Hair Cuts

This has been the year of hair cuts.
I went from long hair to short hair.
Marie followed suit.... but she wanted to be sure that we didn't have the same hair cut.
Julianna donated hair to Locks of Love and got her hair shaped. Now she straightens her hair and it looks very grown up and modern.
Angie wanted bangs. She got cute bangs and then when it was time for her next bangs trim, she decided to donate her hair to Locks of Love also. She got a really cute really short haircut.
John didn't want a hair cut, but he got a minor trim before Summer Semester and a major cut before Fall Semester. When he saw a high school friend at BYU Idaho in the fall, the friend did not recognize him. When John told him they were in the house construction class, the boy said "Oh, what happened to your hair?"
Lee's hair cut came at the end of last year.... and now it is long again. When I ask him if he wants me to cut it, he says no.
James has been taught by Lee the not cut your hair until you turn 19. He tried to stay true to what he had been taught.... but eventually Mom convinced him to let it get cut.
Dad is the only one who keeps his hair consistently the same.
Emily is out of step with the rest of the family. She has decided to grow her hair out. She chose to change her hair by getting rid of the blonde highlights.
Hair is one thing in life that doesn't stay the same.

Feinauers Move

Feinauers now live at Fourth South and First East in a Fine apartment in Bountiful.

Summer is Over

Well, Summer is officially over.
We took John and Emily up to college.
Emily and John are in the same American Heritage class.

Angie started Jr high. She is taking band and art.
Angela joined the Tuesday Salt Lake Children's Choir

Julianna is back to Jr High band + 9th grade Seminary and Theater.
Julianna is starting in the Friday Utah Youth Symphony.

Marie is teaching orchestra at a Private school in North Salt Lake.

The Roof

Over the past few years we have said we needed to replace the shingles on our roof, but until this year we just said we will, but maybe next year. We realized that if we didn't fix the roof this summer before John went back to BYU Idaho, it would be many years before we had Dad, Lee, John and James here and available to work on the roof.



When we realized that we only had 2 weeks before John would go up to college, we decided that now was the time. First, (on Monday August 25th) Rick, Lee and John bought a sheet of sheetrock to fix the ceiling in the kitchen where the water from the swamp cooler had saturated the insulation in the atic and fell onto the kitchen table and floor.





Then we quickly ordered the materials for shingling the roof. Later that day, (August 26th), they delivered the big dumpster that we would scrape all the old shingles into. That evening and on the 27th, Dad, John, Lee and James started to scrape off the old shingles. As they scraped off the old shingles and exposed the plywood, they could see the places where the plywood had started to rot.


They cut a foot and a half of plywood off the south edge of the roof and replaced that as well as a large area where the swamp cooler had let water run down the roof. They finished scraping them on the 28th and started to do some repairs on the ply wood below.



On Friday evening, we again looked at the weather forcast. It said that we were in for "Big Changes" in the weather. It had been dry all the month of Auugust. Now a storm was coming Saturday evening and we could expect rain, heavy in spots on Sunday. Rick began to make calls asking for any assistance that was available.

In the morning of Saturday, the 30th, Mike and Brandon and Isaac showed up at 6:30 am to work. By 8:00, Tom Lindhart, a Neighbor/Johns young mens Leader, came and gave us some professional instruction. At about 10:00 I showed up and they were 1/2 done with the front side, then Mike and Isaac had to leave as well as our Neighbor. We had 2 nail guns, Brandon and John took turns using one and Lee used the other, Marie and I would lay shingles for Lee, and whoever wasn't using the other nail gun was laying shingles for whoever was using it. When Brandon had to leave (at 1:00) John used the nail gun and Marie laid shingles for him. During this time Dad was cutting shingles for the edges. Eventually JP and his friend Clark came up on the roof to help. We worked till about 5:00 about then I got ready to leave and Mike Isaac and Gordon showed up with James to help.

Everyone worked all day Saturday as much as they could. The wind started blowing lightly in the early afternoon. A few times it caught the roofing felt and tore it. About 10:00 at night they finished putting the last shingles on and carried the supplies off the roof.

The next day, just as forcasted, it rained hard. We were very grateful for all the people who helped us reshingle our roof.

Unemployment and Employment

Our family has had a lot of changes in our employment situations. Rick's job at Groen Brothers Aviation finally came to an end. He watched the company struggle to cover the payroll for about 5 months and wondered if they would make it through this tight financial squeeze. Finally at the end of May, they had to decide to lay off almost all of their employees. They were not able to find financing to cover payroll for April or May. They hope to not have to go completely out of business, but they are very close.

Emily came home from her semester in Jerusalem and had to decide if she was going to go down to work at Philmont Scout Camp for the summer. She had a very hard time making the decision. After arriving home after being away for 4 months, she was not anxious to leave home again one month later. She was also anxious to play her violin more and could not take her nice violin to the primitive living conditions at Philmont. She e-mailed them and said she was not coming. Then she started working planting flowers for Bountiful City, and remembered how hot and tiring that work was and so she e-mailed back and said she was coming. Then she looked at pictures of the tent she would be living in for 3 months and got another job as an assistant server at the Garden Restaurant and so she e-mailed again and said she wasn't coming.

In January, Lee started working at Gregory's Wheat Shop packaging granola to be shipped to grocery stores. It was to be part time and temporary until he went on his mission. He also got a job as a package handler at Fed Ex part time from 10pm to 2am. He is still working both jobs and in between, he is pursuing his first love of playing the guitar.

John had worked at El Matador restaurant bussing dishes for almost 2 years. Also during that time he had worked assisting a neighbor installing window blinds in homes. As he got close to High School graduation and planning to go to Idaho for college, he was offered a job in a machine shop that manufactures asault rifles for the military and police. They said he was most highly recommended by his high school machine shop teacher. They wanted him to start then and get trained part time after school and move to full time in the summer. He told them he would be in college during the summer and so he did not take the job. After we analyzed it, he called them back and told them the exact dates when he would be away at college and when he would be home and available to work. They were happy to hire him.

After a week of Rick being unemployed, he suggested that I look for a full time job, and he would stay home and care for the children and home. I have attended training classes for preparing resumes and searching for employment. I have learned that any experience older than about 10 years is considered unimportant and out of date. My bachelors degree is even considered insignificant. When I talk to people about employment, they suggest entry level jobs which require no skills or education. My brother suggested I go back to school and get a masters degree. He said that the investment in education would be worth it since I have potentially 20 more years in the workforce.
I considered taking a job, but I had no intention of giving up my God given job of being a mother. Rick believed that as long as someone is staying home being parent to the children it doesn't matter who does it. He says that "father as provider and mother as nurturer" are rigid roles. I believe that "father as provider, mother as nurturer" is ideal and while I know that in certain situations, adjustments must be made, this is not a serious enough situation to warrant throwing out the ideal.

Since Rick has been home, I have found that more of our needs are being met. Things are getting repaired that have been waiting for a quite a while. And I have confidence that our needs will continue to be met. We will find a way to meet the family's needs that fulfills us. Maybe that will be a good job for Rick where he is happy, or maybe it will be self employment where the family works together. I think we were put on this earth to be happy, not to suffer it out until we die.

John is a New College Student

We moved John up to Rexburg, Idaho yesterday. We found him an apartment in Sunrise Village apartment 47. It is the lower left apartment of a 4 plex. It should be cool during the summer. His roommate's name is Ian (the same name as Lee's roommate during his freshman year). Also, Ian plays the viola (Marie can celebrate about that). And the books on his bookshelf looked like he was studying Construction Management (the same as John). It looked like a magical match. When we met him, he said he was a 2nd semester freshman. He is on Summer/fall track but started last fall.
We helped John get his I card. On his first try, they said his hair was too long over the ears. Although I had thought about bringing hair cut scissors, I had left them at home. The girl at the I card place said his hair was OK except for over the ears so we left trying to figure out where to get a quick hair cut without him needing a car. Then we remembered the tiny surgical scissors in my purse left over from Lee's time in the hospital. They were definitely sharp enough to cut hair, but were they big enough? We took him up the street toward the Rexburg Temple and then turned east by a big water tank, and while he stood in the gutter by the car, I stood on the sidewalk (so I could reach) and with the wind blowing and the rain soon to start, I cut the hair around his ears. No problem with leaving hair around... it all blew away. It was kind of funny to see everyone's reactions as they drove by and stared. After the hair cut, he used water from the water bottle to "comb" his hair. They were very happy with his hair when he came back less than a half hour later. Mission accomplished.
We showed him around campus, and got him some dining dollars, showed him the computers in the library, and where his class would meet the next day. We bought a few things he needed at Wal-Mart and went to Bajio for dinner and then drove home. It was a very late night before we got home, but it was a very successful trip.

John's Eagle Project

John completed his Eagle project during May. The service he performed was to collect clothing, food, and hygiene items to be sent to help people in the Philippines. About 12 people helped pass out flyers to our neighborhood telling people about his project and asking for donated items or money to help cover shipping costs. One week later he and seven other scouts and leaders collected the donated items. After our family and friends sorted the donated items, we were able to pack 3 boxes, 21" x 22" x 23", with about 125 pounds of supplies per box. We were able to put together over 30 hygiene kits that had a washcloth, toothpaste and toothbrush, and soap as well as shampoos and lotions. For clothing, we sent shoes and light weight clothing. The food that we sent was canned meats. He shipped the 3 boxes which cost $390 to ship all the boxes. They are scheduled to arrive in the port of Manila on June 10th, 2008. Completing this project will not only bless people's lives in the Philippines but also was a good leadership experience for me. It was good to see how willing people are to help others.
Congratulations on completing your project. We are proud of your scouting acheivements.

Sidewalk Chalk

Main Street has a sidewalk chalk festival every year (or more?) I've noticed it a couple times, but didn't think much about who actually drew/painted them.
This year my mom, Angela, and Julianna went and created two of the pictures. Later in the week (the day before it rained) JP and I went to look at the fun artwork.
Here is a picture of the one Angela and Mom did. It's from a Bill Peet book, "Cock-a-Doodle-Dudley." I think he's pretty cute.

And Julianna took inspiration from Peanuts. Which was also one of my first successful ventures into the world of drawing. Good shapes. Unfortunately she ran out of red chalk. But you get the drift. I think they did a great job!

Visit our Blog for more pictures of the sidewalk chalk on main street!

Marie's fun concert

Marie will be playing a fun concert this weekend. It's movie music! Highly energetic recognizable, and some that's just absolutely gorgeous. For more info including a list of pieces, prices and event time and location go to the Salt Lake Symphony website. I would love to see all of you there. It's going to be a fun time, and it's also my last concert of the season. So let's have a party!

Julianna's Jr. High Band Concert

Julianna will play in the Junior High's final Band concert of the year this Tuesday Night, May 13th at 7:00 at Woods Cross High. It should be a very enjoyable concert because they will play songs from Movies and very recognizable stuff. Julianna will play in both the 8th and 9th grade bands. We hope you can come.

John's Lacrosse game

Last night John played his first Varsity Lacrosse game for Woods Cross High. This year is his first year to play Lacrosse, and he was put on the JV team. He likes the sport, and has always enjoyed going to all the practices. He plays Center Middi. After each team scores a goal, it is Center Middi that faces off at the center of the field to see which team will get possesion of the ball. That part of the game (for those who don't know lacrosse) is like basketball's jump ball, but the players are down in a tripod stance, shoulder to shoulder, with the baseball type ball on the ground between them, fighting to see who can get the ball into their net at the end of their stick. The first time I saw John play, I was surprised to see him playing there but he does it well.
Yesterday's game was the first playoff game of the championship. Woods Cross was the first seed so they were playing at home against the Box Elder Bees.
Not only was it John's first Varsity game, and an exciting first play off game, it was also John's first time to score. He was so happy after scoring that goal. His smile covered his whole face. We were very proud of him and we look forward to watching him play more games during this final tournament.
The next games are Saturday Morning May 9th at home, and Wednesday evening at Mountain Crest High School. If they make it to the finals, the game will be Saturday May 16th at Park City.

Angie's spring concert

Angela will be singing with the Salt Lake Children's Choir in their spring concert on May 9th and 10th at 7:30 pm. The concert will be held at the First Presbyterian Church on South Temple and C Street. Tickets are $8 or $5 for students, and can be purchased from Angela. If Angela sells 20 tickets then each ticket will only be $5 each. They will be recording this concert, so children under 6 years will not be admitted. We hope you will be able to enjoy their beautiful angelic voices at the concert.

Talks at Church

On April 13th, both Julianna and James gave talks at church. James was asked to talk in primary about Following the Prophet, and Julianna was asked to talk in Sacrament Meeting about an article in this month's New Era magazine called, "Worthy Thoughts Worthy Music".
James talked about sustaining President Monson as the new President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And about sustaining the first presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets seers and revelators. Then he focused on the talk in the Sunday Afternoon Session by M. Russell Ballard when he talked to the children about what they could do to help their mothers and families. He told the children that if they helped to put away their toys, and do chores around the house and Hug their Mother and tell her that they love her, they are following the Prophet.
Both Julianna and James did a good job giving their talks.

The Wiz

Julianna has been taking a theater class at Rodgers Memorial Theater this past school year. They will soon be ready to perform "The Wiz" for audiences at the theater. "The Wiz" is a 1960s play on "The Wizard of OZ" complete with lots of "hippy" expressions. It should be a lot of fun.
Opening night is Friday April 18th. There is a show each night of the week except Sunday, and there are 3 shows on Saturdays (1:00, 4:00 and 7:00). The show closes after Saturday April 26th. Julianna will be in each of the plays but will have a more major roll on Friday the 18th, Wed the 23rd, and the 4:00 show on Saturday the 26th. Tickets are $6. I hope you will get a chance to go.

Marie's Viola Recital

Saturday night, right after the Priesthood session of General Conference, Marie played a viola recital. She played beautifully.
The Alan Edwards family, in her ward, invited her to play a recital in their home for some of their friends and Marie's family. We are so grateful for their hospitality.
Marie asked Diane Bastian, the best accompanist in all of Bountiful, to accompany her. She also did a wonderful job. It is true what Alan said at the end of the recital, "The best recitals are ones where the soloist and accompanist play duets." We have appreciated Diane's skill and willingness to accompany our daughters for many years. She is such a blessing to us.
Marie played Bach's Concerto No. 1 in a minor on violin so she could use it for an application for Suzuki violin teacher training. She also played 2 movements of a Brahms Sonata (No. 1), 2 movements from Bach's unaccompanied cello suites (on viola), and a movement of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata. And she added for some "easy listening" Schubert's Ave Maria, and an unaccompanied arrangement of the hymn, "Where Can I Turn For Peace" which she arranged when she was in high school for a Seminary assembly.
A lot of our family came to the recital. We were very pleased that they came. After all of her preparation, if there had been little to no audience, it would have been disappointing. As it was, we felt like the recital was a big success.
Thanks Marie, for sharing your talent with us.

James' Pinewood Derby

Last Thursday was James' Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. James was given the car kit in January. We thought the Derby was going to be held the end of February, so there was no rush to start working on the car. I signed James up for a class at Lowes about how to make a Pinewood Derby car and they mentioned that they would demonstrate how to use a dremmel on the car as part of the class. When Rick took James to the class they learned that it had been held the day before and they had missed it. I tried to sign him up for another class (they had said that they held them every week) but that must have been the last one. Oh well.
Then the ward announced that February pack meeting was the Blue and Gold banquet. So we had either missed the pinewood derby or we had another month to prepare. So we waited longer. The only thing we did to prepare was draw a couple of preliminary designs and borrow Grandpa Simmons' jig saw and dremmel.

Angela was at the Library and found a book about making Pinewood derby cars. It had lots of pictures and instructions. We appreciated that alot. It was our first step in the right direction.

On Saturday before the big race, Rick started to work on the car with James. Forget the fancy shaped vehicles. That is too hard and takes too long. They made a simple wedge shape (cut diagonally from the top back down to the bottom front. Then James started to sand it. John and Dad also drilled holes in the top back to insert the weights to bring it up to the correct weight, and filled in the hole with some body putty that we borrowed from Grandpa. We only had an old postal scale so we were REALLY guessing how much weight to put in. They figured that they could add some "sinkers" into the bottom of the car if it weighed too little and drill holes out of the bottom of the car if it weighed too much. They also prepared the nails so they would be smooth where the plastic wheels would spin on them. Thank goodness we had saved all the left over weights, graphite etc. from making Lee and John's cars about 10 years earlier. That saved a lot of trips to the store.
Mom's job was to take that simple shape and help it turn into a good looking car (which is all Mom really cared about). We got some primer from Grandpa Simmons, and on Wednesday afternoon, Mom and James went to the store to get some fancy pinewood derby stickers. There was one set of stickers that had triangle shaped flames. That was obviously the choice. We got them and chose some spray paint that would make the flames show up (not blend into the background color). Silver!

The car weigh in was Wednesday night at 7:00 at the church. But Dad and John and everyone had other places they had to be so James and Mom gathered up all the pieces and the car with 1 coat of primer and walked with James over to the church.
When we got there, we saw all the completed cars getting weighed and being put in a special box to keep the cars until the big race day. When it was our turn to weigh in, we just set the nondescript wedge shaped piece of wood and the 4 nails and 4 wheels in a pile on the scale. It was too light, so they cut a weight (with 1/4 ounce sections) and gave us 14 grams (1/2 ounce) with sticky tape on the back and said we could stick that much weight onto the car and still be within weight.

On the way walking home, we delivered Scouting for Food grocery bags to the houses on our assigned route. When we got home, we kept painting the wood (setting the timer for 15 minutes so the paint would have time to dry).


Then when John and Dad got home, they helped James apply the graphite in all the places where things rub and they installed the nails into the existing slots for the axles (They made sure to only push the nails in and leave a gap between the car and the wheel the thickness of 3 business cards).


Then we put 2 of the kitchen table legs up on 2x4's to slope the table top, and they checked to see if the car would drive straight. Eventually they got it to go straight and we put hot glue in the slots to hold the nails in that exact position.



Last of all, we used grandpa's dremmel with a felt head to spin the wheels very fast on the axels to work in the graphite. Bed Time!





The next day, we were very careful with the car. We added all the stickers. We loved this part. It started looking very fancy. We also stuck the 1/2 ounce weight they gave us at weigh in on the back of the car. The car was ready by noon. We made sure to eat dinner early enough to get to the race early enough to weigh in.

Everything went smoothly. The track was very sophisticated with a computer to time each run. Each car ran 8 times. There were 26 "heats". James' car took first a few times, 2nd a few times and 3rd a few times. But never 4th. At the end of the race, his car was 4th fastest. The track owner's 2 boys cars took 1st and 2nd, and then hundredths of a second later another boy then thousandths of a second later, James'. James's award was The HOT ROD car. (I think because of all the flames it had on it). It was a fun experience.

Easter Celebration

Our family got together on Easter and really enjoyed ourselves. This is my favorite holiday of the whole year. During the week before, I went to K-mart and bought more than $30 of candy. I was informed that this was too much so I took about half of it back. We still had about 7 bags of candy to hide in many dozens of plastic eggs.

The ward choir had prepared an easter program for church, but one of the songs, "He is Risen!" was too big of a song with too many high soprano parts for our small choir to perform, so the director asked to have violins play the vocal parts and I play the piano part to accompany them. Julianna, Angela, and Lizzy VanDeGraaf got together on Saturday night in the chapel to rehearse. Thanks to Vicki VanDeGraaf's honesty, telling us that the violin parts needed to be embellished, we spent a couple of hours and created a very nice arrangement to go with Sally DeFord's choir arrangement. The whole sacrament meeting program turned out really well. We had never had more than 10 or 15 people to the practices.... and always a different 10 or 15. But when the choir went up to the stage, we had a very full choir. The whole program went very well and was very inspirational. People complimented the director and music chairman for the whole week following the program.

Just before Sacrament meeting, I taught the 8 year olds a lesson about why we celebrate Easter, and about Jesus' resurrection. I felt like they learned alot.

I got out of bed early that morning and put a roast into the crock pot. I had baked an angel food cake the day before, and after church, the kids helped me turn the angel food cake into my favorite spring dessert, flower cake. It is kind of like trifle with broken pieces of cake held together in this case with a bright lemony sauce which is refrigerated to become like a mix of jello and pudding. It is served with whipped cream on the top. Everyone in the family loved it.

After we made the flower cake, and Marie and JP filled the plastic eggs with candy, Rick and I went outside to hide the eggs and the kids set the table (with the blinds closed so they couldn't see us outside.) I love this part. I get so excited looking for good places to hide the eggs. And I anticipate what it will be like for the kids to find the eggs. I just feel so happy. We had more candy than we could find places to hide so I sent some inside for Rick to hide in the living room too.

We let the kids go out and start looking for eggs, youngest first. Considering that people who were looking ranged in age from 8 to 25, the younger ones really needed a head start. Plus, we hadn't had many serious egg hunts for a few years so the younger ones really were also less experienced hunters. After searching the back yard, we let them go to the front yard in order of who had the least eggs in their bucket. JP got to go out near the beginning because he had been distracted by taking pictures in the back yard. In the front yard, he searched much more agressively. James had a tendency to see where others were finding eggs and then go there, but not until the eggs had all been found. I loved seeing the kids find the eggs. Angie found some up high and pointed and yelled "It's mine! It's mine!" and JP came and helped her get them. John found lots of candy, but in a few days, Angie found his bucket of candy by the computer and generously passed it out to herself and her other siblings. Everyone loved the malted milk eggs. Lee ate his candy almost as fast as he found it.

After the egg hunt, we enjoyed our dinner together and had a short hunt in the living room for the rest of the candy. Each went into the living room individually and got to find 4 candies and then the next older one would got to find 4. By the time it got to me, I had a real hard time finding 4 candies.... I only found 3 and someone had to help me find my last. But there were still 3 or 4 candies left for Rick.

The capstone for our Easter celebration was listening to Marie recite from memory, "The Living Christ, The Testimony of the Apostles, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". She and JP had taken a challenge from their bishop to memorize it before Easter. (see their blog). Marie had gathered pictures to go along with the document. It was very inspiring and a very appropriate ending to our day.

Julianna gets a hair cut

Julianna wanted her hair cut. She decided to donate it to "Locks of Love", so she had to cut 10 inches, which she decided was kind of too short, but she went with it. The cut took 4 hours of Friday afternoon and me and James were singing "it is the cut that never ends yes it goes on until she's bald somebody started cutting it not knowing what it was and they'll continue cutting it forever just because..."

JP's New Job!!

Jp has now found a job!! He will be working at the Granite Mountain Vaults. You can read more about it on his blog post. We're very excited for the changes and new direction that will be bringing.
Also, last weekend JP and I took James and Angie to see a model train festival in Ogden. You can see pictures on our blog post. I liked seeing all of the models, especially the Hogwarts Express model from Harry Potter, and the little Thomas the tank engine. It was also fun to get to climb inside a real caboose, and get on a new Front Runner Trax train to stay out of the cold and snow.

Recent Posts

Hello, we did some stuff with the family this week but decided to post them on our blog instead of here. We wrote about our Family Home Evening with the storyteller and our night at the UofU organ concert.

Upcoming Recital

Marie has been invited to play a recital in a neighbor's home next month. It is scheduled for Friday evening, March 28th. We should hear some music by Bach, Schubert, and Brahms. Family and friends will be invited (as well as friends of the host family). We look forward to hearing Marie perform again. Mark your calendars!

Angela's concert in the Tabernacle

Angela sang with the Salt Lake Children's Choir in a concert in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. The concert was given by the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable, which was created during the 2002 Winter Olympics to address the spiritual needs of Olympic athletes of many religions. Rick and I attended the Interfaith Concert on Sunday night. It was very inspirational and enjoyable. I read a description in the Deseret News of last year's concert which was held in the Assembly Hall. They were very similar concerts. As we enjoyed the concert, we wished that we had brought our children with us and invited some friends.
In the last couple of weeks I read a talk on that topic given in the 2001 BYU Women's Conference by James A Toronto. You can listen to the talk from this link. In the talk, Brother Toronto quotes Joseph Smith's teachings about our feelings toward other faiths and their beliefs. I found the quotes from Joseph Smith and other prophets that he quoted in the talk to support my good feelings at the concert. The talk also talked about the tensions in the Middle east and thus seemed particularly timely to me with Emily living in Jerusalem right now.
I want to teach my children as Sister Toronto's talk states, to "dismantle the "walls of Partition" -- intolerance, pride, suspicion and rivalry-- by teaching our children to love and learn from our brothers and sisters of different backgrounds, viewing them no more as "strangers and foreigners."
Angela liked singing in the concert. The Japanese drums was the part she liked best of the concert. They were exciting.

Angela in Salt Lake Children's Choir Interfaith Concert

On Sunday February 10th at 5:00 I will be singing in the Tabernacle on Temple Square with the Salt Lake Children's Choir in a Free concert that is open to all ages.

Angela

Angie's 12 birthday was in January on the 19th. She just got braces on her teeth and started singing with the Salt Lake Children's Choir. She is going back to violin groups with Jeanne Grover. She will be in the same group as her cousin Savannah. She is reading a lot of books. One of her favorite authors is Patricia Reilly Giff. She also went into the Young Women's organization at church.She said she really likes her leaders,Sheri Winward and Brenda Miner, and she is excited for girls camp in July.

Succession in the Presidency

Bruce R. McConkie was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this devotional address was given at Brigham Young University on 8 January 1974.

http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6070

Elder McConkie detailed the process of succession when President Lee died and President Kimball was ordained and set apart as the President of the church. He gave this talk just 10 days after their meeting in the temple.

I invite every member of our family and anyone else to read this talk during this season of transition to re-affirm or establish their testimony that we will always have a living prophet on the earth until the Lord comes.

I imagine they are meeting in the temple even now or have met earlier today to set apart President Thomas S. Monson as President of the Church. I have heard we can look for an anouncement Monday morning around 11:00.

President Hinckley's veiwing

By JP

I would like to comment for a moment about the passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley. On January 31, 2008 I was in Salt Lake for an job interveiw and I decided it was important to me to stop by the veiwing for president Hinckley. I was impressed by the outporing of love and reverence this community showed forth. I wanted to take a picture as I left to remember being there (My camera had no batteries, but thankfully Meridian Magazine took the picture for me, it is part of a wonderful article.) I realized as I was there how memorable his passing will be. I had the thought come to me that when I look back at this time in my life I will remember it not for the job searching, or the stress about which degree to get, I will remember January 2008 as Marie and I with Chris and Cyndi when the Prophet passed away. I will remember being at his veiwing.
I also had a flood of memories come over me about what I had learned from President Hinckley. I thought of his Be's, and his optimism, I remembered him dedicating the building on BYU-I's campus named for him, and singing for him at President Clark's Luncheon. Mostly I remembered a music and the spoken word I attended a month or so after I got home from my Mission. I remembered President Hinckley walked in and sat down only a few rows away, I thought to myself, you just spent two years telling people he was a prophet of God. I felt a rush of testimony and gratitute to be in the same room as he was. In parting I want to give the links to my favorite talks of President Hinckley's.
The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith and his remarks at the Hinckley Building Dedicaton.

Geting South Davis Recreation Center family membership

We got a family membership to the South Davis Recreation Center on Tuesday January 29th. That day Me, James, Jules, and Mom went swimming. On the 30th Me, James, and Jules went ice skating, we rented skates there. On the 31st we went ice skating again. It is very very fun!!! Jules hit her tail bone hard, but James said''he had a fun time'' Jules said, ''the pool will be fun,'' ''And I think it will be fun to get really GOOD at swiming !,'' James said ''He LIKES the whole Place!!!.''

Lee's Mission Call

Early in December Lee finished his mission papers and the Bishop and Stake President sent them in. On Dec.19th it showed up in the mail. Lee's mission call came in the mail in the afternoon, but no one was home, so Lee brought the envelope into the house from the mail box and hid it under the couch in the livingroom. Later that evening, he told us that it had come. Marie and JP were at our house because we were planning to play Christmas music as a family that evening. When we learned that Lee's call was here, JP sent Emily to get his camera from Grandma Linda's house. So Grandma came down to see him open his call too.
For the past week or so, everyone had been making guesses for where he would go, James Argentina, Angela Philippines, Me Sweden (i don't have any idea why) Levi Olsen said Russia, Grandma said Denmark she said she had guessed it for all her sons and none had been called there yet so she guessed it again, Lee said he was going to go to some place in South America.

So when he opened up his call, Grandma was on the phone with Gordon and we were on the phone with Wade and afterwards we called Mike and Carrie's family to tell them where he got called to. Lee read the "Dear Elder" and then he went along and it said "you are hereby called to serve in the" and here he stumbled and couldn't pronounce the name of the mission "the Bacolod Pilippines Mission" then Angela was like"yes whoohooo" because she guessed the right place. Then further down it said "report the the MTC in Provo UT on March 26th." I think he was happy to know that he would learn the Tagalog language.
The next Saturday one of Emily's friends who had recently returned from the same mission came over to our house. He showed us some pictures of the mission and said that there is the hot rainy season and the hot hot season. Some time soon after Mike and Carrie's Family called and said that the missionarys had come to their house for dinner one of them was from the Philippines, he talked to Lee for a minute trying to teach him how to pronouce the name of the mission, Lee said he finally stopped trying to help him and just said "yah you'll do great ." On Sunday Night January 27th we went to a family's house in our ward. They invited us to do a family night thing and they also invited a friend of theirs who had just returned from the same mission to show slides and answer any questions Lee might have. The new returned missonary said he was tall at 5' 9" and with red hair. The missionaries advice was to bring a couple of umbrellas and learn to cook before you go there (your companions will love you).
While we were there, we learned that President Hinkley had passed away.