TRIALS...

Why do we go through trials? Can't life just be free from problems? NO

This past week has been really tough for me. My toilet leaked downstairs to my other bathroom, my furnace stopped working and the alternator in our van went out. We were told that our toilet isn't covered by our insurance and neither are pipes. So what are we paying for??? Insurance is such a rip off. So Solomon had to DIY our furnace and toilet this week, so that we great. But last night our toilet started leaking again. OMG what a nightmare!! On the bright side of things, the Lord answered my prayers and blessed us with someone who fixed our van for free! My cousin called me to remind me of something and we just started talking. I told her about all the drama with our house and van. He husband had changed an alternator in a van like ours before and offered to come and help Solomon change ours. He basically did it alone. Solomon was there to pass him the tools, lol! So 2 problems down and 1 to go. One major problem! I just keep saying to myself, "this too shall pass." This is when I miss renting...lol.

What do you think about trials?

How is your insurance?

What gets you through your hard times?

Gabby in nursery.

My baby Gabby is finally 18 months. I say finally because with my husband being a high councilman, me as the YW councelor and my kids all in primary, no one is able to watch my Gabby. So now that she is 18 months, she is allowed to go to nursery. I prepped her all morning and even taught her to nod yes when I said, "mommy's going byebye." But I should know, all the learning goes out the window once you're in the situation...hahaha Gabby did good when I took her into nursery. Primary music was playing, all the toys were out, the teachers were very welcoming and Gabby went straight to they toys and started playing. I walked out with no problem. But as soon as another child, which was the bishops son, walked in and started screaming his head off, all that changed. Gabby started screaming her head off, nose running, dramatically tossing her head back, and calling my name, they brought her to me. She instantly covered her eyes like a drama queen and acted like it was the teachers fault. She is so Serena...hahaha I took her back because I didn't want her to think that nursery was a bad place. I sat in there with her and as soon as she was comfortable with the other kids, I got up to walk out. I don't know what it is, but kids have a "mommy radar" on them. She knew as soon as I turned the knob that I was at the door. She started her screaming again. So I had her walk to me so that we could both leave. I had to go to my class. She walked towards me with her mean mug face, took my hand and turned towards all the other kids, pointed her finger at them and yelled something baby talkish to them. The teachers all laughed as did I. Lets just say it was a memorable experience, and we'll try again next week.

How were your children's first day of nursery?

Discipline.

I learned something so simple yet very impacting. My husband and I have never agreed on how to discipline our children. I was relating this to a friend who is a very visual learner/teacher.

Discipline

(comes from the word)

Disciple

(which means)

Follower

(and who is the greatest example to follow, Christ)

Lead by example

Mirror that!

I hope that that makes sense. It is a very profound way to look at, not only with discipline, but with life itself.

Something to think about!

My nephew is too honest sometimes...lol!

On Sunday my husband spoke at my sisters ward. So I went there to listen to him and then to help my sister Anna with her primary sharing time. The ward she goes to was my first family ward as a married woman, so I have so much love for this ward. Well one of the primary teachers, Ofa, had to attend a baby blessing, so my sister volunteered me to teach her class (isn't that the best way to welcome your visitors and to make sure they never visit again...lol) Anyways, I was happy to find out that I had the privilege to teach the 4 and 5 yr olds. Which included my daughter Ebony and my much too honest nephew K.J.

So I had about 10 mins to read through my lesson before class. We went to class and I held up this picture of baptism. I said to my class, while holding up my picture, " what is this a picture of." K.J. enthusiastically yelled out, "The dad is gonna hit his son!" I started laughing so hard. I said, "K.J. does daddy do this to you?" And his honest reply, "yes, he always does this to me." And he showed me how his dad, just like the picture, puts his hand in the air and threatens to hit him. It was so funny!


The moral of my story is be careful what you say and do to your children, they will put you on blast! LOL
Love my nephew.


What funny/honest things have your kids said or have you heard?

WHY?

The co-author of the book "why?" was our guest speaker tonight during our Young Women's New Beginnings. He is an excellent speaker. He spoke right at our Young Women's level. He has been a seminary teacher for the past 12 years, so he knows exactly what he is talking about. He based his talk around his book why? and talked mainly about modesty and dating. I loved all his analogies. He said that youth never ask the what question, but they always ask the why question.
Why shouldn't I steady date in high school? Brother Sweat used the concept of drinking orange juice first and then rinsing your mouth out with Listerine. He asked what would happen if you rinsed your mouth out with Listerine first and then drank the orange juice? We answered it would be nasty and sour. He said isn't it interesting that the contents are exactly the same, all that's changed is the order! Just as steady dating in high school. If we DO NOT steady date in high school our life would be so much better. But if we do steady date in high school first we could end up in a nasty and sour relationship!
Isn't that such a cool analogy. All the while he had scripture references and graphs to back all his facts up.
Why should I dress modestly? He then gave an analogy on modesty. He based it on piranha's. He told a story of fishing for piranha's on his mission. All he was told to do was put some meat on a hook and toss the line over the boat. Within seconds the piranhas attacked his meat. Later on in his life he took his young men out fishing for rainbow trout. They had to hook their power bait, cast the line and wait for a while before there was even a little nudge. He compared this to modesty. "If a young woman is constantly revealing her skin, who will she attract? She will attract "piranha" boys who are primarily interested in her flesh. On the other hand, if a young woman casts out righteousness, intelligence, spirituality, humor and confidence (the power bait) this is exactly who she will attract: young men who appreciate righteousness, intelligence, spiritually , humor and confidence."
So true huh? If you ever have the honor of hearing Brother Sweat speak, don't pass it up. He is an excellent speaker and you will not regret it. Especially if you have youth age children. Tonight was a beautiful night and I am thankful for the gospel that I have. And for the simple teachings that we are taught to live by. The way is prepared if we just follow. It's that simple. Chews to be why's!! (that was my handout with gum and candy)

He is bound!

"I am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say ye have no promise."

I don't know if those are the exact words, but I do know that it was a scripture mastery when I was in school. I have been a witness of this promise from the Lord these past couple weeks. Things have just come into my life very unexpectantly but at a time when it was very much needed. We as a family have been scripture reading and started due to a challenge given to us by our Stake presidency. So since January we have been reading and studying the scriptures. We don't read every single day, but we read as much as we can. Our Stake president promised us blessings if we would follow through with this challenge, and believe me we have been blessed so much. The first blessing I've felt was that we could only afford to put my oldest daughter in polynesian dance, I really wanted my other girls to dance, but when you have no mula, sorry. So last week I took all of my girls to watch my oldest, and the owner said to me, "why aren't your other girls dancing?" I told him because I couldn't afford it. He said, "don't worry about it, bring them next week with thier lavalava's." I was so happy. Then my brake, ABS and battery lights all came on at the same time. My car has been making a really bad noise for a while now, but no mechanic can find the problem. So my sister and I were shopping at Walmart and I was telling her my car problems, and this guy who is a mechanic, overheard me and told me to bring my car and he'd check it out for half the price of most mechanics. I took it the next day and sure enough he couldn't find anything either when he checked the diagnotics. But he took it a step further, he manually checked my van, and too our surprise the suspension was broke and was very very dangerous to drive. Needless to say, I fixed it immediately for half the price. And then on late Saturday night I realized I was running low on diapers. So I thought, I'll just ask my sister for a couple of diapers til Monday, because I didn't want to shop on Sunday. After church on Sunday a friend of mine who has grand children stopped me and asked me if I could use a pack of diapers that she no longer needs. I could've cried. Another blessing! I am so grateful to the Lord for all that he has given me.

I have been struggling with life these past couple months and the Lord has given me the strength to endure the pain and has surrounded me with people who love and support me. I know that if I continue to put my trust in Him that He will bless me with the joy that I have been striving for. I am thankful everyday for the life I have and the blessings I recieve.

What blessings have you recieved?

Carnival ideas.

I have been put in charge of our Young Women's fundraiser this year. We are going to be doing a carnival on June 5th from 9am-2pm. Along with our carnival we will be having breakfast from 9am to 11am. So since the day I was officially put in charge of this activity I've been super excited and nervous. This is a huge responsibility because this fundraiser needs to raise enough money to take 30 girls to girls camp. We have the largest group of Young Woman in our stake and it is very overwhelming at times. So you understand why I'm nervous? 30 YW are counting on me to get things put together so that this fundraiser will be a hit!
We come from a financially difficult area. Money definitely does not grow on trees here, so I'm looking for donations. I want to teach our YW that hard work pays off and if we work hard to put on a good fundraiser, we can definitely get them ALL to girls camp!
I am looking for creative carnival games that can be built with little or no money. We've found a couple of games and ideas, but the building of them is what is stopping us from moving forward. I've also found a DJ who will be playing music for us throughout the day. We've found a guy who has a fire engine that he will take the kids on for rides. We found a guy who will donate a large moonwalk bouncer and the woman in our ward are willing to donate bake goods for our concessions stand.
We will also have a raffle. We've found a couple of people who are willing to donate to our raffle, things like a free hair cut, free customized t-shirt and goodie bags. I'm reaching out to the blogging world to see if any of you can donate anything to our raffle or give me ideas on how to promote our carnival, give me ideas on prices I should charge or how to build our booths. If you know of anything or have any great ideas please let me know. Thank you!!
Wish me luck!