THE FIELD IS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST

I got back from attending our stake missionary fireside and I thought I would share some of the things I learned and feelings I felt.

I had a few "I'm not in Kansas (Utah) anymore" experiences. We have 30 full time missionaries serving in our stake. When the stake president asked them to stand up I took a look around the chapel and was overwhelmed with the spirit that these special young men and women have. It was like our own mini MTC.

Later, the stake president asked everyone to stand up who is a convert to the church. Then he asked those to stand up whose parents were converts and that's how they came into the gospel. And then onto grandparents...stand up if your grandparents were converts to the church. By this time everybody was standing up. Not kidding. The stake presidency, the bishops and branch presidents, and even a member of the Tampa Bay Florida Missions presidency stood up. There could not have been more than a dozen people still sitting. And the ones I could see sitting down were from the law school. They're probably from Utah or Idaho etc. I have never been in a place where literally almost everyone is a first or second generation member. My first thought was, " How cool." My second thought was, "I think I'm just realizing what a blessing it has been in my life to have such a rich heritage in the gospel to have my membership in the gospel go back to the pioneers." My third thought and most powerful, "Have I lived worthy of this rich heritage?"

There were nearly 600 baptisms in the Tampa Bay mission last year. In one ward last month they had 14 baptisms and 90% (I think) were brought to the missionaries through the members.

The stake president shared this story about a member in our stake: This man and his family were living in Miami at the time. One day he was walking down the street with his son Elijah. They passed by another man and began to speak with one another. They talked for a while when the other man said, "Shorty you and your family will move and you will be presented with a beautiful opportunity, and your son Elijah will do a very important work for the Lord. The man had never been told his son's name. Three months later they moved up to St. Petersberg. They rented a house whose owners happened to be members of the church. The rest is history, or the beginning of this family's story as members of the church.
The stake president said that angels all over are preparing the way if we will just open our mouths.

Have I opened my mouth lately? Have I loved and served my neighbors? When people see me, do they see a happiness to the core, a light in my eyes, that would let them know there's something different about me?

I know I feel overwhelmed most of the time raising two boys, having a husband in law school and teaching seminary, trying to keep the house clean (that's way down on the list lately), making meals for my family that are healthy but also in our budget of not much, serving in the YW presidency, reading my scriptures everyday and the Ensign every month and updating my blog:) etc.... yada yada. But, I really hope to keep the spirit of missionary work and to remember to go out of my way to love and serve and open my mouth.

Highlights of the day....

Highlight #1: John watched the kids during lunch while I went to a lecture that one of his professors was giving on human trafficking. I've read the book "Half The Sky" and I've heard a lot about this on NPR. Immokalee (a farm community about 30 min east) has a huge problem with human trafficking. Ave Maria has a clinic to help the victims of this horrific crime and Professor Donovan works directly with the girls as their attorney. I feel like there's not much I can do being a stay at home mom. I'm not going to drag my kids out there to scope out any suspicious bars, buildings, trailers etc. so I can report it to the police. But I feel like I have to do something. I talked with Professor Donovan very briefly and I hope that she knows of some way I can be of assistance. I'll keep you posted.

Highlight #2: I'm putting Eli in his car seat to go to Super Target. Miles was running to the car and he tripped and fell and skinned his knees(this part was not the highlight of my day). Fortunately I keep some Neosporin To Go and band aids in my bag so we didn't have to go all the way back in the house. They were Handy Manny band aids. We fixed up Miles skinned knees and off to Target we went. When we got there, Miles did not want to get out of the car. This was our conversation:

Me: "Miles, why don't you want to get out of the car?"

Miles: "Because Handy Manny band aids are so cool and everyone will want one and they will try to steal them off my knees!"

After laughing out loud, literally, I promised Miles if anyone came close to his knees to try to steal his band aids then I would king-fu chop them. This worked, and he felt a lot better about sporting his Handy Manny band aids in Super Target.

A Visit to the Train Museum

Eli loves Elmo

These slippers are still too big (they were Miles) but he loves them

We've been having a problem during mutual with our girls texting or leaving to make calls. So, we came up with the idea to make this box. I took on the little project and this is how it turned out. When the girls come to mutual they put their cell phones in the box, then they take out a Hershey's Kiss. When mutual is over they can have them back. We had some seriously eye ball rolling when we announced it but, it worked great last week. I'm so proud of the girls for their willingness to participate.

Bubbles and our two boys in the bath

What we've been up to lately

John: Yay John! He was elected as Moot Court President for next year. He's really excited and hopes to accomplish many great things.

Wendy: I've been running again and really enjoy it. Makes me wonder why I ever stopped in the first place. I've also been reading. The last couple months I've read:

The Same Kind of Different as Me
Sarah Palin, Going Rogue
Why Boys are Different and How to Bring Out The Best in Them

All of them were very enjoyable. I'm going to be starting The Red Tent next week. I've heard it's really good so I'm excited.

Miles: EXUBERANT AS EVER!! His new favorite snack is graham crackers and milk. His favorite color today is green. And he has a "friend" His name is Little Tiny. He comes to visit us during dinner time. He sits under the table and Miles feeds him. But he only comes sometimes. What this amounts to is Miles has thought of a very clever way to throw his food on the floor when he doesn't like his dinner. Because when he does like his dinner, Little Tiny is no where to be found.

Eli: He is growing so fast. He is 17 months going on 3. He like to practice his ABC's when Miles does and he tries to count when he hears us counting. And he loves to eat (I think it's because he was sick most of February and is catching up). One night he ate more spinach ravioli than John. WHOA! That's a lot of ravioli. He didn't even throw any of it up.

Well, that's all for now. Tomorrow we are going to a train museum because both our boys are obsessed. I'm sure we'll take pictures and post them soon.

Our two boys are Thomas the Train crazy

I thought I would share the train love with our friends and family. Enjoy!

Blast from the past New Years night on the beach

We had such a great time at the beach on New Years eve. The city of Naples had a fireworks show off of the pier. The boys loved it!