This Week at Our House #26

We are hanging in there. CPS still has not closed our case. We had another visit, but this time she just stood in the doorway and apologized that she still had to come. Still, this is probably the hardest thing I have had to live through. I love my kids. They are my life. I do everything for them day and night and have for 20 years. I want this stress to leave.

1. John had a job interview and he said that it seemed to go well. We will see if he hears back. 
2. I took kids to more dentist appointments, went grocery shopping, took one trip to the beach with the kids and did a whole lot of house work. It has been very hot and humid, so the house has been getting messier faster. 
3. Ruth will remain in the London mission. That means she might get to serve near the London Temple and she gets a new mission president.
4. Kate will have dental surgery to remove her wisdom teeth on Tuesday, so we are having our steak and watermelon 4th of July meal today because she will only be able to eat soft foods for the following week. 
5. Johnny has spent a lot of time computer programming this week. He is a real diligent worker. 
6. Adam had his two cavities filled and he was as calm as can be. 
7. Rachel has missed out on a lot of young women's things because of where we live. She will miss out on girl's camp too because we cannot send her away from home without knowing the people she will be with. I hope to get this fixed so she can enjoy her young women's days.
8. Anya, my sweet, draws pictures and makes up stories all day long.
9. Joseph said that he loves his chicken most of all. Joseph has gotten very excited about my garden. He loves to go in and see what is growing and pick the ripened vegetables. We have watermelon, honey dew, tons of butternut squash, yellow summer squash, onions, and tomatoes growing now.
10. When we went to the beach, Josh did not have to go because John did not, but he went and he swam the whole time and had a wonderful time. The water was perfect too. It was warm, the waves were tall but too crashing, so it was gentle and fun and Josh loved it.
11. Arwen is currently sleeping on the couch with a little kitten under her arm. It's very cute.
12. Suzy has been claiming her name as Suzy or Susan or Lila now. 
13. Sam sat down with a book and sang, "Dad, dad, dad" for every page and he did it during family scripture study.

Pictures

Stories from Ruth #42

I am leaving Chelmsford and moving to Enfield. I keep flip-flopping between the Ipswitch and Watford Zones. This means I will stay in the London Mission! We will meet our new president and some London South missionaries next week. I will miss Chelmsford a lot, especially the members.
On Monday we had permission to go to Cambridge. We had a lot of fun with the Cambridge Sisters, Sister Jung and Sister Shin. Sister Lezano and I stopped by Sister Lucas and got to see Huck and her new baby Micah! Then we went to the chapel next to kings college and went to the top! It was a gorgeous view but we had to climb up a long set of steep stairs about two feet wide.

This week we had a miracle. Sister Lezano and I were finding and we stopped and talked to this guy on a bench. His name was István from Hungary. I told him that someone I had known in Cambridge served as a missionary there. We talked to him about the gospel and about church. He agreed to meet us the next day and to have a tour of the chapel. István also said that he wanted to come for church. While we were talking to him his girlfriend came up. At first she asked him "Going to church?! How did they convince you to do that?" Then we explained to her about the gospel and the church and invited her to come as well and she agreed. She was also from Hungary and her name is Greta.
The next day they came to the lesson and we had the member from Cambridge who had just gotten home from her mission my first transfer in Cambridge. It was amazing. They both felt the spirit and had so many questions. After the lesson we asked them how they felt and István said that this chapel felt warm unlike the church in Hungary. Greta agreed. She said that it was very calm. We explained that was a spirit and gave them a Hungarian Book of Mormon. They told us that they would come back for church.

They agreed to meet us on Friday but we learned that István lived in the elders area, so we would have to refer him. On Friday only István showed up because Greta was in London and he introduced him to the elders who taught him.

On Sunday they came! It was so amazing! Greta lives in our area, so we were not sure who would teach them, so we had a conjoined missionary lesson with them this morning that went well! They are so cute and sassy! They both have so many questions and want to learn more. After church István found and watched the restoration, the whole hour film, on his own and it answered a lot of his questions.

Saturday night we had a combined service activity at Luana and Antonio's. Luana is a convert to the church, and Antonio is not a member. The first thing they had me do was clean spider webs off of a table and chairs. The spiders out here are big and I do not like spiders, so it was a lot of screaming, hitting, and jumping, until they moved me to trimming the bushes. I happily obliged. We then had an italian dinner, since they are both from Italy. At the end of the lesson and after the prayer Luana asked the elders to give Antonio a blessing for his health, and they did. It was powerful and he was better the next day.

I love the priesthood. I am grateful for worthy priesthood holders in my life.
I wanted to share a quote I found this week by Elder Neal A Maxwell: "Comparatively, brothers and sisters, it matters very little what people think of us, but it matters very much what we think of Him. It matters very little, too, who others say we are; what matters is who we say Jesus is. (See Matt. 16:13–17.)"

I know this is true. We need to put God and first in our lives. That is the first and great commandment to love the Lord with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength. That means, putting him first in our lives.

This Week at Our House #25 Dentist, a Birthday, and the Beach

This week was an intense dentist week. I took Joseph for a filling on Monday. Kate and Joseph had their oral surgeon consultation on Tuesday. They're putting them both under general anesthesia. Wednesday, I took Anya to get her two fillings done, and Thursday, I took Adam and Josh in to get their teeth cleaned. And the trend will continue. Adam has his first filling to be done tomorrow, and Suzy sees the pediatric dentist to get some fillings on Tuesday. Then on July 2nd at 8:15 Joseph will get his two bottom 6 yr old molars pulled because they are too rotten to fix. (Don't worry, it means he will have space for his wisdom teeth.) Later that day, Rachel will get her one cavity filled at the regular dentist. At 10:45am on July 3rd, Kate will get all four of her wisdom teeth out. Then on July 18th, Johnny and Arwen will get their teeth cleaned and we will see if they have any cavities. Plus, Adam will need one more appointment to get his second cavity filled, which I will make on Monday. Then I will have to make appointments for 6 months out. We had our first dentist visits at the end of May. This is when having a big family is not so fun. But we did manage to get in two trips to the beach, after dentist appointments, and a fun little birthday party for Suzy.

1. Well, John never did hear back from the job interview, so I believe it was a dodge saying they would get back to him, and he has only sold about 10 copies of his game. But just when everything seemed rather discouraging, he got a request for an interview with another company for this coming week.
2. I spent a lot of time in dentist offices this week, and that trend will continue for a little while. I also got to enjoy the beach twice. That's the best part of living where we live. I love the Atlantic Ocean and I love to swim, and John and the kids love it too.
3. Ruth seems to be doing well. I know she is loving her mission.
4. Kate did all the baking for Suzy's birthday. She made these adorable mini chicago style deep dish pizzas, and 4 ice cream cake rolls. Kate is a very good cook, and she makes things look nice too.
5. Johnny had not been very interested in the ocean this season yet until this week when the temperatures felt well into the hundreds because of the humidity. He dove right in the last time we went to the beach. All spring, he felt like it was too cold.
6. Adam has been working on making 3D animated space ships using a program called Blender. He likes to do it, so this is the one thing that we do not need to nag him about at all.
7. Some fire ants decided to move into our house, so we decided to vacuum them and put down some poison, but Rachel got 23 ant bites and spent a whole night awake playing games with John, who also couldn't sleep, and complaining about fire ant bites.
8. Anya has been disappearing to her room to build legos, and then every now and then, I notice her sitting on the couch next to me with her head rested against my leg or arm. Then she disappears to create some more.
9. Joseph loves to swim at the beach. It makes him so happy when he does it, but before he gets there, he always says he doesn't want to go.
10. Josh said, "I hate the beach, but I love the ocean. I hate the beach because of the sand, but I love the ocean because you swim in it." During church today Josh made up a game and drew it out. He said it was a video game and it had five levels with fighter ships and bosses to defeat. He made sure that I saved it and brought it home so he could finish it after church.
11. During Arwen's prayers she asked twice for no tornados, and help to know where the invisible snakes and invisible snapping turtles are. Then she prayed for cats, horses, and dogs. John asked her why she prayed for those animals and Arwen said that Anya says that, so she started to say it in her prayers too. Out of the blue, Arwen said, "I like Ruth." John asked her why she said that, and she answered, "One day Ruth played with me with all three unicorns."
12. Suzy of course had her birthday. She is four now, and still won't dress herself. She says it is too hard. Ruth said the same thing at the same age.
13. Sam was very cute this week. He is starting to talk a lot more and he understands things very well. When I needed to change his diaper, he brought me the diaper and wipes, then pointed to his diaper and said, "poop, poop, poop." When I told Rachel to give him a bath, he stood beside her, took her hand, and started walking her toward the bathroom. One afternoon when I was at a dentist appointment, Sam came up to Kate to give her a hug. She hugged him and then he immediately slumped down and started lightly snoring.

Pictures

John's first Game

John's first game is an interesting version on mazes. You solve two mazes at the same time. So if there is a wall blocking you in one maze and not in another, you cannot move that way. You can only go ways that are open in both mazes. Another trick, is there is only one way to get through the mazes. There are 6 levels of difficulty, the kids and I have not been able to solve a level 5 maze yet, so unlike other mazes, it gets quite difficult.

He has a free demo on the google app store here. You can purchase the whole game for $.99 here.

Happy Birthday, Suzy!!!

It's hard believe that little Suzy is 4 years old!!!! She is full of fire. She knows what she wants and she knows what she likes. She has no problem standing up for herself against older siblings who might want to take her toys or force her one way or another. She loves dinosaurs, my little ponies, princesses, fancy shoes, long dresses, and the colors pink and purple. Susan loves watching movies, playing with Arwen and Josh, tea parties, her toys, and staying up very late. She has darling curly blond hair and she is the only girl in the family that is tall for her age. We are all so very happy to have our darling little Suzy!!

Stories from Ruth # 41

 
I really admire my companion Sister Lezano. She is very straightfoward and focused on her purpose to bring others to Christ.
This week we did a lot of finding and had a lot of fun with it.
We visited the wife of this recent convert. At the beginning of the week she texted us and asked if we could visit on Friday. She is not a member but she seems to like the church. She was very sweet and her baby is so cute!

Last pday we went to Witham to visit two members who served in Peru on their mission. Sister Gough was a convert who was dating this nonmember before deciding to go on a mission. Then she told him she was going and not to wait for her if he was not going to join the church. She got called ro a mission on Peru and he investigated the church, became converted, and got baptized. Later in life they went to a senior couple mission to Peru. They were wonderful examples and really sweet to both of us. They actually lived in the same area as my companion and even went to the same church building, but were in seperate wards. It was cool.

Oh my days. These Elders are hilarious.
Elder Soares:
"In english it is not funny." Elder Soares telling Jokes"My companion is not sociable"  

"Tomorrow we will see who is the princess. No we are not the princess we are the ch- cha- the thing that carries the princess." (We have a joke Sistsr Nunes and I always asked the elders when they were late which one of them was the princess, and these elders are always late)

Elder Smith:
"If it is not sugar or chocolate you won't like it elder"

When Sister Lezano asks for a joke he just gives us sexist ones like "Why are womens feet smaller than men? So they can get closer to the kitchen sink?"

Elder Schönemeier:
"I have to be in the zone call by 27 or else I am going to hell, quote elder brinkerhoff"
Lovingful

Then there is Elder Stern who buys £10 of taco bell.