Week of April 11 - 17, 2021

Highlights:

Spiritual

We enjoyed a wonderful Virtual Stake Conference on Sunday morning. 

Temples remain closed for work for the dead. 

I continue my morning foundation of General Conference talk, Book of Mormon chapter, Prayer and Come Follow Me study. 

I have indexed 5585 records and reviewed 42326 records so far this year. 

Family

The Wilkins Family

We were so blessed to be able to watch Adam and Josh speak in Sacrament Meeting via a link on the internet. That is the best part of Covid! 

Sam is Kid of the Week this week. Kid of the week gets to check the mail, make the special extra decisions, gets to choose the pizza sauce for the weekly pizzas, gets a special date with Mom and Dad, and doesn't get any meal scheduled for the week they don't like. 

They are working on a flower bed and it looks amazing! Lots of soil, installing a paver border and then lots of beautiful flowers! They have done so much work in the yard and it is looking so beautiful! Mike is doing well (I actually saw him on the Marco Polo!) and he has a job interview this week. Everyone is back in school now, at least part-time. Adam and Josh spent time taking care of a friend's seven tortoises, ferral cats, and water their plants. Josh will be getting his leg braces and insoles rechecked this week. When he wears them, they give him great pain relief. Grace had a good week and is nearly done with her braces. She also has CRT tests coming up. Josh had soccer practices and his first game this week. Sam is really reading well. He read a book to me and I so enjoyed it. He is also learning to make his own breakfast. Sam has been assigned a country report for school this month and he plans to report on England. muffin 

The Ethan Rice Family

On the weekend, this family went and had fun picking strawberries. 

Ethan traveled again this week. Wade also had his first tball game too.

Ethan was away in Pennsylvania all week but was able to see Wadeys game on Friday evening and Saturday morning. 

We spoke with them via FaceTime on Friday night. They all look tired but well. Saturday, they went fishing with their friends, the Adairs. 

The Doran Rice Family

I had no idea these last weeks had been so trying for this family! (Dad thought I heard the speaker phone call) The business Amber worked for decided to sell and the new company let many people go. She learned the other day that they would be keeping her on and they are thankful. Everyone else seems well.

Morgan

No news from Morgan this week. 

Kayty

Kayty worked overtime this week and had a good week. 

The Nathan Rice Family

This week was a good week. The days were spent working, weeding the yard, rebuilding Nathan's engine, weeding, soccer practices and games. 

Dad's Garden

Dad has been dehydrating lots of the remaining spinach, collard and beet greens, plus the beets and carrots and then grinding them up into a powder. Doran's crazy nutrition powders, we call them. Heck, it's organic, no pesticide, and non gmo so it might be a good thing. Even with our windy year, we still have many citrus blossoms turning to fruit on the trees. Tomatoes are doing well as are squash. 

Family History

More things from my Dad's military memorabilia

Other papers 

My Dad earned his Bachelor's Degree from Arizona State College. 

More military stuff

Other highlights

Dad worked on the jeep again this week. Brakes, more fuel injectors. Still unsure if it will pass emissions. 

Daily piano practice and US History course studies continue. 

The nicest thing happened on Saturday evening. We were heading out to Walmart and someone drove into our driveway. He said he loved our flags flying in the back yard along Happy Valley Road and noticed our American flag was a little tattered, so he brought us a new one. An embroidered, sewn, not merely printed on the fabric new one! Let me give you a little background. A large flag stand in a truck came into being during the Trump presidential campaign. They carried many various flags and a huge assortment of Trump flags. They set up shop on 99th avenue North or South of Happy Valley Road. We stopped by on the way to a Trump Train rally. They continue selling flags there and now have conservative speakers and singers perform on the weekends. He also gave us a police flag and an Arizona, Dont Tread On Me flag. That was just the kindest thing! That has been the most wonderful thing in the campaign and post campaign that I have seen: meeting the most wonderful and good people who love their country.