Tuesday we did our family home evening and had a lesson on the plan of salvation. And for our activity, we had the girls draw cards and we wrote in them, to take over to Violet and August. I made dinner for them Wednesday evening, and the girls helped me take food over, and they brought their cards as well. It's so sad, but they seem to be handling it well. They are fairly religious, and I think that is helping.
Wednesday we did our shopping early, and bought things to get ready for our Halloween Feast!! I did a grocery pickup at Walmart, and as the lady was helping me bag the groceries, she said, "Wow, you've got a lot of candy there." It made me laugh, and I tried to explain that we do this fun little Halloween dinner. But really. It was a lot of candy, and I was already a little apprehensive of the sugar overload coming.
Friday, Brooke had a birthday party for her friend, Blake Faucette, at Chuck E. Cheese's. Camille, Jack and I went on an errand to get him a birthday present and a few things for our feast. And then after school, I took her and Elliot Erdmann over there for the party. And spent the rest of the day preparing our feast!
It was a good year for feasting! We had bones (breadsticks), witches wands (asparagus), pumpkin pasta (in a pumpkin alfredo sauce), graveyard dip (bean dip), and eyeballs (deviled eggs). And for our candy bar werewolf fangs, tadpoles, rat droppings, lizard eyeballs, poison, and dragon guts (candy corn, dum-dums, chocolate covered raisins, gobstoppers, m&ms, and snicker bites). Oh, and also Monster Candy. The girls were so excited about the feast, they wanted to do all they could to help. They helped me stir the pasta sauce and set the table. They helped set out the food and put out the candy. It was a lot of fun. We lit candles and put them on the table, we wore witches hats ... I love our Halloween Feast!
After dinner, we put Jacky Boy to bed and sat down to watch Hotel Transylvania together, complete with A LOT of movie candy. The girls loved it!
Saturday was an off day for me. I was tired and lazy and impatient with the kids. Daniel was gone a lot of the day, which I sadly resented a bit. And I was a little tired of doing the same things all the time with no break, which is how it almost always is. And usually I'm totally fine with it. I love being a stay-at-home mom, and I feel very blessed that I get to be and that I don't have to work. But every once in a while, I want to be selfish and do my own thing. Anyway, I'm working on not having those days. And I'm working on being less selfish and resentful. But nevertheless, I had a bad day yesterday. And, of course, we had Stake Conference this weekend, and so Daniel pushed me out the door for the Saturday night session (he'd gone to the earlier leadership session in the afternoon and thought it fair for me to go in the evening. If I'd been in a better mood, I would've appreciated that more, but as it was, I didn't really want to go). I feel like every time Stake Conference rolls around, I'm having an especially off day, and then I, quite unwillingly, go to Saturday evening conference, and feel the Spirit in abundance and learn all kinds of things, and make startling realizations about how I can do better and I end up feeling so glad that I went.
So, last night's conference session was incredible. Elder Klebinglat from the 70 came with a companion area 70, and they spoke for a little bit, each of them, and then opened up the rest of the meeting for questions. He spoke about keeping ourselves sexually clean and pure, even and especially in our minds, and about the steps he's taken to insure that he remains clean. He told us that he travels a lot by himself because of his calling, and his wife often stays home. They still have kids at home (he's quite young for a GA), and so she can't always go with him. And he has certain things that he does so that he can stay far away from any temptation of that kind. When they opened up the meeting for questions, there were a lot of questions and comments about the new Sunday meeting schedule that they announced last weekend at General Conference. And also about this time that we are living in and how we can teach and protect our families. It was a very interesting meeting, and I had a number of takeaways:
1) The people who will be in the best spiritual shape and enjoy the best spiritual protection are the people who not only GO to the temple but who LOVE the temple and feel drawn to it. They go because they love it, not because they are fulfilling some obligation. They go for themselves, to learn and grow and gain insight. They go with questions and after much prayer. They go prepared.
2) We are solidly in the last days. The Lord is hastening His work in many new ways that we've not seen before (or at least in different ways than we've seen before). He's preparing us for His coming, and we need to do better and be better. The world is getting worse and worse, and we need to be more and more spiritually strong.
3) My scripture study and prayer is distressingly lacking. I've felt for many months that I really need to do better with studying the scriptures. I'm pretty good about reading every day, but I haven't dived into the scriptures and looked for answers in a long time. And every conference, I recognize that the leaders of the church are very well versed in scripture. They have scriptures memorized and they can quote and pull up scriptures at the drop of a hat when they need to. I have always envied that, but I don't take the time and effort to have that knowledge.
4) Not related to conference at all, but I've been thinking, this year especially, and perhaps it's been the Spirit whispering to me, that it is very important that I draw my children close to me in every way I can. That it's going to be increasingly important for us to be close as a family, for me to teach my children, for us to have fun together, and to have our own identity as a family. Also, that we need to stay connected with our extended family as much as possible.
It's been a good couple of weekends for me. The 2 conferences back to back were really inspiring and wonderful. I just hope that I can make the necessary changes in my own life and in my family's life that will help us prepare better.
To Remember:
- Camille has taken to calling Daniel "Waddy" (*shrugs shoulders*)
No comments:
Post a Comment