It has been a good week, but busy as usual. I am starting to sound like a broken record on my blog and I keep repeating the same things. Hopefully you all don't get too bored!
I went a book club the other day. I was doing initiatory in the temple and one of the sisters noticed my name and said she had read my book. She invited me to her book club to speak. It was nice to meet such amazing people. I shared my testimony in Arabic at the end and it was cool because I felt the Spirit there. They sent me home with this huge bouquet of flowers...
We had Stake Girls' Camp this week. I wanted to go up to see what it is like. Danae and I drove up Friday after work. They had a Luau and had decorated making it look Hawaiian. The girls seemed to have fun. I played briefly with them and watched the program. Our stake presidency performed a song from Mulan. They talked about how sometimes we need to lead others and be an example of faith.
Here is our stake presidency ;)
The area around the camp is beautiful. It was filled with yellow flowers. It rained all day, but stopped enough for us to enjoy visiting and have the luau. They served an amazing Hawaiian dinner.
I finally got my biometrics appointment. I need to go down on the 27th and get my fingerprints taken. I had this done when I first got the job at BYU-I. But, Apparently, your fingerprints expire according to immigration services here in the US. I am going to a statistics conference in Montana on Thursday and Friday and I think missing three days of classes is a lot. I had such a hard time finding a sub for my classes during the conference and now I need to find someone for Wednesday too. I may just cancel going to the conference. I am so busy anyway and being gone 2 days from work will put me more behind. We will see.
People celebrate Father's day today in the US. We don't really have that back home. But this day always reminds me of the amazing father I had. The funny thing is, I always miss him most when I am trying to fix something around my house. He always did such a great job fixing thing, but also fixing problems. He always intervened in family conflicts and got them resolved. I miss you dad! I can't wait to see you again one day.
I also take this time of year to pay attribute to my Heavenly Father. He is all I have right now since my father is on the other side. Heavenly Father has been sending blessings my way constantly but especially the last 3 years. I can't thank Him enough for providing me with this job and with a safe place to live. I am eternally grateful for his infinite love, compassion, forgiveness, patience and peace.
I had a dream once about the second coming. I reflect on that a lot because the feeling I had when I saw the Savior again felt so real and sooo amazing. This makes me always look forward to seeing my Father in Heaven again. I can't wait to see him and embrace him. And say, I missed you Father...
My basement is finally finished. Now I have to clean my carpet upstairs because it so dirty from all the construction people going in and out. I don't know that I would do this project again if I go back in time. It looks nice and it will be my summer getaway because it is like 20 degrees cooler down there than it is up here. But, it probably was not worth the amount of money and effort and pain I put into it. It cost over $3000 more than I had expected and now I am completely broke. I have to start building some savings again.
We are almost half way through the semester. I can survive another month and a half I think. My students are amazing and I keep complaining that they are not hard working and they need to do more, but they are really doing well. I just hope that the second half of the semester does not cause their grades to decline.
I decided to try and do grape leaves. I really get scared trying grape leaves from a jar because they are normally hard and do not taste good. But, I thought I would give it a try. They were amazing! It took me forever yesterday to wrap all the leaves and I still have half of them left over. It tasted so good that I could not stop eating today.
Then I was craving Katayef and thought I would experiment and make some. For a first try I thought it went pretty good. There are a few changes I will make next time, but this is the first time I try it here. Actually the dough tasted way better than the katayef at home, but it was breaking. Maybe because I didn't wait for it to cool, or maybe because it was too thick. I also started making small ones at first and that did not go well. So, I will improve next time.
My aunt died today. I was sad I won't get to see her again until the after-life. I had a feeling yesterday that my other aunt would die and the wrong aunt died. I guess she was old and had a lot of health issues. So, she is in a better place now.
I finally got to do the temple work for my great grandmother Rihana. It took quite some time because they kept printing the wrong name on the card. I did that only yesterday, a few hours before my aunt died.
President Nelson, our prophet challenged the youth to do 5 things last week during his devotional. He said the most important work we can engage in right now is bringing the gospel to all the world.
He encouraged our youth to
1. Do a 7-day social media fast.
2. Do a weekly sacrifice of their time to the Lord for 3 weeks in a row.
3. Pray daily that the gospel will go to all the world.
4. Stay on the covenant path. Evaluate your life and see what you can do better.
5. Read "for the strength of youth" pamphlet. Share your testimony with a friend. Share a copy with a friend.
I have stayed off Facebook for a week. I did respond to messages, so maybe I went off a bit. I realized one main thing, I didn't miss it. I'm not on Facebook a lot anyway, but I used that time to do other useful things, like visit an old lady and wish her a happy Birthday.
We could all try to do the challenges that President Nelson asked the youth to do. These are the last days and we need to be more engaged in serving others and bringing them unto Christ.
We truly have a living prophet on the earth. He is inspired and he communicates God's will to us.
