Summer Happenings--Part 4 (August) (lots of pictures!)

And to wrap up the summer:
We kicked off August with a visit to the Waffle Love truck. Belgian Liege waffles covered in Nutella & strawberries, or Biscoff & bananas--Heavenly!!

While David & Melissa's family was in town from South Carolina, we used the free passes Maren received for volunteering at Hogle Zoo to make a visit to the animals. We enjoyed spending time with them (humans AND animals), but it was pretty darn hot that day. It's a good thing there were Icees to be had at the end of our visit.

A couple of days later we were able to go to Pineview Reservoir with most of the Hatches to get some boating in. Unfortunately while we were all there, we received bad news from Whitney and Kyle. She was 6 months pregnant, but sweet little Jane no longer had a heartbeat. We were all so saddened by the news and cut our visit short so that Marla & Geoff could get to Whitney & Kyle. Whitney began to have some more complications and ended up having an emergency C-section just a few hours later. We nearly lost her as well. Our extended family is so grateful that didn't happen. We gathered together a week later for a touching funeral at the South Jordan Cemetery. Despite all the sorrow that comes along with such an experience, there are still great blessings to recognize. The greatest of these is the knowledge that Kyle,Whitney, & Jane will all be together again one day, along with all of our loved ones who have already left this life.

The last week before school started included lots of appointments (dentist, orthodontist, etc.) as well as plenty of eating out to commemorate the end of summer vacation. Once school started for Maren on Tuesday August 21, we actually 3 parties to attend that same week. There was the "end of summer" zoo employee/volunteer party on Wednesday (hamburgers and free reign of the zoo without other guests), the American Fork Employees Association dinner on Friday (wood-fired pizza, wings, grilled pineapple, & frozen yogurt station), and Luau for the Library on Saturday (luau food & entertainment). Pretty tasty week!

And here we are with Labor Day nearly upon us and I'm wondering where the summer went...

lots of pictures, most from the zoo (who would have thought that I'd make two trips to the zoo in the same month?)

After some Waffle Love :)

Lego exhibits at the zoo this summer

Lego version

Live version

showing off our Icee tongues

more Icee tongues

shh...he's asleep :)

Cute baby and great-mama

She's not too sure about that life vest

Cute girls!

First Day of School!

Thoughts on a Hymn

From my letter to Elder Hatch yesterday:

Today while sitting in sacrament meeting, I was thinking about the words to the opening song we sang, "When Faith Endures." I feel like I need to share with you what I was thinking about. Here are the words:

I will not doubt, I will not fear;

God's love and strength are always near.

His promised gift helps me to find

An inner strength and peace of mind.

I give the Father willingly

My trust, my prayers, humility.

His Spirit guides; his love assures

That fear departs when faith endures.

The scripture references are 2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. and D&C 6:36  Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not. 

I can honestly say that in the past 3+ years I have not been afraid. I have had moments of doubt, but have been able to move forward past them. I definitely have found an inner strength that I did not know I had. Peace of mind has come over many concerns I've had. I know that I can be more humble in the way I approach my Heavenly Father, but thankfully He is accepting of who I am right now. Also thankfully, I have felt the love of my Heavenly Father, my Savior, my family, my friends, and my ward members. I know that I have been able to use my faith in Christ, my faith in the gospel, and my faith in my temple covenants to help me move forward in life with what I need to do and what my Heavenly Father wants me to do. 

And here was his response this morning:

I would like to thank you for giving me those awesome scriptures and that hymn to read over. They were just what I needed at this time. So thank you for following that prompting to give them to me.

I'm glad I shared those thoughts with him too. I was at a fireside last night and the speaker talked about how quick we are to follow promptings. He asked, "Are you a 3-second Christian? A 30-second Christian? How about a 15-minute or 3-month Christian?" He emphasized that we need to be quick to follow the promptings we receive and when we do so, we are blessed, as are others. Good reminder. And maybe that's why I was able to follow through with the idea that I should share my thoughts with Carson. I'm certainly not writing this to toot my own horn, just doing it as a reminder to myself that good things happen when we follow promptings.

Summer Happenings--Part 3 (July, Second Half)

To finish out July:
We got home from Jacob Lake on a Sunday afternoon and Maren was heading off to Girls Camp early Monday morning. She had packed everything before our trip, so she was ready to go. She loves Girls Camp, and was especially excited for her first year as a YCL. She did a great job and really enjoyed herself.

While Maren was at camp, I was "lucky" enough to be doing inventory at the library. Actually, it's not bad, just repetitious. I was able to work all my hours in three days and rewarded myself with a nice relaxing massage--ahhhh :)

We celebrated Pioneer Day by eating at Smashburger for lunch and grilling up hot dogs for dinner that night. I'm sure the pioneers sacrificed all they did so that things would be better for those who came after them. I am truly grateful for them. (And I'm sure if they had had Smashburger, they would have eaten there...)

Carson witnessed an amazing miracle in July. In his words: "So we have this recent convert in our branch by the name of Brother D. He's always working. Unfortunately, he doesn't make a lot at his job; 50,000 CFA a month. So it's enough to skate by. But, due to some problems with the bank and another guy for whom he signed this big contract who then skipped town, he owed the bank 1,390,000 CFA. For you folks keeping score at home, that's around 2,600 USD. And that's A LOT of money here. So he received notice of it and that he had eight days to set up a loan plan. So he was telling us this and he was visibly distressed. It was quite sad. He was super stressed and worried about what he was going to do. But despite all this, he asked us if we would take his tithing to church so that we could pay it for him. He wasn't sure if he was going to be at work Sunday and he said that if he left his tithing money at his house that he might spend it for something else. So he gives us 3,000 CFA to pay on Sunday. So I was very touched by his faith and diligence with his commitments that he has made. But now is where the story gets crazy. So we show up to church on Sunday and it turns out that he was there. So I gave him his tithing back and he promptly paid it, but then he told us something amazing had happened. He said, "come to my house on Tuesday and see the great miracle that has taken place in my life." So we show up and he starts telling us his story. He went to the bank to set up his loan payment plan and they gave him this folder full of stuff that he was supposed to fill out. On his way home, he ran into a branch member who used to be a banker in Bamenda and he told D that that loan plan was a trap and that if he filled out the stuff that he would be stuck. So he said to D, "Give me that. I'll tear it up right now to show that you don't need it." But D said that he had a feeling not to give it to him, so he didn't. When he got home, he opened up the folder and within was a paper that said, "this document certifies that Mr. N_____ D____ has paid in full the given amount and is no longer indebted to us." (More or less like that) And it was stamped, signed, and authorized and everything. It was legit. So somehow, his 1.3 million franc debt just got paid. It just was paid. It wasn't the guy who ran away who paid it. The money just got paid. He kept saying, "Jesus paid it, Jesus paid it!" It's a true, real, bona fide, miracle that I witnessed this past week. There's no other way of explaining it. It just got paid... It was an inspiring story about faith and blessing of tithing paying. My goodness, it was amazing." What a wonderful experience for him to witness.

Maren and I were able to spend a few hours at The Living Planet Aquarium and that was a lot of fun. Here are pictures from that day: