My cousin spoke in our Ward today!

When we got settled into our seats at church today (a few minutes late like usual), I was happy to see who was on the stand-- my cousin, Dean Millsaps!  First there was a talk by another guest speaker, then a nice musical number by a men's quartet: Jeff Andersen, John Gammon, Jacob Hyatt, and Bert Millett.  They sang "How Firm a Foundation" a capella and did such a great job. 

Then Dean (a High Counselor in Mesa North Stake) spoke about the Holy Ghost.  He made some great points about how most of us members of the Church don't fully take advantage of the gift of the Holy Ghost--that we all can have that power and influence stronger in our lives.  He gave us many reminders of what we need to be doing as individuals and as families--the usual obvious things like prayer, scripture study, FHE, etc. and also that we need to eliminate the contention in our homes and eliminate the things/influences that take the spirit away like unappropriate music, movies, etc. 

I liked the example he used to explain the Holy Ghost:  When the power is out at night, we quickly find a candle, then a flashlight, then we're able to find some better light sources like a lantern until we are more comforted & can see during the power outage/storm.  When we invite the spirit into our lives we are more and more enlightened, comforted, and blessed.  He also shared a story that many of us have heard about Bruce R. McConkie when he was a kid.  He was riding his horse in the orchard when all of a sudden the horse was spooked.  Bruce R. McConkie was just hanging off the horse, about to fall to very serious injury or death.  At that same time, his father was in the house and got that prompting to go out into the orchard.  He listened and went out to the orchard where he saw the horse and knew he needed to stop it (even before he realized that his son was hanging off the horse in serious danger).  The father was able to stop the horse and a great lesson was learned about listening to those promptings.  I think we all can learn something from that and dedicate ourselves to doing a better job of listening and acting upon the promptings of the Holy Ghost as they come.

As Dean was wrapping up his talk, I leaned over to Marlyse to let her know that he was my cousin, yes, even though he's old enough to be my dad!  After the meeting was over, I took Marlyse up to the stands to meet my cousin.  I shook his hand and said, "hi, cousin!"  It was nice to visit with him briefly.  I thanked him for giving such a good talk and that we really needed the reminder--that we all need to do better.  He congratulated me on expecting another baby and commended me for being willing to have a big family, even when it's not easy to do.  He said he was too selfish and only wanted 2 kids because he worried about providing for more.  He's a little regretful about not having more kids because his wife wanted more kids.  He told me that Grandpa Donaldson would always say, "every child of ours had a grain of wheat in their bellies and never went without" (or something like that) and they had 14 children!

I really enjoyed Sacrament Meeting today, even if every other second our kids were restless and a bit fussy.  

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Back to School time --Our first week of school has come and gone.  The kids have had to readjust to going to bed early, waking up early, new teachers, new bus driver, and new academic challenges.  We've had some not so great days, but everyday is getting better.  Overall, the kids are glad to be back in school and boy am I glad that they are back in school!  Afterall, this is the "most wonderful time of the year!"  


         

Kade is in Miss Weinstein's 5th grade class, Marlyse is in Mrs. Brennan's 3rd grade class, and Rachelle is in Miss Lambert's 1st grade class.

           

This school year Rachelle will be starting Let's Play Music lessons (early piano theory to teach kids how to be great pianists someday) from Sanya Fenn.  Marlyse & Rachelle are taking dance at Miss Beverly's Dance Loft, Kade is finishing up as a Webelo Cub Scout and moving on to the 11 yr. old Boy Scouts.  Kade & Marlyse will keep taking piano lessons with Aubrey Barnwell.  On top of all that, Kade is going to play the trumpet in band.  I guess our kids aren't into the athletics right now, but rather developing their musical & fine art talents.  Just this schedule alone will keep us very busy.  I can't imagine throwing in soccer, basketball, or baseball.

Larson Family Trip to Yellowstone

Well, here it's been a month since I last updated my blog.  I made it a goal to update twice a month, but our big trip to Yellowstone took a lot out of me.  Plus, the kids were all home, restless, and ready to head back to school.  We were in a state of survival--just making it through one day at a time.

July 16th, was a super busy day.  We were making lists and checking them twice, getting ready for our big trip to Yellowstone.  On top of that, we had our ward potluck dinner & pool party to take care of before heading out of town.

 

 

 

We headed out of town at 11:30 p.m., taking turns driving.  After driving all night, we arrived in American Fork, UT where we had just enough time to get ready for church with Aunt Pam & Uncle Lamar.  Oh, how the kids loved it there!  They loved exploring their garden, walking the dog, and picking & eating raspberries.  The next day we headed up to Island Park, ID for our Larson family vacation, but on our way stopped by to see the Ingram's in Rigby.  It was good to visit for a little while.  We made it to "The Gathering Place" just in time for dinner.  The kids had a great time exploring the place and playing with their cousins.

The next three days we explored Yellowstone, taking in as much as possible and making sure that we saw some new things that we didn't have time to see two years ago when we visited there.  Also, Don & Kade tried some fishing in the streams near our place in Island Park and Kade reeled in a big one!  The kids had a blast!  We loved our Yellowstone trip and the kids are still talking about the great time they had there with their cousins.


 

Kade caught a big one in Island Park, Idaho!

 

Our Family by Old Faithful

   

Old Faithful



Dragon's Mouth



        

  

Our kids at the Lower Falls

Liberty Cap, Mammoth Hot Springs

On the trek back home to Mesa, we stopped in Utah to visit family and stayed with my cousin Kjarstin and Gunther in South Jordan for a couple of days.  We had fun at the Family Fun Center in Sandy with Kjarstin and her little boys-- thanks to her for getting us a great deal on Groupon, we were able to swim & do the huge slides, eat a pizza lunch, and play games in the arcade.  Then we spent a day at the Tibble Fork Lake in American Fork Canyon with my cousin Afton & her family.  The kids and I had fun on their paddle boat while Don & Kade did some more fishing.  Then we had a nice Donaldson family get-together & potluck dinner at cousin Teryl's, a 24th of July annual tradition.  Next, we made one last stop by Aunt Pam's in American Fork to pick up some starter plants for Kade.  He was just amazed at all of her great plants--my funny little nature boy!  We got such a late start home that we weren't able to stop by Aunt Gladys' in Fillmore, but I did call her and visited for a little bit.  We'll catch her next trip to Utah.  Don did all the night driving this time and we finally got home at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 24th, exhausted with painfully swollen feet from all of our travels.  By the way, the swelling went down and we recuperated nicely from our travels.