Family Visits

Well, we had a good time this weekend having everyone over.  I took of Friday and went to the temple with Grandma, Janet and our parents.  We had a really spiritual time there.  Then, we had to hurry back to my pregnant wife watching all of the kids.  That was really nice of her to let me go.


We went to the Mexican restaurant down the street and ate outside only to have it rain on us.  I tried their spinach enchiladas and I have come to the conclusion that I simply don't like them in general. 


The next day we went kite flying at the church, which was fun for all of the kids.  The wind was so strong that you could just sit there and the wind would pick up the kite.  We brought the Barbie car and one of the gokarts our neighbors gave us and the kids had fun.


I was reading Jacob 5 yesterday and had a good discussion with Mom on the digging, fertilizing, and pruning.  The fertilizing is the reading scriptures, praying, and going to church and the temple.  The pruning is the removing of things that don't add any value towards your journey towards discipleship.  That is a personal thing.  The digging as Mom suggested is the killing of shallow roots, thus sparking a desire for your taproot and other central root system to grow more firmly. This comes as a result of living and experiencing heart-wrenching experiences, helping others go through their experiences, that solidifies your faith in Christ.


I went to church this morning only to realize that I wasn't feeling any better and probably couldn't make it through the final two hours of church.  So I went home and got a long nap, which I needed.  Heidi graciously watched the boys.  I felt really bad because yesterday, Heidi felt the same way but attributed her nausea to pregnancy, which now appears to be a stomach flu. She didn't ask to stay home but was clearly under the weather and slept a bit when we got home.  Sometimes I need to listen more to her needs and not just assume that anything she goes through is pregnancy and doesn't require my help.

Another Week

Well, we spent most of yesterday going through Heidi's old boxes and threw away quite a few things.  I feel bad throwing away lots of medicines but they were expired. 


This past week we started sitting down with Carter at night and reading for 15 minutes.  No longer was it difficult to get him to see his prayers.  He says them immediately because he knows a story is coming. I never thought reading with him at night was so exciting for him.  I was surprised when he first started that he already knew some basic words.  He is picking things up really fast and really good at memorizing.


The week before Heidi has given birth to each of our kids has always been difficult. Heidi has swelling feet, back pains, ice munchies, and numbness in her legs and arms.  She was experiencing numbness in her legs and arms and asked for a blessing.  I believe I had already massaged those parts without any luck. So I gave the blessing and said that the numbness would subside.  Soon after I started to see her shaking her legs again, a sign again that she was experiencing numbness.  So I had the prompting to rub the back of her legs and her ciatic area for a minute, which appeared afterwards to cure numbness for the time being.  I haven't really had a blessing like that but it reminded me of the Lord rubbing spittle in the blind man's eyes.  Whether or not it increased faith or the healing was in my hands when I did it, I am not sure but the result worked. When I heard the quote that Brigham Young when giving blessings expected to heal the person receiving the blessing that changed mindset in blessings.  Even though the real healing isn't in the words, the words themselves can increase faith.


I taught a lesson today in Elder's Quorum on Joseph Smith.  There wasn't a lot of new material really that I could tangent on or things I didn't already know about him but interesting enough, it didn't matter.  The questions asked were sufficient to reflect and apply the teachings to their lives.  In addition, I had the prompting to add on the chalkboard what great things the Lord had done through Joseph Smith as well as what sorrow and things he ended up giving up.  That prompted a good discussion about his character which helped whenever we talked about him as a prophet.  Somebody mentioned I should get the Truman Madsen Joseph Smith CDs for my ride to work.  Nobody already has those, do they?

Well,  I still can't write on anyone's blog but Mom's.  Most likely has to do with permissions. We received our first electric bill, which was $40.  It will be nice to see the impact of the solar panels once the summer rolls around.

I added weed n feed to the yard, watered it, put weed killer in the flower beds,  During the process we identified a carrot that was in the ground and a little bunny.  We have a whole bunch of lettuce growing, so Carter and Halley tried to unsuccessfully feed it.  After the carrot and the bunny, Halley came over to me and wanted to know if I had any more surprises.  I told her I didn't know if I did.

As I was thinking about it, I came to the realization that having a garden is spiritual in nature.  There are so many analogies to a garden and you can learn virtually every aspect about the Plan of Salvation from a garden. Here are a few.

1. What to plant- Certain things grow better in the type of soil than others; Certain teaching methods work better for helping our kids succeed such as through love and persuasion
2.  Carryover garden-  The lettuce seeds from last year and a few of the tomato plants kept growing/sprouted during winter.  Sometimes your efforts have a much larger impact than you realize.
3. Too much water-  Too much water can lead to growths on the tomatoes.  You have to balance the water with the sunlight as well as the type of plant for it to grow correctly.
4. If you don't water your yard on a consistent basis, then the grass dies and weeds grow.  It becomes much harder to take care of a yard on an inconsistent basis than if you do it regularly.
5. The harvest tastes good-  Except when I say that a cucumber is a squash, for the most part homegrown items simply taste better.
6. Miracle of planting.  That a seed can grow into a fruit-bearing plant is a miracle.  It is amazing that one tomato seed can produce hundreds of tomatoes. This is part of the Abrahamic covenant that his seed should be as the sand of the sea.

We brought our van into the dealership to get fixed before the extended warranty runs out.  We have gotten it on both cars and so far we have come out about even when we buy it.  We are hoping our cars last quite a bit longer such that we can pay cash next time we need to buy it.