The main theme of this week:
Doctrine and Covenants
109:8 = “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a
house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of
learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;”
I talked about this several months ago and my drive to
follow this commandment from the Lord. For more than three weeks we kept things
completely in order. And then… school got very crazy, I got sick, and things
fell apart. We let things really slide while I have been so ill and it was time
to put things back into order. We have worked through the sweat of our brows to
get things back in order around our house and to establish more firm routines
with the kids. So far? I am loving the results.
Besides the fact that the house is clean and it invites the
spirit of the Lord to be here the laundry is all done and easy to keep on top
of and the dishes are all done and also easy to keep on top of. The kids have
been instructed that their rooms need to be clean when they go to bed each
night if they want to play their tablets the next day. So far they have been
wonderful at picking up their toys and their clothes and putting them where they
belong. Nathan is still learning how to make his bed but Abrielle is really
good at it and makes her bed every morning. I have also been laying out her
clothes for her and she is doing well at dressing herself. She still puts her
shirts on backwards sometimes, but she is getting there.
We have also dedicated more focus to family scripture
reading and prayer. We read together and pray together once the kids are ready
for bed and then they each get a bed time story. Because of my involvement with
school I just haven’t had the availability to read to Nathan as much as I did
to Abrielle when she was little and I have noticed that he just isn’t as
interested in books as she is. I have sought to turn that around this week and
he is really picking up on the vibe of reading and gets very excited every
night when it is his story time. We read a book about a fire engine today and,
of course, that was his favorite book so far although he also loves “The Very
Clumsy Click Beetle.”
I try to select books for Abrielle out of our collection
that we haven’t read before. I love to keep her mind expanding and she has such
a wonderful imagination. She has recently decided that she wants to be a bird
and she gets very indignant when she can’t fly. She spends a good deal of the
week pretending that she is a bird (she was even a homing pigeon at one point
this week although I have no idea how she knows what a homing pigeon is) and
she also likes to pretend that she is a dog. We spent a great deal of time on
Thursday raking up all of the leaves in our yard in preparation for winter to
set in and she gathered up the large pile in the garden and it became her “nest.”
She would creep across the lawn to one of our leaf piles and snatch a handful
of leaves and squawk her way back to her nest. She also decided to collect
small leaves as “worms” for her baby birds.
We found out on Friday night that Jake’s sister, Marie, and
her husband, Todd, are expecting a little girl. It seems that all of the
Bentley children have a girl first! Robert has Breena, we have Abrielle, and
another of Jake’s sisters is pregnant with a girl due in January (her first).
We are very happy for them and excited to have another niece.
We got to celebrate Matt’s birthday at Grandma Dunford’s
house tonight. I spent the day making homemade wheat rolls and lemon cookies –
both at the request of Matt. They were both a hit and I am very happy to be
able to contribute to the family fun. We are sure grateful to have Matt in our
family and we have a lot of fun with him and Alyssa around.
On Saturday night we went out with our friends to dinner at
Asia Palace. The food was good but the company was great. It is so nice to be
able to touch base with everyone and to get together frequently. I am so
grateful for wonderful friends who are still my friends although so much time
has passed and so many things in our individual lives have changed. We took Abrielle
and Nathan with us and they loved the food and especially loved the nature
movie that was playing in the restaurant. After dinner a few of our friends
came back to our house to play Spades. I don’t think I have laughed that hard
in a really long time. The games were great – very competitive but all in good
fun.
Abrielle gave her very first talk in primary today. The
topic was “I am thankful for spiritual blessings.” I was so proud of her I
could have just burst at the seams. She stood up tall and spoke in the microphone
and echoed all of the words I was whispering into her ear with clarity and
confidence. She was pleased as punch with herself. Earlier in the day while we
were practicing she said to me, “Mom? Will you come to my primary and help me
say the magic words?” SOOOOO cute!
This week holds many wonderful things in store for us but I
will leave you in suspense and let you know next week what wonderful times have
been had. I love you and I think about you often. I am trying not to count the
days (hours, minutes, seconds) until you get back home. I am hoping that the
time will start passing more quickly than it has this week. I miss you but I am
so proud of you. Keep doing the work the Lord has for you. Be strong and
valiant. And know, above all, that you are loved and stronger than you believe.
Love always, Shayla
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