A Very Special Valentine's Day

Michael, who reads my blog posting has helped me with additional information. Tiffany and Christ Adams' son's middle name is correctly spelled Isaac. Michael and Jenna's daughter's first name is both Anna and Kate, which is Anna Kate. Now for the latest news:

It is President’s Day, the federal holiday, which took the place of our state’s celebration of George Washington’s birthday. That was February 22nd. Since Daddy B.J. and I have always admired President Abraham Lincoln as much as our founding father and this holiday now salutes both of them, I am content. President Lincoln’s birthday was February 12th, but a number of years ago our national government decided to let all nationally observed holidays except Independence Day, Christmas, Veteran’s Day and New Year’s Day fall only on Mondays. That does provide a three-day weekend in most cases and folks generally dislike going to work on Monday more than any other day so it made a lot of people happy.Friday night was our ward activity for February. It was Karaoke. Will brought Adryann and Brynneé. About thirty folks participated. Daddy B.J. was not among them because he has been tortured with sciatica pain and had received a priesthood blessing directing him to take a vacation for a few days. Well he didn’t precisely follow that counsel because he wanted to serve in his usual responsibilities Sunday in particular. He did get some extra rest Friday and Saturday. I am hoping he will take it easier today also.

Sunday was a momentous day for me. Though our bishop had said it wouldn’t happen during his tenure, I was released from the activities committee. I was sustained as the third counselor in the Primary presidency. Our president, who fell ill in November and was hospitalized for almost two months, is recuperating but not ready to resume her duties again yet. The first and second counselors are both tremendous young newly wedded sisters. Angela Rowe is a mechanical engineer in the shipyard and Sherilyn Voss is a nurse, who works in an allergy specialist’s office. When I was set apart my blessing said that I would serve in this new capacity till the president could return, and then be released with another calling awaiting me. I had wondered how it would work and Heavenly Father answered that question.

Early in January Daddy B.J. asked me to speak in sacrament meeting the second Sunday of this month. Of course I accepted the assignment. . The assigned topic was the temple. Will mentioned to me that the Silverdale stake were having stake conference the first weekend in February and that they would have a General Authority since a new stake president was being called. Will and I took advantage of a “party crashing” opportunity to attend the Saturday evening adult session. The evening’s theme was the temple and my notes provided me with an excellent resource. The new stake president is Eric Gillespie. When our daughter Ruth was about six-years-old Eric and his wife were in a play for a youth conference held up at Fort Warden. They invited Ruth to dress in white and go and sing “I Am A Child of God”. I made the white dress and remember the drive up with Ruthie quite well.
It was some time before I realized my talk would be on Valentine’s Day. Talking of Heavenly Father’s love for us and his greatest gift to all his children being the blessings of the gospel and especially the temple with its sealings of families for eternity really fit. Will came to listen to my talk and it was wonderful to look out and see him smiling at us as the meeting began. The bishop invited me to sit right beside him in the chair usually occupied by his first counselor. That felt strange but it was nice to hold hands during a lot of the program. That was a pretty good visual aid for our very romantic love on Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it? I took the liberty of using another visual aid, which is generally discouraged in sacrament meeting talks. Daddy B.J. gave me a dozen red roses Saturday and a red plastic heart with “I love you” written on it and a plastic stick to insert it with the flowers accompanied them. I held up the heart when I made points about things Heavenly Father had given us because of his love and I said I hoped that whenever we saw a heart we would be reminded of his love. By the way, I gave in to the temptation to buy a miniature rose, which was reduced in price at Ralph’s Red Apple market. Of course it is also red. Hopefully it will live longer than the elegant bouquet.

Sometime back in January I bought a cabinet at my favorite store especially to use for keeping my journals. The little shelves I had been using were becoming overburdened. Will provided transportation home, since the cabinet wouldn’t fit in my car. He and Daddy B.J. carried it to the basement and there it sat till I found time to work on the transfer. Actually I took one of the evenings when Daddy B.J. was in Texas between the 3rd and 5th of February and placed all the pictures that had accumulated from ward activities over the past year and a half into a binder. That was the second such picture history. Those two definitely would have over exceeded the old shelf capacity. To tell the truth, I doubt if anyone else will ever care to look through them but the pictures kept our ward bulletin board a lot more interesting and the activities themselves were labors of love. One of the nicest things about my new journal shelf is that there is lots of room for more binders in the future.

Joseph left a really enthusiastic message on our answering machine about a movie his had watched “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”. He said the British accents were so pronounced that he had to read the subtitles to follow the dialogue but that he knew it was the kind of movie I would enjoy. Daddy B.J. says that since he can’t understand English – a foreign language you know- there is no use his watching movies made in England. Perhaps with subtitles he could make it through one.

Debbie is going great guns with her Brownie Girl Scout group. They are involved in their annual cookie sale. Jay is supporting them by preparing gifts for his past and present clients. Debbie and their daughters baked up a storm of homemade cookies for Valentine’s Day. They had a grand time baking and decorating and preparing plates to give to special teachers and helpers at school. Monica is particularly sweet, treating the janitor and crossing guard as deserving of her love and respect as the teachers. Amy found a new tool to be fascinating – the rolling pin. To my great delight they clamored for whipping up “Gramma’s frosting”. Well I learned to make powdered sugar frosting from my mom when I was a girl too. That makes it sort of a tradition, doesn’t it?

David stopped by one evening last week and made a valentine to take to Fatima. He said he had also given her a gift earlier. It does my heart good to see romance flourishing among my children. We love all of you and hope you felt loved indeed on Valentine’s Day.