Off to See the Mama

Last Sunday was a great day. I love it when family gets together. Miranda and her 3 boys, Deborah, Jonathan, and Andy's families were all gathered for Steven's baptism in Springdale. It was especially nice to see Nathan before he departs for BYU this week.

Deborah did a great job of fixing taco salad plus fruit and cookies for the baptismal refreshments. The kids all had a good time running around and eating. There were many ward friends at the baptism. Ian baptized Steven. So special.Tom said it was neat that three generations of Fox's helped confirm Steven-- Tom, Andy, Nathan-- plus of course many others standing in the circle.

We helped clean up and then left for home about 8 pm and got in about 10:30.

Monday I bit the bullet and helped trim tree limbs with Tom and the tractor. I drove the tractor and Tom stood in the bucket to trim off limbs that were low enough to whack the tractor as it passed. I was pretty apprehensive. With my vivid imagination I could see tipping the bucket the wrong way and dumping Tom out and running over him. Fortunately, none of that happened. Yeah, there were a few gouges in the field as I forgot to lift the bushog before moving the tractor forward. And yes, it was good that Tom hung on well as "smooth" starting and stopping were not my strong points. But we got it done with no angry words and only a barked shin from a branch that fell wrong. I call that a success. (the shin may differ.)

We countered on the offer on the Spring Park house and Tuesday the offer was accepted. We hope this is a good idea. I spent a bunch of time looking at hardwood flooring. I was really interested in some stone tile on sale... until I factored in the shipping costs. We have some time to check things out. It will be inspected this Thursday. If we approve the inspection report, then it will close on Sept. 30th. We agreed to do the yard maintenance until closing as a sop for reducing the price $6000. But it also gives us a chance to do some needed clean-up in the yard before closing if we want to.

Tuesday Tom helped me take a bunch of pictures for Barb's Etsy account. When you check out the choker necklaces at necklacesbylucinda on Etsy-- the neck is mine! The site is not live yet... we're still working on organizing the photos, writing descriptions and setting up paypal.

Wednesday I had my teeth cleaned. I also have two routine calls on Wednesday. At noon I have a group coaching call with Chris Marlow for an hour. Then at 6-7:30 I have a peer review group. This time they reviewed a 4 page brochure I was wanting to send out to promote my HVAC newsletter to new business owners who want to grow their customer base and increase customer loyalty and trust. They had a few really great suggestions I incorporated into the text.

Friday I actually went out and went shopping. Mostly it was to Walmart where I got cat food and cat tick and flea treatment. I also desperately needed to get my glasses adjusted. When I bent over to pick beans or do Yoga... they just dangled from my face. Fortunately I didn't have much of a wait to be seen for the glasses fix. I also got a new battery for my watch and a new watchband for Tom's watch. Such exciting things! Tom complains I just sit at home. And he's right. I don't go out a lot. But I am happy at home working and reading.

My Kenyan job finally came through. I didn't expect it to. So now I need to get busy and work on their website. On Friday I also needed to prep for Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Saturday we went to the temple-Tom, My RS second counselor, and secretary. My 1st counselor is out of state for the next few months. My secretary was taking her mother’s name to the temple to do her work. It had been just over a year since she passed away.

We planned on doing initiatories at 11 and a session at noon. Often people who go to the temple just do endowments. I’ve found that the initiatories hold wonderful and powerful blessings from the Lord. And I was eager to have my presidency experience them once again.

We arrived at the temple. Each of us showed our temple recommends and went on in… except my second counselor. She was told her recommend had expired. She could not go in. There was nothing she could do!

We were all so sad! She went into the waiting room to sit and I went on to do the initiatories. I mourned. I was so sad she was missing all these wonderful blessings.

I thought how it was like the parable of the 10 virgins. Some entered the master’s house and for some, the door was closed. At that point it was everlastingly too late. Everything had to be done before that time. All the faith, all the obedience, all the doing- tithing, church attendance, arranging temple recommend interviews—all needed to be done sometime in the past. The moment of arrival was too late.

Fortunately for my counselor, this was not the final chance to come to the Father’s House. She will go home, get her recommend renewed and come back to receive the blessings of temple attendance. All through our lives, the Lord gives us this chance at repentance. We can go back and correct our mistakes.

My secretary had a fabulous time. She felt so bubbly happy joining her mom to her eternal family.

We stopped for dinner at the Panara bread co. and got home about 8pm.

Today was a good day at church. I was pleased that one of my less active friends came to church with her husband. I sat with them in Sunday school. And the RS lesson was on marriage and very insightful. Tom Had Bishops Youth Discussion after church. He'd bought ice cream and bananas on Friday... but just had to get up early to make brownies for the kids to eat as well. Now he's out visiting.

Tomorrow we will leave early for Miranda's and then on Tuesday I will fly out to visit Mom for two weeks. Tom and Dan will replace a 6' glass and door with a French door while he's there visiting. And I think the kids have talked him into going to White Water or Sliver Dollar City at least once while I'm gone.