The message I shared with the missionaries this week. My thoughts are about prayer and how as we pray we can receive the personal revelation needed to move forward. I am so grateful for prayer and that I can learn how I can be guided and become an instrument in His hands. Prayer gives me the strength in times of struggle and helps me unite my family in our faith in God and His son, Jesus Christ. It also guides me in how I can bless you, as missionaries, in your efforts to follow your purpose and in ways I can share His light through my actions.
A great quote from our President Uchtdorf about prayer and listening for personal revelation.
"Lift up your soul in prayer and explain to your Heavenly Father what you are feeling. Acknowledge your shortcomings. Pour out your heart and express your gratitude. Let Him know of the trials you are facing. Plead with Him in Christ's name for strength and support. Ask that your ears may be opened, that you may hear His voice.”
I invite you to pray more intently on how you can be more in tune to His will for you and ACT accordingly. I promise you will be blessed with more direction in what you can do to bless others, your family and yourself. You will be a more effective, successful and happy in your life. Isn’t that what we are all striving for? Go and Do!
Video URL for this week
Prayer - Learn from a humble woman's example how the power of prayer can work miracles in our lives.
https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/prayer-4
https://www.canalmormon.org/ver/series/mensajes-mormones/la-oraci%C3%B3n
A fairly quiet week for us compared to most so it was good timing for Allie’s visit. So good to hold her in my arms, I think we both enjoyed it! Hadn’t seen her since she left us at the beginning of August. The girls did a little shopping on Monday while the boys played bball with the missionaries on their p-day and then a home cooked meal of enchiladas. We had a great FHE together and the beginning of a movie night until Aaron and I couldn’t keep our eyes open. Sad we are getting old. As a family we spent some good time together. Tuesday we were headed downtown for the Frostival event but took a big detour has we ended up at a Pentatonix concert at the Toyota Center thanks to Jessie. She’s a big fan of the acapella group and we all kind of suffered through the concert for a couple of hours. They’re very talented but when you don’t know there material like Jessie does you don’t appreciate it like one should. The next day we went on a downtown scavenger hunt where you have to find clues in the city that lead you to the next destination. It was a good way to get to know and see the city. We were right in the middle of the city’s preparation for the big HEB Thanksgiving parade for the next day. We also enjoyed playing the game SpeakOUT. At some points we couldn’t stop laughing to actually speak.
For Thanksgiving we found a place called Brady’s Landing that had a buffet offering that looked a lot like Snowbasin, minus the mountains, snow, and extended family of course. It’s on the east side of Houston and as we got closer we thought we might be lost. Turns out it’s right along the river with the barges and all that goes along with a port city. A strange place to have Thanksgiving dinner, but the food was good and it worked out great. We went to Moana afterwards and really enjoyed. Jessie can’t stop singing Moana’s song. We held our annual Thanksgiving Elf viewing and we will now recite one-liners the rest of the month like we should. Earlier in the day we set Christmas up and made our traditional pumpkin roll. We will do our best to pretend that it feels like Christmas around here for the next month.
The boys left Friday morning for a great adventure in Utah. When they arrived they headed to Crown Burgers and then to an awesome Jazz game with gpa Hall and some cousins. The next day they enjoyed the BYU/USU game with most of the Hall clan. The boys met up with some of our returned missionaries, a great little reunion for the Zac and Bode. Some wonderful friendships have been made because of our service in THSM. We are blessed. By default that meant the girls needed a day out. We enjoyed getting manicures! We each choose a shade of red, so fun! Jessie got a bonus manicure. We stopped for some homemade tortillas at HEB. So yummy you just need to eat them right out of the bag. Not just one either, we wanted to eat the whole bag but we did restrain. We had made plans to go to Bahama Bucks but then decided on Root Republic on Allie’s recommendation for a smoothie and Acai bowl. Never had an Acai bowl, delicious!
We are looking forward to the #LIGHTtheWORLD activities. We hope that as a family we will be more aware of our actions and truly living the gospel and in the process share it through our example. I invite each of you to participate as well.