Rasmania 102

 I am thankful for so many things: being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; my Savior, Jesus Christ; living prophets who lead and guide me and my family in our lives; goodly parents, wonderful children, beautiful grandchildren; great relationships with my extended family, and on and on.  This weekend, as I've been thinking about the Thanksgiving holiday, and also about the Come Follow Me assignment for this week, it's been apparent to me how greatful I am for the Prophet Joseph Smith.  I was touched as I read again about the martyrdom of the prophet.  He gave everything, including his life, to establish a foundation for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As was prophesied, his name is known for good and evil in all nations. I heard a quote in one of the podcasts I was listening to this past week that I thought was worth sharing.   “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stum...

  A week at the Temple. As all of you have discovered it is quite difficult to attend the temple unless you have flexibility to go during the daytime.   I heard from one of our ward members that works at the temple that one of the secrets to getting an appointment is to login at approximately 12:05 A.M. on the first day of the month.   The first time I did this was a couple of months ago and I was fairly successful.   I was initially trying to get a baptismal day for our young men in our ward.   I searched (without success) the Bountiful, Ogden, and Brigham City temple schedule.   Then I expanded to Jordan River and succeded in scheduling appointments for a couple of months out at 6:00 pm on a  Saturday .  As you can see from the photo above, we took our youth last night and had a great experience.  We had (4) priests, (3) teachers and (3) deacons. Due to some of the changes, our priests were able to be baptized and also to perform the or...

Week of Nov. 1-7: We had Stake Conference this weekend.  We were able to listen to both the Saturday evening session and the Sunday morning session in the car on our way home from St. George.  There were some excellent talks.  One sister spoke about how she sees online posts titled, "why I left the church," on social media.  She said, "I want to talk about why I stay."  She spoke about the many reasons she stays in the church and why she chooses to follow the prophet.  I think this is something we should all think about.  What are our reasons?  I know that I choose to stay because I have received so many blessings in my life from following the commandments set forth in the scriptures, and blessings also from the guidance that I have followed over the years from our beloved prophets and apostles.  I stay because I have a firm and abiding testimony that the doctrines taught in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are true.  I st...

Ori is taking ice skating lessons from Caitlyn (who has now added coaching to her long list of responsibilities).  Ori really wanted to show grandma how much she's learned.  Since she had early out this past week, we were able to meet during an uncrowded public skating session.  Afterwards she really wanted to come home with me.  I looked through my cupboard for a project and found this fleece fabric.  Ori and I cut and tied the edges and then put her name right in the middle of the blanket.  I didn't take an ice skating picture, but I got this one with her showing off her project.  She really enjoyed being over here, so grandpa and I took her to dinner.  She didn't eat much, but it was fun being with her.  Because her birthday is right around Christmas, we don't usually get a birthday date. We started our Halloween weekend at our ward Trunk or Treat.  We took a few of my witches, including the one that cackles while her eyes flash, to d...