Family Work

What a great week. Full of lots of work but today in Sunday school we discussed all about how work is a gift and a blessing. I brought up how Pres. Uchtdorf indicated that we all have the inner desire to create, and I think that relates directly to work. No matter what kind of work we do it leads to some kind of creation. Home improvement, a computer program, a smile, an experience. They are all some kind of creation. 

And this week we finished grouting the porch, and it looks awesome. Then Saturday we laid tile on the back patio. Ty and Alysia helped, then when they had to leave Skjelse came and was a great help. Both places look so much better. We are really blessed to have the funds to do things at times and to have the skills to make our budget stretch. I have, do, and always will know that faithful payment of an honest tithe has made many miracles of getting more done that I could if I kept it all and tried to use it to accomplish it on our own. 

I taught in high priests group meeting today on eternal marriage. It was fun to do something I have such a testimony of. Since we are going to be living eternally, I would much rather share it with mom and be able to have eternal increase. So I will do all I need to know to be able to keep that blessing in my life now and forever. I tried to do the good teacher things and last week assigned three brothers to come prepared with specific answers to the questions we would have. Then I had prepared a few short video clips. So the whole lesson was three questions. 1.  What do you do to ensure your eternal marriage endures. That got a lot of comments and we spent most time on that. 2.  What can we do to teach children and youth the importance of eternal marriage. 3.  How has keeping the marriage covenant brought you joy. That was it. It was nearly 45 mins and there was not a pause. I had to cut off time for more discussion at the end as time was up. I know prayer helped me to be prepared and to have the ability to have us all learn from each other. I only said the questions and a few short comments in between sections. They all said the rest and it was very good to learn from each other. 

We got a new Elder, a new Sister, and a new Zone leader this week. It will be fun to learn from them all. We are very blessed to have good people all around us. 

I have had a guy, Steven (real name Choajie), that works for me in China here visiting and learning. I think I overwhelmed him with so many meetings but it also helped him see many other things that can help him learn more and continue to grow in his job. To help him experience American life we took him to a Dayton Dragons game. It was fun, he liked the atmosphere, the food and the next morning when I talked to him about it he confided "I have no clue how that game is played."  This after all evening the other guy with us explained all what was going on and why it was happening. It was pretty funny. Then later in the week we took him to dinner at a restaurant in the Oregon district that we had never been to. I took mom so we could have a nice evening together also. It was so nice and we ate outside in perfect weather. A fun week. 

I love you forever. 

Dad

3 John 1:4