Salt Lake City

Tuesday, March 31, was a day for Relief Society auxiliary training in Salt Lake - in the Tabernacle.

Highlights of the day:

• Being taught by Sister Beck, Sister Allred and Sister Thompson...and the Spirit!!
• Riding down to and back from SLC with my friends and fellow sisters in the Rigby East RS Presidency - Sister Birch, Sister Youngstrom, and Sister Kammerman. Good conversations and what great examples they are to me!
• Eating lunch in the Lion House.
• Taking a tour of the Relief Society building and Conference Center. If you have never taken a tour of either of those buildings, I highly recommend it. In fact, I need a whole day to just be a Salt Lake "tourist". (Believe it or not, I used to give tours on Temple Square - right after my mission.)
• NOT getting rained on while we were in Salt Lake - but the pictures show a cloudy day anyway.
• Having the day off from work.
• Making it home safely - despite the awful white-knuckle snowstorm over the Malad divide. Thank you Shannon for being such a good driver!

First time I have been in the Tabernacle since its renovation. It's nice...love the extra leg space.

Looking southwest toward ESA and the Triad Center - from atop the Conference Center. The "gardens" on the top of the Conference Center consist of natural flora and wildflowers, so a little early for the beautiful colors to be out.

A view of Temple Square from atop the Conference Center.


Sisters Laila Kammerma, Shannon Youngstrom, Bethene Birch, and me.

National Scrapbook Day

I don't know that there is an "official" day for National Scrapbook Day. But Delsy and I, Creative Memories Consultants, chose to have ours yesterday, March 28. Because it was just the two of us inviting our respective customers, we decided to have it at my workplace in the training room. We start at 9:00 a.m. and go until 7:00 p.m. It is a lot of fun...and it's makes/lets me focus exclusively on scrapping.

"Croppers" at work

I have a couple of "projects" I am working on right now. One is the trips my dad and I took in visiting all the counties in Idaho. What fun that was! I am doing that in the traditional form of scrapbooking.

The other big project I am working on is scanning and organizing all the family photos we had when I was a kid. My mom had them very nicely organized into scrapbooks, but they were the kind that ruin photos. Hence I am trying to "save" these treasures by digitally scanning them...and the end result is that I will be able to share them by creating a digital "Storybook".

Louise and Kim

Marlene and Jenny

Kim's mom - sorry, I forgot her name

Patty

Delsy and her Mom-in-law

What a fun day we had!!

The Rigby East "Eight"

Over the past three months I have been privileged to attend all of the ward/YSA branch conferences in my stake - all eleven of them. This past Sunday, I even got to attend my own ward - as it was the Rigby 8th Ward conference. (It was only the third time this year that I have attended my own ward - so it was nice to "be back". ) The theme of these conferences have been: "Come Unto Christ....With Full Purpose of Heart". The Rigby East "Eight" are the basics in achieving that.

1. Personal Prayer - EVERY morning and night.


2. Personal Scripture Study - EVERY day...not just five or six days a week. SEVEN days a week.


3. Family Prayer - EVERY morning and night.


4. Family Scripture Study - EVERY day...does not have to be long. 5 minutes is okay. Families with young children may not even do it that long. Includes words of the "prophets"...general conference talks.


5. Family Home Evening - EVERY week. This includes even people who are unmarried, divorced, widowed, etc. (I guess that means me, too.)


6. Prepare for and worthily partake of the sacrament EVERY week. (Exception for general and stake conferences.)


7. Home Teaching / Visiting Teaching - 100% EVERY month.


8. Regular Temple Attendance - Monthly attendance may have been enough in the past...it is NOT enough now.

These are basic. But they take a fair amount of effort to do consistently. I kind of draw a parallel with these basics and doing the basics, say, in basketball (because I have seen my share of basketball this year...and it's the "March Madness" time of year). By doing them amazing things can and will happen. If you can learn to handle the ball well, shoot with great efficiency, make your foul shots consistently, rebound, make good passes, take care of the ball, etc...if you can do these well over and over again, you will have great success. You may even win a championship. These things don't come without putting in the time and effort necessary in the gym during practice. I really believe that games aren't won in the waning moments of a game, they are won in the countless hours of dedication during practice.

The "Rigby East Eight" are the things that need to be done in the "spiritual" practice gym. Day in and day out. A basketball team would not be very successful if they only practiced two or three times a week. They wouldn't be the best by only doing those things that they "liked" to do or those things that came easy. Likewise, spiritual preparedness requires time and effort. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. Continuously. And if you diligently do these things, miracles WILL happen.

It's Spring!!

Literally. As of last Friday. Yeah!!

And to prove it, my cat Midnight had his first "trophy" of the season on my front doorstep yesterday. Decapitated. Gruesome!! Fortunately it was gone by the time I got home from church...sorry, no pictures.

The last two ward conferences were completed yesterday. We still have those two ward RS presidencies to go out on visits with. One will be later this week and the other will be in April. Back in January I posted about all the things coming up during January, February, and March. Basketball, skiing, and ward conferences are done now. It has been a very busy three months...but it's all been good - even with a little "social" comedy/drama thrown in as well.

Now it's time to transition to more of the full-scale outdoor activities...like gardening, cycling, golfing, camping, hiking, etc. I bought seeds on Saturday, and intend to have the best veggie garden yet, this year. Saturday was so nice. Warm temperatures. No wind. A beautiful spring day. Yesterday and this week is the other version of spring weather: cold, gray, breezy - but at least not windy. A typical Idaho spring day.

February.....was Sweet!!

At the beginning of the year I resolved to be more consistent about my blogging. I did fine in January. Well, here we are with February over...and I did not blog once in February. I think I was too busy doing a myriad of things. I only had one free weekend where I did not go "out of town". My weeknights have been full of Relief Society visits, basketball games, various other activities, and more basketball games. It's all good stuff...but no blogging. Oops. So I am going to recap.

This is me with my "newest" great niece, now three months old. Isn't she cute!

February being a month of valentines and my birthday, it is a "sweet" month typically. This year, February was topped off on the last day of the month by attending the Draper temple open house, which was a sweet experience in itself, and then later in the day Bear River High School (my alma mater) had a sweet victory to win the Utah 3A Boys basketball championship. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Cross Country Skiing - Island Park and West Yellowstone
On February 20-21, Marlene and Steve (my sister and brother-in-law) came up to do some cross-country skiing. They have ownership in various resort properties and we stay at the location in West Yellowstone. This year, on the way up to West Yellowstone we stopped at Harriman State Park and skied.

Marlene and Steve in front of the cattle barn at the Harriman State Park...the Railroad Ranch.

Me in front of the cattle barn

One of the buildings at Harriman State Park.

After skiing at Harriman, we headed up to West Yellowstone, checked into the Lodge and soaked in the hot tub. Ahhhhh......

The next day we waited until the fog/low clouds burned off to venture out on the ski trail...the Riverside trail in Yellowstone National Park which follows along the Madison River. It was a beautiful day - just like the day before at Harriman.

The Madison River in winter

Basketball

Prep basketball for me wrapped up with Bear River winning the state 3A championship. It couldn't have been a better way to close. Over the course of the season I have watched the Ririe and Rigby girls and boys and the Bear River boys play in couple regular season games. And while I really enjoy watching Ririe and Rigby, the treat this year was watching the Bear River boys. They are a class act!

One of the added benefits of going to high school basketball games is that it has allowed me to make many new friends...mostly parents of players...and reconnect with old ones. It is fun!!

The Draper Temple

Even though I could not get ticket online, Dad and I went to tour the open house of the temple on Saturday, February 28, anyway. Every temple has its similarities with all other temples, but each is unique in its own respect. The Draper temple is no exception. It is beautiful!