Sunday, October 9, 2016

Week of October 3 - 9, 2016

Highlights:

Spiritual
I started my Wednesday at an early session at the Phoenix Temple. Since it's stake temple week and cub scouts were cancelled, I also attended the last session of the day with Dad on Wednesday. Both were lovely sessions.

I was able to use notes from Fast and Testimony Meeting as well as from General Conference to compose a wonderful letter to my sister at the prison. I am so thankful for the inspiration that comes as I say a prayer before I write. I know without a doubt how very important those sisters are to the Lord and he is mindful of each and every one.

Our Saturday Night stake Conference Meeting was wonderful, and I learned so much as we were taught by our leaders. On Sunday, they took the top part of Glendale North Stake and created the Thunderbird Park stake with President David Anderson, Dave Adams as first counselor, and Brett Edwards (our bishop and home teacher) as second counselor.

I am in Mosiah 28 in the Book of Mormon.

I have indexed 32832 records so far this year. 

Family

The Wilkins Family
 On Tuesday, the Wilkins family and the Activity Day girls from church painted pumpkins
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Looks like such a fun time!!

On Friday, Grace and Josh participated in Volleyball at school and got to go into the portable building.

Adam had a volleyball game on Saturday and had a good time!

Sunday was primary program and Grace gave a talk that was wonderful and she was stopped by many people in the hall to attest to that fact. Josh had two lines that he did very well. The singing was wonderful too, she said, and they enjoyed a lovely booklet from their Primary President and had spiritual movies and popcorn afterwards. 

The Ethan Rice Family
We got to talk to Ethan and family during the week. Kaylee facetimed with us on Thursday night, and we talked to them on the phone as they drove past Hurricane Matthew toward DisneyWorld!!

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The Doran Rice Family
Amber went with friends to a concert on Tuesday after work and Doran had a great time with the kids! He went fishing with Morgan and friends late Friday night, and we enjoyed sharing stake conference with them on Sunday morning. Kooper and I had a great time walking around the ball field outside, blowing dandelions, picking up rocks and leaves, and blowing feathers.
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 Kelsie is quite the Napoleon Dynamite fan!

Doran has been practicing for Halloween

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Morgan
Busy week at Fear Farm for Morgan.

Kayty
Kayty worked lots of overtime this week. She worked long days and tried to get off early to do things with a friend/friends, but people kept cancelling. She was pretty angry! She did have a great work week and found out on Sunday that her singles ward will split next Sunday.

Total Saves: 2 minor/major on Monday and Tuesday,

The Nathan Rice Family
Nathan and Jessica and Miss Annalee had a fine week. The weather is getting cooler and they are enjoying a true Fall. Nathan studied and worked so hard and ended up scoring amazing scores on two Tests: 95 and 100 percent. That was a super effort. He works on Saturday in the shop and stays very very busy.We found out on Sunday that they get to come to Thanksgiving here! Hooray!!!

Work
Dad was full of meetings on Monday. All were back from furloughs, but, being that he has no supervisors and the higher ups are still trying to figure out what to do after the recent firings, they are n't meeting till Friday, so Dad's co employees just met to see who is covering what. Of course, Dad got ALL of one person's suppliers. Nice...not! Tuesday was his health evaluation early in the morning and then straight out to South Chandler for a day full of meetings. This furlough has been very difficult to recover from, especially when they fired people the week before and for dad, it was his leadership. He still has no way to find out what days he had scheduled to use up vacation time. He has to plan for the next furlough, and since I can't travel now, there is an abundance of unused vacation time that will be lost. It is sad because so many very valuable and skilled people are now quitting because they are just plain tired of this. Dad has so many suppliers, and so many meetings that he cannot possibly meet with the suppliers. His week ended, after attending 46 meetings and turning down many more that he had no time to attend, with poor corporate earnings causing the company stock and our savings to plummet nearly ten dollars per share, plus the "kindly" announcement that the company no longer will contribute to our dental care coverage next year. We received a letter with all sorts of bars and graphs, but no real dollars as yet. So, we got no raise, we have lost 3 weeks of pay, will will lose an additional week of pay before the end of the year, no raises for next year, layoff again in January, and even less money when our weekly $50 contribution to our dental insurance goes who knows where. Honeywell is not a good place to work for at all, and people are tired, overloaded and overworked, and very angry.

I spent Monday getting ebay sales ready to mail and composing my mail to the sister at the prison. I also picked limes, helped with the garden, did tons of laundry, helped Kayty separate her cleaned out possessions: Keep, Sell, Toss. I also did my typical dusting, vacuuming, cleaning, scrubbing sinks and stoves, cooking breakfast lunch and dinner, figure out the monthly dinner calendar, going over Microsoft Word lessons, planting carrots for dad, scrubbing tubs and toilets, mopping floors, increasing first aid and years' supply items, and I completed on Microsoft Word training course and kept forging through the Office course.

Dad's Garden
Snow peas are doing well. Dad had to replant turnips and beets, and I replanted his carrot seeds. He also planted spinach and 16 of the 18 collard, cilantro, and Chinese cabbage transplants. Things seem to be doing very well and are enduring our warmer temperatures. He now has 40 garlics emerging and is ready to put poles in the ground to support the snow peas soon.

Dad's Truck
No truck work this week. He did get the starter replaced on his jeep on Friday. We were blessed that when the car wouldn't start on the Home Depot parking lot on Thursday night, we prayed and got one more start to get us home.

Other highlights
I had a great dental checkup this week. I made sure I flossed every single night, and it paid off. Not a single cavity or problem!

Showing my Gratitude: While listening to General Conference, I thought about gratitude and joy, and how intertwined they are. I find that the people that seem to have the greatest challenges seem to tap into the greatest joy and that helps them do amazing things. So, I am recognizing things I am very thankful for every week on the blog.

First, I am so thankful for every single time Heavenly Father tells me something is wrong when I check Kayty at night. The Monday save didn't involve seizures, but she was low and I had to get some soda down her along with the glucose tablets. The Lord always lets me know when things aren't right. I am so thankful! The same thing with Tuesday. When I checked her glucose, it was 230, high, but something wasn't right. I just kept returning to her room. I then checked in another finger and she was low. (Sugar on your finger affects your glucose reading). I am so very grateful for that still small voice whispering.

And I have to share a miracle in progress. All this week, I had wanted to go to Las Vegas to see Grace and Josh in their primary program. We tried to find out what was wrong with my car transmission for a couple of weeks, and the fix they suggested is going to take quite a bit of work. Kayty couldn't go up like we thought she might. I was so sad and even cried a bit. We had a stake Conference adult meeting on Saturday night. We had not been told who the general authorities would  be in attendance ahead of time. As I sat, the Elder Frost shared that he had been chosen by Elder Russell M. Nelson to come to make changes in our stake, as was Elder Pearson from the Quorum of the Seventy. The talks they  shared were so uplifting and as Elder Pearson spoke, he shared that he was President of the Washington, Tacoma Mission. It was at that very moment that I realized that HE was Doran's mission President, and that he had been the one who had talked to me on the phone so many years ago, and who had taken Doran to the airport to fly home. This was absolutely no coincidence that Elder Russell M. Nelson was inspired to sent these brethren to our stake. Dad went and spoke with Elder Pearson right after the meeting was over. He remembered Doran and expressed such love for him. He wanted us to tell him of that love, and to see if he would come to Stake Conference the next day. We called Doran right away, and he wanted to come. They arrived early Sunday, and I noticed from inside the chapel as the priesthood leadership began walking into the room toward the podium, and Elder Pearson leave the rest and walk to the foyer. Dad was in the hallway and saw them in a joyous embrace. It was as if the Lord knew what Doran needed in his life and sent this special servant here to make sure Doran knew how important he was. To me, I was just an instrument to get Doran where He wanted Doran to be. I prayed that we would be guided in all our actions as we participated in this miracle. I walked with Kooper outside during the talks (the building was absolutely packed full and the wards in our building were not even there) so Doran could have one more opportunity to hear the words of the Lords' servant.

What did I learn from this? Number one is that the Lord know what He is doing. Sometimes, the things that are the saddest and hardest for us (like my sadness for the Primary Program) are the sacrifices we make so that the Lord can touch our lives. I don't know if Dad would have known on his own in that talk that this brother was so important in Doran's life. I knew. and Two, we have a Heavenly Father who knows each of us personally, and individually. He knows us by name. He knows our hearts. He knows of our challenges, our trials, our sadnesses, and He is always there for us. Always. No matter what. As I said, I know that we were part of an ongoing process and that the Lord is mindful and has a plan in store so we each can return to Him.

Not so highlights
Just Dad's work challenges. We are watching and praying.

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