The Start of a Great Week

A pleasant surprise to get a visit from my youngest sister, Linda, Nik,her husband and daughter, Mina. While I was visiting at Hank's Lori mentioned they were guesting Linda and her family for dinner.

They were up here to see one of their daughter's friends at BYU. Perfect timing. We had a wonderful visit. It was such a delight to get to be with them and feel of their goodness. We talked about our family ties and the talents their children have.

I am so grateful to have been able to see them, and will have them over to have dinner with some of the rest of the family and grandchildren. The heavens are pleased.

A Busy Week

So much to get done that we have had a busy week. Ron had a minor procedure on Monday on his left eyelid to remove, incise a cyst inside. The doctor found a smaller one on the right side so he went in and took care of that one too. The irony of this was that the right eye that had the smaller less complicated cyst made a bigger bruise.

Tuesday I had a scheduled root canal on my #11 tooth. It was something that had been bothering me for several years and finally yielded to have it taken care of. Those procedures are not covered by insurance so I am aware of the extra expense. Just the week before I had a crown put in to replace the one tooth that needed to be pulled back in January. The dentist put an implant to prep the space for another crown. So it took six months to heal and I now can chew on that right side again.

We had a good day at the temple on Wednesday. We had the opportunity to do some family sealings. It is always rewarding to experience to participate in family receiving their temple blessings. Apparently I had overlooked some ordinances that were still undone and we were proxies for several sides of the family. It is a renewal of my faith in performing these saving ordinances for them.

I even felt a nudge in my side when I almost fell asleep and was awakened doing one of the aunts' work. I laugh at the timing of it. I felt a grip on my forearm as I watched a child sealed to parents for my maternal grandmother's husband, Kenny. Now, I know it was no coincidence with that either.

We made some headway to process our application for a mission this week too. We visited with our bishop on Sunday. He gave us the heads up to go online once he did his part to initiate it. Ron got right on it and by Tuesday we had it completed. We follow up tomorrow with a visit with the Stake President. The interviews we've had so far with the Washington Kennewick mission president promises things will move in that direction for us to do a stay-at-home mission. We could be working with the local mission president and do about anything he feels inspired to have us do and use our language in one of the branches not far from us.

Our mission picture on our application
"Deep within my heart, my soul and spirit is the desire (is so strong) to serve. We have a willingness to go forward and do as our Father in Heaven would have us serve side by side with my own eternal companion. (As I have been promised and be "Called to Serve,"

People Live, They Die and We Remember Them

This is a quote written in Bro Covey's obituary.

"Throughout his life, on most mornings, he would arise early, go to a place where he could be alone, and he would pray, meditate, and study the scriptures. This daily private victory, as he coined it, became the source of his security, guidance, wisdom, and power and he often told us kids that "if you will spend twenty minutes each day with the Savior of the world in private worship, you will spend eternity in his presence."

I am so glad I got over my "attitude" about Steven Covey. I listened to others and judged him unfairly without knowing his truth worth.

I have worked on being careful to form my own opinions and be Christ-like in understanding others.

A Week Spent in Montana with Ron's Siblings

Two of my new sisters, Anna Marie and Elna.
We just returned back from five days with Ron's brother's and sister's and their spouses. It was the first time I met some of them. They are all so gracious and loving. The way family is and should be. We had a great time. It was amazing to visit with them, joke with them, laugh ourselves silly and share good food and stories.

Us ladies took in the sites in Virginia City and Nevada City, two old mining towns. We went on the "tour" and got the low down on the history of the locals from the Gold Rush days. We took the train ride for the eight mile trek and saw what history up close of the log cabins and a few of us panned for gold.

John made a dutch oven meal of barbeque chicken, with potatoes and italian sausage. He also made cherry cobbler everyone liked. Thanks John.

This is LeRoy and Val, the oldest brother of the Walser clan. They live in Oklahoma and drove to the "reunion."

I felt very comfortable and so grateful for the family they all are. Here are several snap shots we took that we did together. The men went fishing so I don't have pics of them, but I know they had a great time. They caught so much fish, we all had a chance to take some home with us. We had some today for dinner.

Patty at the old Espiscopal Church, St. Paul's in Virginina City. It is over an hundred years old. She and the others, Anna Marie and Elna knew all the fun places to see. They do this tour every year they go to the cabin. It was fun to shop, eat and see the sites with them.

A Milestone--We Just Finished Reading The Book of Mormon

Glimpses of favorite stories of the Book of Mormon~

Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty

Lehi and his family on their voyage across the seas guided by the Liahone

We just completed reading the Book of Mormon together. Our scripture study took us through it the first half of this year. We are now going to read it in Spanish. Ron wanted to do that to catch up and brush up on our Spanish. We are going to put our request in to serve a local mission with the Washington Kennewick Mission. Spanish speaking will perhaps be one of our assignments to help the missionaries improve in their language skills.

I am all for that. I want to keep reading it in English too so/until I can grasp the meaning of it in Spanish like I do when reading it English. I look forward to serving a mission with my husband. He is a leader and has many skills that will bless those who are waiting for our service.

A replica of the Liahona

Lavender Fields of Madras Oregon

It was a highlight of our trip to Oregon yesterday as we traveled through Madras. The beauty and the symmetry of the lavender farm was breathtaking. Each plant had a round tufted look to it and the fragrance was also heavenly scented.

The growers, a husband and wife (Wayne and Terry) appeared to have the lavender as a hobby, but are regular farmers that grow alfalfa, wheat and raised some onion and carrot seeds. The wife, Terry has a store that has a supply of their own distilled pure lavender oil that is bottled, and had creams, sprays, cook books, dried lavender sachet bags. We even bought a dark chocolate bar flavored with lavender. It was delicious. I bought a cook book and some culinary lavender to use and cook recipes with it.

This is a delicacy at the very least. Love the combination of dark chocolate and lavender!


Over the years I have grown to love the scent of lavender as an essential oil. It has a calming, and peaceful effect just to smell its fragrance. I would apply it on my grandchildren and remember putting some on one of my grand daughters just before she was being blessed in church. I laugh now about it.

I also started using lavender oils to put on Parker when he was a baby to help him take naps or when he was fussy. He still likes it and Candice, his mom puts some on the kids' "ouchies" or bruises. It is a good first aid too.

This other photo is a random image I found online in Google files. I really like the picture of field we found in Madras.