We had several men that went to help those affected by the floods share how the experience of serving others and how lifting their burdens truly became a testament of the being His hands. They also shared how they were personally blessed by those they served. Many hearts were touched by the whole experience.
I enjoyed a nice bike ride for Labor Day. I had to take the opportunity since we will be in San Antonio for the mission president seminar on Saturday. We spent most of our day at the Nielsen’s for a pool party and bbq. They had invited several families over which was a really nice. Quite a few were from the 2nd ward that we knew of but never really gotten an opportunity to interact with. The kids had a great time cooling off in the pool. Bode had a pool party earlier in the day over at a friends that he had a fun at. Apparently he got to hug a really cute girl while he was there. ;)
Labor Day is nice and all but oh the pain of going back to school after a long weekend is hard. Tuesday we took our two Temple Square sisters to the airport to head back to Salt Lake. We loved having them serve in our mission. Wednesday we had our MLC for the month. It had been pushed back because of zone conferences. We usually have it the last Friday of the month. Zac had another cavity filled. Remarkably he did it without being numbed. He was grateful because he hates the feeling of being numb. I grabbed Jessie after school to take her to try gymnastics. She finally is excited to try a new extracurricular activity. She loved it! YEAH! Once she finished I headed over to the middle school for Bode’s football scrimmage. It was BLAZING hot! So glad that Bode has practices in the morning. They took plenty of breaks to prevent dehydration, which I was glad to see. Not sure how his team will do but he is enjoying it. Once everyone was home and fed I headed to the store to make sure I had the kids needs met while we are away. Zac will be in charge while we are away. I do have Jessie staying Thursday night with the Nielsen’s since the boys are out the door so early in the morning. Zac has his last drive time this week so he is one step closer to getting his license. He will take Jessie to Avery’s birthday party on Saturday and then that night they are going to watch BYU with the Nielsen’s and other families.
Thursday we drove to San Antonio for the mission president seminar. We will be there until Sunday afternoon. Once at the hotel we headed to the temple for a uplifting session. I absolutely loved the stained glass in this temple, so bright and vibrant. Our visitor this seminar was Elder L. Whitney Clayton, the President of the Seven Quorums of the Seventy and he was amazing. Our new area presidency members are Elder Cornish and Elder Pearson and both will be a great blessing to us. It is always wonderful to see the other mission president’s wives. We have an automatic connection because we are all on the same journey right now. After dinner we had a chance to do a short introduction of ourselves along with our families and then we each shared our families motto. Aaron and I felt “Be grateful” is our family motto because we seemed to be saying this a lot in our family. ;)
The focus of the conference is the theme for the year, which is to Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts. Elder Clayton spent time discussing the big picture with us and it was good to hear since we’re all so deep in the forest of our areas that we serve in. We had training on the Book of Mormon discussing what it refutes and what it affirms and reveals, training missionaries and helping them extend commitment invitations. We then enjoyed an IMAX about the Alamo and then visited and walked around the Alamo. While there I visited with Allie on the phone about college life. We just got to connect. We discussed anything that was on her mind and it was a little bit of heaven for me. A happy mom moment. Later we enjoyed dinner and a boat ride on the river walk.
Saturday was a full day of training. We had a lot of “take aways” that we will be taking back to the mission. The training really fired us up in a good way. We have lots of tools to build our missionaries faith in being and feeling more successful in their goal setting, planning and teaching of others how they can come unto Christ. We truly feel blessed with all the knowledge and skills we are developing while serving our Heavenly Father. It is AMAZING!!!