Sunday July 3

I got to get up early this morning to go to ward council.

Stacia came and got me, so I just stayed at the church after the meeting......which only ended about 20 minutes before church started anyway :)

So Madi and dad were in charge of getting the little ones ready.

Time was getting closer and closer and I wondered if they would make it on time.

And then in they walked, all happy, no fighting, everyone had shoes on, and looked cute.

It made my mama heart happy :)

Elsie even let Madi put cute braids in her hair!

I talked to dad last night about how there has been so much fighting with the kids and how it was making me not even want to be home with them.....

Anyway, I guess he had a talk with the kids this morning and they really made an effort today, which makes me happy.

It's not that hard to just be nice!!!!!!

Oh and even better.......the little ones were fasting!

They fasted all though church and not even a complaint!

Our fast today was focused on Kaiya and little Cole.

It is a neat thing to see these kids fast with such a personal purpose.

I also got to teach the combined lesson in YW today.

It was titled 'Love One Another' :)

I think it went well.

There was some good discussion.

And lots of scripture reading!

After church, Dad and I had a meeting with the bishop.

We have such a great bishop and he is really making an effort to get to know the families and people.

He genuinely cares for our family's welfare.

It is great :)

We came home and broke our fast before our new Home Teachers came over.

That was a nice visit, except Porter goes just crazy.

Later on the Capell's stopped by.

They wanted to see around the house and they brought some ice cream that Brother Capell had made.

Yummy!

After they left we had time to watch a conference talk before bed time.

Today's was a simple and profound talk.

It was The Sacred Place of Revelation by Elder Jairo Mazzagardi

He talked a lot about having questions.....and then coming to the Lord in Faith with those questions.

He talked about when he was questioning why the restoration had to happen in Palmyra, and not somewhere else.

And a comment that Brent said made this talk perfectly fitting for this 4th of July time of year.

He said that this country has been prepared for the restoration to happen here.

Look back in time, this country should not be a free country.

Just the fact that this country won it's independence, proves that God had a hand it it.

And that it was being prepared for the work to come forth here.

In a free country!

Where, even though there was opposition, it was still afforded the freedom to be a church.

More so than it could have been in any other place.

And I just love that.