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.

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.

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.

James' Baptism

James got baptized on Sept. 1st Thanks to everyone for coming . We had a good dinner afterwards. Thanks to all who came to the confirmation too.

John baptized James. Dad confirmed him and gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost.
This was John's first baptism.

Dad and boys go on Trek

This year our stake decided to go on a trek from Martin’s cove through the sweet water then over rocky ridge and ending soon after. They left on July 11th at 4:30 am and arrived home at 4:00 pm on July 14th. Lee was mid way through his summer semester so he rode down on the shuttle to Ogden and Pres. Manwaring (our stake pres.) picked him up and took him to Wyoming .