After the performance our girls were able to meet all of the members of the Fab 5 and my wife took some pictures with her phone.

They had a wonderful time. I am so thankful that there are successful LDS women out there in the world that are doing their best to be good examples and role models to the young women of the Church.


]]> http://www.ldsfamily.net/2010/03/04/role-models/feed/ 0 http://www.ldsfamily.net/2010/02/26/daddy-daughter-time/ http://www.ldsfamily.net/2010/02/26/daddy-daughter-time/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:37:30 +0000 Clint http://www.ldsfamily.net/?p=622 My daughter and I were able to spend some quality time this weeks as we attended the 5th Grade Ski Trip to Pomerelle Ski Resort. We were able to talk while skiing, while on the ski lift and as we traveled home. I have been able to take time off of work for each of my kids so that I could spend time some quality time with them up on the ski slopes. Each trip brings special memories for me and creates moments in our life that we can look back on with warm feelings. I have one more daughter that will participate in this ski trip but she will not be old enough for this trip for a few more years. I look forward to that time I’ll be able to spend with her.

Here is a quick video of our trip.

Not only was it a very fun time to sing with 100 men, but both of my boys were able to pass off one of their requirements for their Duty To God program.

My son that is a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood was able to pass off a requirement that states, “Sing the National Anthem alone or in a group. Explain its origin to parents / leaders.”.

My son that is a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood completed the following requirement, “Sing with a church, school, or community choir.”

It was a nice “guys night out” event. We were able to spend some valuable time together learning the song and singing it before a huge audience.

Below is a video of our 100 Man Choir.

For those of you that would rather watch it on YouTube, you can follow this link.

The lesson about the apostacy and the re-establishment of the church on the earth came with 4 bullet points. The church was organized in Christ’s day with Apostles, Prophets, Priesthood and Revelation. These 4 items, I taught, were the foundation of the church. After discussing the restoration of the church by Joseph Smith, we talked about how these 4 pillars were again established on the earth. Katie was very excited to memorize these 4 building blocks of the church but had a had time remembering all four that night. The cool think about this lessons is that several times over the next few weeks and months, Katie would come up to me with her 4 fingers in the air and recite back those four founding pieces of the Church of Jesus Christ. I could tell that she was really trying to remember them and be ready for her interview with the Bishop.

Another Family Home Evening we talked about the covenant of baptism. In the lesson we reviewed the sacrement prayers which detail out the parts of the covenant that we agree to keep, and the parts of the covenant that the Lord promises to keep. The promises that we make are that we take upon ourselves His (the Lord Jesus Christ) name, we will always remember Him, and we will keep His commandments. The Lord, in turn will keep his promise which is, that he will always have His spirit (the Holy Ghost) to be with us. Again, after this lesson Katie was very serious about trying to remember these parts of the covenant she was going to make at baptism. Just days before her baptism, she stopped me and repeated back the parts of the covenant of baptism.

Even though she was being very intent on remembering these basic principles of the gospel, she was still very nervous about the interview with the Bishop. It took me back to the day when I was getting ready to be baptized. I remember being nervous too because I wasn’t sure what would be asked of me. I remember being very worried that the Bishop would ask me to recite all of the articles of faith or something. I remember the Bishop being very nice and reassuring.

Kate’s baptism was wonderful. We had many family members in attendance and many friends that joined us for this special event. Kate soaked in the attention and was very happy. Happy enough that she bounced around many times while we were trying to take pictures.

What a blessing it is to have been able baptize all of my children. I have wonderful children that understand the gospel and continue to live their lives by the teachings of Jesus Christ. They have all kept their covenants at baptism and are finding joy in living the gospel.

I was at home, be bopping around the internet when it hit me that I hadn’t checked Google Analytics in a little while. My son’s were watching me for some reason that night as I surfed around. As I pulled up my Analytics I clicked on the stats that showed me how LDSFamily.net was doing. To my Shock and Awe, I noticed that in January, one of the days had received 149 hits. Wow, I normally average 10 hits a day. This was huge! I immediately started to track down those hits to find out what happened. I dug deeper and deeper into the analytics cavern of information to discover the nugget of information I was looking for. After a little seraching I found that almost all of those hits came from a site called mormontimes.com. Humm, I wondered, why on earth would I be getting a bunch of hits from momontimes.com? I took out my figurative pick ax to chisel out the answer and here is what I found.

Every day, there is a lady named Emily W. Jensen at the Mormon Times that skouers the internet for intersting articles about Mormons or people of the LDS Faith. When she finds something interesting, she posts a small blurb about the post and puts up on something called “Today in the Bloggernacle“. My blog post about visiting the Wrong Ward was featured as one of the posts to read on January 18th. How cool it that?

Thank you Mormon Times and the Daily Bloggernacle for noticing my post and for mentioning it on your website.

Relief Society Sisters is a meeting place for LDS women all across the globe. Not only can you organize with sisters in your current ward, you can also reconnect with those from past wards. Latter-day Saint women can share testimonies, lesson plans, and visiting teaching ideas with anyone.

It looks like an awesome website. I hope you take a few minutes and check it out to see if there is something that interests you.

After the sacrament had been passed around, we noticed that my brother had still not arrived. They were only a minute behind us when we left the house so there was no way that they were just late. We then realized that we were not at his ward. We really couldn’t pick up and leave in the middle of the meeting so we decided to just stay. Plus, if this wasn’t my brother’s ward, which building was?

Anyway, as we peered around the members in front of us, we could get small glimpses of the people on the stand. As I scanned to the right of the stand, I could see the men that were presiding at the meeting. At the very end of the bench, there was a man that I thought looked like Elder Bednar. As many of you might know, all of the mormon men in Utah look the same. Most of the leaders walking around look like Elder Bednar so I shrugged it off and went back to managing the sleepy kids. I did, however, continue to study this “Bendar Look-a-like”. Of course, I was in the gym and my eye site isn’t what it used to be. I decided to entrust my findings with my wife. I pointed him out to her and then took my daughter out in the hall so she could use the restroom.

When I got back my wife leaned over to me and said, “I think you are right, that might be Elder Bednar.” Wow, that was cool. My wife, with even worse eye site than mine, agreed with me. With this confirmation, I leaned over to my parents to get their opinion. As they bobbed and weaved their heads to get a better look at the gentleman on the stand, my Mom reported that she was pretty sure that he was Elder Bednar. I immediately turned to my son and pointed out that there was Apostle up on the stand. He squinted his eyes and gave a small grin as he picked out Elder Bednar from the men in front. Then, he leaned back over to me and reported, “Ya Dad, and I think the guy next to him is Elder Hales.” I grinned in disbelief and stuck my head up above the crowd and sure enough, on the right hand of Elder Bednar was Elder Hales. I relayed this message down the pew and in seconds we were all looking at each other with huge grins on our faces and in complete shock. It isn’t every day that an Apostle attends your church meetings. In fact, in Magic Valley, it never happens!

As the meeting went on, we became privy to the fact that these two Apostles were attending their “Home” ward. No wonder everyone in the chapel was so casual about these two very iconic general authorities attending their sacrament meeting.

After the meeting, I was determined to go up and meet both of these men so I marched myself into the chapel area with my kids in tow to meet both of the Apostles. This is a big deal since I have only met one other Apostle in my life. If you want to read about it, you can view it on my post at LDSFamily.net Anyway, back to the story, we went into the chapel to track down Elder Bednar but he went out the side door to another meeting. However, Elder Hales walked up the isle right towards us, so I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. He looked at me for a second, smiled and said hello. I introduced each of my family members which were standing in a line like the partridge family and he shook each of their hands. He asked us where we were from and we replied that we were from Idaho. Just as he was leaving he said, “My sister raised 6 kids in Burley Idaho.” We looked at each other and thought, “We know people in Burley!”, but, he had already left.

So, even though we were at the “Wrong” Church, we were at the “Right” Church.

Elder Hales

Elder Bednar

I have browsed around the site a little bit and I really like it. Here is my favorite page so far, A Brand New Year.

They even have a section where you can create an Iron On for a Tee Shirt with this years 2010 logo. Be Strong. The Official Mutual Theme for 2010 is “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9).

The website youth.lds.org has a section for Parents and Leaders. Check it out.