchal blessing. I have been praying for this particular son to have the desire to get his blessing for a couple of years, and 6 months ago he finally decided he wanted to, and Sunday it happened. Samuel has high-functioning Autism and has some challenging behaviors that can make things difficult to see his good choices sometimes. He also has a hard time having a serious or spiritual conversation. From the moment we stepped into the Patriarch's home, I felt the Spirit enter my heart. 2 1/2 hours later we emerged from his home after feeling the spirit the whole time, tears being shed, and a better understanding of how well Heavenly Father understands and loves Samuel. It is truly amazing to see someone from God's eyes and I will do better to see my son as He does, and not just focus on the challenging behaviors I see. My heart is full, and I'm so grateful for the moments that have helped me know that all my efforts to raise my children as disciples of Jesus Christ have not failed.
April 1st, 2024
I love studying General Conference talks each week. I woke up feeling grumpy and tired Saturday morning. I was supposed to be able to sleep in, but instead woke up just before 5 am due to my Travis's snoring and couldn't go back to sleep. I went downstairs, and then said a prayer, figuring I was awake, so I might as well do something good. The spirit brought to my mind how Betsy seemed really tired and had a hard day yesterday, and that she was supposed to wake up early and make cinnamon rolls for a bake sale she was doing. I decided to make the cinnamon rolls for her and let her sleep in. While I was making the cinnamon rolls, I started listening to talks by President Nelson from my Alexa. My tiredness eased and I felt the spirit while listening to all these talks in the quiet of the morning. I ended up making all the rolls for my daughter and received answers to prayers I had been praying for that came from these talks. It's amazing the different ways prayers are answered. I thought I needed to sleep in on Saturday, but God knew that my prayers would be answered by waking me up early (who knew snoring could be a tool in God's hands) and having me serve my daughter while listening to a prophet's words. When Betsy finally woke up, she was so grateful I made the rolls for her, and I know she felt loved. While reading the talks for this weeks class, what stood out to me the most was to "seek and expect miracles". I remember when I heard this talk that is what stayed with me, and it has been something I regularly have experienced in my life since. Travis and I went to the temple this Friday to do temple sealings and felt a wonderful spirit there, as we were coming home we stopped at the costco in Dallas to pick up a few things for the family. One thing I felt in the temple was to counsel with my husband more often. I have a lot of things to figure out for our upcoming move, and I usually try to figure out the logisitics of it all myself, and I stress when I can't control everything. As we walked into Costco there were no more shopping carts (the friday before easter was busy). I asked my husband if we should go find one from the parking lot, and he said "no, we'll find one inside". Part of me wanted to go back to the parking lot anyway, but I decided to trust my husband. We went inside and started grabbing a few things and looking around for a cart. We walked toward the check out where there are usually a few extra carts, but there were none. We walked over to the plants and saw an empty cart there. There was a man nearby, so my husband asked if that was his cart. He said he was, but then said he no longer needed it, and we could have it. I know this isn't much of a miracle, but it was to me, I need to know that I can trust my husband to give me advice, and that God would make it work out, even if I didn't know how. I can trust my husband's counsel that we will find a house quickly after moving, and that God will provide for us. I will seek and expect miracles and can have faith and know that we are in God's hands in this move.
April 3, 2024
There were lots of times to feel the spirit this week as we had Easter. I already told you about a few experiences I have had, but I do have another one I can share. Saturday night the bishop called me and told me I was being released as the primary president Sunday morning. I knew I was going to be released since we are moving the beginning of June, but I thought I would have more time. I have really loved being the primary president. I never thought I would love the calling so much, but I really did. I felt so much love for the children in our ward, and for the other women in my presidency and those who worked in primary with me. It was a huge job and took up a ton of time, but I loved being around the kids, and seeing the light of Christ in their eyes. I loved the hugs, smiles, high-fives, stories, songs and notes that the kids would share with me. I didn't know when we had primary last that it was my last day as the primary president. I felt sad and a little lost after being released in sacrament meeting. As I was processing through all these feelings, I got a few messages from people telling me how much they will miss me, and appreciate all that I did for the primary. Then I felt the spirit confirm to me that my service was appreciated by my Heavenly Father too, and I felt His love for me, and also for the primary that I served, and that they are in good hands with the new presidency. Even though the Spirit didn't prompt me to do something, I feel that the Spirit helped me to feel loved, appreciated, and known by my Father in Heaven, and that is important too.
April 15th 2024
On Wednesday, Travis found out that his step-mom Bonnie was in the hospital and wasn’t expected to live much longer. Bonnie is also the sole caretaker of his dad, who is a double amputee and can’t take care of himself and is currently at the VA hospital. Travis requested emergency leave from work and said he was leaving that night to drive to Montana for 10 days (the amount of leave he has). It is a 24 hour drive and Travis had been up since 4am, I was really upset about him leaving and trying to drive that far by himself, so we went upstairs to pray about it. While praying I received confirmation through the spirit that he would be okay, that I would be okay too, and that I should send Betsy with him. After the prayer, I went and asked Betsy is she would go with her Dad to Montana to help with driving and being there for the funeral and arrangements for her grandpa. She said she would go, and I helped get them both ready and they left about 9pm Wednesday night, and drove straight until they got there Thursday night about 11pm. (Bonnie died while they were enroute) I’m grateful they made it safely. I also had to take care of a lot of things for the garage sale/bake sale we were planning for Saturday. Travis was supposed to be in charge of the garage sale, and Betsy the bake sale (fundraiser for her going to a modeling expo in Dallas in June). I took over both, since our whole neighborhood was having a garage sale and it wasn’t a good idea to reschedule. I worked hard, and the boys helped me and we managed to have a great sale, and got rid of a lot of stuff, and sold lots of yummy treats at the bake sale. I know Heavenly Father helped both Travis and I do hard things this week, and feel very blessed.
