Hannah and tennis, Shakespeare at UNR, my new church calling, and Jiaxin's farewell

Hannah went down to Vegas on Wednesday with the girls' tennis team for the State Championship. The tennis part didn't go so well for CCHS and she threw her retainer away in the trash by accident at a fast food restaurant when they stopped for lunch, but it sounds like it was a good trip and they had a great time.

Thursday night, Glen and I went to Reno with 6 of his students to attend the dress rehearsal of The Comedy of Errors. Other high schools had been invited, too. It was theatre in the round and there was no set besides 4 doors and a platform, and virtually no props (suitcases, rope, a guitar, a necklace, and a ring), and it was wonderful! The play deals with 2 sets of identical twins that were separated as infants, and then as adults they wind up in the same city which leads to all sorts of crazy situations. Though they used Shakespeare's script, it was edited for time and content (they take out a side story or two), so it only lasts 90 minutes. Afterwards, they held a question and answer period for us. It was a lot of fun.

So, I received a new calling at church. I've been working in the Young Women's program for almost 7 months as an advisor, meaning I teach about 3 Sunday lessons a month and attend mid-week activities to be an extra set of hands to help out. I worked part of the time with the 12-13 year olds (Beehives) and part with Hannah's group, the 16-18 year olds (the Laurels). I will now be the 1st counselor in the YW Presidency, which means I am over the 14-15 year olds (the Mia Maids). My sister-in-law Carey is the advisor and teaches the Sunday lessons. I think it'll be great. Carey and I haven't worked together since we were both counselors in the Primary Presidency about 11 years ago.

The change in my duties means that now I will only have to teach on Sundays once every few months, but I am responsible for 2 Tuesday night activities each month and occasionally some combined activities with just the girls and also with the Young Men. In a way, it's a bigger calling, but I'd actually rather have that than teaching 3 Sunday lessons a month. I think I'm getting better as a teacher, but I'm still not comfortable with it and it stresses me a little. Planning activities, though important, seem less stressful to me than planning lessons. Maybe I'll change my mind after a few months when I start having a hard time coming up with activity ideas (but there's always the internet and Pinterest for finding ideas).

Here is a picture from Young Women's today:

The new YW President is Christy, who was one of my counselors when I was the Primary President, so there's a little role reversal going on. She will be great and I'm excited to work with her. One of the counselors from this past presidency, Laura, is staying on and will be over the Beehives now. Even though the new presidency is great, I will miss the old one. Kara is phenomenal and was such a wonderful president. And working with Holly in the Beehives was terrific.

at church with Jiaxin after his talk (Glen, Beth, Jiaxin, Hannah, and Alex)

Jiaxin gave his farewell talk in Sacrament meeting today and it was so...I don't even know the right word for it. He was amazing. The whole meeting was filled with the spirit. We are very excited for him. He enters the MTC on Wednesday and will be there for 3 weeks. He is going to the California Arcadia Mandarin speaking mission...and, having been born in China, he already speaks Mandarin. He took most of his missionary discussions in our house and Ryan is the one who baptized him--and now he's going to be a missionary himself!  It's just a wonderful thing to be a witness to. I have his email address and will add his mailing address to my sidebar when I get it

Annalee and the Bishop had a get together for Jiaxin in their home tonight. Here are a few photos from there:

Bishop Wadsworth, Jiaxin, and Annalee

Jiaxin, Glen, and Beth

Jackie, Jiaxin, and David

In between church and the get-together for Jiaxin, we had the Young Women in Excellence program. I felt the spirit so strongly there. It was really an uplifting day today.

The one sad part of the day was hearing that Shelly Hubbard, the friend whose fundraiser we helped at last weekend, is in a medically induced coma. She needs all our thoughts and prayers to be with her.

Michael, busy Homecoming week, speaking with a GA in attendance

LAST SUNDAY the 13th Grandma and Grandpa P had a family dinner to honor Michael. He was set apart as a missionary that night. Elder Perazzo entered the MTC on Wednesday (see the side bar for his address). Exciting times!

 

  front row: Alex, Maddie, Michael, and Joseph

 middle row: Thomas, Ben, Megan, Melissa, Daniel, and Brandon

back row: Tyler and Brent

HOMECOMING

It was a Disney-themed homecoming week at the high school and I am so sad, but I didn't get any photos of Hannah on the dress-up days. Maybe I can steal one off of facebook...

MONDAY (Peter Pan day) she went in her pajamas. Glen had his night shirt over his clothes. I originally put on my pajamas and then decided high school girls are so much cuter, so it was up to them to dress up and not me.

Monday was also the Powder Puff football game. Hannah played on the senior girls' team and started each half. Luckily, she was the only one in green sweatpants, so it was easy to follow her (her number was 00, which I thought was super cool). Seniors won 38-21.

TUESDAY (Toy Story day) she went dress as a cowgirl.

WEDNESDAY (Epcot Center--Cultural Day) she went as a tourist with my Uruguay t-shirt, camera, etc.

THURSDAY (Disney classics day) she went as Ariel from the Little Mermaid and used my good serving fork as her dinglehopper to comb her hair.

Thursday was also the day we got to go to the temple with Jiaxin!

Annalee, Nathan, Beth, Glen, Jiaxin, Jason, Denise, and Pat (David and Jackie also attended)

FRIDAY was green and white day and Hannah was with the tennis team in Truckee, California. She and Sam won their first match, but lost the second one.

Since they left at 6 am, I didn't see her at all, but happily I'm learning how to steal photos other people post on their facebook pages (thank you Sammy!). The team goes to the state competition in Vegas this Wednesday.

Sammy, Hannah, Garrett, Josie (in back), Hannah, and Becky

Friday night, after Alex and I went swimming with the scouts, Glen, Alex, and I attended part of the Homecoming Football game...the last quarter of the JV game, and boy, was it exciting. We won. Both games. It was a blast. At least Glen and I thought so. Alex was a bit neutral about the whole experience


SATURDAY
Glen was SUPER busy...
scouting Fall Camperall in the morning
Cleaning up the old Harmon School to get it ready for the church dance.
Putting make up on people who were participating in the zombie run (how fun is that? to have a 5k where you are chased by people dressed as zombies!).
Then he participated in the fundraiser for CAPS...it was an audience participation mystery dinner. They performed the play Next of Kin to raise money for the animal shelter here and Glen directed and narrated the play.
Then he showed up at the fundraiser for Shelly Hubbard--Tournament of Talent.
Then he helped at the school homecoming dance a little.
Then he went to the church dance at Harmon School.

I spent Saturday writing my talk for church, making goodies, and helping with the concessions at the Tournament of Talent. I am amazed at the work my friends, Terra, DonNell, and Jennifer did...I am a worker bee, but they are leaders. It was a fabulous evening and I think they raised over $6,000. My niece, Melissa, played the piano and sang "In the Arms of an Angel" in it. Our friend, Kara, and her daughter, Adia, won the competition. Those were the only 2 numbers I watched as I was usually at the concession stand. They were really amazingly talented.

TODAY--SUNDAY the 20th
So, Glen's High Council speaking assignment this month had him going to the Austin branch to speak (branches are smaller than wards...I was told there'd be about 30 people in attendance). Often speakers bring their families with them. Hannah, Geoff, and Alex came with us.

Just before the meeting starts, I find out that a General Authority for our church, Elder George Keele of the Seventy (our Area Authority), will be there. So, I'm speaking in a meeting where a GA will be in attendance and be the concluding speaker. I tried not to freak out and get nervous. I had been having a bit of trouble polishing my talk and had already been doubting how it would turn out.

Well, it went well enough, even though I lost my place and might have rambled a little and missed part of what I was going to say. It was a meandering talk using the scriptures "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest" and "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. " Those small and simple things being things like scripture study and prayer. If you are interested, I'm posting my original talk (not the scrambled and partially missing parts talk that I gave) to my other blog. Click here.

Afterwards, Elder Keele stopped and talked to us for several minutes and told us how wonderful he thought our talks were. His wife wasn't with him, so he was going to go home and do his best to share my words with her. I guess I believe him, but a part of me thinks that he's just a really nice man and does what he can to make people feel good about their efforts.

We had been invited by Paul and Kelly Young of the Austin branch to their house to have dinner. We had a wonderful time visiting. We haven't just visited with anyone for a very long time. It really was a wonderful Sabbath.

serving us up some dessert

enjoying the dessert

Alex can now claim, "Shotgun!"

Yes, heard today for the first time by Hannah from Alex was, "Shotgun!" as we were going to the car. It took her by surprise. I wonder how long he's been planning that. He turned 13 on Thursday and, according the the airbag advisory in our car, is now old enough to sit in the front seat.  Happy Birthday Alex!

Other big news in our household this week is that for the first time ever, the CCHS Girl's Tennis Team, of which Hannah is a member, won the right to go to State! That will be in 2 weeks in Vegas. Congratulations to the Lady Greenwave Tennis players.

I don't have a photo from this year's tennis, so last year's will have to do:

This next week is Homecoming Week and the Powder Puff football game is on Monday. Hannah will be playing on the Senior girl's team. Should be fun!


Today was our Stake Temple Day. It was a beautiful day to go to the Reno temple.

Ryan and Eric seem to be doing well on their respective missions. There isn't much news from Ryan's direction these last few weeks, but Eric got a new companion a week ago, Elder Loggins, and moved to a different apartment building.

Eric was able to attend the Priesthood session of General Conference last weekend and shook the hand of Elder D. Todd Christofferson, one of the Apostles. Eric has also had a change in his assignment. He now is doing what's called FamilySearch Waypointing. He explains it this way:

My first assignment is Bronx probate records, let's start there: a probate record, like wills and stuff, would take up more than one image, so a Waypointer would "index" the name of the person whose probate it is, once, and then assign a range of all of the pertinent images that that name applies to.

I don't totally understand, but that's OK.

Andrew and Heather are busy with school and work and are planning on coming here for Thanksgiving!


Glen is also busy with school He's busy with a dinner murder mystery that's being performed next Saturday as a fundraiser for our local animal shelter CAPS. He's got rehearsals for the upcoming play "Time Share" that goes on in November--Hannah's in it, by the way. At first she was just going to play the dead body, but she actually has a real role. And last Friday night, Glen portrayed Andy Drumm for the museum. Oh, and there's lots of scouting stuff going on, too.

My long-term sub job is a dream. I am subbing for an all-inclusion teacher, which means that I am not in charge unless they are short on subs (which has happened for 2 different classes so far). I am a co-teacher and just follow the lead of the other teacher. I don't have to decipher lesson plans! I usually go around and make sure the students are taking notes and help them with their math. The teachers with whom I'm working (Lund, Davis, Strasdin, and Marsh) are all fabulous and most of the students are great, too. I have 3 weeks down and 3 to go now.

So, that's what's happening with us. :)

is this a sugar or a spiritual high?

answer: both

It is General Conference weekend. My 4 favorite times of the year are: October General Conference, Christmas, April General Conference, and BYU's Ed Week. Conference is really that good that it ranks with Christmas.

For Conference, which is always a spiritual high, our family chooses words to listen for during the talks and we get a candy for each time the word is said--thus the sugar high is mentioned. I might need to find something other than candy for April.

Our words for this conference this go around:

Commandments
Word
Eternal/Eternity
Forgive/Forgiveness
Chariot (Eric's, in case you couldn't tell--he likes to choose words that might not be said, and it wasn't)
Blessings
Perfection/Perfect
History
Family

As wonderful as Conference was, I realize the big work is now deciding how what I heard is going to be represented in the choices I make daily. It's time to apply what we heard. Don't know yet how.

Anyway, here I've just put a few of the quotes that stood out to me. I gave everyone the assignment to take a  conference quote and attach it to a picture for FHE tomorrow night. I've made 2 so far.

Although I love all our General Authorities, I have to admit that Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf is my favorite...he seems to speak straight to my heart, so I have listed him first. The rest basically goes in the order that they spoke.

PRES. DIETER F. UCHTDORF with his awesome German accent (he spoke twice, click here and here to watch his talks):

We see assignments not as burdens, but as opportunities to fulfill covenants we gladly make to serve God and His children.

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.

Some might say, "I don't think I could live up to your standards." All the more reason to come. The church is designed to nourish the imperfect, the struggling, and the exhausted. It is filled with people who desire with all their hearts to keep the commandments, even if they haven't mastered them yet.

I suppose the church would only be perfect if it were run by perfect beings. God is perfect and His doctrine is pure, but He works through us, His imperfect children, and imperfect people make mistakes.

Godly sorrow leads to salvation. It inspires change and hope through the Atonement. True repentance is about transformation, not torture or torment.


ELDER EDWARD DUBE with his awesome Zimbabwe accent (click here to watch this talk):

The past is to be learned from, not lived in. Faith is always pointing towards the future. 


In the sight of the Lord, it is not so much on what we have done or in where we have been, but much more on where we are willing to go.

 


ELDER DAVID A. BEDNAR (click here for his talk)

Ingratitude means living in endless discontentment.


PRES. BOYD K. PACKER who is awesome even without an accent (to watch his talk click here):

The safe place to raise children is a gospel-centered home.

Righteousness is more powerful than wickedness.

The scriptures are a key to our spiritual protection.


ELDER TIMOTHY J. DYCHES with his awesome Reno, Nevada accent (click here for his talk):

Jesus heals the body, mind, and spirit and it begins with faith.


ELDER JEFFREY R. HOLLAND whose carpets I cleaned while he was the President of BYU and I was on the custodial staff (click here for his talk):
 
When you face depletion depression, make the requisite adjustments. Fatigue is the common enemy of us all. So, slow down, rest up, replenish, and refill.

Physicians promise us that if we don't take time to be well, we most assuredly will take time later on to be ill.

Do not vote against the preciousness of life by ending it.... One day the dawn will break brightly.

If the bitter cup does not pass, drink it and be strong, trusting in happier days ahead.

ELDER M. RUSSELL BALLARD (for his talk, click here):

It is impossible for us to fail when we do our best and we are on the Lord's errand.


PRES. THOMAS S. MONSON (He spoke 4 times, click here and here for his main talks):

There are lives to brighten. There are hearts to touch. There are souls to save.

Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, He is with us. He has promised that this will never change. 

Such difficulties [sorrow, grief, being tested to the limit] allow us to change for the better, to rebuild our lives in the way our Heavenly Father teaches us and to become something different than what we were, better than what we were, more understanding that what we were, more empathetic than what we were, with stronger testimonies that we had before.


ELDER DALLIN H. OAKS (click here for his talk):

We should remember our first priority--to serve God. And, like our pioneer predecessors, push our personal handcarts forward with the same fortitude they exhibited. 


PRES. RICHARD D. MAYNES (click here for his talk):

quoting Pres. Anthony W. Ivins: "This is what the gospel gives us. Not immunity from death, but victory over it through the hope we have in a glorious resurrection."



ELDER RICHARD G. SCOTT (for his talk, click here):

Satan will try and use our memory of any previous guilt to lure us back into his influence. We must be ever vigilant to avoid his enticements.


ELDER QUENTIN L. COOK (click here to hear from him):

How we preserve time for family is one of the most significant issues we face in most cultures.


ELDER TERENCE M. VINSON (to watch his talk, click here):

The Savior wants us to love Him to the point we want to align our will with His.


ELDER RUSSELL M. NELSON (click here for this talk):

Christ allows us to access His power as we keep His commandments eagerly, earnestly, and exactly.

Each day is a day of decision and our decisions determine our destiny.


It is already available online to read, to listen to, or to watch. To see all the other talks, go to:
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2013/10?lang=eng