Stories from Ruth #32

   

I am still in Chelmsford and my new companion is Sister Strate from germany! She is amazing! I love her! She is always seeking to do good and to be good.

On Thursday I met and shook hands with the prophet of our church President Russell M Nelson. Also I met Elder Holland.

What they said really touched me.
Sister Holland spoke on prayer and making it sincere with time to listen to approach God, and time to act.

Elder Holland said that "you are also the Lord's investigators. We want you to be converted... this conversion must sink into your bones forever... Teach in such a way that you will be converted... continue the habits and discipline from your mission... I bless you to stay faithfully and firmly converted and as good as you are now... The Book of Ether, more than a thousand years on thirty page... teaches one thing, one principle of a people... Never disregard what the prophet says... There is power in Joseph Smith's first vision..."

Sister Nelson gave her speech about family history and the ancestors of others which was lovely. Also President Nelson gave his family history speech.

   

this was my answer to "Are you eating healthy?"

President Nelson said that "Every prophet is an ordinary man with an extraordinary calling... there is opposition in all things... Become trilingual. Learn your tongue, your companion's, and that of the Lord's... Many people do not have a purpose... Heavenly Father's purpose is clear "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man"... faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the holy ghost and endure to the endowment and covenants made to God and become sealed forever as part of God's family... Find who our ancestors are... Ask people if they know the names of their great grandparents. Ask would you like to know who they are? Come with me for a couple of hours and I can help you with your family... it is all about family. The family proclamation is doctrine... teach them to want to be in God's family... live as the Lord did and love others and your problems will be more manageable... you will be less tired and grumpy as you are involved in the service of others, your complaints are minimized... Joseph Smith's first vision shows God and Jesus Christ as separate... What is restored? Priesthood keys, apostles and prophets, ordinances, blessings, and covenants without which we could not receive salvation, restoration of the Jews to the holy land, which is major, gathering of Israel in the latter days 1 Nephi 15:18... Why you are on a mission - to help fulfill the covenant and prepare the world for Christ's coming... minority will accept. LDS way of life is needed (values, morals, right & wrong) only way to establish this is to know God's rights and wrongs... if you are poor pay your tithing and God will bless you... be happy in your work for you have the gospel of joy... blessed us to: find joy in teaching, strength and health as you lose yourself in the work of the Lord, our families will draw closer to God and our brothers will be blessed and serve missions, safety in trials, blessing of healing... engaged in the work of almighty God... Jesus is the Christ and we are his people."

It was amazing.   

The rest of the week was pretty good as well although I do not have time to write everything.
We taught Christina this week. She is from Romania and her husband is English. They both read the bible every week and are seeking for truth. She found the mormon.org website and read some things she felt were true and requested a missionary visit. We went over and we taught her. She said it made a lot of sense and has begun to read it with her husband! We saw her again today and she told us that she believes the Book of Mormon is true and she wonders why other Christians will not read it and pray about it. Why do they not want to know if God still speaks to us? Why do some wish God to be a mystery and not know him as our heavenly father? Honestly that is something I wondered as well. If truth is offered, if there is proof that God speaks to all of his children then why not study and ask God with all of your heart if these things are true, and if you will ask with a sincere heart, with real intent or the intent to act on whatever God tells you, and having faith in Christ, God will manifest the truth of it unto you. It may take many days because as Neal A Maxwell says that realizing that God does not always answer prayers immediately is one of life's growing experiences. 

   

We visited a less active and her daughter. While there she randomly asked me where I was from, meaning my ancestry. I told her that many of my ancestors were from England and that I was trying to find several of them while I was here. She told us that her and her nonmember husband could copy what I have and search them up for and with me. We will now be going to their house next Wednesday to do my family history. The way we met them was a miracle. We left a note, but got no response. However, on the way to an appointment the next day we decided to knock on their house and her daughter answered the door and told us to come back that evening when her mom was home. We could not but told her that we could come back on Friday, and so we did.

This Week at Our House # 15 Ducklings, Chicks, and 5hr. Church

We are now required to go to the ward the church put our home in, which is an hour away, until we get permission from the first presidency. So church will take us 5 hours now. We are deciding whether or not our situation merits the attention of the first presidency. There are two other buildings about half the distance. When I made the drive to the grocery stores, I decided to make a stop at the tractor supply store to see if they had chicks and ducklings. They did. Kate bought us 3 rouen ducklings and 5 chicks. 2 chicks died in less than 24 hours. All the rest of the birds seem healthy, friendly, and adjusting well to the kids.

1. John had about an hour job interview on Tuesday. They said they may take a while getting back to him as they had several candidates. John thought the interview went well, but who knows. Certainly we are praying several times a day for John to get a job. Additionally, John has continued to work through the nights and most of the day getting his first phone game developed. I think he will be done soon. Then he will continue to develop more.
2. John and I started a 2 week vegan diet to lose some weight. I lost 10 pounds the last time I did this. I am hoping to lose another 10. John hates this, but is sticking to it even when the kids are eating big homemade hamburgers and salmon.
3. President Nelson and Elder Holland visited Ruth's mission this past week. We look forward to hearing from her about this tomorrow or Tuesday.
4. Kate is in mother bird heaven again with her ducklings. She has been asking for duckling since she was 12, but it wasn't until we moved to our little home that we could get them. Kate has been missing her baby sparrow for a year and these little ducklings have made her very happy.
5. Johnny and Adam dug up several buckets and bins of dirt, carried them across the yard and filled in all of the holes on the shed floor to help us prepare the shed to become a chicken coop. Johnny hated the work, but he did it without complaint.
6. Sam loves Adam. Adam carries him around and takes him on walks around the yard and Sam sees Adam as his buddy. Sometimes Sam wants Adam over me.
7. Rachel had her first day of young womens. There were only beehives there because all the older girls were called into the ward counsel meeting. Rachel enjoyed the beehive class. I think she particularly enjoyed having no boys.
8. We had state testing to meet the state homeschool requirements this past week and Anya scored really well in everything except spelling which surprised me since they are timed tests and she is slow with math and doesn't always pay attention to what she reads. But it is nice to know she is keeping up ahead of her grade.
9. Joseph liked testing better than regular school. I didn't have to nag him at all. At the end of it, he said he liked it better.
10. Joshua has been playing with Susan a lot. He also gets after her a lot. He is always correcting her and trying to punish her.
11. Kate drew two girls on the same page. One had short hair and plain clothes and another with long hair and a fancy dress. Arwen looked at them, pointed the the fancy one and said, "That is me." Then she pointed to the other one and said, "That's just ugly, Kate." Arwen has been drawing pictures of ducks and taking them to Kate to see what she thinks.
12. Susan pointed at her baby picture and said, "It's Lila." A couple of days later, she looked into the mirror and said, "I see Lila."
13. Sam fell on his face. He came to me crying and I held him and rocked him. When he got down, he walked a few steps faked falling down and came right back to me for comfort. Another time, Sam climbed up behind me, grabbed my hair and then fell back. I screamed "ouch". He rolled over and laughed hard.

Pictures

Since we moved away from Utah, I have had to get good at making Mexican food. This is one of John's last big meals before our diet.

We are loving these flowering bushes. Sometimes we see humming birds eating from the flowers.

This is Sam saying cheese. I love it when my babies make this face for the camera.

Stories from Ruth # 31

 

This week was wonderful! Sister Strate from germany is amazing! We talk endlessly.
The Lord is truly blessing us. Sister Georgieva stopped this guy Chris a couple weeks ago. He had incestigated the church 25 years ago, but gave up because he did not want to stop smoking and drinking. Now he told us that his worst mistake was ever leaving the teachings of the church. We met with him the first day and gave him the Book of Mormon again. Two days later he had read Ether 12 and from the beginning to 1 Nephi 11. And he remembered everything!

On Sunday he came to church and afterwards stayed to see this eight-year-old girl be baptized. After that tears welled in his eyes as he told us that this church was as the scripture in Isaiah, as the lillies of the field. It was not arrayed in worldly splendor but it was beautiful. He wants to give up alcohol and smoking and to be baptized! He truly felt regret for leaving the gospel of Jesus Christ and it truly touched me! The spirit was so strong and I felt so blessed to see this in anyone. Truly the Lord blesses us and softens our hearts. We are never to old to repent and to change and to turn unto God without restraint.     

We saw Denise and she is a blessing! She is so sweet and always focused on others! She was so excited to receive a Book of Mormon.

We have a friend Abdalla who accepted to read a chapter of the Book of Mormon, Alma 7, because he knows that it means so much to us. He then told us it was wonderful to meet people so dedicated to their religion who truly beleive in God.

This Week at Our House # 14 Spring Break and a Birthday

We had a nice spring break with warm weather all week. We went to the beach on Monday, had Rachel's birthday on Tuesday, did house projects on Wednesday, yard projects on Thursday, and free days Friday and Saturday.

1. The 30 hour project that John did for a possible job has turned into a phone interview which he will have Tuesday afternoon for approximately an hour. John continues to work very hard on his own things. He stays up all night most nights working. Goes to bed around 7am, sleeps 6 hours, gets to work again, spends about an hour doing scripture study with the family and gets back to work. 
2. I finished reading the 8 book Anne of Green Gables Series for the fourth time. I love them so much. I am always sad when I finish those books. They are like family to me. Actually,my great grandparents lived just a few miles from Prince Edward Island and left the area not too long after the time period the last book was written, so while these are all fictional characters, I feel like I can claim some kinship to the area. I went through all of our clothes storage. I haven't done this seriously since we unpacked from our move from Utah. It took me several hours. I got the kids their spring and summer clothes out. That is probably my least favorite project. I got some things planted in the garden. I have one row of potatoes that have come up well, and I had several more potatoes that we were going to eat, sprout, so instead of eating them, I planted them in the row of potatoes that did not seem to grow. I have a lot of tomato, pepper, and butternut squash seedlings all sprouted from seeds that I harvested from our store bought food. I will get those planted in the garden in about two weeks.
3. Ruth is such a good girl. I worry about her, but I know that the Lord will bless her with the appropriate inspiration to deal with whatever she needs to because she is doing all she can to be right and good and to know God. 
4. Kate loves the Anne of Green Gables books like I do, and even had me wait to finish the last one so I could read it to her. That is why while I was feeling sad that the books had ended, I remembered that I had gotten a free kindle book called, the Story Girl from the same author and started reading it to Kate. I had read it years ago and loved it and now Kate is loving it.
5. Johnny is making a game for an android phone too, and while he had spring break, he still made progress on his game. We are hoping that he will be able to earn some mission money from this.
6. On our yard work day, I had Johnny and Adam dig about a 2 foot deep trench the width of my garden to bury our leftover food and kitchen scraps in as a slow release fertilizer. Adam quite liked the trench and got the kids going on a game of world war 1. We have these trees that have dropped a lot of woody spike balls, so those are their ammunition. I love my kids playing like this. 
7. All day Monday, Rachel was very excited for her Birthday on Tuesday. I think she enjoyed her birthday and was very grateful with her very small gifts. She got Kate to play with her for hours over the whole week as a sort of birthday present too, but could never feel satisfied that it was enough.
8. I don't really have a story to tell about Anya. She is my sweet, quiet girl. She loves to play with Rachel and Joseph and is very obedient when I tell her to do any chores. She's always a delight.
9. Joseph got to play outside all week and and so our house was less bouncy and since we did not do any school, Joseph and I got along better.
10. Joshua and Susan both like to claim Arwen as a playmate. Joshua often gets Arwen because he is older and that makes Susan cry and tattle that Josh is hurting her.
11. Arwen has decided that no one can call her anything but beautiful and pretty. If you say she is smart or cute, she corrects you.
12. Susan kept walking up to Rachel randomly and saying, "you're cute!" We moved the toys from the hallway that connects the 3 kid bedrooms and bathroom to Susan's room because each night she is sent to bed, Susan would get up and dump out all the toys and block the entrance to the bathroom. Now she leaves them alone because she does not like staying in her room.
13. All the boys were out in the yard having a stick/sword fight using pvc pipe they found in the woods. Sam stood in my window watching them, grabbed a plastic sword pointed it at his brothers and said, "yay! yay! yay!" Then the boys took him out and he joined in their sword fight. The boys all came in and reported how cute Sam was taking his sword and hitting theirs.

Pictures