8/17/16 Happy Birthday Dad

     Today is my Dad's birthday. He said that he celebrated by getting the Motorhome worked on and running some errands. That is so like him. He has always been an example of how to get hard stuff done. Before Dory said "just keep swimming" Dad said "what's 5 more miles? Five more miles ain't nuthin".  Thanks Dad for being a great example. 

4/23/16 Sarah's Baptism Day

     Today is a special day for Sarah Mei and for our family. Today Sarah was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She did great. I was privileged to be the one to baptize her and confer the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Her two grandfathers were witnesses. Uncle Matt and Uncle Doug got to stand in the circle during her confirmation. Sarah's teacher, Sister Payne, kindly gave the talk on the Holy Ghost.

     After the baptism the extended family came to our house for sandwiches. It was a nice visit.

     Later on several of the kids went swimming. The grownups watched from poolside. The water's still a bit chilly for my taste but the kids had a good time.

     Heidi decided to take advantage of the opportunity to ask Papa to take some family photos. The picture above is one of the better ones. We're grateful to Papa for taking some nice pictures.

1/8/16 Emissions Check for Bigfoot

     This morning Papa and I headed to Bigfoot at about 9 AM. It was time to take care of the annual emissions check. The first big question was whether it would start after being in storage for so long. It did not. Fortunately, Heavenly Father blessed us. The RV that was parked immediately to the right of Bigfoot was moved since last time. That allowed Papa to park alongside with the Saturn and jump it. We believe we were being looked after. After that we had to turn the engine off and on several times and it worked each time. This was good since we left the Saturn at the storage place. There would have been trouble had we needed to jump it again. Bigfoot passed its tests with flying colors. When we got back Papa test ran the generator. It's had trouble in the past if not run regularly. It had to think about it but it too came online. 

        The best part of the trip for me today was getting to visit with my Dad about teaching. He shared a fun game with me called Murphy ball. It sounds like a good way to help the kids prepare for the next test. He told me a great story about a "half witted parrot". You should ask him to tell you, it's pretty great. The gist of the story is be respectful of the students. We had a fun chat. I look forward to asking more questions in the future. 

Teaching Moment

  Teaching Moment

     This past Wednesday during Stake Presidency meeting the topic of teaching was mentioned. I was reminded of a story that my Mother told me about a time she saw my Father being a good teacher. My parents for many years taught a high school media production class. One year they took some of the members of the class on a "photo safari" to one of the outer islands. I those days cameras required film that was sensitive to light and could be ruined if if were mishandled. On the second day of the trip one of my Dad's students came up to him and asked him how to change the film in his camera. My Dad took a moment and showed him how and before long to student was off again taking pictures. After the student left my Mother asked my Father how he had managed to be so patient with that student. She taught with my Father and had seen him instruct the class multiple times how to change the film. His response to her has been instructive to me. "He was ready to learn then". How many times do we miss opportunities to teach because we become impatient just when someone is becoming ready to learn.

     Anyhow, that is my thought for the day. I hope to be able to write some inspiring stories from our family down so that we can remember them. If all goes well this will be the first.