Sunday, January 18, 2009

Elder Russell M. Nelson


We had Stake Conference today and Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles presided over it. It was so nice to be able to have an apostle come for our stake conference! Apparently the stake that we're in, the Albuquerque East New Mexico Stake, has not had an apostle visit since 1980! Everyone was very happy to be able to listen to what he had to say.

When he stood up and started to speak, I just felt the spirit so strongly and my heart felt so happy! The other speakers (who included the stake president (President Kerns), the temple matron and president (President Wattups married me and Ison), and Elder Web of the Seventy) mostly spoke about the importance of going to the temple and the blessings that we would recieve from going. Elder Nelson spoke about many things, more or less what parents should be remembering to teach to their children.

Here are some of the main points:
  • teach on the importance of prophets
  • teach the restoration of the priesthood
  • parents, help your children love you (he specificly said not to spank or publicly punich your children)
  • teach your young men of the sacred responsibility of serving a mission
  • priorities are first and formost on being worthy to meet the Lord, even during the hard times today
Obviously I took notes...it helps me to get so much more out of talks, otherwise I would not be able to focus as well. There are also doodles that I did...some are related to what people talked about, but others were just doodles I was thinking about. Becaouse I was able to take notes, I wrote down a few quotes from Elder Nelson to the T. Here is one of them everyone enjoyed regarding how he has been able to know many prophets:

"I've operated on some of them. I know them inside and out." :)

I am so greatful for having prophets and apostles here on the earth today to lead and guide us, especially during this day when so many things seem to be going wrong. I know that Elder Nelson is an apostle called of God and that what he says is truth.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

A Nice Surprise

I am back at work this week after a 2 week long vacation, but there is not much to do because the kids are not back until next Monday...that means long, boring days at work. The good thing is that we can leave early if there are not meetings that we need to attend. I left a little after 1:00pm yesterday because I was tired of staring at my computer screen...and there was some cleaning I wanted to get done before Ison got home from work. There were dishes to put away (we actually did the dishes the night before...so proud of ourselves), kitchen counters to be cleaned throughly, clothes needed to be put away in the bedroom and the bed to be made, and there were several things that just needed to be put away in the living room.

I drove home and then when I arrived on my street, I saw Ison's ugly (yes, it really is ugly, he says so himself) truck in front of the house and realized that he was home! Why was he home? He should have been back at work by 12:45... I opened the garage, which I knew he would hear, pulled in and went into the house and looked for him. He came down the stairs and said, "You're not supposed to be home yet!" I told him that I decided to come home early because my eyes hurt from staring at the computer. He told me that he decided to take a free half-day off that he earned at work to come home and clean, but he wanted to go get me a surprise as well. He took the car to go get it.

I had no clue what the surprise was going to be and he was gone about 2 hours (while I cleaned downstairs and ate some lunch) when he texted me saying that he could not find it. When he came home he just told me what he wanted to get me because he wanted to make sure I would like it. This is what it is:
I am so excited!! I want one of these jewelry armoires so bad because I hate having all my necklaces tangled up...makes me just not want to wear them. He got the idea for it today because he noticed that nearly all of my jewelry was laying all over my dresser and he wanted me to be able to put it all up. :) Since he couldn't find it at either of the Targets he went to, we went online and found it on clearance and ordered it. I don't know when it will get here, but I am so ready for it! I even have a place for it to go!

This may sound silly and such a small thing, but I just love being surprised by Ison! It's the little things that he does for me that show me how much he loves me. And what is the funnest part of all this is that I was actually wanting to surprise him with the cleaning myself...