Christmas Season

I just love the Christmas Season! As you might know I have been one of the people in charge of Family Home Evening. I have really tried to make each one a fun and enjoyable time at FHE, especially for the Christmas Season. This last week I had chosen to go Christmas Caroling. I was so excited for the night to come. We were going to have a hay ride and give out cookies. We had it all planned, cookies made and the trailer borrowed, just ready to have fun! The night before it started raining and the weather forecast said that it is supposed to rain. I didn't want to have to put it off for a week. I decided that I would pray and ask Heavenly Father to not let it rain, or at least stop raining for the time that we would be outside on the hay ride and caroling! I had kept that prayer in my heart all day. Monday came and it started out gloomy. As the day progressed, it rained and then stopped, then rained some more. Then stopped. Around 3 or 4, the co-chairperson on the FHE committee had texted me and said that we needed to plan something else because it was raining. We had decided to come up with a backup plan, but I didn't loose hope! I kept that prayer in my heart and just hoped that it would stop raining for a little while.
I talked to one of the leaders, to tell him to prepare for the backup plan. A little while later he called me back and said that the doppler was showing that it would stop raining for a few hours. The few hours that we were going to be outside!
I said okay lets go ahead with it and if it rains then we have a backup plan.
So the time arrives and it's still kind of drizzling outside. We waited for all to show up at the activity, and by the time the trailer arrived, it had stopped raining. So we all jumped on the hay ride and sang our carols. Wouldn't you know, at the last house or on our way from the last house is when it started to sprinkle a little.
~AMAZING!~
Today, I saw that my Heavenly Father loves me. He answered my prayers! What an amazing feeling! We were out spreading the christmas cheer, inviting young adults to the branch and having a fun time!

Thanksgiving was a blast!

It was great to have the family here for the Thanksgiving holiday! Meg and Heath with their 3 kids came a week before. Then Ben and Julene and Ken and Lieza with Jake came the day before Thanksgiving. We had a good time hanging out, eating turkey and laughing. On Thanksgiving day, we relaxed had 13 people at the diner table, (the 3 wee little ones took a nap) and enjoyed pie later that night. It was also Dad's birthday. Since apple pie is a favorite, we were going to put 56 candles on the apple pie, but it didn't work out so we ended up putting it on a pumpkin pie instead. It was a pie with bonfire on top! The pie was very (w)holy after! Friday, I went to work while everyone played. When I came home we sang happy birthday to Kylee (celebrating it early since we won't be there for the Dec. 5th and then went to the Speedway Raceway Go Cart Tracks. That was soooo much fun! Meg and Heath left Saturday morning, and the rest of the crew stayed 'til Sunday morning. Ben, Julene and the boys (Jake and Anders) decided to jump in the pool! BRRR! What a wonderful holiday!

Playing with nieces and nephew at the Park

Mom and I took Kylee, Kaleb and Kourtnee on a walk to the park on the Saturday before Thanksgiving while they were here visiting. The kids played on the slide, in the sand and on the swings. We had a little picnic and then came home. It was fun playing with the kids!


Kylee and Kaleb playing on the slide!




Kylee posed for the camera before she went down the slide!



Kaleb wanted to ride on the teeter totter by himself. He was having tons of forth rcking back and forth!








Playing in the Swings!




Kaleb was helping Grandma(Mom)push Kourtnee in the swing.Such a big helper!






Kortnee went for a ride in the swing! She looked so cute!

GAS has dropped in price!

I filled up my tank of gas for less than $30. I think that the last time I did that was before I moved to Logan, UT. 2 years before. I was so excited! This was on Tuesday night. Since then it has gone down another 7-8 cents! Awesome! Just something that I am excited about!

MY WEBSITE I CREATED FOR SOFTQUE!

I am so excited! This may seem trivial to you all but, I have successfully finished a website. SoftQue is the company that I work for and we have been updating/recreating the face of SoftQue. I have been a major part of this job. I do alot of the creating of business cards, brochures, website, flyers, redecorating the interior, and the like. We were talking about needing to update the website and I had a simple book, that I wanted to use to create my own website for scrapbooking business. So this was a great way to get my juices flowing in the brain.
I had some ideas that I wanted and drew them out on paper and such but never could figure out how to get them on the web. I started the beginning, and probably 3-6 months later, (yes, I know that's a long time) I have a full website. My boss was very impressed with it, so much that he has asked me to fix another website he is charge of.
What a great accomplishment! I hope that you all can enjoy it as much as I am!
Watch for updates on new websites!

Halloween Pictures

These are of Halloween 2008!
I wanted to be Velma from Scooby Doo. Since I got rid of allmy sweaters, that would work for the costume, it didn't work. instead I decided to be a witch.
Meredith was a cowgirl, Hans, her boyfriend, decided he didn't want to dress up... So he wore the t-shirt and said he was a human billboard.

We when to a party that was overly packed and so we left then went to a cardboard maze in someone's front yard. Mere and Hans went throught it. My friend and I didn't want to crawl around in a dark tunnel.

We had a fun night tho.

FHE Coordinator

Okay since I don't have a picture yet on here, I have decided to go through the archive of photos that I have yet to put in a book and post it on here.

My ward was split 3 ways. I am now in the Mountain Park Branch. I love it. It's fun, and we have a great group. They asked me to be one of the Family Home Evening Coordinators. I really enjoy it. On Monday, it will be the 3rd week. So if any of you have ideas, I would love to hear them.

Also, since we are a new branch, not all the callings are in place yet. So for Sunday, I was asked to teach the Relief Society. It's on Gaining knowledge from Eternal Truths. It's been great to read and hope that it is inspirational.

My sister and her family, Megan and Heath Bell, will be coming down a week before Thanksgiving. I am excited to see the kids and have some fun! Ben and Julene will be coming for Thanksgiving as well! It'll be great to have some of the family around.

I can't believe that the holidays are coming so quickly!

Oh one more thing, I have finished the beginning of a growing website. On Monday, I will be publishing it to the web! It's nothing fancy, but sure is definatly better than what is there now. This is the FIRST webiste I have done, and I taught myself!

AMAZING what you can learn from reading a book!

So that's an update of my life and what is happening in AZ!

THE PARTY IS ON!

Okay I sent out emails to the address that I had. I am also poting this here. The party is extended to Nov. 25th! The games are really fun to play and made out of some materials that are durable. If you order some stuff from and the total party comes to $400, then I will be able to add to my collection of games.

I am doing it online so that my family, who I know will enjoy the games because they are directed at learning for the children, can purchase products.

SO GO CRAZY AND ORDER!

SIMPLY FUN!

Hiya!

Okay so I have decided to host a game party! You can do the orders online. I want to host one at my house as well! But since most of my friends/family live elsewhere then I am going to do an online party!

These are games that are great for all ages and for anykind of group!

The company is called Simply Fun! You can go to
Simply Fun and check out their website. I will tell you the dates that you need to purchase the products so that it will count towards my party!

Some of the Favorties that I enjoyed playing, were Linkity, Walk the Dog, and Ooga!
There are puzzles, puppets, and learning games for the youth.

If you are interested before I get the info about the dates out, let me know!

ENJOY!!!

In retrospect of the Elections coming up!

Since it a week 'til we vote in a new president for the United States of America, and it has been on my mind for sometime now, I thought I would throw out there some things that would help you want to vote correctly!

It's been weird since this is the first election that I have really gotten into since I was 11! Yeah, I did say 11! I remember when it was between clinton and bush that first year. I was in TX and my friend and I were watching the debates. I was so frustrated that Clinton won!

But now that it has been 16 years and so many things have changed, I have gotten more into politics.

I thought I would post up here some emails that I have a been getting lately!
I thought that you might enjoy them and help you with making a decision.

Well I got this email from a friend the other day. It's an experiment that a former student had done to show what Obama's plan would do.

From a former student:

This is from my co worker's mom who did this last night. A gutsy woman - just my type!!


In a local restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed the money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application

I thought that was very interesting and I went on to wonder if that waiter changed his mind or decided to look into the policies that Obama is saying is going to happen.


This was an email that was passed around the office from the boss!

It gives us an example of Our Tax System

Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that everyday, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go somehting like this:
The 1st four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The 5th wouls pay $1
The 6th would pay $3
The 7th would pay $7
The 8th would pay $12
The 9th would pay $18
The 10th man (the richest) would pay $59.

So that's what they decided to do.
THe ten men drank in the bar everyday and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, unitl one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all good customers,' he said, 'I', going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. THey would still drink for free.

But what about the outher six men- the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone woul get his 'fair share?'

THey realized that $20 divided by 6 is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce eache man'ts bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The 5th man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings.)
The 6th now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% Savings.)
The 7th now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings.)
The 8th now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings.)
The 9th now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings.)
The 10th now paid $49 insted of $59 (16%savings.)

Each of the six ws better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. but once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar our othe $20,' declared the sixth man. Hepointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'

"yeah,that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got' "that's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat himup.
The next night the tenth man didn't shouw up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it can time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. THey didn't have enough maony between all of them for even half the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalist and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack the wealthy, and theyt just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who don't understand, no explanations is possible.

So you see here we have it!

It's important to look at the big picture and see what will really happen if we make changes without seeing what's on the other side!

My goal!

Today I went and met with a trainer at 24hr fitness. I few weeks ago I had asked if they wouldn't mind taking my measurements such as, weight, BMI, and inches off of arms, legs, etc. So I went in and met with the trainer. GREAT NEWS! I have lost 8 lbs. since I started working out regularly in September!! I dropped 1% of my BMI. Here I was thinking oh I'm not doing very well working out, I should eat less, go to the gym more, getting depressed thinking that it wasn't working, but come to find out, I'm right on track of my goal! Fantanstic!!!

I know this is a slow way to do it, but I want to do it in a healthy way and in a way to make it a lifestyle change rather than just dropping weight and going back to my old habits. So here I am one month into the new lifestyle, eating less, working out, sticking to it, and I've lost 8 lbs! YIPEE!!!!!

The Past Few Months

So I haven't been on here for a month or so. In September, I went to Sarah and Nate's wedding, and wished that I was able to attend Tyrell's wedding the following week. Then Aaron's two weeks later. I wasn't able to get that much time off. In the past few months, I have been working on a new website for the company that I work with. I am so excited because it's something that I am teaching myself from reading books. I have helped the company with a new logo, redecorated the front room, created a better business card, and brochures to give to customers. I am now working on the Website! I love it, I love learning the code that you should know to write websites. In fact I have 6 pages of it finished. It's all coming together. Now, I need to figure out the CSS with HTML. Which is a more efficent way of creating the web page.
Not only have I been working on the website for the company, I have been working on my own website. I want to sell my services to create archival scrapbooks for people. It's call A Scrapbook to Remember. I did purchase a domain name, but I misspelled it. OOPS! It was $10/yr. So next year I won't renew it. In the mean time, I have created my business card that I want to use, now I just have to print it out!
I have also started working out. I was working out with a friend, from the ward, but since it's the political season, she is majorly busy working at a local printing/copying shop. Since she's been busy, I have made the effort to go to the gym and work out. It feels great to go work out! I've been sore off and on, but it feels so much better! I am working on a goal! I want to be able to reach that goal in May. That's the timeline that I've given myself. So if anyone wants to join in on the goal, we can support each other.
Well, that's what I've been doing! Don't have any pics to make the site prettier but it's a little hard to take pictures of yourself at the gym!

More from the tithing story!

Okay this is an addition to my story about tithing. For myself it was a great ending! I helped to gain a stronger testimony of the gospel! My acquaintance from work gave a booklet about tithing and others beliefs about tithing. I started to read it and I was bored with it because there wasn't the spirit of happiness but rather the spirit of anger in it. At least that's what I felt. So I started to just skim through it and saw a sentence in there that there isn't any new revelation past the old testament. When I read that sentence, a thought popped in my head! It was amazing because, I know that there is both revelation from the Book of Mormon that is similar to what Malachi said about tithing, also the modern revelation for, the prophets and apostles. As sad as I feel for those who believe that there isn't any modern revelation, I was so happy to be reminded through the spirit, that we have the true gospel on the earth. I am so grateful that I am a part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know that there is a prophet of God on the earth today and that we have additional revelation for our time.

Tithing

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=93bcad74be99b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

While at work, I was sitting there and minding my own business. I was preparing some mailings that we were sending out that day. As I was sitting at my desk, a friend of the bosses came in to use the computer since he doesn't have the internet available to his neighborhood. I share an office with the boss, so his friend was using a computer in the office and he turns on this video where the preacher was talking about tithing and how we should give a tenth according to Malachi 3:10. This video goes on for a while and as I am sitting there just hearing what he was saying, my curiosity perks up. I became interested in what others believe about tithing.
Our friend is very active in his church, and so he explains to me that he is writing an article for a publication and that he's dictating the message. He then explains to me that he believes that the tithing should not be a tenth of what we have, but whatever we feel like giving. Now he has my full attention. I become curious about what other religons think of tithing. From the the preacher in the video, I believe along the same lines. In fact, I taught that same principle on my mission about paying a tenth to the Lord for all that he has given us, we can spare ten percent of what we have. After my curiosity was captured, I asked our friend what his church uses tithing for. (I wanted to ask him how they pay the tithing, but I was too chicken.) He told me that they use it to pay for those who are in need and the teachers and pastors of his church.
I then felt the desire/need to share with him what we use tithing for. I told him that we use it to provide help for humanitarian needs and to pay for our buildings and the needs of the church. I was then cut off, unfortunately, therefore I wasn't able to finish telling him that what we use the tithing for. He just then told me that he would get a copy of the article that he was writing about.
I am curious on his take of tithing. I am kind of excited too. I also want to share with him an article or something that talks about tithing from the LDS Church publications. As I was searching, I found the above article and I wanted to share it with others.

Flowers at the temple!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jamieasl25/TheFlowers