The weather here in Las Vegas is getting hot. We are definitely in the mid 90's now most days. The wind has stopped being cooler than the air outside. Summer has arrived. I always think for a split second- OH NO! But then I remember that I love summer and the 10 weeks of pretty dang hot weather is TOTALLY worth the 9 months of amazing and mild weather here in the desert.
Our month of May was great. We celebrated 8 years of marriage. WHAT!? That is crazy! 8 whole years. I have never done anything consistently for 8 years! We were really busy and our wallets were tight so we did not get to do our usual stay-cation that we usually do for our anniversary. But we ate an amazing dinner and had a really nice night out.
My sisters and I have this ongoing group text message going. We text each other at least once a day. It is really fun to be able to keep in touch with each other like that. In some ways it is like being right there next to them all the time. We usually text first thing in the morning and I noticed that we text each other our morning "looks" whether good or bad! It is funny!
And we always seem to text about peeing out pants every couple of days. What the heck!? We keep each other laughing for sure!
I get lots of pictures of my niece, Camille. We love her to death and she makes the funniest faces! She has made funny faces since she was born. We crack up!
(this one is one of my favorites! I call it WHAT THE HECK?)
Harrison and I spoke in church last week. It went very well. Our topic was on The Restoration of the Priesthood. We did a lot of research and a lot of preparing for our talks. It ended up that Harrison spoke to the men about the importance of honoring their Priesthood power and not using "unrighteous dominion" in regards to the Priesthood... and I spoke to the women about the importance of the Priesthood in regards to women as a whole and how, as women, we are able to use the power of the Priesthood in our lives. Our topics were well received and we had many in our ward family approach us afterwards with words of thanks and love. We were happy that we were able to touch our ward family's hearts in one way or another.
We had an excellent Sunday School lesson last week. It was a lesson that really hit Harrison and I hard. We basically got the message that we need to "walk the walk" and not just "talk the talk". Isn't it crazy how complacent we get? How comfortable we get in our lives? As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we are taught to be Christlike, give of ourselves in service to others, attend the temple, to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others, and to generally just be good people. Well, we tend to just go through the motions at times. We think, "Oh, someone else will help that family I'm sure." or "I just don't have time to attend the temple today." or "When I have more time and energy I will help so-and-so." or "Why would I be nice to them if they aren't nice to me?" You get the idea. Well- what kind of witness of Jesus Christ are we with attitudes like that? Not very good ones. One of the members of our class talked about how being BUSY can stand for Being Under Satan's Yoke.
How insightful. Sometimes I think we over-schedule ourselves so much with things that we think matter, when in actuality we don't save enough time to do the things that REALLY DO matter! So, we have renewed our commitments to attend the temple more often, serve others more, make time to read our scriptures, and generally just cut out the crap that doesn't matter.
Now, I don't tell you this and want you to think that we are like, "Look at how spiritual we are." or "Everyone should do what we are doing because it is the most righteous thing to do."I tell you this because I want you all to know that we are human. We make mistakes! We are not perfect, and I believe this is an issue that MOST human beings struggle with. If anything, I want you to know that you are not alone in your struggle. There are others out there just like YOU.... and we are two of them.
I hope your spring was full of "rebirths" and "growing" just as the season suggests. I hope your summer is super fun! I love seeing pictures and hearing stories about everybody's summer backyard BBQ's, camping trips (even though I hate to camp myself), pictures of suntanned kids (those are the best), pool parties, popsicles, key lime pie, 4th of July parades, and pictures of bare feet in the sand and in the grass. Summer is amazing. Soak it up my friends. It will be gone before you know it! Enjoy your journey! Enjoy the little things (like suntanned kids and popsicles).
