General Conference
I just love listening to General Conference! It is a wonderful weekend of family, food and inspired counsel from the leaders of the church. It is such a boost to my spirits and I always feel excited to try and be a better person. I also get to crochet a lot which is fun and relaxing. Tess came home for the weekend and we had a fun time shopping together while the boys were at the Priesthood session.
Clark and Elliot
Clark as an 11 year old scout now gets to start going on campouts. He went on his first one to Wheeler Farm with all the stake young men. The boys were charge of planning, shopping for and preparing their meals. Aside from a tennis shoe covered in bacon grease, apparently everything went well.
Now the "bacon shoes" are the designated "mowing shoes" as Clark has inherited the job of mowing the front lawn every week. Elliot has graduated to mower of the back lawn and both of them have helped tremendously with weeding, preening and barking. All the kids have been helping. What will we do when we run out of children to help us with the yard work? Somehow they don't seem too worried about that....
After many months of meetings, telephoning and e-mails, my committee of 10 women and I put on a service day where the women in the community could come and work on projects to be donated to local charitable organizations. We felt it was very successful as we had around 200 women come and they all seemed to have a good time while they were there. We accomplished all of our projects and collected several bags of new and used clothing to be donated. It is always impressive to me how much good can come from willing hearts and willing hands.
This year we celebrated Madeleine's 17th and Alan's mmth (48th) birthday together. They both refused to sit on the birthday ottoman — so much for tradition! We had a lot of fun this year hiding some of their gifts and making them find them as we sang louder and softer versions (hot and cold) of the Happy Birthday song. Way more fun than watching someone unwrap something!
Yes, she gets her own paragraph because she is so crazy busy. One Saturday she took the ACT. Two weeks later she took the SAT. She is working at Dimple Dell Rec Center with girls volleyball to earn money for Italy and of course she is going to school and preparing for the AP Calculus test. Somewhere in all that, she managed to go to the Waterford Prom with some of her friends and dress up for a Where's Waldo mutual church activity. She also is trying to watch all her friends play soccer and lacrosse, so needless to say, we don't see her very much. I guess we are already being "weaned" so that when she goes away to college we will be used to her being gone.
Kids down at BYU
Spring term has started at BYU and Tess and Loren are both back in school. It will be great for Loren to get back into the school routine and continue on with his educational goals. Of course he is taking a higher level Spanish class and loves it — apparently he can take a test at the end that will give him 16 credits of A (hopefully!) Not a bad way to boost your GPA!
They are both living off campus which is a whole new experience for Tess, the previous Resident Assistant. After two years of Freshman boys, she is particularly interested in meeting some "older men." It will be fun for Loren and Tess to be going to school together.
Elder Phillip Brown
Phillip has been transferred to a town called Móstoles and is happier to be only an hour away from Madrid. It is a bit cooler than down south and apparently suit jackets can officially come off now which is also nice. He is in a ward now instead of a branch and often receives dinner appointments which missionaries always enjoy. The work continues to go slow and I know that all prayers in his behalf are appreciated. He also greatly appreciates letters!