"Mom! I'm just a blanket!"

A Note from Jeanne Stricklin

 "My hubby shared a sweet story with me about Brooke.  He subbed in her Sunday school class.  The kids were sharing their exciting news.  One of the boys shared they had their first game this week and Brooke quickly responded good luck. Matt said that Brooke was a good one.  

She is a special girl!  I love getting to know her and serving with her in YW."

Meanwhile, this is what Sawyer was doing at church on Sunday: 

😂😂😂

An Answer to Prayer

 I had a fun and very obvious answer to prayer the other night. I was heading to a self reliance meeting, and as I pull into the church parking lot, I see the woman I'm meeting with, standing by the front doors of the church... and her father standing there with her. Now, I've met with both of them before, multiple times. And this man is a TALKER. Verrry chatty. I'm mostly concerned about his daughter's welfare, and I want to mainly talk with her; she's the one that lives in the ward and I've been working with her for months. Her dad has been living with her the past 5 months, as well. But I knew with her father there, it would be very difficult to hear from her.

As I drove up and saw them both, I groaned out loud and said a quick prayer aloud. "Heavenly Father, PLLEEAAASSE help me here. It's going to be really difficult to get anything productive done with this brother here. Help me to be patient and know what to say and how to move things along." 

I gathered my things and opened the door just as Becky Garcia (my secretary) and her daughter, Brianna, were heading to get into the car parked right next to me. They were at the church printing and cutting fliers she had made for the ward party. She asked me what I was doing there, and I told her I had a self reliance meeting. The Sunday before, we'd had a meeting with Bishop Kimball and the EQ presidency about self reliance meetings, and we were told to have 2 of us in each meeting (which I haven't been doing very well, haha). But Becky asked me if I wanted her to stay with me for the meeting, and I gratefully told her yes. 

It was easy to see that she was an immediate answer to my prayer. She sat next to the brother and kept him occupied for most of the meeting while I could focus my attention on the sister. After they left, I thanked her profusely for being there with me. It was the support I needed that night. 

I had another lovely spiritual experience recently. This one is small. And some would hear this story and think of it as a fun coincidence. But I believe it is evidence of God's love for me and that He is aware of me. 

During one Sacrament meeting a few weeks ago, I was feeling anxious and discouraged. About my calling, about parenting, about lots of things. I don't remember my exact line of thinking, but it wasn't good. Sometimes I just feel the weight of my imperfection. But a scripture came to mind, completely and quickly, and in these exact words: "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." It was a comforting thought. Look to Jesus; there's no need to fear or be anxious. And if I look to Jesus in every thought and do my best to glorify God with my life, things will always work out. I didn't know what scripture it was, so I had to look it up. Doctrine and Covenants 6:36: Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not. 

I love how the Spirit brings scriptures to my mind when I need them for comfort or guidance. It's happened multiple times in my life so far. I'm sure it'll happen many more times for the rest of my life. 

Anyway, a week or so later, again on a Sunday, Daniel and I were in our room, laying on our bed, each doing our own thing: personal scripture study, working on calling, etc. Brooke came into our room, for no particular reason, just to hang out with us. We stopped what we were doing to talk to her. Daniel started asking her about young women's, about her own scripture study, and how things were going. He decided to look and see if the church had released next year's youth theme and song. They had. Wanna guess what the youth theme for 2025 is going to be? Doctrine and covenants 6:36. 

I don't think it was a coincidence that the youth theme scripture came to my mind a week before we talked about it. Not only was it the scripture that I needed at that moment, but it felt like a little love letter from God when I came across the scripture again a week later. Just a little nod from Him, telling me He's aware of me and helping me when I need it. 

October Fun

Here are some things we did in October: 

• Took Sawyer to the aquarium
• Went to parent teacher conferences. The teachers had really good things to say about the kids, and the girls are doing really well academically. Jack's teacher said that he sometimes struggles with anxiety if he doesn't know how to do things. And he is still catching up to his classmates in reading. We really like all of their teachers. It's been a good school year so far. 
• Got new furniture for the family room. We got a big sectional at the beginning of the month and a big entertainment center at the end of the month. We like how our family room is coming together. We want to get a rug for it eventually. But it's hard to pick something we both like, and we have different tastes, and we'd have to go shopping again. 
• Brooke had a bunch of soccer games
• Crazy hair day at school. Camille's was the best hair I've ever seen. 😂 Such a cute and clever idea. 
• General conference weekend was nice. We went to Brian's house for the Sunday morning session. And we had Bowman and Stephanie over for dinner Sunday night. 
• I hosted a Relief Society activity one night and had a bunch of ladies over for s'mores. It was very fun and we had a pretty good turnout. 😊
• We had our Halloween Feast and watched Casper. 

• Went on our family BYU date. We rode our bikes around, went into the library, watched a bit of the football game in the bookstore, and had dinner at the creamery. Delightful.
• Melanie and I took our kids to the Dino museum together.  

• I took the kids to the ice cream shop at Thanksgiving Point one day. That was the activity Camille wanted for her birthday. 
• We had our ward Halloween party. Relief society was in charge, and I wasn't stressed at all about it until the very day of the party. And then I was an absolute basket case. Everything went fine, but I felt underwhelmed by it. I'm so not a party planner, it's not in my skill set. It's not something I love doing, either, so the whole thing was kind of 'meh' for me. 
• We went to the school's pumpkin walk for family home evening. The students bring their pumpkins to display at school and we go and walk around and look at them all. They have a fun scavenger hunt for the kids to find specific pumpkins. 
• Book club
• Carved pumpkins with the kids. Mostly basic pumpkins faces. 😊 Some years I just don't feel like putting forth the effort. 

• The school's Halloween costume parade was cute. And cold. We watched for our kids and then left. 
• I volunteered in Jack's classroom for their Halloween class party. I brought some books to read to the kids, and mine was just one of 5 rotation activities. I had fun, but I could tell some of the kids were unenthused and distracted. A handful of kids probably would have sat and read with me for longer. Sawyer came with me and was pretty good. 
• Trick-or-treating was fun, but I wasn't feeling it as much this year. When Sawyer was ready to go home, I was more than happy to take him and put him to bed. 

Stake Conference Notes

Notes from Saturday leadership session:

[  ] Important to teach the youth how to find answers to their questions -- look to the scriptures and words of the prophets; turn to the Lord for answers and help
[  ] Study the appendix of come follow me manual
[  ] The whole goal for youth is teaching them to be leaders now
[  ] Make more intentional effort to prepare the youth to make and keep covenants
[  ] Talk about ministering... talk about experiences, help people recognize the blessing that ministering is
[  ] Are we talking of Christ? Are we turning others to Christ? Step out of your comfort zone and share a scripture, a testimony, a thought about Christ
[  ] It's time to love God with all your mind, might and strength in your calling -- stop holding parts of yourself back from your service; remember that you were called of God, He has things He wants you to do and learn "with an eye single to the glory of God" single minded focus
[  ] Go above and beyond in including the youth in ministering-- include the yw presidency in making assignments-- help them learn how to do it
[  ] Think about the quality of time in service the youth are spending
[  ] We lead-- we invite others to come with us; help the youth know the WHY
[  ] Teach them how to find out for themselves
[  ] Formula for teaching: teach the doctrine and words of prophets; invite them to participate in the gospel; promise blessings (find this formula in fsy pamphlet)
[  ] Take TIME to be still and ponder, so that I can receive revelation
Raise your vision when it comes to the youth, when it comes to being part of a council, when it comes to ministering

My main takeaways from the Saturday sessions of conference that I attended (the leadership session and the adult session) were:

• That Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love me and need my service in building the kingdom on earth. 
• God is in the details of my life. 
• I can make my prayers more specific; God wants me to come up with solutions on my own, and then pray fervently for His help and sanction of my plans. 
• I need to start sharing more spiritual thoughts and messages in my calling -- when I meet and visit with people, in Relief Society meetings, in ministering interviews 
• I am keeping a part of myself back from God, not fully turning over my whole soul, my whole life to Him. I am keeping myself back from fully serving in my calling and building the kingdom on earth. I need to take a leap of faith, offering all of me to God. In doing this, I am exercising great faith, and He will transform me and bless my service. 
• I need to commit to working in my calling every day -- think of it as a tithing of my time. If I offer my time to the Lord every day, I believe He will bless the remainder of my time -- help me to work more efficiently, learn to delegate more, find more pockets of time to get things done, become less distracted. 
• Realizing again that living the gospel brings me such great joy and peace and gratitude in my life. I feel an incredible rightness and contentment in my soul.

Sunday session: 

• It is worth any effort to increase our spirituality
• Elder Cisneros invited all to be involved in the gathering of Israel and promised joy and blessings if we do
• Elder Boucher: we should be the happiest people on earth, and sometimes we're not because we are put out with what the Lord asks of us -- do we understand the concept and principle of consecration? 
• Be less concerned about stuff, popularity, comparison and more about our relationship with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. 
• The road to complete obedience starts with repentance. 

Camille's birthday

 Camille's birthday fell right in the middle of our fall break trip, so we celebrated beforehand at home, about a week before. She and I had a combined celebration night. We had a family dinner and cheesecake for dessert. And opened presents. My cute kids bought me a horse necklace and a cow decoration from the Thanksgiving Point farm, even spending their own money. 🥰😂

Things I'm loving about Camille lately: 

• She is so loving. And she loves to snuggle. 
• She loves playing with her siblings. Over the past year or so, maybe more, they have loved playing "the Lego game" together. They each have a quadrant of the Lego table, and they build their own houses and cars and people and then play with them together. 
• She loves books. She can often be found sitting or laying on her bed and reading a book. 
• She feels very deeply and strongly about things. Sometimes this can be difficult, if her emotions get out of control. But I love that she is able to feel so much. And I think it often equates to get loving so much and being so affectionate. 
• She's creative. She loves creating things out of clay, and some of the stuff she makes is so cute. Last year for Christmas, she gave me a nativity scene that she'd made from clay. 
• She's quite a rule follower and frequently feels badly if she things she's done something wrong, or if I get after her for something. On the flip side of this, though, she's quite hard on herself and her siblings, her brothers particularly. 
• She loves joking around, and is always looking for opportunities to make a joke out of something or tell a joke to someone. 

I love my Camille and am so glad I get to be her mother. ❤️