No... there is too much. Let me sum up. :-)
That's all I'm going to do tonight because it's already after 10:00, I have a whole slew of pictures to post for a change, and I'm just not up to staying up late enough to do it all. I'm trying REALLY, REALLY hard to get to bed by 11:00 in an effort to get up earlier in the morning. RATS... And James just now--as I was typing this--reminded me that I have a bit of computer work that really should have been done LAST night, but was forgotten. ~sigh~
So I guess this is just a note to say, "I'll be back one of these days!" I thought tonight would be the night, but it didn't happen. I had intended to say a little more than THIS tonight (!), but I guess I'd best take care of the work I'm already behind on. So long!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
What to Blog?
I have no idea, but it's been several days (AGAIN) and it seems like I ought to write something...
Uummm... School went well this week. The kids are adjusting and doing well with the hordes of math work. And Katie and Joe have written some pretty good reports and stories for me this week. Joe wrote a terrific cowboy story, but he acts like he's embarrassed about it for some reason. I would love to post pictures of it here, but I don't want him to feel weird about it... so maybe I'll just e-mail it to Grandma and Granddad. :-)
Tuesday was a long day and I can't remember everything that we did. We made our library trip and walked out with new and exciting piles of books to burn through. After the library we headed into town to run several errands. I needed to stop by Sam's Club and Wal-Mart and a couple of grocery stores to try to mooch. :-) With changing campgrounds and having to increase our tuitions for Family Camp this year while still keeping them as low as possible for everybody, we're trying to get as much donated as we can for the Snack Shack. We won't be making any profit off of the tuitions (just covering our costs--we hope!), so it's our only real money maker and we'd love to make MORE money with it this year to help pay for a guest speaker and all that stuff. So we've got people all over the region out asking for donations. I hope God really blesses our efforts. I, personally, HATE mooching. I am sooooooooooo uncomfortable walking into a store and saying, "Hey, would you give me some stuff for free???" But I know it's been highly successful for some people in the past, and I hear that lots of times the businesses have a certain amount that they need to donate, so... Whatever! I did the miserable deed, got one $20 gift card and three "We'll talk it over and get back with you" answers.
We also went to the thrift store and hit the jackpot. Joe was suddenly in dire need of some jeans and we bought several pairs, though a couple he'll have to grow into. And the first time he wore one of the pairs that fit now, he promptly ripped the button off. !!! I had James pick up some replacement jean buttons and got it fixed the next day. I got a new yellow shirt that makes me very happy, though it's very Spring-ish and we still have snow on the ground so I don't feel like wearing it yet. Maybe at Youth Convention in Hatch next weekend. Ought to be warm enough there! Oh, we found an ADORABLE jean skirt for Katie, built long and skinny just like she is! It's too big, but it's SHAPED right (that's sooooo hard to come by for that girl!), so I'm sure she'll grow into it sometime in the next year.
I can't remember what all we did that day. It was a busy one. We came home and spent the rest of the evening listing things on eBay. James put a whole slew of Church books on and I finally got all of my stamping stuff posted. Don't know if any of it will sell, but I'm trying! James already has a whole bunch of bids on his books.
Can't remember much else about the week. It was my ABM service on Thursday night and it was a total bomb. I understand that that word means something good nowadays, but when I was growing up it meant something was horrible--and that's how I mean it! Ha! I think I've told God how sorry I am every time I've prayed since Thursday night!!! It probably wasn't bad enough to warrant that, I suppose, but I just feel like I missed it, you know? ~sigh~ It's a miserable feeling. I'm going to start praying NOW for next month's service so nobody has to suffer through another one of these ones!
We had picked up Old Yeller at the library on Tuesday, so last night the kids asked me to start reading it to them. We never did find a good stopping point though. "Don't stop there, Mom--read more, ple-e-e-e-e-e-ease!!!" We ended up reading the whole book! I think I read from about 6:00 until 9:00 and my throat was sore by the time we were done, but we finished! I think I'm the only one who cried, which is just wrong.
Today we had the kids write reports on Old Yeller (Sam drew a picture), then I let them watch the movie. I was amazed at just how similar it is to the book. Usually there are lots of significant changes in a book-turned-movie, but not this one. The only real difference is that the kid goes ahead and shoots the dog as soon as he finishes fighting with the rabid wolf, knowing that he would have contracted the disease. In the movie they waited until he actually started to go mad--which is much worse, I think. Either way, I cry every time. Joe admitted to me that he had to work really, really, really hard to not cry. I'm amazed that Katie can make it through things like that with no tears--what kind of girl is she, anyway?!
Old Yeller was our break today. The rest of it was spent in preparation for our Mission Luncheon tomorrow. James made tamales and enchiladas (wow, what a guy!) and I made taco salad, poppyseed chicken casserole, pea salad, strawberry cake, lemon bars... hhmmm... I think there was something else or maybe two somethings, but I can't remember.
I guess that's it. Oh, wait! Today was the first day of Spring... and we woke up to 6" of fresh snow! Ha! I love it!!! The only thing I don't like about all of the snow is the terrible mud that always follows. It gets sooooooooo sloppy up here! Pretty ugly. But that's why there's plastic in the van now, right Tammy?!
Hope everybody has a wonderful Sunday. I'm "off" tomorrow and get to just enjoy the big people's Sunday School class taught by one of my favorite teachers :-) and I'm not on to lead songs, our pastor will preach another anointed message about one of the 29, and we're hoping and praying we'll have visitors for service AND for the Mission Luncheon to follow. Then we'll have James' CPMA service afterward. Looks to be a wonderful day in the Lord!
Uummm... School went well this week. The kids are adjusting and doing well with the hordes of math work. And Katie and Joe have written some pretty good reports and stories for me this week. Joe wrote a terrific cowboy story, but he acts like he's embarrassed about it for some reason. I would love to post pictures of it here, but I don't want him to feel weird about it... so maybe I'll just e-mail it to Grandma and Granddad. :-)
Tuesday was a long day and I can't remember everything that we did. We made our library trip and walked out with new and exciting piles of books to burn through. After the library we headed into town to run several errands. I needed to stop by Sam's Club and Wal-Mart and a couple of grocery stores to try to mooch. :-) With changing campgrounds and having to increase our tuitions for Family Camp this year while still keeping them as low as possible for everybody, we're trying to get as much donated as we can for the Snack Shack. We won't be making any profit off of the tuitions (just covering our costs--we hope!), so it's our only real money maker and we'd love to make MORE money with it this year to help pay for a guest speaker and all that stuff. So we've got people all over the region out asking for donations. I hope God really blesses our efforts. I, personally, HATE mooching. I am sooooooooooo uncomfortable walking into a store and saying, "Hey, would you give me some stuff for free???" But I know it's been highly successful for some people in the past, and I hear that lots of times the businesses have a certain amount that they need to donate, so... Whatever! I did the miserable deed, got one $20 gift card and three "We'll talk it over and get back with you" answers.
We also went to the thrift store and hit the jackpot. Joe was suddenly in dire need of some jeans and we bought several pairs, though a couple he'll have to grow into. And the first time he wore one of the pairs that fit now, he promptly ripped the button off. !!! I had James pick up some replacement jean buttons and got it fixed the next day. I got a new yellow shirt that makes me very happy, though it's very Spring-ish and we still have snow on the ground so I don't feel like wearing it yet. Maybe at Youth Convention in Hatch next weekend. Ought to be warm enough there! Oh, we found an ADORABLE jean skirt for Katie, built long and skinny just like she is! It's too big, but it's SHAPED right (that's sooooo hard to come by for that girl!), so I'm sure she'll grow into it sometime in the next year.
I can't remember what all we did that day. It was a busy one. We came home and spent the rest of the evening listing things on eBay. James put a whole slew of Church books on and I finally got all of my stamping stuff posted. Don't know if any of it will sell, but I'm trying! James already has a whole bunch of bids on his books.
Can't remember much else about the week. It was my ABM service on Thursday night and it was a total bomb. I understand that that word means something good nowadays, but when I was growing up it meant something was horrible--and that's how I mean it! Ha! I think I've told God how sorry I am every time I've prayed since Thursday night!!! It probably wasn't bad enough to warrant that, I suppose, but I just feel like I missed it, you know? ~sigh~ It's a miserable feeling. I'm going to start praying NOW for next month's service so nobody has to suffer through another one of these ones!
We had picked up Old Yeller at the library on Tuesday, so last night the kids asked me to start reading it to them. We never did find a good stopping point though. "Don't stop there, Mom--read more, ple-e-e-e-e-e-ease!!!" We ended up reading the whole book! I think I read from about 6:00 until 9:00 and my throat was sore by the time we were done, but we finished! I think I'm the only one who cried, which is just wrong.
Today we had the kids write reports on Old Yeller (Sam drew a picture), then I let them watch the movie. I was amazed at just how similar it is to the book. Usually there are lots of significant changes in a book-turned-movie, but not this one. The only real difference is that the kid goes ahead and shoots the dog as soon as he finishes fighting with the rabid wolf, knowing that he would have contracted the disease. In the movie they waited until he actually started to go mad--which is much worse, I think. Either way, I cry every time. Joe admitted to me that he had to work really, really, really hard to not cry. I'm amazed that Katie can make it through things like that with no tears--what kind of girl is she, anyway?!
Old Yeller was our break today. The rest of it was spent in preparation for our Mission Luncheon tomorrow. James made tamales and enchiladas (wow, what a guy!) and I made taco salad, poppyseed chicken casserole, pea salad, strawberry cake, lemon bars... hhmmm... I think there was something else or maybe two somethings, but I can't remember.
I guess that's it. Oh, wait! Today was the first day of Spring... and we woke up to 6" of fresh snow! Ha! I love it!!! The only thing I don't like about all of the snow is the terrible mud that always follows. It gets sooooooooo sloppy up here! Pretty ugly. But that's why there's plastic in the van now, right Tammy?!
Hope everybody has a wonderful Sunday. I'm "off" tomorrow and get to just enjoy the big people's Sunday School class taught by one of my favorite teachers :-) and I'm not on to lead songs, our pastor will preach another anointed message about one of the 29, and we're hoping and praying we'll have visitors for service AND for the Mission Luncheon to follow. Then we'll have James' CPMA service afterward. Looks to be a wonderful day in the Lord!
Monday, March 15, 2010
:-)
I'd tell you about Saturday but as usual, I can't remember anything about it.
This picture reminded me of how yesterday started out. I sometimes wonder if I'll EVER be able to stop dressing the children. This is how Joe looked yesterday, "ready" to go to church. Ri-i-i-i-i-i-ight. How can he NOT KNOW that he's wearing Sam's size 5 jacket instead of his own size 7, nevermind the fact that it's a blue jacket with black pants! ~sigh~ I fear there's no hope...
We had good Sunday School. We talked about Jericho being destroyed, all but Rahab and her family. We talked about how God can save anybody and how the power of God working among His people will draw others just as it did Rahab. And we built little Jericho's with cornbread, honey, and graham crackers and had little gummy bear Israelites marching around. :-)
Our Teaching of the day was actually two teachings. Brother Chris preached on holiness, "It's a Heart Thing," and then moved right into tithing and giving. It was interesting and enlightening to join the two subjects! He passed out dollar bills to everybody and then said that we could either keep the money or pass it to the person next to us. As we passed the money around he passed out more money and pretty soon the bills got larger, from ones to fives, then tens, then a twenty... Everybody kept willingly passing the money around except for Sam. When the $10 hit is hand he wasn't budging! And he already had held on to two ones... Brother Chris was illustrating that God blesses those who give (not always with more finances--though often He does--but in some way or another He opens the windows of heaven and floods our lives with blessings) and that God's resources are limitless. It was very good. Toward the end of the service everybody put the money into the offering basket to pass back up to the front. All but Sam, of course. He'd just made out with twelve bucks! Ha! When church was over James and I made him give it back. Sure, Brother Chris had said that we could have the money if we wanted it, or pass it on. But it just didn't seem right for the illustration be that God will BLESS you if you GIVE... and Sam to be the only one who didn't give and also the only one to walk away with $12! Ha!
After service the time had finally come: THE GIRL PARTY!!! Katie has been sooooooo excited to have Naomi and Sadie up to the house and host a "party." So we had arranged it with the Clarksons that we would bring the girls to our house for the afternoon and they would take the boys. The girls had worn some of their favorite "party dresses" to church and James thought it would be fun to surprise them by taking them out to a nice restaurant. I told him they'd be thrilled with McDonalds, but he chose Olive Garden. :-) We let the girls have their own table so they could feel all grown up. And it meant that James and I had the closest thing we've had to a date in a long, long, long time! Ha! The girls had a lot of fun and it was great watching them pretend to be little ladies. One of them in particular is a far cry from that at this point! Ha! Hilarious.
After lunch we came back up to the house where it was time for the tea party Katie had prepared before we left for church that morning. Cupcakes, Airheads, and Pixie Stix. And yes, the tea was sweet. Can you say sugar rush?! Ha! For some reason, this is the only picture I took of the "Girl Party"...
This picture reminded me of how yesterday started out. I sometimes wonder if I'll EVER be able to stop dressing the children. This is how Joe looked yesterday, "ready" to go to church. Ri-i-i-i-i-i-ight. How can he NOT KNOW that he's wearing Sam's size 5 jacket instead of his own size 7, nevermind the fact that it's a blue jacket with black pants! ~sigh~ I fear there's no hope...
We had good Sunday School. We talked about Jericho being destroyed, all but Rahab and her family. We talked about how God can save anybody and how the power of God working among His people will draw others just as it did Rahab. And we built little Jericho's with cornbread, honey, and graham crackers and had little gummy bear Israelites marching around. :-)Our Teaching of the day was actually two teachings. Brother Chris preached on holiness, "It's a Heart Thing," and then moved right into tithing and giving. It was interesting and enlightening to join the two subjects! He passed out dollar bills to everybody and then said that we could either keep the money or pass it to the person next to us. As we passed the money around he passed out more money and pretty soon the bills got larger, from ones to fives, then tens, then a twenty... Everybody kept willingly passing the money around except for Sam. When the $10 hit is hand he wasn't budging! And he already had held on to two ones... Brother Chris was illustrating that God blesses those who give (not always with more finances--though often He does--but in some way or another He opens the windows of heaven and floods our lives with blessings) and that God's resources are limitless. It was very good. Toward the end of the service everybody put the money into the offering basket to pass back up to the front. All but Sam, of course. He'd just made out with twelve bucks! Ha! When church was over James and I made him give it back. Sure, Brother Chris had said that we could have the money if we wanted it, or pass it on. But it just didn't seem right for the illustration be that God will BLESS you if you GIVE... and Sam to be the only one who didn't give and also the only one to walk away with $12! Ha!
After service the time had finally come: THE GIRL PARTY!!! Katie has been sooooooo excited to have Naomi and Sadie up to the house and host a "party." So we had arranged it with the Clarksons that we would bring the girls to our house for the afternoon and they would take the boys. The girls had worn some of their favorite "party dresses" to church and James thought it would be fun to surprise them by taking them out to a nice restaurant. I told him they'd be thrilled with McDonalds, but he chose Olive Garden. :-) We let the girls have their own table so they could feel all grown up. And it meant that James and I had the closest thing we've had to a date in a long, long, long time! Ha! The girls had a lot of fun and it was great watching them pretend to be little ladies. One of them in particular is a far cry from that at this point! Ha! Hilarious.
After lunch we came back up to the house where it was time for the tea party Katie had prepared before we left for church that morning. Cupcakes, Airheads, and Pixie Stix. And yes, the tea was sweet. Can you say sugar rush?! Ha! For some reason, this is the only picture I took of the "Girl Party"...
After tea, I think the girls read books together for a few minutes and played in Katie's room. Then it was time to make cookies. They had decided they wanted to bake some cookies to take to church to sell for Missions. We took the left-over cupcakes, too, and ended up making $21 or something like that! :-) Anyway, after the cookie making, the girls headed outside to play on the trampoline. It started hailing lightly after a little while, but when it turned to a rainy snow sort of mix I called the girls inside. There wasn't enough time for a real "girl movie" like they'd hoped, so they watched the new Veggie Tales, Pistachio, instead. Then it was time to go back to church, but Sadie couldn't find her shoes. We were REALLY needing to get going and it finally occurred to her... She'd left them outside. They were out by the trampoline, filled with wet, heavy snow! Ha! So she wore some of Katie's shoes. Very big shoes, but dry. :-) The girls had great fun together and I'm so happy we were able to do this. I think we ought to do something like this once a month for them. Minus the fancy lunch, that is. ;-)
It was Sister Shanda's VLB service last night and it was very, very good. She talked about worldliness and we had lots of good discussion.
As we drove home last night we were amazed at how gorgeous everything was. We've had several good snowfalls this year, but the consistency of this snow was so different (so heavy and wet) and just clung to the trees, the signs, the cables--everything. It was sooooooooooo beautiful!!! We got home and were shocked that there was probably 6" of snow on the ground! Whoa!!! Who knew?! It took quite a while to get the gate open because of all that gorgeous, wet, heavy snow--and because the wheel on the gate had frozen to the pole. We finally got it open and James was able to back up and then floor it and get the van all the way through the gate, though there was no chance of making it up the hill.
This morning when we woke up, this is what our world looked like...
Isn't it just soooooooo pretty?! I e-mailed that picture to the news station and they aired it this evening. :-) I just love how cool and crisp and clean everything looks covered in heavy, fresh white snow.
And I LOVE the contrast against the blue western skies here...
James' cute little office...
See the pond down there? Ha! James was hoping to get it set up sometime soon. Apparently it's still WINTER here and the pond will have to wait a bit longer.
More gorgeous sky and snow. :-)
And look--it's our new van! Not that you can really see it... But it's inside the yard, so that's what matters. :-)
This picture's not crooked, just the tree. That's how they grow here.
The kids, of course, all headed outside to make the best of a partial snow day--though they did have to do some late afternoon schooling.
I looked outside after a while and each kid had rolled up a HUGE snowball, bigger than any or all of them would be able to handle. So I figured they'd need a helping hand to build a really terrific snowman. It took an hour or two, but this is the end result. Katie wanted to name him Bert.
He was just under 8' tall. I had to use the ladder to put his hat into place. And, yes, we had to have James' help heaving the middle section and the head into place!
Here's Katie with the little dog she built. She wanted him to look like Dug from Up. I think he's adorable!
Isn't he just too lovable???
Rumor has it you can only truly appreciate his nose from the side. Ha!
~sigh~ Sorry. I just couldn't stop taking pictures of him!!!
Good thing, too, because in about an hour he bit the big one! This was such a WET snow and once the sun came out real good it melted soooooo fast. So I'm really glad we took pictures as soon as we finished him! It was great fun and we've got great pictures to remind us of it always. :-)
Sam did some good bookwork this afternoon, Katie did really great with her math, and Joe moped around forever working on his book report on Harry, the Poisonous Centipede. Tomorrow we'll get back to a regular school day, but it just wouldn't have been right to miss out on the snow play today! Winter will be over all too soon and it would be a poor investment indeed to sit in front of books all day instead of enjoy what we have while we have it. :-)
This, of course, means that House Cleaning Day was a flop again this week. Ha! But if ever I had a good excuse... ;-) I did manage a nice, hot dinner of Hamburger Pie... something I haven't made in YEARS because of all of the gripes. I figured it had been long enough nobody would remember it. James did, and that's all it took. The kids took their cue from his lack of enthusiasm and made up their minds ahead of time it must be terrible. But they all liked it in spite of themselves and a couple of them even had seconds.
We ended the night by sitting and reading library books together. It's one of my most favorite things and I dread the day when the kids are too big for me to sit and read to them. I somehow picture them being 14, 16, and 17 years old someday still saying, "Hey, Mom--would you read us Arnie the Doughnut, ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease???" Ha!
Friday, March 12, 2010
One of Those Days
By the time we finished lunch I looked at the kids and said, "Get...out...of...my...house. All of you!" Ha! They were just WIRED and I was not up to trying to do any more school with them. It means half a school day today and a half a school day tomorrow (Saturday school!), but it seemed worth it at the time. I'm guessing the kids had a great time running wild all over the yard this afternoon. They were out there so long I almost forgot I had children until I saw one clad in a leather Davy Crockett jacket, carrying a rifle, running full speed past the window. Ha! And I think they forgot they had a Mom, too. After a few hours Sam came in the door and seemed genuinely surprised to see me. "Oh! Hi, Mom!" he said as he ran up and gave me a hug and a kiss, as if he'd just come home from a lengthy vacation. I really think they needed to just be OUT for a few hours. It can't be good for kids to be all cooped up inside all day long. I know it wouldn't have been good around our house today! Ha! So while the kids had a time of it getting in lots of P.E. time I was able to catch up on a few things around the house. A good day for everybody. :-)
James took the car back to the dealership today and retrieved our newly repaired and detailed van. You'll never believe what I did when he got home with it. I covered it entirely in plastic! Ha! Just the inside. I remember going to a school friend's house when I was a kid--she was Chinese--and everybody took their shoes off at the door and then followed these crazy plastic runners all through the house. I thought it was nuts then and I think it's nuts now. But we just went out and bought the same exact plastic runner stuff and this afternoon I cut it into proper shapes to completely cover the floor in the van. Is that insane, or what?! I'm so embarrassed. But I must confess it was even my idea, not James'. If we lived in town I would never let our lives come to this, but where we live there is just no way to avoid the kids' shoes being caked in mud if there has been any moisture at all and I'm sooooo tired of our van being all nasty. And I am NOT carrying them all to the van every time we have to leave. Ha! Since we've now got a new van (new to us--you know what I mean!) and it's in great shape I just couldn't bear to see dirt and mud ground into the carpet right away, you know? Still, it's NUTS to have done such a thing.
House Cleaning Day that is supposed to happen on Monday each week hasn't really been working out very well the past week or two. So I've been spending the whole week trying to do a job here and there to catch up, but it seems like I just can't get there. Today was more successful, what, with the kids outside for the afternoon. I gathered up all of the laundry again and as of tonight I have all clean children (they were FILTHY after their play day and had to have showers) and all of the laundry done AND the ironing. So that feels good.
Uummm... we had smothered steaks for dinner. The only thing that would have made them better is if they'd been elk instead of beef. :-) James and Katie made Rice Krispie Treats for dessert and they are nice and gooey. I'm wa-a-a-a-a-ay too full now.
That's about it, I guess. Can't remember anything about yesterday. Oh, except service last night--it was very, very good. Sister Shanda showed the new WMB video and it was such a blessing, of course. I just cry through the whole thing. I LOVE watching those things. It blesses you and inspires you and just sort of clears all of the clutter from your mind. When you see The Church of God taking the gospel into all the world, preaching, teaching, baptizing--and you SEE these people who are your very own brothers and sisters in the Lord and members in particular of the same Body that YOU are a member of--members one of another--from all over the place, it just helps you realize how silly the things are that we get so distracted with. It makes the every day worries and concerns seem so insignificant and you're reminded of why we're really here. It's all about souls and eternity. God, help me do more!
And I guess that's about it. Hope everybody has a great weekend (especially those ladies retreating at Ridgecrest--I wish I was one of 'em!) and God blesses with wonderful services across the board in The Church. :-)
James took the car back to the dealership today and retrieved our newly repaired and detailed van. You'll never believe what I did when he got home with it. I covered it entirely in plastic! Ha! Just the inside. I remember going to a school friend's house when I was a kid--she was Chinese--and everybody took their shoes off at the door and then followed these crazy plastic runners all through the house. I thought it was nuts then and I think it's nuts now. But we just went out and bought the same exact plastic runner stuff and this afternoon I cut it into proper shapes to completely cover the floor in the van. Is that insane, or what?! I'm so embarrassed. But I must confess it was even my idea, not James'. If we lived in town I would never let our lives come to this, but where we live there is just no way to avoid the kids' shoes being caked in mud if there has been any moisture at all and I'm sooooo tired of our van being all nasty. And I am NOT carrying them all to the van every time we have to leave. Ha! Since we've now got a new van (new to us--you know what I mean!) and it's in great shape I just couldn't bear to see dirt and mud ground into the carpet right away, you know? Still, it's NUTS to have done such a thing.
House Cleaning Day that is supposed to happen on Monday each week hasn't really been working out very well the past week or two. So I've been spending the whole week trying to do a job here and there to catch up, but it seems like I just can't get there. Today was more successful, what, with the kids outside for the afternoon. I gathered up all of the laundry again and as of tonight I have all clean children (they were FILTHY after their play day and had to have showers) and all of the laundry done AND the ironing. So that feels good.
Uummm... we had smothered steaks for dinner. The only thing that would have made them better is if they'd been elk instead of beef. :-) James and Katie made Rice Krispie Treats for dessert and they are nice and gooey. I'm wa-a-a-a-a-ay too full now.
That's about it, I guess. Can't remember anything about yesterday. Oh, except service last night--it was very, very good. Sister Shanda showed the new WMB video and it was such a blessing, of course. I just cry through the whole thing. I LOVE watching those things. It blesses you and inspires you and just sort of clears all of the clutter from your mind. When you see The Church of God taking the gospel into all the world, preaching, teaching, baptizing--and you SEE these people who are your very own brothers and sisters in the Lord and members in particular of the same Body that YOU are a member of--members one of another--from all over the place, it just helps you realize how silly the things are that we get so distracted with. It makes the every day worries and concerns seem so insignificant and you're reminded of why we're really here. It's all about souls and eternity. God, help me do more!
And I guess that's about it. Hope everybody has a great weekend (especially those ladies retreating at Ridgecrest--I wish I was one of 'em!) and God blesses with wonderful services across the board in The Church. :-)
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
This is a New Post
There. I said that just to clear up any further confusion. But it will be more confusing for you, Mom, 'cuz it's really the old post that WAS a new post but you THOUGHT it was an old post and didn't read it because the title confused you but now you know it's really a new post, but old to you. So I've got the edge. ;-)
Three days pass so quickly when you're trying to blog more faithfully. Seems like you just type something up and then *wham-o* it's been three or four days.
Gone with the three days is the memory of them. Uummm... I really can't think of anything. I know we missed library day yesterday for some reason. Oh yeah--James took the van back to the dealership. It's driving fine, but makes a funny noise every so often and he wanted them to look at it while they'll still do that sort of thing for free. ;-) So now we've got another loaner vehicle. A Dodge Caliber or something like that. I'd never heard of them before, but it's actually kind of fun to be in a car (a cross-over, technically) for a change. It would never work for our big trips, but it's nice for just dinking around in.
I talked to Brother Dustin for a while last night about Family Camp and tuitions and t-shirts and all that sort of thing. It's sort of exciting to get into the planning stage again. :-) This morning I made a few phone calls to see how much we'd have to pay to have the shirts printed locally instead of through the Internet site we've been using. Not sure what we'll end up doing, but it's great to have some options.
The kids are doing well with the new school regimen. Several pages of math (don't tell Joe, but it's probably 500+ problems each day) and then some reading and writing assignments. Katie is doing GREAT with her multiplication all of a sudden and caught on to multiplying double and triple digits without a hitch. She's now feeling much more confident about her upcoming division work. Joe wrote a good little report on a favorite bug book of his yesterday. As usual, he's less than thrilled with school--but his little brother is LOVING it now! Just look! Ha!
Sam is just soooooooo happy to have "discovered" math and though he's obviously just doing very basic addition and subtraction I'm pretty sure he's doing a lot MORE of it than I did in 1st Grade!
Three days pass so quickly when you're trying to blog more faithfully. Seems like you just type something up and then *wham-o* it's been three or four days.
Gone with the three days is the memory of them. Uummm... I really can't think of anything. I know we missed library day yesterday for some reason. Oh yeah--James took the van back to the dealership. It's driving fine, but makes a funny noise every so often and he wanted them to look at it while they'll still do that sort of thing for free. ;-) So now we've got another loaner vehicle. A Dodge Caliber or something like that. I'd never heard of them before, but it's actually kind of fun to be in a car (a cross-over, technically) for a change. It would never work for our big trips, but it's nice for just dinking around in.
I talked to Brother Dustin for a while last night about Family Camp and tuitions and t-shirts and all that sort of thing. It's sort of exciting to get into the planning stage again. :-) This morning I made a few phone calls to see how much we'd have to pay to have the shirts printed locally instead of through the Internet site we've been using. Not sure what we'll end up doing, but it's great to have some options.
The kids are doing well with the new school regimen. Several pages of math (don't tell Joe, but it's probably 500+ problems each day) and then some reading and writing assignments. Katie is doing GREAT with her multiplication all of a sudden and caught on to multiplying double and triple digits without a hitch. She's now feeling much more confident about her upcoming division work. Joe wrote a good little report on a favorite bug book of his yesterday. As usual, he's less than thrilled with school--but his little brother is LOVING it now! Just look! Ha!
Sam is just soooooooo happy to have "discovered" math and though he's obviously just doing very basic addition and subtraction I'm pretty sure he's doing a lot MORE of it than I did in 1st Grade!
Along with the math pages he's doing 10 or more pages in his school book each day and I can tell he's really improving. I had him sit down and read one of the little Hooked on Phonics books to me yesterday and he did so much better than ever before! Still taking his time sounding out each and every word, but it's beginning to happen a little bit easier for him now. I'm so proud of him. :-)
Uummm... today. We had a nice lunch of left-overs (I had made a delicious but way-too-hot enchilda casserole last night and we still had a few of James' tamales to finish off), then headed to the library since we missed it yesterday. We held on to some important books from last week though because I haven't had a chance to read through them all. I had finished the Sherman's Lagoon book, but Joe had checked out a few Calvin & Hobbes books I haven't had a chance to get to yet. ;-) Katie found some new books in the Bunnicula series (it's not like it sounds--just for clarification after that Sunday School lesson about vampires! Ha!) and breezed through both of them tonight. I'm fairly certain she'll be getting the other four books in the series next week!
After the library we headed into town for some thrify shopping. Didn't turn out too well, but I tried! I got a nice pair of jeans for Joe to grow into, but nothing that will really work for right now. He's either getting tall or his clothes are shrinking because all of his pant legs and sleeves are too short. Guess he'll just have to look like a nerd for a while longer until we find some good deals.
James ran in to Albertson's and bought two more buckets of Blue Bell (he's going nuts on me! He tells me that if I keep eating ice cream like a Smith I'm going to start to look like a Wilda (HA!)--but then he keeps buying more Blue Bell!) and seven, yes SEVEN, boxes of Cap'n Crunch. Could you die?! We might, if we keep living off of Blue Bell and Cap'n Crunch! HA! They were on sale for $1.50 per box, but only if you buy seven boxes. And James is all about stocking up on things to have at a later date. I am too, but I did tell him tonight that he's going to have to stop or else he's going to have to build me an extra pantry--I'm outta room in there!
Ho-hum. Now the day has come to a close and the kids are all snoozing away. Just hung up from a follow-up phone call with Brother Dustin about the Camp shirts. Sometimes he is no help at all, I tell you! ;-) I'm considering what to do with the rest of my evening. I actually went to bed early last night (WILD!!!) and it felt so good and enabled me to get up earlier today. I don't know what the chances are of making it a habit, but I may experiment with it a little bit. I don't enjoy the going to bed early part (I'm SUCH a night owl), but I really, really enjoyed the getting up earlier part. It's so nice to start the day with some good quiet time all alone before the house starts stirring. I'm going to shoot for an 11:00 bedtime tonight. Wish me luck!
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Four Days Past Wednesday
Or so I hear. ;-)
Okay, let's see... Thursday was a grand and glorious day because it is the day we discovered that Blue Bell ice cream can now be purchased HERE, right where we are!!! Well, when we go to town anyway, so that's close enough to make me very, very happy. We immediately made plans to stop by the store to pick up a few cartons while they were 40% off. So that night we came home with French Vanilla (they were out of Homemade Vanilla), Banana Split (which, sad to say, we aren't real crazy about--but the kids will eat it), and Rocky Road which is sooooooooo good. I was really hoping for some White Chocolate Almond, but I suppose I'll have to give them some time to get more flavors out this far west. :-)
Friday I made chicken and noodles for lunch and it was so good. It's just such a good, old-fashioned, homey sort of thing to eat. It always tastes so good. Comfort food, maybe. :-) Then James made some tamales for dinner and they were really, really good. In fact, I'm tempted to go heat one up right now... :-)
The kids spent most of the day outside on Friday, running all over the yard and playing in the tent that I pitched for them out on the deck. It's really the first day that's been warm enough to enjoy some normal ourdoor play time. There are still patches of snow around the yard, but the rest of the yard isn't muddy anymore so the kids had a great time in the great outdoors. Aside from school and meals, they were out there ALL DAY LONG. It was a great day for all of us! I got a good deal of the ironing done that night, but fizzled out before finishing.
Yesterday was a lo-o-o-o-o-ong day. We all got up and left at about 8:30 to drive into town to go to the big flea market. It was fun and we picked up a few things. Socks for the boys (that are way too small--oops!) and some honey from a local bee keeper. The boys each bought a pocket knife (Sam promptly cut himself and Joe promptly misplaced his new purchase) and Katie bought a little clock/calendar/calculator/a-whole-bunch-of-other-stuff sort of thing.
We stopped by Hobby Lobby in hopes of finding some supplies for my Sunday School class, but struck out. That's okay because it forced us to go to Party City which is a FANTASTIC store and sooooo fun to look through. :-) And they had everything I needed and saved me a trip to a dreadful Wal-Mart somewhere. We stopped by Long John Silvers for lunch and paid too much money for shrimp that were not too good and made me feel rather sick the rest of the day. (~Bleagh~) Then we spent the rest of the day visiting two pet stores and three animal shelters!!! I'm having a hard time grasping this myself, but I guess we're kind of/sort of in search of a dog. That's really not completely accurate. We're more... in search of whether it's a possibility for us to have a dog again. I've been missing Hershey a whole lot again lately (it comes and goes in waves) and I'm guessing that James must be too (though he'd never admit it) because HE is the one who has brought up the "dog" thing and wanted to go check out all the shelters. Can you imagine?! I don't know what in the world has gotten into him--it's soooooooooooooo... not JAMES-ish! It's all very strange. He's the one who's really sort of encouraging the idea of getting another dog and I'm the one who's more hesitant. I desperately miss having a dog (there's a hole in a family with no dog, you know--just something missing) and I would LOVE to have another one... but for a family like ours it is no small decision. There's so much involved and I just want to make sure that it's okay with God (I know, sounds weird--but He knows our lifestyle and as much as I WANT a dog, I don't want anything in our lives that might be a hindrance to the ministry... in this case, traveling) and I guess I'm just wanting to make sure that if we get a dog it's the RIGHT dog at the RIGHT time under the RIGHT circumstances. ~sigh~ God knows best. It was fun--and heartbreaking--to go to the shelters. But I feel like we have a better grasp of what kind of dogs might be a possibility for us if we're able to get one sometime. I guess time will tell.
We stopped by the library on our way back home and picked up the books that had come in--all three kids had put things on hold last week. Came home and got the smelly kids lined up for their baths, finished getting Sunday School all together, then listened to Brother Forbes preach about the Holy Ghost (from this past Assembly) while FINALLY finishing up on the ironing.
Today was a GREAT Sunday. I still can't believe I didn't think to take any pictures of our Sunday School class. We talked about the 12 spies going into Canaan and how the 10 spies were scared of the giants, but the other 2 were looking at the GOOD things in the land and had faith that God would help them overcome the difficult things. Then we applied that to lots of "kid" situations--be scared to trust God, or step out in faith and do what He asks us to. We talked about what kind of "spy" each of us want to be, so each of the kids got some "spy sunglasses" (though they weren't very discreet--ha!) and put some fruit stickers on them to remind them to always look at the promises of God, not the reasons to doubt. We also made little parachute spy guys out of clothes pins, string, and squares of plastic bags. The coolest thing though was the giant grapevine! I had found the perfect stick (it had that sort of wispy, stringy bark--to look more like a vine) and we blew up a bunch of big purple balloons and attached them with green pipe cleaners to make a cluster of giant grapes. Of course, we clarified that the Bible said it was a giant cluster of grapes rather than a cluster of giant grapes. ;-) Either way, it was great fun and the boys carried it out to the sanctuary on their shoulders with their spy glasses on for the tell-what-you-learned-today bit.
Seems like I say this a lot, but we had such good messages today! Brother Chris is preaching through the 29 Teachings and today was the day for Divine Healing. It was soooooo good. Brother Chris is so good at encouraging and exhorting--the messages just make you WANT to do things God's way, or find His very best, or whatever. He talked today about the scriptural connection in the price Jesus paid for the salvation of our souls and the healing of our bodies. He shared about how Jesus not only bore our sins in His body on the cross, but also bore our sicknesses in His body--He had said that all of these things would be accomplished IN HIM, not through Him or by Him. Brother Chris passed around pictures of what leprosy looks like and talked about the symptoms of palsy and several of the different dreadful diseases Jesus healed and cleansed people from, all the while knowing that very soon He would be suffering and bearing those very things and paying the price in His body. God convicted me about failing to get prayer for the little things. I'm one of those people who generally doesn't request prayer (or even pray for myself) unless there's something seriously wrong or I'm in great pain--or about to give birth to a child. (Ha!) If I have a cold, I figure it will go away. If I have an ache or a pain, I figure it's not too bad--I can live with it. The message this morning made me realize as I never have before the awful price that Jesus paid FOR MY HEALING. How insulting must it be for Him to have gone through so much to purchase my healing only for me to say, "Oh, it's not that bad--I'll just live with this"!!!!! I've had some pain in right hand for probably a couple of months now--arthritis, I think. It's not major, though there have been a few times I've been unable to open a bottle top or some such thing because of the pain. I've thought about having it prayed for, but it just seems like such a little thing since the pain comes and goes and most of the time it's quite manageable. But I had mentioned it to Brother Chris (he noticed me wincing one time when he shook my hand) and before I had a chance to ask for prayer for it this morning, he came and prayed for me. I felt the Lord so strongly and had no pain whatsoever afterward. I testified to how the Lord has dealt with me--and touched me--at church this evening. After testifying, I noticed that there was still no pain in my hand... but I was suddenly feeling some in my wrist! Ha! Only two possible causes, right? (1) The devil fighting what God is doing in my heart and in my body, or (2) God allowing the pain to test and see what I will do now. Either way, the response is the same--get prayed for again! So I asked James and Brother Chris to pray for me again before we left tonight--and felt the Lord strongly again. He is soooooo good and I'm sooooooo blessed to be able to know Him and place my trust in Him. And I'm so thankful to have been made more aware today of what He has done so that I can be healed. I don't want His suffering to be in vain--I want to receive exactly what He has provided for me: salvation for my soul AND healing for my body! He paid too great a price for me to not avail myself of what His suffering has made available to me. Brother Chris brought out how silly it is to get saved and trust God with our ETERNAL SOULS... but then fail to trust Him with these temporal bodies! One other thing (I'll stop soon, really!)... Tonight he talked about trusting God rather than putting confidence in man and trusing in "the shadow of Egypt" and worldly counsel. He had Naomi come up front and fall backwards, knowing he would catch her. He's done this with her lots and she has full confidence in him because he's her Dad, she knows he loves her and would never let her fall, AND she's done this over and over again. He called Joe up and asked him to do the same thing. Joe tried, but turned to look while he was falling--just to make sure Brother Chris wouldn't drop him. Tried again, but his eyes bug out and his arms start to reach for safety... because he hasn't had the same relationship and experience with Brother Chris that Naomi has. That's how it is with God. When we are daily trusting Him for everything in our lives, falling into His arms over and over again, trusting--even when it's scary and we can't see what's going to happen--that He will never fail us, it gets easier over time because of the relationship and the experiences we've had. That's how I want to be when it comes to divine healing! I want my whole life to be one exercise after another of fully trusting God so that when something big or hairy or scary comes along, I'll already be so full of faith and confidence in God that I won't panic, but fall completely into His arms in perfect trust and dependency. ~sigh~ I feel so blessed, so encouraged and so... refocused! And my hand and wrist feel terrific. PRAISE GOD!!!
What a wonderful day. I've been trying to remember to really pray for our church services ahead of time lately and I've definitely seen the results. I don't know if the services are better because of my prayers or if I'm just better in tune and receptive to receive from the Lord there or a little of both, but I can tell a great difference and it makes me want to pray all the more. God is doing great things in His Church and I'm so excited and I want to be a part of all of it!
Our wonderful Sunday also included a trip to Pizza Hut this afternoon to use the kids' BookIt! coupons for the month. Each kid got a free Personal Pan (though they only had two of the little crusts, so the third pizza was that BIG Personal Pan they offer now) and we bought a large pizza... but they forgot to put the chicken on half as ordered and gave us a discount. So we ended up with a large pizza, three little ones, and a 2-liter bottle of Root Beer for $10. :-) Lots of left-overs, too.
Then we came home and I got into a sweatshirt and had a nice, long, cozy Sunday afternoon nap. ~Aaaaaahhh~ How could a Sunday be any better??? I'll tell you how. We had visitors at church tonight (the Coyazo's daughter Maria who lives here, and Maria's son Eli) and they were truly touched. We hope to see them continue coming and letting God work in their lives and family.
The other thing that made for a truly terrific Sunday was the fellowship. :-) We went to Taco Bell with the Clarkson clan after church tonight. ~sigh~ Does it get any better??? Had a great time, laughed a lot, and left feeling so happy and so very, very blessed.
Now I'm home, caught up on the laundry and ironing (except for what we all wore today, I guess) so that will ease the work load tomorrow. And now I'm caught up on my blog, too. :-)
Before I go, here are the only pictures I've taken this week.
I was trying to explain to the kids the other day how to stand on your head. I used to do it all the time--used to watch TV like that sometimes when I was a kid! I'm not sure my kids will ever catch on. They can't even balance in the tripod position to get into place! So they insist on "helping" each other. It's soooooooooooo hilarious!!!
Ah, yes. Katie finally got her birthday present from Grandma Vicki yesterday and she is soooooooo excited!!! Matching outfits for her and Esther, and a great new denim skirt as well. Unfortunately, you can't really SEE all of their matching outfits in this picture... But you can see the happy little girl, so that's what matters. :-)
Okay, let's see... Thursday was a grand and glorious day because it is the day we discovered that Blue Bell ice cream can now be purchased HERE, right where we are!!! Well, when we go to town anyway, so that's close enough to make me very, very happy. We immediately made plans to stop by the store to pick up a few cartons while they were 40% off. So that night we came home with French Vanilla (they were out of Homemade Vanilla), Banana Split (which, sad to say, we aren't real crazy about--but the kids will eat it), and Rocky Road which is sooooooooo good. I was really hoping for some White Chocolate Almond, but I suppose I'll have to give them some time to get more flavors out this far west. :-)
Friday I made chicken and noodles for lunch and it was so good. It's just such a good, old-fashioned, homey sort of thing to eat. It always tastes so good. Comfort food, maybe. :-) Then James made some tamales for dinner and they were really, really good. In fact, I'm tempted to go heat one up right now... :-)
The kids spent most of the day outside on Friday, running all over the yard and playing in the tent that I pitched for them out on the deck. It's really the first day that's been warm enough to enjoy some normal ourdoor play time. There are still patches of snow around the yard, but the rest of the yard isn't muddy anymore so the kids had a great time in the great outdoors. Aside from school and meals, they were out there ALL DAY LONG. It was a great day for all of us! I got a good deal of the ironing done that night, but fizzled out before finishing.
Yesterday was a lo-o-o-o-o-ong day. We all got up and left at about 8:30 to drive into town to go to the big flea market. It was fun and we picked up a few things. Socks for the boys (that are way too small--oops!) and some honey from a local bee keeper. The boys each bought a pocket knife (Sam promptly cut himself and Joe promptly misplaced his new purchase) and Katie bought a little clock/calendar/calculator/a-whole-bunch-of-other-stuff sort of thing.
We stopped by Hobby Lobby in hopes of finding some supplies for my Sunday School class, but struck out. That's okay because it forced us to go to Party City which is a FANTASTIC store and sooooo fun to look through. :-) And they had everything I needed and saved me a trip to a dreadful Wal-Mart somewhere. We stopped by Long John Silvers for lunch and paid too much money for shrimp that were not too good and made me feel rather sick the rest of the day. (~Bleagh~) Then we spent the rest of the day visiting two pet stores and three animal shelters!!! I'm having a hard time grasping this myself, but I guess we're kind of/sort of in search of a dog. That's really not completely accurate. We're more... in search of whether it's a possibility for us to have a dog again. I've been missing Hershey a whole lot again lately (it comes and goes in waves) and I'm guessing that James must be too (though he'd never admit it) because HE is the one who has brought up the "dog" thing and wanted to go check out all the shelters. Can you imagine?! I don't know what in the world has gotten into him--it's soooooooooooooo... not JAMES-ish! It's all very strange. He's the one who's really sort of encouraging the idea of getting another dog and I'm the one who's more hesitant. I desperately miss having a dog (there's a hole in a family with no dog, you know--just something missing) and I would LOVE to have another one... but for a family like ours it is no small decision. There's so much involved and I just want to make sure that it's okay with God (I know, sounds weird--but He knows our lifestyle and as much as I WANT a dog, I don't want anything in our lives that might be a hindrance to the ministry... in this case, traveling) and I guess I'm just wanting to make sure that if we get a dog it's the RIGHT dog at the RIGHT time under the RIGHT circumstances. ~sigh~ God knows best. It was fun--and heartbreaking--to go to the shelters. But I feel like we have a better grasp of what kind of dogs might be a possibility for us if we're able to get one sometime. I guess time will tell.
We stopped by the library on our way back home and picked up the books that had come in--all three kids had put things on hold last week. Came home and got the smelly kids lined up for their baths, finished getting Sunday School all together, then listened to Brother Forbes preach about the Holy Ghost (from this past Assembly) while FINALLY finishing up on the ironing.
Today was a GREAT Sunday. I still can't believe I didn't think to take any pictures of our Sunday School class. We talked about the 12 spies going into Canaan and how the 10 spies were scared of the giants, but the other 2 were looking at the GOOD things in the land and had faith that God would help them overcome the difficult things. Then we applied that to lots of "kid" situations--be scared to trust God, or step out in faith and do what He asks us to. We talked about what kind of "spy" each of us want to be, so each of the kids got some "spy sunglasses" (though they weren't very discreet--ha!) and put some fruit stickers on them to remind them to always look at the promises of God, not the reasons to doubt. We also made little parachute spy guys out of clothes pins, string, and squares of plastic bags. The coolest thing though was the giant grapevine! I had found the perfect stick (it had that sort of wispy, stringy bark--to look more like a vine) and we blew up a bunch of big purple balloons and attached them with green pipe cleaners to make a cluster of giant grapes. Of course, we clarified that the Bible said it was a giant cluster of grapes rather than a cluster of giant grapes. ;-) Either way, it was great fun and the boys carried it out to the sanctuary on their shoulders with their spy glasses on for the tell-what-you-learned-today bit.
Seems like I say this a lot, but we had such good messages today! Brother Chris is preaching through the 29 Teachings and today was the day for Divine Healing. It was soooooo good. Brother Chris is so good at encouraging and exhorting--the messages just make you WANT to do things God's way, or find His very best, or whatever. He talked today about the scriptural connection in the price Jesus paid for the salvation of our souls and the healing of our bodies. He shared about how Jesus not only bore our sins in His body on the cross, but also bore our sicknesses in His body--He had said that all of these things would be accomplished IN HIM, not through Him or by Him. Brother Chris passed around pictures of what leprosy looks like and talked about the symptoms of palsy and several of the different dreadful diseases Jesus healed and cleansed people from, all the while knowing that very soon He would be suffering and bearing those very things and paying the price in His body. God convicted me about failing to get prayer for the little things. I'm one of those people who generally doesn't request prayer (or even pray for myself) unless there's something seriously wrong or I'm in great pain--or about to give birth to a child. (Ha!) If I have a cold, I figure it will go away. If I have an ache or a pain, I figure it's not too bad--I can live with it. The message this morning made me realize as I never have before the awful price that Jesus paid FOR MY HEALING. How insulting must it be for Him to have gone through so much to purchase my healing only for me to say, "Oh, it's not that bad--I'll just live with this"!!!!! I've had some pain in right hand for probably a couple of months now--arthritis, I think. It's not major, though there have been a few times I've been unable to open a bottle top or some such thing because of the pain. I've thought about having it prayed for, but it just seems like such a little thing since the pain comes and goes and most of the time it's quite manageable. But I had mentioned it to Brother Chris (he noticed me wincing one time when he shook my hand) and before I had a chance to ask for prayer for it this morning, he came and prayed for me. I felt the Lord so strongly and had no pain whatsoever afterward. I testified to how the Lord has dealt with me--and touched me--at church this evening. After testifying, I noticed that there was still no pain in my hand... but I was suddenly feeling some in my wrist! Ha! Only two possible causes, right? (1) The devil fighting what God is doing in my heart and in my body, or (2) God allowing the pain to test and see what I will do now. Either way, the response is the same--get prayed for again! So I asked James and Brother Chris to pray for me again before we left tonight--and felt the Lord strongly again. He is soooooo good and I'm sooooooo blessed to be able to know Him and place my trust in Him. And I'm so thankful to have been made more aware today of what He has done so that I can be healed. I don't want His suffering to be in vain--I want to receive exactly what He has provided for me: salvation for my soul AND healing for my body! He paid too great a price for me to not avail myself of what His suffering has made available to me. Brother Chris brought out how silly it is to get saved and trust God with our ETERNAL SOULS... but then fail to trust Him with these temporal bodies! One other thing (I'll stop soon, really!)... Tonight he talked about trusting God rather than putting confidence in man and trusing in "the shadow of Egypt" and worldly counsel. He had Naomi come up front and fall backwards, knowing he would catch her. He's done this with her lots and she has full confidence in him because he's her Dad, she knows he loves her and would never let her fall, AND she's done this over and over again. He called Joe up and asked him to do the same thing. Joe tried, but turned to look while he was falling--just to make sure Brother Chris wouldn't drop him. Tried again, but his eyes bug out and his arms start to reach for safety... because he hasn't had the same relationship and experience with Brother Chris that Naomi has. That's how it is with God. When we are daily trusting Him for everything in our lives, falling into His arms over and over again, trusting--even when it's scary and we can't see what's going to happen--that He will never fail us, it gets easier over time because of the relationship and the experiences we've had. That's how I want to be when it comes to divine healing! I want my whole life to be one exercise after another of fully trusting God so that when something big or hairy or scary comes along, I'll already be so full of faith and confidence in God that I won't panic, but fall completely into His arms in perfect trust and dependency. ~sigh~ I feel so blessed, so encouraged and so... refocused! And my hand and wrist feel terrific. PRAISE GOD!!!
What a wonderful day. I've been trying to remember to really pray for our church services ahead of time lately and I've definitely seen the results. I don't know if the services are better because of my prayers or if I'm just better in tune and receptive to receive from the Lord there or a little of both, but I can tell a great difference and it makes me want to pray all the more. God is doing great things in His Church and I'm so excited and I want to be a part of all of it!
Our wonderful Sunday also included a trip to Pizza Hut this afternoon to use the kids' BookIt! coupons for the month. Each kid got a free Personal Pan (though they only had two of the little crusts, so the third pizza was that BIG Personal Pan they offer now) and we bought a large pizza... but they forgot to put the chicken on half as ordered and gave us a discount. So we ended up with a large pizza, three little ones, and a 2-liter bottle of Root Beer for $10. :-) Lots of left-overs, too.
Then we came home and I got into a sweatshirt and had a nice, long, cozy Sunday afternoon nap. ~Aaaaaahhh~ How could a Sunday be any better??? I'll tell you how. We had visitors at church tonight (the Coyazo's daughter Maria who lives here, and Maria's son Eli) and they were truly touched. We hope to see them continue coming and letting God work in their lives and family.
The other thing that made for a truly terrific Sunday was the fellowship. :-) We went to Taco Bell with the Clarkson clan after church tonight. ~sigh~ Does it get any better??? Had a great time, laughed a lot, and left feeling so happy and so very, very blessed.
Now I'm home, caught up on the laundry and ironing (except for what we all wore today, I guess) so that will ease the work load tomorrow. And now I'm caught up on my blog, too. :-)
Before I go, here are the only pictures I've taken this week.
I was trying to explain to the kids the other day how to stand on your head. I used to do it all the time--used to watch TV like that sometimes when I was a kid! I'm not sure my kids will ever catch on. They can't even balance in the tripod position to get into place! So they insist on "helping" each other. It's soooooooooooo hilarious!!!
Ah, yes. Katie finally got her birthday present from Grandma Vicki yesterday and she is soooooooo excited!!! Matching outfits for her and Esther, and a great new denim skirt as well. Unfortunately, you can't really SEE all of their matching outfits in this picture... But you can see the happy little girl, so that's what matters. :-)
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
It's Wednesday, David
Though I was just sure a few hours ago it was Tuesday. I hate losing a day like that.
I’m trying to be faithful to blog, but I don’t know what to blog about. Somehow, I can’t remember a single thing about yesterday. I’d be worried about old age getting to me or something had I not been just as forgetful (or worse?) when I was a teenager. So the only logical assumption is that I’m perfectly normal and healthy. :-)
Today has been a good day, although it didn’t exactly go as planned. In the end, I can see several accomplishments so that makes me happy. I hadn’t planned on doing laundry today. I didn’t get to it on Monday and had a fleeting thought that I’d just wait until next week and do both weeks’ worth together. Shouldn’t be a problem… we sometimes take two or even three week trips and get by okay. Well, yesterday James bought some underwear because he didn’t have any in his drawer. Joe heard about it this morning and said, “Yeah, I don’t have any shirts in my drawer.” Then Sam said, “This is my last pair of socks!” And they had holes in them. Ha! So I guess it was time for laundry day after all! And maybe a trip to the thrift store in the near future...
The kids worked hard on school today and…
Katie finished 3rd Grade!!!!!
Again. :-) She had actually completed most of a 4th Grade curriculum, but when we started into S.o.S. we put her back into 3rd as a sort of a review to make sure she was ready to move on. She had several tests to take today and did great, for the most part. Most of the things she screws up on are just stupid mistakes borne from rushing through or not reading the directions carefully. But she finally got everything taken care of that she needed to and is forever finished with 3rd Grade! Never to return again, this time. :-) I printed out her report card (24 pages of it—whoa!) and she had 99% or 98% as her overall score in each subject. She is thrilled and feels the satisfaction of having accomplished something big. She’s not so thrilled about our upcoming school plans for her…
We’ve decided to wait and start Joe into 3rd Grade (though he’s doing 4th Grade work right now… it’s so confusing around here!) and Katie into 4th after Assembly time next year. It just feels like it will work best that way instead of starting into a new “year” for them right now. So between now and then we’re going to be concentrating on lots and lots of math and reading/writing assignments. Specifically: book reports. Our kids read soooooooooo much (I’ve often wondered if I should take a picture of the stack of books each week before we return them to the library—as part of our homeschool records!) and I think it will be good for them to learn to write reports. Besides, I had to do that in school and I hated it, so it’s only right that they should endure the same misery. Ha! As for math, we’re going to give them lots of drills each day. Some addition and subtraction to just keep them fresh, but mostly multiplication—until they’ve got their tables down pat and don’t have to struggle to think of what 8x7 is. (Like their mother still does sometimes!) Joe’s been doing some pretty good long division, but it would be sooooo much easier if he could quickly recall ALL of the multiplication facts instead of struggling with them. So it’s going to be books, reports, and loads of math around here for the next few months.
And speaking of math… Sam’s been doing GREAT in his 1st Grade book and seems to thoroughly enjoy it. Although he’s still in the very beginning stages of learning to read, he does well—and lots of the exercises are helping him. But yesterday he got into some regular math work (3+4 and stuff like that) and he LOVED it. Begged for more. So today James printed out several extra math pages for him and he sat down and worked through all of them—and did fantastic. I think he only missed one or two problems total--and there were a bunch. And he finally feels SMART, which is the most important thing. :-) It’s been tough on him knowing that Katie and Joe were both reading at age 4 and he’s 6 and still isn’t “really” reading. So having the numbers click for him has got him sooooo excited. “Mom, my brain was made for numbers!” he told me this afternoon. :-) I’m so glad he’s feeling satisfaction like that!
Back to the book reports… I hauled a bin in from the shed today labeled “Bec’s Memories.” I knew I had some of my old school work in there and I wanted to show the kids how to do book reports since they've never actually seen one. Well, that turned into an all afternoon venture! Not because I couldn’t find the reports, but because there was so much cool stuff in there I hadn’t seen in YEARS. It was sooooooo fun sorting through all of it. School work and class pictures and report cards from elementary school, mementos from Camps (one with a picture of me “in” a mirror from my very first PeeWee Camp where I got saved), a chunk of the airplane I crashed in (a small chunk—ha!), old prayer lists, letters from friends (I think there were 88 of them from you, Emilee! I didn’t actually count… they’re all numbered)… Oh, I can’t remember what all. My first pair of glasses! HA! Oh, that was hilarious!!! They are HUGE!!!!! I had no idea they were that big! The lenses are about the size of small coasters! Ha! The kids thought that was great. Old diaries. That was pretty embarrassing! I didn’t have time to actually READ all the letters or diaries (it would take weeks!), but I skimmed enough to laugh a lot. It was just so fun to see all of that stuff again. And I did find 3 or 4 book reports to show the kids how it’s done. And remind myself of the same. ;-)
I was having so much fun rooting through my history that I totally lost track of the time and suddenly it was after 5:00. I had boiled three chickens and had plans to cook a meal with some of the meat tonight. It was already dinner time so I figured I’d just make some noodles and throw in the pot with the broth and some of the chicken meat and a few seasonings—voila—chicken noodle soup. You can’t make noodles without eggs and I didn’t happen to have any of those. (A terrible thing to run out of!) Oops. Okay, poppy seed chicken casserole—an old favorite around here. Nope, no minute rice. Um… chicken cornbread casserole? Nope. Don’t have any bell peppers either. It was already after 6:00 and James was hungry and about to get cranky (ha!) and I was running out of options. He finally said, “Everybody in the car—we’re going out for Chinese!” So although I had great plans for a nice home cooked dinner, we ended up eating sesame chicken and rice. Then we ran to the grocery store to buy eggs and bell peppers. :-)
And that’s pretty much our day. Seems like there were a few other things… Oh, I printed out the sheet music to Yesterday for Joe. He has no interest in that song, but would love to learn how to play Tim Hawkins’ Chick-Fil-A version. In fact he was looking at the chords and reading some of the lyrics and finally said, “Hey! …That’s not how it goes!!!” Ha! I had to explain that this was the real song; the Chick-Fil-A version was a spoof. I transposed it so he could play it in a key he could sing it in. He said it didn’t matter—he didn’t need to sing it, just play it. I told him if he didn’t sing it folks would just think he’s playing Yesterday… you know, the song about being all sad ‘cause you lost your girl… He decided he’d better stick to C or D where he can sing the Chick-Fil-A lyrics to avoid any confusion! Ha!
I’m trying to be faithful to blog, but I don’t know what to blog about. Somehow, I can’t remember a single thing about yesterday. I’d be worried about old age getting to me or something had I not been just as forgetful (or worse?) when I was a teenager. So the only logical assumption is that I’m perfectly normal and healthy. :-)
Today has been a good day, although it didn’t exactly go as planned. In the end, I can see several accomplishments so that makes me happy. I hadn’t planned on doing laundry today. I didn’t get to it on Monday and had a fleeting thought that I’d just wait until next week and do both weeks’ worth together. Shouldn’t be a problem… we sometimes take two or even three week trips and get by okay. Well, yesterday James bought some underwear because he didn’t have any in his drawer. Joe heard about it this morning and said, “Yeah, I don’t have any shirts in my drawer.” Then Sam said, “This is my last pair of socks!” And they had holes in them. Ha! So I guess it was time for laundry day after all! And maybe a trip to the thrift store in the near future...
The kids worked hard on school today and…
Katie finished 3rd Grade!!!!!
Again. :-) She had actually completed most of a 4th Grade curriculum, but when we started into S.o.S. we put her back into 3rd as a sort of a review to make sure she was ready to move on. She had several tests to take today and did great, for the most part. Most of the things she screws up on are just stupid mistakes borne from rushing through or not reading the directions carefully. But she finally got everything taken care of that she needed to and is forever finished with 3rd Grade! Never to return again, this time. :-) I printed out her report card (24 pages of it—whoa!) and she had 99% or 98% as her overall score in each subject. She is thrilled and feels the satisfaction of having accomplished something big. She’s not so thrilled about our upcoming school plans for her…
We’ve decided to wait and start Joe into 3rd Grade (though he’s doing 4th Grade work right now… it’s so confusing around here!) and Katie into 4th after Assembly time next year. It just feels like it will work best that way instead of starting into a new “year” for them right now. So between now and then we’re going to be concentrating on lots and lots of math and reading/writing assignments. Specifically: book reports. Our kids read soooooooooo much (I’ve often wondered if I should take a picture of the stack of books each week before we return them to the library—as part of our homeschool records!) and I think it will be good for them to learn to write reports. Besides, I had to do that in school and I hated it, so it’s only right that they should endure the same misery. Ha! As for math, we’re going to give them lots of drills each day. Some addition and subtraction to just keep them fresh, but mostly multiplication—until they’ve got their tables down pat and don’t have to struggle to think of what 8x7 is. (Like their mother still does sometimes!) Joe’s been doing some pretty good long division, but it would be sooooo much easier if he could quickly recall ALL of the multiplication facts instead of struggling with them. So it’s going to be books, reports, and loads of math around here for the next few months.
And speaking of math… Sam’s been doing GREAT in his 1st Grade book and seems to thoroughly enjoy it. Although he’s still in the very beginning stages of learning to read, he does well—and lots of the exercises are helping him. But yesterday he got into some regular math work (3+4 and stuff like that) and he LOVED it. Begged for more. So today James printed out several extra math pages for him and he sat down and worked through all of them—and did fantastic. I think he only missed one or two problems total--and there were a bunch. And he finally feels SMART, which is the most important thing. :-) It’s been tough on him knowing that Katie and Joe were both reading at age 4 and he’s 6 and still isn’t “really” reading. So having the numbers click for him has got him sooooo excited. “Mom, my brain was made for numbers!” he told me this afternoon. :-) I’m so glad he’s feeling satisfaction like that!
Back to the book reports… I hauled a bin in from the shed today labeled “Bec’s Memories.” I knew I had some of my old school work in there and I wanted to show the kids how to do book reports since they've never actually seen one. Well, that turned into an all afternoon venture! Not because I couldn’t find the reports, but because there was so much cool stuff in there I hadn’t seen in YEARS. It was sooooooo fun sorting through all of it. School work and class pictures and report cards from elementary school, mementos from Camps (one with a picture of me “in” a mirror from my very first PeeWee Camp where I got saved), a chunk of the airplane I crashed in (a small chunk—ha!), old prayer lists, letters from friends (I think there were 88 of them from you, Emilee! I didn’t actually count… they’re all numbered)… Oh, I can’t remember what all. My first pair of glasses! HA! Oh, that was hilarious!!! They are HUGE!!!!! I had no idea they were that big! The lenses are about the size of small coasters! Ha! The kids thought that was great. Old diaries. That was pretty embarrassing! I didn’t have time to actually READ all the letters or diaries (it would take weeks!), but I skimmed enough to laugh a lot. It was just so fun to see all of that stuff again. And I did find 3 or 4 book reports to show the kids how it’s done. And remind myself of the same. ;-)
I was having so much fun rooting through my history that I totally lost track of the time and suddenly it was after 5:00. I had boiled three chickens and had plans to cook a meal with some of the meat tonight. It was already dinner time so I figured I’d just make some noodles and throw in the pot with the broth and some of the chicken meat and a few seasonings—voila—chicken noodle soup. You can’t make noodles without eggs and I didn’t happen to have any of those. (A terrible thing to run out of!) Oops. Okay, poppy seed chicken casserole—an old favorite around here. Nope, no minute rice. Um… chicken cornbread casserole? Nope. Don’t have any bell peppers either. It was already after 6:00 and James was hungry and about to get cranky (ha!) and I was running out of options. He finally said, “Everybody in the car—we’re going out for Chinese!” So although I had great plans for a nice home cooked dinner, we ended up eating sesame chicken and rice. Then we ran to the grocery store to buy eggs and bell peppers. :-)
And that’s pretty much our day. Seems like there were a few other things… Oh, I printed out the sheet music to Yesterday for Joe. He has no interest in that song, but would love to learn how to play Tim Hawkins’ Chick-Fil-A version. In fact he was looking at the chords and reading some of the lyrics and finally said, “Hey! …That’s not how it goes!!!” Ha! I had to explain that this was the real song; the Chick-Fil-A version was a spoof. I transposed it so he could play it in a key he could sing it in. He said it didn’t matter—he didn’t need to sing it, just play it. I told him if he didn’t sing it folks would just think he’s playing Yesterday… you know, the song about being all sad ‘cause you lost your girl… He decided he’d better stick to C or D where he can sing the Chick-Fil-A lyrics to avoid any confusion! Ha!
Monday, March 1, 2010
New Mexico & West Texas District Convention
I’m so thankful to have been able to go to a Convention!!! ~sigh~ It was wonderful.
We loaded up on Friday and headed to Alamogordo, New Mexico, stopping at Roy’s Soda Fountain in Carrizozo along the way. Of course. :-) We checked in to the Motel 6 and there was a guy sitting outside of our room drinking beer. It just wouldn’t be a trip to Convention without somebody drinking beer outside of our motel room. For real! It’s usually a whole group of people. I don’t know if it’s an Alamogordo thing or a Motel 6 thing or just a Motel 6-in-Alamogordo thing, but it’s always the case. We’ve never had any problems because of it. In fact, they’re usually very friendly and never get rowdy—and we’ve often been able to talk to them and invite them to Convention. Still, it strikes me as strange that it happens every time we’re there!
Convention Friday night was great. Brother Tanny and Brother Banuelos both preached. The kids were thrilled, of course. They love to hear Brother Tanny preach. He didn’t disappoint them, preaching about the three little pigs. Again. :-) This time he was talking about how we build and making sure we have a firm foundation. Brother Banuelos preached about the body of Christ. He talked about the different functions of cells, in particular, the fat cells in a body. He said it is their job to receive, store, and then distribute later on when the body needs those nutrients. If a cell fails to distribute it will either cause the body to grow fat and unhealthy, or it will develop into a cancerous cell that will spread disease throughout the body. There were some very interesting analogies in that. :-)
After service we fellowshipped enjoyed some refreshments with everybody, but were still hungry so went through the drive-through at Taco Bell on our way back to the room. Jeremiah came to see us (and brought his parents) and we had a good time visiting in our room for… oh, quite a while! I intentionally didn’t look at a clock to see what time they left because I thought it might make me more tired the next day if I knew. ;-)
Sunday morning we had messages by Brother Soto and Brother Sam preached about being in the sheepfold and about Christ, the Head of the body. Brother Soto had cared for some sheep (and accidentally killed several of them, unfortunately!) in years past and had lots of good insights to share. He said that the sheep were very protective over their lambs and if he was carrying one of them, trying to help them, the sheep would sometimes “attack” him and try to knock him over so he would release their babies. Don’t you know some parents like that?! When God begins to take things into His hands and work in their children’s lives they freak out and want to “free” their kids from what God is doing. I don’t want to be like that—I want to TRUST the Shepherd with my children, knowing that He will do what is BEST for them even if I don’t understand at the time. That really wasn’t the point of Brother Soto’s message, but it struck me strongly and it’s what I remember most! Ha! Brother Sam talked about Jesus, as our Head, suffering with us. When He spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus, He didn’t ask why he was persecuting the Church, but “Why persecutes thou ME?” He feels and hurts with us and for us, because we live, and move and have our being IN HIM. Soooooo many good thoughts!
As always, the Alamogordo folks had a nice, big meal planned for everybody and we all stayed at the church for lunch and fellowship. I love that part. :-)
I couldn't decide which of these to post, so I'm adding both. Jeremiah and Ruth met each other at Convention--he's twice as old as she is. Ha!
Sunday afternoon Brother Chris preached one of the very best messages I’ve ever heard on Church government and the reasons for being thankful for it and staying under it—and the dangers of fighting against it. I love the protection available in God’s Church. And I’m fearful of ever pulling back and struggling to accept the direction of those over me in the Lord. They are watching for my soul. What a blessing!
Then James preached on the Espoused Bride. Right down his alley! Ha! He preached about being prepared for the wedding and the 7 steps involved in a Jewish wedding celebration. It was very interesting and good. He also felt the need to clear up a few confusing ideas people have about Christ being the head of the Body… but it would be too much to try to explain here! ;-)
We had a wonderful Convention with good Church of God preaching, good singing and worship, and good food and fellowship—naturally, we were with our Spanish folks! :-) After the Convention was dismissed, Sister Jesusita’s husband who was there came to James and asked prayer for a heart condition. Several of the guys gathered around and began praying and the Lord began to move. After a few minutes he began wiping his eyes and said, “I want to get saved!” Praise the Lord!!! One of the Olivarez’s sons (not Moises, but the one that looks just like him) came and said he wanted to be saved, too. How exciting! Sister Pauline wanted prayer for herself, but felt led to request prayer for her daughter Gloria instead. Sister Gloria’s knees have caused her so much pain and she has been hobbling along with a cane for some time now. As the ministers prayed for her the Holy Ghost fell on her AND on Sister Pauline and they were both healed and dropped their canes! Ha! Love it! Sister Gloria marched all over that building, high-stepping in and praising the Lord and claiming the victory! Sister Jesusita’s grandson Michael came and got saved, too, and several others were prayed for for various needs, spiritual and physical. Brother Soto spent a good while pouring his heart into seeking for the Holy Ghost. He wasn’t baptized that night, but he’s on the right track. Brother Adrian from Hatch was sanctified… Oh, I can’t remember what all happened—and all of this AFTER the end of the Convention! There were three saved and two sanctified and numerous healings. God is just sooooooo good. Here are a few pics...
There was no evening session planned, but by the time all of that ended and we left the church it was after 8:00 and we were all famished. We ended up at Wendy’s with the Clarksons and the Kaufmans and enjoyed one more good visit before hittin’ the road. It was a long night, but so worth it. We got home sometime between 1:00 and 1:30 in the morning. Made for a short night of sleep, but I actually felt quite rested and wasn’t tired at all in service. Another good one here, too. James taught the Sunday School lesson on the Church flag and did a GREAT job. When it’s time to pull out Church history and statements and Assembly Minutes, he’s your guy. :-) He had so many good “extras” to add to the lesson and it was very, very good. We were all recalling with what POWER the Holy Ghost confirmed our current flag in the General Assembly a few years ago. We may have to get the video out and watch it again one of these days. Brother Chris preached a good message on restitution and shared lots of scriptures and personal testimonies. It was excellent and one of our regular attendees (not yet a member, but we’re hopeful!) testified that night to God moving on his heart about asking forgiveness of a man for having hard feelings toward him. The other guy had done him wrong and still owes him money, but he feels led to “make restitution” and ask forgiveness for any ill feelings because of the other guy’s actions. I love it when God moves on our hearts like that!
Sunday afternoon was spent cleaning the house up, changing sheets, scrubbing bathrooms, etc. When I was finally so tired I felt like I might get sick (!), I laid down and took a short nap. It actually ended up being just right and I felt great in the evening service, as well. We’ve got one lesson to go in the Body of Christ book now.
We came home and ate a late dinner, then put the kids to bed and just hung out until our company arrived. Josh Davis and his son Tanner got here sometime after 10:00, on their way to Andrews, Texas. We visited with them until 12:30 or so and had a great time. Got up this morning and, being the poor breakfast cook that I am, put Brother Josh to work in the kitchen. :-) I made bacon and eggs and started the hashbrowns while Brother Josh helped Katie with biscuits and “slugs” (don’t ask) and finished up on the hashbrowns. My kids were thrilled to have a REAL breakfast. They love it when company comes. Ha!
Brother Josh and Tanner stuck around until nearly noon before heading out. A short visit, but we really enjoyed having them and look forward to them passing through again on their way back north. The kids can't wait. Katie thought Brother Josh was hilarious and Joe loved it that he took the time to play the guitar with him.
The agenda for the rest of the day was: NAP! Ha! It’s been a very long weekend and we’ve been very short on sleep for several days, so I made NAP a priority and thoroughly enjoyed it this afternoon. The kids finished up on their school a little while ago and now Sam has gone somewhere with James, but I have no clue where. I’m sure I was told, but I can’t remember. I do remember hearing the part about them bringing dinner home with them when they come. :-)
We loaded up on Friday and headed to Alamogordo, New Mexico, stopping at Roy’s Soda Fountain in Carrizozo along the way. Of course. :-) We checked in to the Motel 6 and there was a guy sitting outside of our room drinking beer. It just wouldn’t be a trip to Convention without somebody drinking beer outside of our motel room. For real! It’s usually a whole group of people. I don’t know if it’s an Alamogordo thing or a Motel 6 thing or just a Motel 6-in-Alamogordo thing, but it’s always the case. We’ve never had any problems because of it. In fact, they’re usually very friendly and never get rowdy—and we’ve often been able to talk to them and invite them to Convention. Still, it strikes me as strange that it happens every time we’re there!
Convention Friday night was great. Brother Tanny and Brother Banuelos both preached. The kids were thrilled, of course. They love to hear Brother Tanny preach. He didn’t disappoint them, preaching about the three little pigs. Again. :-) This time he was talking about how we build and making sure we have a firm foundation. Brother Banuelos preached about the body of Christ. He talked about the different functions of cells, in particular, the fat cells in a body. He said it is their job to receive, store, and then distribute later on when the body needs those nutrients. If a cell fails to distribute it will either cause the body to grow fat and unhealthy, or it will develop into a cancerous cell that will spread disease throughout the body. There were some very interesting analogies in that. :-)
After service we fellowshipped enjoyed some refreshments with everybody, but were still hungry so went through the drive-through at Taco Bell on our way back to the room. Jeremiah came to see us (and brought his parents) and we had a good time visiting in our room for… oh, quite a while! I intentionally didn’t look at a clock to see what time they left because I thought it might make me more tired the next day if I knew. ;-)
Sunday morning we had messages by Brother Soto and Brother Sam preached about being in the sheepfold and about Christ, the Head of the body. Brother Soto had cared for some sheep (and accidentally killed several of them, unfortunately!) in years past and had lots of good insights to share. He said that the sheep were very protective over their lambs and if he was carrying one of them, trying to help them, the sheep would sometimes “attack” him and try to knock him over so he would release their babies. Don’t you know some parents like that?! When God begins to take things into His hands and work in their children’s lives they freak out and want to “free” their kids from what God is doing. I don’t want to be like that—I want to TRUST the Shepherd with my children, knowing that He will do what is BEST for them even if I don’t understand at the time. That really wasn’t the point of Brother Soto’s message, but it struck me strongly and it’s what I remember most! Ha! Brother Sam talked about Jesus, as our Head, suffering with us. When He spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus, He didn’t ask why he was persecuting the Church, but “Why persecutes thou ME?” He feels and hurts with us and for us, because we live, and move and have our being IN HIM. Soooooo many good thoughts!
As always, the Alamogordo folks had a nice, big meal planned for everybody and we all stayed at the church for lunch and fellowship. I love that part. :-)
I couldn't decide which of these to post, so I'm adding both. Jeremiah and Ruth met each other at Convention--he's twice as old as she is. Ha!
Sunday afternoon Brother Chris preached one of the very best messages I’ve ever heard on Church government and the reasons for being thankful for it and staying under it—and the dangers of fighting against it. I love the protection available in God’s Church. And I’m fearful of ever pulling back and struggling to accept the direction of those over me in the Lord. They are watching for my soul. What a blessing!
Then James preached on the Espoused Bride. Right down his alley! Ha! He preached about being prepared for the wedding and the 7 steps involved in a Jewish wedding celebration. It was very interesting and good. He also felt the need to clear up a few confusing ideas people have about Christ being the head of the Body… but it would be too much to try to explain here! ;-)
We had a wonderful Convention with good Church of God preaching, good singing and worship, and good food and fellowship—naturally, we were with our Spanish folks! :-) After the Convention was dismissed, Sister Jesusita’s husband who was there came to James and asked prayer for a heart condition. Several of the guys gathered around and began praying and the Lord began to move. After a few minutes he began wiping his eyes and said, “I want to get saved!” Praise the Lord!!! One of the Olivarez’s sons (not Moises, but the one that looks just like him) came and said he wanted to be saved, too. How exciting! Sister Pauline wanted prayer for herself, but felt led to request prayer for her daughter Gloria instead. Sister Gloria’s knees have caused her so much pain and she has been hobbling along with a cane for some time now. As the ministers prayed for her the Holy Ghost fell on her AND on Sister Pauline and they were both healed and dropped their canes! Ha! Love it! Sister Gloria marched all over that building, high-stepping in and praising the Lord and claiming the victory! Sister Jesusita’s grandson Michael came and got saved, too, and several others were prayed for for various needs, spiritual and physical. Brother Soto spent a good while pouring his heart into seeking for the Holy Ghost. He wasn’t baptized that night, but he’s on the right track. Brother Adrian from Hatch was sanctified… Oh, I can’t remember what all happened—and all of this AFTER the end of the Convention! There were three saved and two sanctified and numerous healings. God is just sooooooo good. Here are a few pics...
There was no evening session planned, but by the time all of that ended and we left the church it was after 8:00 and we were all famished. We ended up at Wendy’s with the Clarksons and the Kaufmans and enjoyed one more good visit before hittin’ the road. It was a long night, but so worth it. We got home sometime between 1:00 and 1:30 in the morning. Made for a short night of sleep, but I actually felt quite rested and wasn’t tired at all in service. Another good one here, too. James taught the Sunday School lesson on the Church flag and did a GREAT job. When it’s time to pull out Church history and statements and Assembly Minutes, he’s your guy. :-) He had so many good “extras” to add to the lesson and it was very, very good. We were all recalling with what POWER the Holy Ghost confirmed our current flag in the General Assembly a few years ago. We may have to get the video out and watch it again one of these days. Brother Chris preached a good message on restitution and shared lots of scriptures and personal testimonies. It was excellent and one of our regular attendees (not yet a member, but we’re hopeful!) testified that night to God moving on his heart about asking forgiveness of a man for having hard feelings toward him. The other guy had done him wrong and still owes him money, but he feels led to “make restitution” and ask forgiveness for any ill feelings because of the other guy’s actions. I love it when God moves on our hearts like that!
Sunday afternoon was spent cleaning the house up, changing sheets, scrubbing bathrooms, etc. When I was finally so tired I felt like I might get sick (!), I laid down and took a short nap. It actually ended up being just right and I felt great in the evening service, as well. We’ve got one lesson to go in the Body of Christ book now.
We came home and ate a late dinner, then put the kids to bed and just hung out until our company arrived. Josh Davis and his son Tanner got here sometime after 10:00, on their way to Andrews, Texas. We visited with them until 12:30 or so and had a great time. Got up this morning and, being the poor breakfast cook that I am, put Brother Josh to work in the kitchen. :-) I made bacon and eggs and started the hashbrowns while Brother Josh helped Katie with biscuits and “slugs” (don’t ask) and finished up on the hashbrowns. My kids were thrilled to have a REAL breakfast. They love it when company comes. Ha!
Brother Josh and Tanner stuck around until nearly noon before heading out. A short visit, but we really enjoyed having them and look forward to them passing through again on their way back north. The kids can't wait. Katie thought Brother Josh was hilarious and Joe loved it that he took the time to play the guitar with him.
The agenda for the rest of the day was: NAP! Ha! It’s been a very long weekend and we’ve been very short on sleep for several days, so I made NAP a priority and thoroughly enjoyed it this afternoon. The kids finished up on their school a little while ago and now Sam has gone somewhere with James, but I have no clue where. I’m sure I was told, but I can’t remember. I do remember hearing the part about them bringing dinner home with them when they come. :-)
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