"An invitation that is born of our love for others and for the Lord Jesus Christ and our desire for the happiness of these friends and family members will never be seen as offensive or judgmental."—Jeffrey R. Holland, "Our Responsibility to Invite"
Topics: Work of Salvation
Here's my second one:
"With love, each can do as the Good Shepherd would do to plan and to rescue. And each can do so prayerfully with inspiration from the Father of us all."—Russell M. Nelson, "The Work of Salvation: Parable of a Father at Bedtime"
Topics: Work of Salvation
Upcoming this week: Jocee will be 3 on Wednesday, Becca will be 8 next Sunday...followed by Charlotte on Monday with a birthday of her own. We are headed up to Washington on Saturday and hope to have a birthday dinner together, just a couple of days early:)!
Looking ahead...Chris Bullinger has a birthday on Tuesday, November 5th (in case anyone is relying on me to make these things known and in case I don't get a blog done next weekend because of the travel:)
Mission Notes: Things are going along well; the Routs (he is our Vehicle Coordinator and she is our Nurse) will be leaving on Nov. 5th (Chris' birthday!) and the couple replacing them are to start training in the office on Monday (tomorrow). We are looking forward to meeting them. We have already met the couple who are replacing the Terrys (he is the Housing Coordinator and she is the mission secretary) as they arrived a couple of weeks ago. They are actually serving in one of the wards until mid-November, when they will come into the office every day (the Terrys are leaving at Thanksgiving) for training, but they have been coming in a couple of days each week so far and have started training on those days. They have served a number of missions and are a nice couple. Everyone is nice:). The work goes on...we have transfers/departures/arrivals again in about 3 weeks, but tomorrow we actually have 5 departing - one missionary who got caught on a schedule change and 4 of our Visa Waiters - who will be very happily boarding their airplanes. Although actually as our last visa waiters left more than one expressed a wish that they were staying in our mission - the greatest mission on earth:)! I'm sure they are doing great and I know that the people in Salt Lake City appreciate beyond words our mission president's willingness to accept and train the visa waiters; he doesn't count it as an inconvenience but as a great opportunity. If only all of us could look at the difficult challenges that come into our lives in that way!!!
Family Notes: OK...I am going to try putting a couple of "movies" here; they were supposed to be pictures, but apparently dad had them videoing instead of just snapping:). They are of the tree across from our front door, which turned a brilliant yellow a couple of days ago - so if they don't work - 2nd try DID, just imagine them!
Then, I thought I would put in the pictures that taken when we had the group of you here for Dad's birthday - you can see from them that people were kind of relaxed and it looked like they were enjoying it to me:)!
Lastly, I am trying to keep in my mind that all of you are quite busily doing the things you should be doing with your families and to give up the desire in my heart that everyone lived close enough to us to drop by each evening and share your day with us on the front porch (as I used to watch my uncles do at my grandma's when I was with her). Of course, we don't have a front porch, and you do NOT live close enough by any means to do such a thing:)!!!
I was grateful to be able to visit with Mary a little on the phone; she had her big conference this past week and it took all of her energies but turned out well. I think it was their first but will probably not be their last. She was catching up on her rest this weekend:). I did notice she found time to add two new videos to her Facebook page - more of the amazing silks thing. If you haven't seen her Facebook page you should take time to do so:). Oh...Also, since Mary was the one who gave Dad the DVD of Duck Dynasty, we should let you all know we watched all of Season 1 and it was a fun thing to do. Our plan is to send it on to Sara's family as she was really disappointed in not being able to watch it with us here and I'm sure she would be happy to forward it on to anyone else who would like to see it:). Since I'm talking about Mary, here are a couple of pictures from her trip to California to the Emmys and one of her eating a yellow watermelon in our apartment:)
I had fun talking with John B. who sounded great; looking forward to seeing him and all the other Bullingers at Thanksgiving! Also enjoyed talking with Charlotte and with Emily, who helped answer a couple of questions for us about real estate. (So lucky we are to have such talents in our family!) As I said in the birthday notes, we are heading up to Washington next Saturday to test out a Travel Scoot (and buy one if Dad has his way), so we'll have to let you know how that goes. Our plan is to go have a birthday dinner with Charlotte and stay with them for church on Sunday. Looking forward to it. Emily is going to let Eli start attending a Montessori preschool in January; I am hoping to be able to visit down there and maybe even visit the school. He would be the first of our grandchildren to get to do such a thing...which is kind of ironic considering how very much it meant to me for you all to get to do so:)! I think I have matured somewhat; as wonderful as a good Montessori school can be, I know that a good family life is ever so much more important - especially one centered on the gospel and living the commandments!
Sidenote: Our Sunday school lesson today centered on whether or not we really appreciate how blessed we are to know that we are led by a prophet on the earth today, or prophets. And how do we show that we fully appreciate it? Our teacher shared a story of a person who broke down in tears just to think that such a thing could be possible; other stories were shared as well, as well as a thought by one member of the class that it has become too "easy" - to sit around wataching in our PJs, or to say "I'll read it in the Ensign" or I'll watch online, etc. Does the easiness of it - which makes it possible for more people across the earth to hear and/or learn of it - end up making us less appreciative? I hope not.
Back to contacts...I called Holly, hoping to hear how she is doing with her pregnancy and life in general, but got an answering machine - will have to try again. Called Jeanie, who asked if Jim had gotten hold of me to ask for a recipe - which he hadn't, altho I think he tried. I had left my phone at home in the apartment that day:(. Never plan to do that, but do forget it sometimes. I was happy to e-mail the recipe:). I got to visit with Sara and to learn that she and Patrick made it back safely from North Dakota, where she picked up two thoroughbreds off the race track (not Mustangs as I was thinking last week), although it sounded like Patrick basically went without sleep for a huge amount of time in order for them to accomplish that feat. So glad to know they did not have an accident and to know that they didn't run into horrendous weather. She said Jocee was really looking forward to her birthday and having everyone sing happy birthday to her:). We hope she has a wonderful day! Also managed to connect with Christine as the family was watching a movie (which sounded terrible to me- of course I am the original non-movie person); they sounded all well and she was happy to announce that they had the framing for the walls of their addition up and I think she said they were hoping to pour the concrete for the garage tomorrow. We could all send up weather prayers for them - as weather is a big factor is all of this for them!
Well, I think that I am about out of stuff to say so I guess I shall quite, hoping that everyone will have a great week ahead!
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