Oquirrh (pronounced O-ker) Mountain Temple Dedication

This summer, Matt and I had the opportunity to participate in the opening of the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple in South Jordan, Utah. We were able to volunteer and help out in various capacities as the Open House began in May and ran through August. Since this new Temple will now be the Temple that we will be attending, and we don't know when/if we will ever have this opportunity again, we took advantage of this great opportunity and volunteered for every day that was asked of our Ward to serve. We don't have children to have to juggle and find sitters for and we have no other excuses to keep us from doing so, so we took the opportunity to serve.....and enjoyed every minute of it!!

The Temple Dedication began on Friday, August 21 and ran through Sunday, August 23. Matt and I had the privilege of getting tickets to attend the Dedication on Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 12:00 noon. What a privilege it was to sit in this marvelous and sacred building, just down the hall from our beloved Prophet Thomas S. Monson, as he dedicated the Temple to our Lord. It was an amazing experience.......one that I will never forget. As we all lifted our white handkerchiefs in singing Hosannah's...........I truly felt the Spirit very strong!!

Since this summer, I have truly grown to love this Temple and have felt a personal relationship with it. I am excited to be able to take my future family there someday to be sealed to Matt and I! I feel extremely blessed to now have 13 functioning Temples right here within the Salt Lake Valley.......what an incredible blessing! I only hope that I can always remember to take advantage of this blessing and attend as often as possible......

Hunter Poker Run 2009

OK......So I realize that I'm a few months behind in posting some of the 'happenings' that have been going on in our lives over the last few months. We've been pretty busy, but I either haven't had time to blog about it or I forget to bring the camera and get pictures of it. So here goes in trying to get updated!

Every summer, the first weekend in August, we go on the annual Hunter Poker Run. It's one of those things that we look forward to every summer! This year, Matt and I went up on Friday afternoon and camped through Sunday morning. Here are some of the pictures that I got while we were out riding all day on Saturday, August 1. Unfortunately, I didn't get very many shots this year because the batteries died in my camera and I had forgotten to bring more.

These are pictures of Chad and Matt. (Chad is Matt's boss and one of his closest friends.) Chad took these and I 'borrowed' them. :) We had been out riding for most of the day and had come back for lunch. Afterwards, the 'boys' went out riding for a bit again. I figured Matt would enjoy having some 'boy time'.......so I enjoyed staying back at camp and chatting it up with some of the ladies while they were out riding again! :)

And here is proof that I really was there! LOL :) Obviously, we had just come back from riding for a few hours and were having some yummy lunch.

The Best Christmas

"Giving, not getting, brings to full bloom the Christmas spirit. Enemies are forgiven, friends remembered, and God obeyed. The spirit of Christmas illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than things. To catch the real meaning of the “spirit of Christmas,” we need only drop the last syllable, and it becomes the “Spirit of Christ."

--Thomas S. Monson, "The Best Christmas Ever", Liahona, Dec 2008, 2–6

Probably my best Christmas that I will always remember is one a few years ago when I was still living with my parents in South Carolina, shortly before I moved to Utah. My best friend, Christy, and I were very active and involved with the missionaries at the time. Christy is a convert to the Church and had joined the church a couple of years before this particular Christmas. She had...and still has....a very special love for the missionaries. Together, we quickly became great friends with a great many of the missionaries in the Columbia, South Carolina Mission who were serving at the time......many of whom we still remain in contact with today, long after they have all returned home. We became very close with the Mission President and is wife as well, President and Sister Maxfield. That year, Christy and I knew that there were quite a few missionaries serving in the area we lived in who were out in the Mission Field for the first time that Christmas and were feeling a little homesick being so far away from home. We ended up doing the 12 Days of Christmas for about 8 or 9 different companionships that year......and had the time of our lives! Most of the missionaries quickly figured out that it was Christy and I who were leaving little 'surprises' on their doorsteps every day for 12 days before Christmas......but it sure helped to ease some of the loneliness and homesickness that so many of them were feeling at that particular time of year. More importantly, that was one of the greatest Christmases for me........one that I will never forget as I will always remember the smiles on their faces and the laughter that we shared that Christmas.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! WE LOVE YOU!!

The Best We Can Be

"The Lord doesn’t expect us to work harder than we are able. He doesn’t (nor should we) compare our efforts to those of others. Our Heavenly Father asks only that we do the best we can—that we work according to our full capacity, however great or small that may be."

"It is often in the trial of adversity that we learn those most critical lessons that form our character and shape our destiny."

--Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Two Principles for Any Economy", Ensign, Nov 2009, 55–58