Talk in church

So every couple years we, members of my church, have the opportunity to give a talk on church.  I can't say this is my favorite thing to do but over the years in this ward it has almost become comical for me.  The first two times I spoke I was pregnant.  One time, I was VERY pregnant and had a lot of kicks and Braxton hicks during the preparation and talk itself.  Both of these times I spoke with the same speaker, Nick Ioannou from my ward.  Nick is a great guy and we laughed about it the second time.  The third talk in this ward Nick teased the Bishopric member to see if we were talking again together so from his suggestion we did.  I was just asked to speak last Sunday and again Nick was my partner. We both have a good laugh about it every time.

All kidding aside my talk was on "The Power of Scriptures" by Elder Richard G Scott.  He is an apostle of the Lord much like Andrew, Peter, John, and many others in the New Testament.  He spoke of how much strength, peace, clarity, and revelation we can received through studying the scriptures.  I went through my scriptures and found many notes of times I was praying about something and received answers while studying.  The scriptures, all of them, Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and modern day prophets teach us and provide so many answers to everyday problems we face. 

I am so grateful to these writers of our scriptures so take the time to write down revelations so years later I can learn from them.  One of the biggest blessings in my life is to have the Holy Ghost with me all the time.  I especially find this helpful when I have a problem I just don't know the answer to or a challenge I just need outside strength to get through.  The scriptures provide that anchor to the Holy Ghost and to Heavenly Father.  I'm so grateful for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and for our Heavenly Father.  They have blessed my life every  minute of everyday.  I'm so grateful to have scriptures, both prophets now I can listen to and prophets of old I can read from. 

Here is a link to the talk if you are interested in reading it.
"The Power of Scripture" by Elder Scott

Christmas 2011

We wanted to keep Christmas a little light this year due to our trip to Disney.  The check book doesn't agree with this goal but we had a wonderful day.  We got back from Disney on the night of the 23rd so the Christmas Eve we spent getting ready for Christmas and cleaning up from our trip.  That evening we had a wonderful dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Blackham's home with Kristen, Justin, Amy and their little baby Caleb.  We had a wonderful meal and had the kids reenact the nativity with Caleb. 

Christmas was on Sunday so we did a quick opening of Santa gifts and breakfast before our 9 am church.  We finished opening gifts when we returned.

Anson received some much wanted Ben 10 guys and of course legos.  We also gave him an ant farm, which he has loved but now that the ants have died I'm not sure I want to clean it out and replace them. 

What do you give a 3rd boy in the family, more train stuff!  Andrew is our train and airplane boy so he now rides in style with his Thomas train.

Aaron went right to work on his legos, Star Wars ships and could not be disturbed even for a picture!

 

Rachel received a CD player so she can twirl all she wants to princess songs.  We actually replaced the one her because it broke within a week.  She loves singing with it, listening to books with it and of course TWIRLING!

The kids also received some play dough from Aunt Aundrea and Uncle Dave.  Rachel could barely wait to bust it open and get into it!

After Andrew's nap we went over to open presents with the Blackhams.  We then went over to Somers to open more presents and have a wonderful meal with them.  (Notice the green grass outside in this picture.  It was not a white Christmas for once; Rick was very happy.)

Christmas is a wonderful time of year and I'm grateful to live close to family so we can spend it with them.