Missionary Open House

Over the past couple years our ward has done open houses at our church building, where we invite friends and neighbors in the community to come on by, tour the building, and find out more about what we believe.  Last weekend another one was carried out, but this time the teenagers in our congregation did much of the teaching and organization.

Rhiannon put a lot of time into this, easily 10 hours (enough for a Personal Progress project--yay!).  Her class was asked to do a presentation on the Book of Mormon, and she organized their portion and got help from the other girls in her church class.  Other rotations that the youth taught included the family, Christ's Atonement and the plan of salvation, Joseph Smith and the First Vision, priesthood ordinances, and modern-day prophets.  Jason and I helped the Beehive class and prepared presentations centered around the Family Proclamation.

After a summer of planning, we showed up at the church on Saturday, got our areas ready, and waited.  Our bishop, Bishop Washburn, and our full-time sister missionaries met with all the presenters in the chapel before it started for a short meeting, where they encouraged the youth to be courageous, let the Holy Ghost teach, and not fear.  It was cool!

So at 4:00 pm we began and didn't stop for almost 2 hours.  We had 8 groups come through!  It was a very positive experience, even though we felt a little silly saying much of the same things over and over again.  Initially, we'd been a little grumpy about how much time this activity was taking up, but I'm glad we had the chance to do it and got over our grumpiness quickly!

The gospel is true!  God loves His children!

The high school packet came today...

It's getting real, folks.

Today this green packet of stapled papers landed in our mailbox, loaded with information on lockers and orientation and open campus lunch permission forms and PE uniforms and student parking passes and counselors and extracurricular activities and yearbook sales and graduation requirements and minimum day schedules and a map.

Rhiannon is ready for high school.  Her mom is a little overwhelmed.

I just don't feel old enough to have a high school-er, who will be 18 before we know it, graduating, moving on, getting married, and having a family of her own.  At least that's how my brain works, always fast-forwarding ahead and forgetting to enjoy the HERE and NOW.

Like today.  Rhiannon has been going to band camp all week from 7am to noon and has a second week of it still to go.  She came home from camp, tired but so happy about new friends she was making and the fun she was having.  She was talkative and bubbly, her hair was curly and wispy around her face, and she looked so put together and pretty, with this beautiful bright blue shirt on that makes her glow.

Like today.  When Wade went outside in the hot, hot Ridgecrest heat and mowed the lawn with his dad like a champ.

Like today.  When Jason took us to see Guardians of the Galaxy, in this packed theater, surrounded by people who were enjoying the movie just as much as we were.

Taking advantage of moments like these is what I need to focus on, and that famous quote:  "the days are long but the years are short."  Oh my goodness, I have never felt the truth of that statement more so than I have this summer, thinking about this high school thing and Wade's last year of elementary school.

Life is short, but life is also very good.  Jason and I are so blessed to have these kids and to be their parents!  We love them!

Fun Family Home Evening

Max Sheen, Verity''s grandpa, who was a teacher for 37 years

Inspired by my brother Jordan's posting on Facebook, we talked about family history tonight for our family home evening.  We looked through pictures and records that Jordan had scanned while he was at Grandma Sue's house one visit, and it was so neat!

Then we opened up a file of Jason's Grandma Lola's recipes that his cousin Brittany had spent a lot of time typing out.  Jason recognized many of the family favorites--everything looked so good!  We will have to try a bunch of those out this summer!

For treats we ate knock-off jelly beans and played Scattergories--it was a fun night!

We feel very grateful for the family connections that we have, for Jason's family, for the Sheen family, and for our own little Jason-Verity-Rhiannon-Wade family.  Life is good!