We went to the Black Bear diner for Travis' birthday breakfast
Travis and I singing with the Chaplain Choir
We hiked to the top of Ensign Peak
On the shuttle to the airport after we dropped off our car in the parking lot.
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| Caleb and Samuel got to go on a youth temple trip to do baptisms for the dead |
Caleb at his choir performance
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| I made sourdough bread |
On the scavenger hunt with chaplain spouses
Everyone at the chaplain spouse scavenger hunt
This year we brought Samuel, Caleb, Malachi, and Gideon with us to General Conference/Chaplain Conference. We pulled them out of school September 29th and flew to Salt Lake City. The traveling went fairly well, Gideon did throw a few temper tantrums, but overall it went well. We got our rental car and drove to the hotel (The kimball) and then Travis and Samuel picked up our groceries we had preordered for pickup. Travis put in the order, and did a good job of getting what we needed for the 5-6 days we would be there. (our room had a small kitchen).
Saturday morning (September 30th) we decided to hike to Ensign Peak. We are a little rusty after living in Texas with no mountains to hike for over two years. Gideon (age 7) hiked slowly, shuffling his feet, complaining that his legs burned, his feet were sore, and his heart was beating fast. I started telling him about the pioneers who walked across the plains to get to this valley and how when they reached that peak and could see the valley below, they knew that this was where God wanted them to be. When we got about halfway up and could start to see a glimpse of the beautiful view, Gideon’s attitude completely changed. He started talking about the beautiful view and wanted to take pictures, and started hiking faster, with a bounce in his step, he kept looking upward and what we were trying to reach and talking about it. He even let go of my hand and ran ahead to the top and was so excited to reach the top. He was so happy and wanted to take pictures of everything. After spending some time at the top, he was ready to go back down. He told me he wanted to hike every day, and then proceeded to run down the mountain, being the first to reach the car at the bottom. The difference between how he started the hike and finished it was huge! What made the difference? What he focused on. At the beginning he was only concerned with what he was currently going through and was focused inward. Once he changed his focus to his goal his attitude changed completely. The hike did not change or get easier, but his attitude did, and he moved forward joyfully. What can we learn from this? As we go through our journey in life, we can complain about the hardness of it and focus on the present, or we can focus on our goal and look upward. If we focus on Jesus Christ and God’s plan for us, we can go through our life joyfully and grateful for the beauty around us. During General Conference the prophet (President Nelson) asked us to "Think Celestial". This story illustrates how once Gideon started to "think celestial", he was able to enjoy the journey.
I went with Travis to the Saturday morning session, then Travis took different boys to the other Saturday and Sunday sessions, so that we could all get a turn with him, going to a conference session. He took his sister and Aleah to the Saturday afternoon session. The sessions of conference were inspirational. I felt inspired to be a little better and try a little harder than I am now. Travis and I both felt that we needed to read scriptures as a family more often. We do a morning devotional every morning, but we just watch scripture videos about the come follow me study for the week. They are good, but we felt like we were missing out, by not reading the actual scriptures with the kids.
Sunday night after all the conference sessions we went to Maia's house for dinner, and left Caleb, Malachi, and Gideon there for the next two days while Travis and I attended the Chaplain Conference sessions. Samuel stayed at the hotel, (we figured it was easier to not have Samuel bugging the boys constantly). Gideon loved Maia's puppy, and wanted to play with it constantly, but I think all the boys had a good time. I know Maia took them to her pool once, and Caleb loved that! It had a diving board. Travis and I loved the Chaplain sessions, they were also filled with inspirational speakers and our days were filled with the spirit.
I
love to hear the stories that the speakers tell of their own lives, it is a
powerful way to teach and testify of the gospel. Steve Studdert was one of my
favorite speakers and I wanted to remember his story. He worked in the white house as a special
advisor to the president for many years and has many amazing stories. Here is
one of them:
The 4 Visas
President Nelson
and Elder Holland needed to get visas approved for 4 foreign countries for a
trip they were going on, and the church had done everything they could to get
the visas approved but they were denied. The prophet called us Steve and asked
him if he could help. Steve said he could get the visas, that is just what you
say when a prophet of God asks for a favor.
He called a friend he had and sent off the visas to get approved. The
first set of visas for the traveling party returned approved, but the visas for
President Nelson and Elder Holland were denied, with a note from his friend,
saying there was nothing they could do. Steve was distressed as the trip was in
4 days. He turned to prayer and scripture study and read 2
Nephi 25:23 which says, “it
is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do”. Steve thought “Have I done all I can do?”
He decided to fly to Washington D.C. and try to get the visas approved
in person. He left immediately and flew to Washington D.C. and started with the
1st embassy where he had a friend, the friend said it was impossible,
there was nothing he could do, and the ambassador was out of town.
1st Miracle
Steve traveled to
the next embassy and was told by the secretary that the ambassador was out of
the country for the next 30 days. Steve felt inspired to ask where she was
from. She told him, and Steve told her
that he had just attended the funeral of her prime minister and that they had
worked together before. The Secretary
told Steve “Anyone who is a
friend of the prime minister is a friend of mine”
and she took the two visas and said she would be right back. Two minutes later she returned with the
stamped visas. Steve asked her what he
owed her for payment, and she said, “Don’t worry about it, and don’t tell anyone, just run!”
2nd Miracle
Steve traveled to
the next embassy, and he arrived just before they
were closing for lunch. Someone who he swears he had never met before in his
life, ran up to him, kissed him, hugged him, and brought him into the office,
and started telling everyone in the office about how he knew Steve. Years ago, he had been a part of an embassy
group going to the white house, and his name was left off the approved list and
he had been left outside. Steve had felt
a prompting to get him and bring him in.
He brought in the man and took him to the Oval Office where his
president and our president were, and he got to meet them both and get
pictures. After he finished telling his
story he asked Steve why he was there.
Steve told him about the visas he needed right away. The man said it takes a minimum of 3 weeks of
processing to get visas approved, but then he paused and looked at everyone in
the office and said, “No one goes to lunch
until Steve has his visas approved.”
3rd Miracle
Steve is running
out of time; he only has one day left to get the last two visas. He travels to the next embassy, and it is
packed with people! He pulls a ticket
with a number on it next to a lady at the desk who had a bad cough, and then goes
and sits down. He looks at his number,
and there are over 400 people waiting in front of him. He does not know what to do but feels
inspired to go and buy the lady at the desk some cough drops, so he does and
places them next to her on her desk and then goes back and sits down. Within a few minutes, someone came out and
called his number (ahead of everyone else) and he was issued the visas, the lady from the desk told him that it was the
nicest thing anyone had done for her.
4th Miracle
By the time Steve
returns to the 1st embassy to obtain the last visa he only has a few
hours left before the prophet and Elder Holland need to leave on their
trip. His friend sees him coming, and
says “No way, Steve, there
is nothing I can do.”
Steve begs him to just call the
ambassador one more time. His friend
finally relents and calls, and the ambassador had just barely arrived in his
office, have felt like he needed to return to Washington early. Steve can meet with him, but the ambassador
says there is nothing they can do, they cannot approve the visas. Then as the ambassador is walking him out,
Steve feels inspired to call his wife and ask her to find a thin yellow book on
his bookshelf and tell him the name of the author. She tells him, and he turns to the ambassador
and asks him if he knows this man (the author).
The ambassador stops and says “Yes,
I know him, he is the reason I was able to go to elementary school, and high
school, and become the ambassador for this country, this man is my hero. How do you know him?”
Steve tells him about how he and this man are friends and have worked
together on many projects. The
ambassador tells Steve, “Any
man who is a friend of (the author) is a friend of mine. Give me those visas.”
The ambassador turns around and goes back to his desk and stamps the
visas and returns them to Steve.
So,
Steve was able to get all 4 visas approved and back to the prophet barely in
time for them to leave on their trip.
These miracles were years in the making of Steve following the
promptings of the Holy Ghost. Steve was very humble as he told this story, he
made sure we knew that this was God’s
doing, not his. I feel inspired to be
better at listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost and acting on
them. I want God to be able to use me to
accomplish His purposes on earth. I may
not be able to get the prophet's visas for traveling, but I can serve and help
those around me.
After Chaplain Conference was over, we drove to Saratoga Springs to get Joseph's CPAP machine (he left it in his apartment) from Jessica. She didn't have it when we got there, so we went inside to find it. We were able to find it, after a little bit of searching, luckily they don't have too big of an apartment. It smelled pretty strongly of cat, but we survived it. We returned some stuff for Jessica to Deseret Book that she didn't need, then drove to Maia's to pick up the little boys. We gathered them up and returned to our hotel for one final night. We cleaned and packed up the next morning, checked out, returned the rental, took the shuttle to the airport, and then flew home to Texas. It was a long day of traveling, but again we made it without too much trouble, and got home in time for us to put things away, have a quick dinner, and put all the boys to bed, then I went to my institute class (through zoom). It was a good trip and was definitely worth it to bring the boys so that they could hear some of the general conference sessions in person. Betsy seemed to do well while we were gone. She started receiving TMS treatments (magnetic) at the beginning of October for depression and anxiety that seem to really be helping her, so she stayed to continue her daily (during the week) treatments and take care of the house and plants while we were gone.
Travis took Gideon to a Wounded Warrior event where they went to a bowling/arcade place and got to play for a few hours. Then we had our primary program practice and pizza party. I had Travis pick up the pizza and bring it to the practice, and Caleb and I made cookies ahead of time, so everyone seemed to enjoy that. Sunday was our primary program. I woke up at 1 a.m. in the morning thinking about all the things I needed to make sure we had thought of and taken care of for the program to go well. I think it went pretty well, except we went about 10 minutes over time, but that was mostly due to the sacrament taking extra-long time. The kids all sang the songs really well, and I felt the spirit a lot as they sang about Jesus and said their parts about what they learned about Jesus. Our theme was "I am a witness of Jesus Christ" and we had the Valiant 9 class say the different paragraphs from the "Living Christ" document with each song about Jesus Christ.
Samuel no longer has a girlfriend, they are just friends, but he still went to homecoming with some other friends and had a good time.
Travis had his 47th birthday! He asked me to celebrate it with him on the day he had off work (the 9th), and wanted me to play hookie from my schoolwork. He finally convinced me, and we spent most of the day organizing and cleaning around the house (mostly our closet), and then went to dinner at the Mosaic Grill for dinner. We also got him free breakfast from IHOP and shared with others.
I got to help plan and host the chaplain spouse get-together for the month of October. We decided to plan a scavenger hunt along a short hiking path (more like a nature walk). We brought snacks like trail mix and drinks for everyone, and then had a marked trail for them to follow and a list of items they needed to find and take pictures with. It was a lot of fun. I set up the flags ahead of time, then did the photo scavenger hunt with my group, and then did it one more time to pick up the flags, so I got a nice workout in. I think everyone enjoyed it and had a good time.
For the week of Halloween Travis took the kids to different work trunk or treats and other Halloween parties. I helped take them to the ward Chili Cook off and trick or treating around to the different classrooms because the weather was bad that night and couldn't do the trunk or treat. The kids loved getting tons of candy and having me weigh it and buy it from them. In total, I ended up paying the kids almost $200 for all the candy the got before and on Halloween. Travis was gone for a few days in the field but ended up being able to come home for trick or treating on Halloween. Betsy, Samuel, and Travis took the kids trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, while I passed out candy.
