A Beautiful Time of year

Last Saturday the scouts had a fund raiser in our back yard. There were over 60 people here for the chili/dessert dinner and scout program. We put in a lot of time getting the yard neat and clean from the mailbox to the dock. Though it rained lots earlier in the week it was beautiful that day and everyone had a grand time. My biggest challenge for the day was putting the step 2 yard toy that Will and Mindie gave us back together. The slide was detached from the tower base. Jeff Fry had all his boys here during the afternoon and they tried to help me but couldn’t figure it out. Left alone with the puzzle I succeeded with the help of inspiration from Heavenly Father and some extra muscle from Steve and Brady Geier, who arrived early to set up the Dutch oven cook site, which they used to heat the chili. David and Fatima came with their girls and twin boys from their school class. The boys looked as different as Adryann and Brynneé. David took Brynneé, the boy twins and a couple of other children out in the rowboat, while Adryann was content to swim and glide around on the surfboard.
Sunday was ward council and Daddy B.J. encouraged everyone there to take a tour of the building with their families. So I went home and invited David and Fatima to bring their girls and join us on a tour Monday evening for family home evening. Since Adryann and Brynneé are preparing now for their baptisms next month we spent most of our time by the font and talking about our conversions. One of Fatima’s neighbors when she was growing up in Brazil was Mormon. When the missionaries in Florida tracked her out they gave her a Book of Mormon in Portuguese. They are having the girls baptized in the font in our building where David and I and my parents were baptized, which makes four generations.
Speaking of generations, Daddy B.J. and I met with Sister Hendrickson Sunday morning during Relief Society time. She took us to the family history center on the top floor and we hooked up to the Internet and new.familysearch.com. We were able to get one more name, Ralph Korb, ready for temple work. I learned lots about Sister Hendrickson I never knew before. She joined the church when she was sixteen and started doing family history when she was nineteen. She took all the genealogy classes she could at BYU and became a certified genealogist. She even had her own business helping other people to research on their family lines. Wow. What a resource she is for our ward!
It was our Sunday to have speakers from the High Council. Brother Herbold and Katz spoke. Whoever used to murmur about high councilors being boring certainly would have had that opinion trashed. Brother Katz joined The Church when he was a young adult and went on a mission about a year later. He said he was comfortable just following and doing whatever his companion asked. Then about half way through his mission a pregnant sister phoned the missionaries because she couldn’t reach any of her leaders and she felt she needed a blessing for her baby. They went and Brother Katz’ companion asked him to seal the anointing and pronounce the blessing. Elder Katz froze, prayed fervently, and proceeded. He had no idea what he said. Later the woman called and reported that she had been to her doctor, who said the baby had been dead for three days and that it was a miracle she hadn’t been poisoned herself from that. Elder Katz apologized. She asked if he remembered the blessing. He felt terrible but didn’t remember anything. She said, “You didn’t mention the baby once. You told me that I would blessed with health.” Gratefully Elder Katz realized that in fact he had not given the blessing at all. It was from Heavenly Father just as it should have been and said just the right things because Heavenly Father knew everything about the situation. Brother Katz said his testimony of the genuine power of the priesthood originated then and there. I got goose-bumps from the story. You do know that goose-bumps can be another way of the Holy Ghost bearing witness to the truth of something, right?
We have spent a little more time at Will and Mindie’s Vena place. Tami Mann phoned Daddy B.J. and told him that they were getting rid of things they had stored for her father-in-law including a working washing machine and dryer. We picked them up and took them to Vena. The washer hoses were there but we needed a piece of dryer vent ducting. I was blessed to find one
at builders bargains for $1.69. In case you wondered, yes, that was another little blessing from Heavenly Father.
This week I am doing ¾ of my visiting teaching but squeezed in some yard work too. I really enjoyed the camellia bushes this year and seeing their blooms through the living room windows. They had grown so that they were about ten inches higher than the back of the couch when viewed from inside. You couldn’t see anything between the bushes or anything but the top of the chimney from the yard. That was just too much. So I pruned them extremely.
Did I ever mention that Daddy B.J. accepted the Hohnholz’s cat when the mom’s doctor said she had to get rid of their pets because of allergies. Well we have had Abby for a few weeks. We say that she is Patrick’s and he takes car of her the most but she really is quite shy and will only come to him if she chooses. She is quite a climber. In the basement we saw her on top of the bookshelves and heard her on top of the furnace. Outside she climbs up to the rafters in the breezeway and then out onto the roof where she walks around freely. Now that the weather is getting nicer, she spent the night outside and didn’t cry at all last night. Patrick in his childlike way loves her when she is nice to him and says he hates her when she runs from him. Since he is very forgiving his spells of rejection are short-lived.
Things are blooming.

Hope you have a great week. We love you.