Alison is home!

Waiting at the airport

At home before we went to the Stake Center and she was released

dinner time

Flowers for Alison

Feeling blessed!

I can not express in words how blessed I feel today!  I have a great family, a wonderful, loving and smart husband, 7 beautiful and incredible kids, and the most adorable and lovable grand-kids! Life is good!

Lately it seems I am running out of time everyday.  I have a lot going on, but mostly I feel mentally drained. Getting Parker ready for his mission and at the same time having Alison on a mission and having to also take care of Conner and take him to and from therapies is draining, mentally and physically.  You worry about them and want what is best for them.  But I also keep Ashley and Brittany's family in my mind everyday so a mom's work is really never finished.

I would not change anything though! I am enjoying my life so much right now! It is so wonderful when you hear others express their feelings towards your children as it was the case today with Alison.  As she is finishing her mission members in her Ward in Milano Navigli have told me how much they love her and how much she means to them, because she has brought the gospel to them.

A brother in Milan (who is from Ecuador) who was baptized in 1994 but had been inactive will forever be thankful to Alison and her companion Sister Andrea Heupel for helping him come back to church and for teaching his wife who will be getting baptized soon.  He shared this on Facebook along with the picture of Alison and Andrea.

Spanish

Estoy adolorido y a la misma ves contento. Hace poco tiempo se nos fue un angel y ahora se nos va otro angel hermana Hanson escogida por el padre para hacer una mision. Se que el espiritu siempre la guiaba a la persona mas nesecitada por ella. Lleno mi hogar con amor y paz y siempre estara en nuestro corazones. sabemos muy bien que regresa con sus familiares que tanto la quiere y la ama y la han estrañado como la vamos a estrañar nosotros. Gracias por todo hemana de parte de  DIOCLES y SINDY —

English

I'm sad and happy at the same time. A short time ago an angel left us (sister Heupel) and now another angel sister Hanson, chosen by the father to serve a mission. I know that the Holy Ghost always guided her to the person that needed her most. She filled my home with love and peace and will always be in our hearts. We know well she is returning to her family that loves her and have missed her like we are going to miss her. Thanks for everything sister!  from DIOCLES and SINDY -

And these wonderful sisters decorated the church yesterday for family home evening.  They had told me they were going to give Alison a drawing that one of them made for her.

Forever Sister Hanson we love you so much!

Lidia's baptism

Lidia's baptism, Sorella Egbert and Sorella Hanson

Mirco and Giulia's baptism

Mirco and Giulia

Sorella Egbert and Sorella Hanson

The group photo is from the serata familiare that we do. That means home evening

Alright there is a story about this jar of fruit. It is no normal jar of fruit. It is a jar of mustard fruit. Yes think mustard fruit is not good. Sorella Egbert and I about both gagged eating it because we just thought it was normal.

These are some of the sisters that we worked with as sister training leaders.

Mirco

Not sure if I showed this picture before is of a cannoli (I think that is how you spell it) it is really good.

Rescue visits in our Stake

Our Stake is now doing something different.  Instead of having pre-conference visits with the Wards prior to Ward Conferences we are doing "Rescue Visits". This is all a part of "Hastening the Work". We need everyone. We need to activate and also we need to help the missionaries in finding people who are ready for the work and we also need to do the temple work for our ancestors.  It really is amazing how fast things are moving now. The internet and the use of technology is helping with missionary work.  The missionaries in the Orlando mission now have mini ipads and Facebook accounts and they share messages every day. I also try to do that too on my blog and on my Facebook.

Something happened the other day. I have been posting things on Facebook about the Church and about the new temple in Ft. Lauderdale and a friend whom I have not spoken to in forever and who graduated with me in HS wanted to know when I was going to the temple open house and that she lived near the temple and wanted to go!! She is not a member of the church.  Sharing the gospel online works!!!

I had an amazing experience with one of the Rescue visits. The way it works is that prior to the Ward conference we go do our visits with our counterpart, for example, I am the 1st counselor in the Stake RS so I would go and visit with the 1st counselor in the Ward RS.  In this visit I could see so many miracles and how the Lord is watching over us and how He wants to rescue those who have gone off the path.

I went with the RS President because her counselor could not go with me.  The sisters she had tried to contact to see if we could visit did not answer back so we just went and visited anyway. The first sister was not home so we decided to go visit someone else.

This is my report of the visit:

She did not know we were coming, because Sister Mize had not been able to make contact, but since the other sister we had gone to visit was not home, we decided to go visit Liliana.  When we got there Sister Garcia was home and was not going to open the door for us thinking we were from another religion.  Sister Mize brought her trash can that was out on the curb up to the front of the garage.  Sister Garcia saw her do that, so she felt she needed to say thank you and she opened the door.  To me that was a miracle that by a little act of kindness we were let into the home.  She told us that normally she works during the day so we were lucky to find her home.  Liliana said that it was meant to be that she was home to meet us and hear our message, another little miracle.  Sister Garcia mentioned that the Sister missionaries come by every Tuesday and they read the Book of Mormon with them.  We showed her a short video on Christlike attributes and asked her to work on an attribute a month and she agreed. She mentioned she needs to work on patience.  Sister Garcia agreed to have Sister Mize visit her again.

I felt the spirit so strong in this visit. She was not going to open the door thinking that we were Jehova Witnesses, but because the RS president thought of bringing the trash can up to the house, and the sister saw her through the window and felt guilty if she did not thank her, she decided to open the door. When she found out we were LDS she was happy to let us in !!! All because of the little act of kindness.  She then felt that it was meant for her not to go to work so she could meet us and hear our message!! I love those miracles!!!!

The Lord knows her and loves her and wanted her to receive our message and now she knows the RS president and will let her come visit her.  Little by little this sister will be helped back into the church!!

I just came across this from a talk given by Elder Bednar; "I repeat again, the Lord's tender mercies do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Faithfulness and obedience enable us to receive these important gifts and frequently, the Lord's timing helps us to recognize them."

I love tender mercies or little miracles.

Elder L. Tom Perry

When Elder Perry was here on Saturday, February 1st, 2014 he gave us training on how to have  a successful Ward Council. In attendance were also Elder Ronald Rasband (Senior President of the Presidency of the Seventy), Elder W. Craig Zwick (member of the First Quorum of the Seventy), and Elder Erich W. Kopischke (member of the First Quorum of the Seventy).

We had a wonderful meeting.  They spoke to us about the hastening of the work D&C 88:73 and that we must "put our trust in the Lord"-Elder Ballard.

In Alma 17:11 It says-"And the Lord said unto them also: Go forth among the Lamanites, thy brethren, and establish my word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls."

This scriptures tells us the importance of personal example. Our first role is to be a missionary ourselves. D&C section 44 is about missionary work, about preaching repentance unto the people and converting them.  Elder Perry said that this section even though it was given in 1831 it applies today, our time.  He stressed the importance of Ward council.  That those who participate in Ward councils need to come prepared. He stressed the importance of reaching out to the less actives.  He said this is the most important era because we are now recognized all around the world.

Elder Kopischke said that when we are helping and rescuing those less actives we need to be focusing on "What is their next saving ordinance?".

We were told that the MTC is our home.

We also were told that "we have the power to receive inspiration from the Lord in the calling that you have".  Preparation is key, we must prepare ourselves to receive revelation, by keeping the commandments, reading our scriptures and praying.

Missionary momma's

In Facebook I am in a group called Missionary momma's and I just love how wonderful it is to talk with people going through the same stuff I am going through and also mom's with the same values as I have. I have also met a sister whose husband served in PR back in 1987 and knew my uncle. Their daughter is now serving in the Orlando mission and we hope she comes to our ward.  I also met a Sister who served in PR in 1984, Sister Nici, who was a companion to a sister missionary, whom met in Ponce and I love dearly, Sister Tani Pack.  When I told Tani I had met Nici, she said, my two favorite people met. I love how wonderful these ladies are, when for example a missionary mom writes a post about her son coming home early from his mission and feeling sad, the other moms make comments like, you need to love him and make other comments with compassion and encouragement.  I love how non judgemental and understanding they are. This is how it should be, the Lord has told us to love one another. I know it is hard when your children are not doing what is right, but it helps when others are being compassionate and in some way help your child come back to church or go back to the right path by not being judgemental. 

Recently they were doing a before and after pictures of the missionaries so here is Alison's.

Before- when she was 4 years old

Now-missionary in Milan

Parker has the flu

Today was a crazy Sunday. Parker's throat was not feeling so good yesterday so he mentioned it to the doctor when he was there for his physical exam.  They looked at his throat but could not see anything so they said he was probably starting something. Well, today he had a fever of 103 and it would not go down. He woke up from his nap and I checked his temperature and it was up to 105.2, super hot.  When I felt him with my hand it was extremely hot. So we took him to the ER.  They took his blood and it came back positive for flu!! Now he needs to rest and stay home from school for a few days. We have all had the flu shot but he caught a different strain of the flu so in this case the flu shot is useless.

The mask!

The last few days

 Matt was in town and he came to visit and even played basketball with Brent.

Conner had Piano Federation at UCF.  Here he is practicing just before his performance.

Conner and his friends from piano at Federation

Conner got the highest score, Superior!!

Today at church Conner was the reverence child in Sacrament. This was the first time they did this and Conner was the first to do it along with Sahara, from his class. Parker was sick so I was not at church and I asked Brent to send me a picture of Conner.