Stake Conference

We're excited for Erin and Wil and their fun news!!--it was great to be the first to hear that they are having a boy--Dianna wasn't home so Erin called me at the office. Seems like only a few years ago that we were preparing for her birth, shortly after we arrived in Hawaii. Wasn't that two or three years ago?

And Lindsey turns 28 tomorrow--that's also very hard to believe. Mom looked at the picture of our family, which is sitting in our kitchen window, and had tears in her eyes as she tried to recall when we had four little ones in the house. I honestly can say I didn't wish for them to grow up fast--we kind of prided ourselves in allowing their childhood to be longer than many others. I wonder what traditions they will adopt from their growing up and which ones they will choose not to adopt!

We had a busy few days this past weekend with Elder Sheldon Child, our visiting general authority, who was here for our stake conference on Friday and Saturday. We met with him from 2:30-5 on Saturday, including an hour with our five bishops. Then dinner and then the evening session from 6:30-8:00--I spoke at that session.

When we were planning our stake conference, we called Elder Child about a month ago and he said the brethren have asked them to focus on (1) increasing our testimonies of the Savior and (2) strengthening families. So I combined the two topics and spoke on the importance of the parents' role in increasing the testimonies of their children. I pointed out that Dianna and I didn't grow up in LDS families so sharing our testimonies was a new concept to us; we used to avoid fast and testimony meetings when we were investigating! However, we tried to help our children develop their testimonies by having weekly home evening, daily scripture reading, family prayer (morning and night), and participating in various ordinances (father's blessings and baptisms, etc.). Something I think we could have done more was actually share our testimonies as parents and teach our children how to share their testimony, beginning in family home evening. I can always tell those families in which children have had the opportunity to do that. I hope each our daughters/husbands will have their children share their testimonies often during appropriate times in the family and regularly share their testimonies on fast and testimony Sundays--your children will gain strength and be among those willing to be bold enough to share theirs some day. It's so important today with all the challenges facing youth and it will only get more difficult--they'll need that extra strength! We'll try to help, too.

Elder Child talked then about the importance of family home evening. He pointed out that the brethren are concerned about how distractions are interfering with our families holding family home evening on Monday night. So I'm appealing to each of us as families to have our weekly home evenings every Monday; it's the really important. We always kept the TV off, didn't answer the phone, and had family focus time. We were more faithful when our four were young, but it's been more difficult with only one--and a senior! But we're going to do better as well.

At our Sunday morning meeting, Sister Ellis spoke; her husband is first counselor in the temple presidency. She shared how she attended a preschool "graduation" for her four-year-old granddaughter. The children were asked to share what they wanted to be when they grew up. One boy wanted to be a fireman, and another wanted to be a policeman; one boy wanted to be a lion (she wondered about him as he bounded on the stage). When her little granddaughter came forward, the teacher asked her what she wanted to be and she said, "I want to be a Relief Society worker and go to the temple every day like my tutu (grandmother)." We were all touched and hopefully you are too as you think about the examples we set for our children.

Elder Child was very positive about our stake and said we're doing everything perfectly--he didn't really have any suggestions for improvement--especially since we have almost 90 percent sacrament attendance--but we want 100! I enjoy our stake members--cute families, young children--we have nearly 100 children under the age of 2 in our stake! These families keep our bishops very busy but we have a great team.

We had several opportunities to eat while Elder Child was here; he visited some member homes on Saturday morning, and some of them had prepared food; there was a TVA activity with food, then our Saturday evening dinner, then lunch after the conference on Sunday. He said our theme song for our stake should be, "'Til We Eat Again." . . . 'til we eat, eat eat, 'til we eat . . . Guess that's the theme song should be here in Hawaii.

Mom prepared wonderful lasagna last night and we invited Steve Gibson over for dinner; his wife is on the mainland. So I've already had my birthday dinner but I think we're getting together with the Pierces next Monday night for our FHE-combined-birthday dinner for Lindsey and me.

Last week (Thursday) Dianna and I went to the school play, "All My Sons," a play by Arthur Miller, based on a true story. It's an American tragedy; one of my students in my communications class had a supporting role. They had the seating on the stage (about 5 rows) so we were only a few feet from the characters. Most of the characters were very strong and it was very sobering message . . . with a surprise ending.

Last week I represented our university president at a meeting in the our governor's conference room; it was a 17-member task force that's looking at options to buy the Turtle Bay Hotel and the land around it to preserve the beaches etc. It was a proposal the governor made in her "State of the State." I was even on the news when they filmed those of us at the meeting. Our president was out of town last week and is out of town for our meeting again tomorrow, so I'll represent him again there.

Closing story: Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was: A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."

I enjoy reading the blogs of our family members and learning about their activities. It was great to see Jenny's update with her class and then visit on Saturday. We were a part of Lindsey's blog as they spent time here yesterday--Trevor is very creative and will probably become a professional traveler. All his games revolve around planes and theme parks. Erin's having fun in Melbourne now so it will be fun to learn about her travels there. It's been helpful to read about Megan's thoughts since we don't get to have too many conversations . . . So these are a useful means to keep in touch with one another!

Mom's made her reservations for May to Iowa and Pennsylvania. I need to finalize my schedule and make my reservations as well; she'll leave a little earlier so she can get to Iowa and then return earlier while I go to Chicago. She's also made reservations for both of us to visit Australia the end of July. Aunty Betty will "housesit" while we're gone and looks forward to some vacation time after a brutal Iowa winter.

My dad seems to be showing some signs of improvement but still very dependent on his health care, particularly the regular diabetes checks 3-4 times each day.

We enjoyed our dinner with Keith and Judy Roberts at Turtle Bay last night; they'll be leaving on April 8 so it was great to spend some time with them before they leave. Our days and evenings are always full, it seems. For example, this week during the evenings:

Monday - President Arnold Wunder from Maui and his wife came for dinner; mom prepared a great meal (chicken rollups!). He was the devotional speaker on Tuesday
Tuesday - I participated in ministering visits for the BYUH 9th Ward, which had its ward conference today
Wednesday - I attended a Planning Advisory Committee meeting (6:30-9:30 p.m.) for the sustainability plan for Koolauloa. Keith has been the BYUH representative and now I'll be filling in for him.
Thursday - We did the temple sealings that Dianna wrote about in her blog--certainly a highlight and particularly to have Lindsey and John assist us.
Friday - We relaxed at home!

In conclusion, my highlights for the week were our two temple experiences; first, we attended the usual 5:30 a.m. session yesterday. Second, I always enjoy completing our family names for temple baptisms, endowments, etc., but I had a feeling of real rejoicing in doing the sealings. I felt like those who were on the other side were truly rejoicing that their work had been truly completed, they were sealed as couples and families forever, and could finally reap the full benefit of the gospel. It will be fun to visit with them some day and learn about what they were experiencing on their side of the veil.

Now that we completed our last of five ward conferences today for this academic year, we are now preparing for our stake conference which will be held next Sunday with Elder Sheldon Child as our visiting general authority. I've been working on my talk today!