Monday:
Jon's last work day on day shift. It has been a mixed blessing. He got to enjoy normal sleep patterns, but he also missed an awful lot of church.
For Family Home Evening we decided to use our free movie passes that we managed to snag in the white elephant gift exchange at the Noorda's Christmas Party. Even though we were all a bit tired, we went to see Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downing Jr. It was well written and deserved more attention than our sleepy minds were able to give it. We'll be buying this one.
Tuesday:
Was the first day of Jon's "weekend" so he decided to go to Nellis with me(I had to get a stinkin mamogram...all's well) and then on to the temple. We got all dressed up and headed out the door. At some point while at Nellis, Jon remembered somewhere in the dark recesses of his noggin that the temple was closed for cleaning the first part of January. So he looked up the temple on his new fangled phone and sure enough, it was closed. I had no clue. At least we didn't drive all the way over there before we found out. We went to the BX for a shelf check and gathered lots of stares as we wandered around the store in our Sunday best.
Wednesday:
Tosca went to the beautician. You can't really use the term "groomer" when it comes to Tosca. She is quite the vain little Diva. At first, she wouldn't let the groomers touch her. Then I explained to them the need to treat her like a beautiful Diva. They started showering her with praise, telling her how pretty she was, and asking if they could see her beautiful paws. She turned to putty and let them do whatever to her. Pathetic.
Last month Bryan decided he wants to get serious about earning his Eagle award. It'll be a miracle if he can finish before his 18th birthday, but he is determined to try. So, after school Bryan and Jon went to visit the principal of an inner city school in a very low income area. The school needed lots of work. The principal is a member of the church and knows several of the people in our ward. That is how Bryan found out about him and the school. Anyway, he was very enthusiastic and willing to help Bryan out. So they toured the school, made plans, and took pictures for an Eagle Scout service project. The plan is to repaint several (like, over 30) exterior classroom doors, repaint their gym room, and paint a piano scale on the wall in the music room. Then Bryan started filling out the project proposal to submit to the council. Ran it by Jon who gave him a list of changes to be made. He ran it by the Young Men's president that evening, made more changes.
Thursday:
Bryan ran his plan by the principal and a couple more people and had more changes. He was a little frustrated, but patient, when it kept coming back to him for more detail and more changes. He has kept a very good attitude toward it and is charging forward. It will be a great project and miraculously, the council did approve it the first try! He will be starting the project on Monday and finishing on Saturday! It'll be a miracle if he can get this done in time. But it is a doable miracle.
Kimmee decided she wanted to do Solo and Ensemble and heard that it was only 1 week away so she also needed to hurry things along. She picked out a piece, spoke to her violin teacher who recommended a pianist and commenced furious practice sessions. Her teacher wanted to hear her play it with the accompanist so they had an extra lesson on Thursday. They needed somewhere with a piano, so I suggested they meet at the church. Very inspired. They practiced in the Relief Society room. I answered lots of questions about the different organizations in the church. Afterward, Kimmee and I gave her teacher a tour of the building and answered more questions about the church and its uses. Kimmee explained about seminary. We ran into the missionaries in the library and so got to introduce them (I kinda knew they were there). All in all it was a very good preliminary exposure for Kimmee's teacher. It turned out her teacher had played "I am a child of God" in a sacrament meeting, somewhere, sometime, (as a favor for another one of his students)but didn't know anything about the church. I kept thinking...How could that be???
Friday:
The cats' turn at the vet. When I took the cats to the vet Jakey peed all over everything, including Mori, and the floor, and the scale, and me, and the nurse, what an idiot! I will cut him a little slack since he had a urinary infection and was scared out of his mind by a little dog half his size.;) He is feeling much better now. Both the cats are a little sore from being micro-chipped though. Jakey is taking pink liquid amoxicillin. Not willingly mind you. He is convinced that I'm trying to kill him and is mad at me for making him take that awful pink stuff. Mori is as healthy and psycho as ever.
The pot-smoking neighbors were having a garage sale, I went over for a few minutes to talk. Nice stuff but everything reeked...bad. They are MOVING next week. Not that we are excited or anything. Maybe now we can open our own windows without worrying about testing positive on a drug test the next day.
Saturday:
Morning, I passed a phone message to Jon to call the Bishop ASAP. He assumed it was concerning the ward mission plan that he put together for him. He should have known better. The Bishop asked him if he would speak in church the next day. There was a return missionary reporting on his mission and he wanted Jon to speak also and introduce the ward mission plan.
Aliens kidnapped Kimmee and Caiti on Saturday evening and replaced them with lookalikes. I was in the kitchen getting ready to make dinner when the lookalike Kimmee volunteered to help with dinner without even being asked. Then she single-handedly made the best mac and cheese Bryan has ever had. It was quite tasty! All without being asked! Whoa!
Sunday:
In the morning, Jon was downstairs getting ready to head off to Priesthood Executive Committee meeting. Caiti, or more accurately, the alien-Caiti came down the stairs. Jon pointed out the absolutely delicious apple cinnamon pancake batter that I had made for breakfast. Caiti very humbly declined breakfast and said she was fasting to get some extra help with finals this week. We were touched that both girls displayed a level of maturity that is uncommon for young ladies their age.
Jon's talk went really well. He was short on time but gave a wonderful talk and challenged everyone in the ward to work on having a gospel sharing home. You could feel the spirit strongly as it testified of the truth of what was being taught and challenged.
I had a really neat experience on Sunday. Mizlon (one of my Mia Maids) brought a friend to church that is completely deaf. Mizlon knows a little sign but asked me to interpret for her friend during Sunday School and YW. I was giving the lesson on Spiritual Gifts in YW. I was terrified to try interpreting again since it has been so long. I prayed all during sacrament meeting that I would be able to remember the signs and that I could convey the spirit during my lesson so this young lady would understand. I decided to put faith into action and asked Heavenly Father to bless me with the gift of tongues so I would be able to touch the hearts of all the YW in my class. After sac meeting, I went up to Mizlon and her friend and introduced myself and talked for a minute, the sign came easily but I was still very slow. I was worried about the next couple hours. Mizlon said she was surprised at how well she was able to sign for her friend and told me she wanted to try during Sunday school as well. After Sunday School, Mizlon said she was signing fast and using signs she had never learned and her friend understood her! During the YW lesson I asked Mizlon to continue to sign for her friend and I helped when she was stuck on a concept or word. She did GREAT! I was able to recognize and point out to the girls that the Lord had answered my prayer by blessing Mizlon with the gift of tongues that day! Sometimes the Lord doesn't answer our prayers the way we ask for them, but he does answer them! It was a wonderful teaching moment for the girls (and me)on the power of prayer and the true purpose for spiritual gifts. Mizlon was amazed when I pointed it out to her and she agreed she could definitely feel a difference. AWESOME moment! The spirit was strong in our little classroom.
There you go...our week in review...at least the highlights, throw in a lot of sleeping and chocolate and it would be complete! Until next time...
