Good news........

This was a great week. I am enjoying working for LDS social services so much! It is wonderful to see people making progress. I was even given a key to our building so I can start seeing people closer (by a half hour) to home. I feel so powerful.

This is cute little Brooklyn on her car.

It's hard to believe we really had all these wonderful people here for Tiana's homecoming. It was glorious.

From Two of us to 15 of us for a whole week

Sammy held JJ's hand at the Zoo. It was pretty cute. Then JJ decided he didn't like being led around and ran away.
Me, Tiana and the five cuttest grandbabies in the world.


Tiana flew to Salt Lake City to help Danica, Dave, Lily and JJ move into our basement house for the summer. Dave showed up with his buddy Matt. Don slept here occasionally. He didn't want to put a crimp in his social life by staying here too much. Bryce, Marcia, Sammy and Lucas drove over and Celeste and Brooklyn flew in. We went to the Zoo, we ate Pizza and had Lucas Blessed. We all listened to an amazing report of Tiana's mission on Sunday and Celeste sang in church. There were diapers and people and toys and Tiana talking on the phone to guys and cutting hair everywhere. It was wonderful mayhem.

Tiana is home!

Tiana came home Thursday. She missed her flight in Cincinatti and had been sitting in the airport all day with no companion and was going nuts. We met her at the fountain with balloons and flowers and a banner and she seemed so shaky and out of her element. She got in the car and we were driving home and she said "where are all the trees?" Then we went to the temple and Brother McFarland hugged her before she was released. I have never seen her go so red. She cried because she didn't want to get released and stop feeling the spirit. Finally, the Stake President released her in the Celestial room. Friday she was home all alone while we worked and that made her feel really weird. Saturday I took her to the mall and she was very strange and kept saying "I don't know what to do....I don't know what to buy". But, I found us some jeans on sale and she spoke to friends on her new cell phone--the first thing she bought when she got into CO. In church Don talked about narrowly missing grenades and being saved by prayers and Tiana Addressed the high council for her report. I saw her lip shaking before she stood and I wondered if she would be shy, BUT she firmly testified about how inadequate she felt because of her siblings before her mission and how much she'd grown and learned to read and now she was confident in the Lord. She was supposed to talk for 15 minutes and spoke for 40. We had Noga and Twok and Donato at the young adult ward and Tiana helped teach the 3rd discussion (so did Noga) and then they came home for the usual dinner and Tiana showed them her visual aides.

Don is home!

Don came home and bought a car and put the worlds bigger amp and bass in the trunk. It takes up the whole trunk. I need to talk to him about ear damage. He seems more responsible more mature. I love that kid. He is really nice to us and fun to talk to and really funny. He said that because of the barracks where they stayed there were no bathrooms, he went for months without a shower in Iraq. They had baby wipes to use. Gross huh? I couldn’t do that. I have to have 2 baths a day. Erf!
How did you like conference? I heard this: How much better would our society be if parents regarded their children as gifts from God to be nurtured. President Hinkley
Contrast that to what Barak Obama said this week in speaking of abortion, "I've got 2 daughters and I'm going to teach them morals and ethics but if one of them make a MISTAKE I don't want them burdened them with a child. Ugh.
I thought—of all the people I’ve seen in counseling this week, if their parents had valued their children as gifts from God, I wouldn’t have a job. Adults suffer so much from the negligence and sins of their parents. One of the ladies I see, her mother just kind of fell apart when her dad had an affair and didn’t watch out for or care about the kids. Now this client went crazy as a teenager and has had a hard life, but she repented and went to BYUI and got married in the temple to a fine man---but the pain of such a selfish mother, who still needs all the attention and doesn’t love her daughter and allowed bad things to happen to this little girl---still haunt and hurt this client.
Another man I see had a mother who had a boyfriend who severely beat her two little sons. This man was only 4 years old when his stepfather beat him up…..he ended up in the hospital and would have died except for a priesthood blessing. Finally the mother kicked her boyfriend out…but, This man is also trying to be righteous but suffers from never having a father or a mother who loved him and cared about him. I am so thankful for the Savior Jesus Christ---I truly believe that it is through his sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane, that my clients can feel the love of God and their own spouses and move on to overcome their abuse and reach their full potential. There was that sister who just being released who said something like : I weep with Abraham who was taking his only son Isaac up to the mount of Moriah to be sacrificed and he did not know that God would provide a Ram in the thicket….People who are miserable don’t know about that Ram that God eventually provides.
I am so excited for Tiana to come home this Thursday I can’t stand it. I got her a car---she’ll have to pay me back for most of it, but it’s a good little black 2001 prism that I got for $100 under blue book-$3,500. They don’t have them for $2,500 any more--darn. Don bought her a $50 cd player to put in it. We will call it her early b-day present. Where would a young adult be without a car?