That is what has kept me so busy that I keep pushing blogging to the end of the never ending list. No, I didn't move. But my parents sold the house that I grew up in. We moved into that neighborhood the weekend of my 8th birthday and they've lived their for 21 years. (Now ya'll know how old I am.) The first week of November I helped my mom move. Moving stinks! Besides the fact that you're leaving the house you've lived in forever and all your friends and your ward and all that emotional upheaval...packing, dejunking, loading, unloading, unpacking...and lots more emotional upheaval and it's not even my house anymore. In fact I haven't lived in that house for 8 years but when I took a video of the empty house and talked about it, I cried. All three of the bedrooms in the basement were mine at one point or another in my growing up years. I try to just not even think about someone else living there and I know that I don't want to drive by the house for a very long time. It's just too hard.
Young Womens....I love my calling. I really do. Now when I first got my calling I really struggled with it but now I can say I love it. So in other words I'll probably get released now that I finally know what I'm doing and how to work with the girls. We just did our yearly YW in Excellence program. It was fabulous and beautiful and the girls did such a great job and it was a very nice culminating event for our year and the things we've been focusing on. The world wide mutual theme for 2009 is "Be ye therefore an example of the believers....." Our focus has been that if you knew you were a daughter of God that you would act the way a daughter of God would act and thus be an example of the believers. At the beginning of the year we had a huge kickoff Princess Academy night and for YW in Excellence we had a Royal Gala. The girls got to dress up and we had a promenade where the dads or brothers escorted the girls. I made my very first balloon arch and I must say it turned out very nice. We used white Christmas lights on the floor to make this walkway for the girls and the dads to walk in a semi arch across the cultural hall. The cultural hall looked awesome. I wish I had pictures of it. My real assignment for the night was the food. We served 5 different appetizers at the beginning and 6 different dessert at the end including my famous chocolate chip cookie dough truffles. Not only was the food good but it all looked so pretty. And to me half the fun of cooking is making it look pretty and having all the different serving platters and decorating the table. Okay anyway I'm waxing poetic on this subject but needless to say while it was a massive undertaking it was also a lot of fun and what I was most happy about were my girls. My girls had to talk about a Personal Progress goal that they had worked on that year. I had worked so hard with them about what they were going to say and how to act and what to do. (You really do have to remind them to close "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen". They don't just know those things.) They all did such a great job speaking and being gracious and beautiful young women. So yep I was really proud of them and their accomplishment. I feel bad for people who choose not to accept a calling in the church. Serving in Young Womens is hard (on Sunday I had a girl tell me how much she hates Mia Maids because I don't let her talk to her friends during class and it's never any fun) and time consuming and requires all the patience I possess (which granted is not very much). And it turns out 14 and 15 year old girls can still hurt your feelings even when you're 29. And on top of all of that the only time you ever get thanked is at testimony meeting at Girls Camp (which is a most inappropriate time to be thanking your leaders). But if I didn't serve I would miss out on so much joy, so many of the small success, and I would miss out on my association with all these wonderful ladies that I serve with who have taught me SOOO much. (I don't know why the picture is crooked, sorry - don't worry Ash, I fixed it :) -David )
Young Womens....I love my calling. I really do. Now when I first got my calling I really struggled with it but now I can say I love it. So in other words I'll probably get released now that I finally know what I'm doing and how to work with the girls. We just did our yearly YW in Excellence program. It was fabulous and beautiful and the girls did such a great job and it was a very nice culminating event for our year and the things we've been focusing on. The world wide mutual theme for 2009 is "Be ye therefore an example of the believers....." Our focus has been that if you knew you were a daughter of God that you would act the way a daughter of God would act and thus be an example of the believers. At the beginning of the year we had a huge kickoff Princess Academy night and for YW in Excellence we had a Royal Gala. The girls got to dress up and we had a promenade where the dads or brothers escorted the girls. I made my very first balloon arch and I must say it turned out very nice. We used white Christmas lights on the floor to make this walkway for the girls and the dads to walk in a semi arch across the cultural hall. The cultural hall looked awesome. I wish I had pictures of it. My real assignment for the night was the food. We served 5 different appetizers at the beginning and 6 different dessert at the end including my famous chocolate chip cookie dough truffles. Not only was the food good but it all looked so pretty. And to me half the fun of cooking is making it look pretty and having all the different serving platters and decorating the table. Okay anyway I'm waxing poetic on this subject but needless to say while it was a massive undertaking it was also a lot of fun and what I was most happy about were my girls. My girls had to talk about a Personal Progress goal that they had worked on that year. I had worked so hard with them about what they were going to say and how to act and what to do. (You really do have to remind them to close "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen". They don't just know those things.) They all did such a great job speaking and being gracious and beautiful young women. So yep I was really proud of them and their accomplishment. I feel bad for people who choose not to accept a calling in the church. Serving in Young Womens is hard (on Sunday I had a girl tell me how much she hates Mia Maids because I don't let her talk to her friends during class and it's never any fun) and time consuming and requires all the patience I possess (which granted is not very much). And it turns out 14 and 15 year old girls can still hurt your feelings even when you're 29. And on top of all of that the only time you ever get thanked is at testimony meeting at Girls Camp (which is a most inappropriate time to be thanking your leaders). But if I didn't serve I would miss out on so much joy, so many of the small success, and I would miss out on my association with all these wonderful ladies that I serve with who have taught me SOOO much. (I don't know why the picture is crooked, sorry - don't worry Ash, I fixed it :) -David )
And lastly my wisdom teeth. I got all 4 of my wisdom teeth out a month ago. And to make a long story short and 10 days later after excruciating pain I went back to the dentist to discover I had dry sockets on both sides on the bottom, an infection in one and likely a fractured jaw. This was supposed to be a simple extraction. My teeth were all up and weren't fused with my jaw bone and it should have been a no brainer. But nooooo, I just had to get every complication in the book. Not only are dry sockets extremely painful and the stuff they stick in your sockets to heal them stinks and tastes so bad I'm still amazed I didn't throw up. Oh and they change those stinky gauze out every other day for a week. But my dry sockets are now healing correctly and I finished my last does of antibiotic and things are still sore (fractured jaw) and tender but I think I'm at least healing now (a month later). And did I mention that Adam has had two ear infections in the past month also and that the tube in his right ear has fallen out. It is going to be a very long winter.
Okay so that's my last month in a nutshell or at least the big stuff.
