Memorial Monday

Gratitude Campaign

Veterans Day

Thank You...

Trading Spaces

I used to have an office in the main building that was small, hot, and had no windows. A couple of months ago, I moved into a much bigger office in the other building and this is what I get to see everyday out the window...

I'm happy!!

First Presidency Easter Message

HE IS NOT HERE by Walter Rane

At this Easter season of hope and renewal we testify of the glorious reality of the atonement and resurrection of the Lord, Jesus Christ. The empty tomb brought comforting assurance and provided the answer to the question of Job, “If a man die, shall he live again?” (Job 14:14).

Because of the Savior’s resurrection we will overcome death and become the beneficiaries of His mercy and grace. In a world of trouble and uncertainty, His peace fills our hearts and eases our minds. Jesus is in very deed “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

We give our sure witness that Jesus is the Christ. Though He was crucified, He rose triumphant from the tomb to our everlasting blessing and benefit. To each member of the human family He stands as our Advocate, our Savior, and our Friend.

The First Presidency
Thomas S. Monson
Henry B. Eyring
Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Everything is Amazing and Nobody's Happy...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

My How Times Have Changed

When Grateful Begins to Grate


I know a woman who is a grateful wife. She has been one for years. In fact, her gratitude has been as deep and constant as her affection. And together they have traveled a long, complicated road.

In the beginning, this young wife was grateful to find herself married to a man who let her work. That was in 1964, when even her college professor said without a hint of irony that the young wife was "lucky to be married to man who let her work." People talked like that then.

Later, the wife looked around her at the men her classmates and friends had married and was grateful that her husband wasn't threatened, hurt, neglected, insulted - the multiple choice of the mid-sixties - by her job.

He was proud. And her cup overran with gratitude. That was the way it was.

In the late sixties when other, younger women were having consciousness-raising groups, she was having babies and more gratitude.

You see, she discovered that she had a helpful husband. Nothing in her experience had led her to expect this. Her mother was not married to one; her sister was not married to one; her brother was not one.

But, at four o'clock in the morning, when the baby cried and she was exhausted, sometimes she would nudge her husband awake [wondering, only vaguely how he could even sleep) and ask him to feed the baby. He would say sure. And she would say thank you.

The grateful wife and the helpful husband danced this same pas de deux for a decade. When the children were small and she was sick, he would take charge. When it was their turn to carpool and she had to be at work early, he would drive. If she was coming home late, he would make dinner.

All you have to do is ask, he would say with a smile.

And so she asked. The woman had minded her Ps and Qs as a child minded her please and thank yous as a wife. Would you please put the baby on the potty? Would you please stop at the store tonight for milk? Would you please pick up Joel at soccer practice? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

It is hard to know when gratitude first began to grate on my friend. Or when she began saying please and thank you dutifully rather than genuinely.

But, it probably began when she was tired one day or night. In any case, during the car-time between one job and the other, when she would run lists through her head, she began feeling less thankful for her moon lighting job as household manager.

She began to realize that all the items of their shared life were stored in her exclusive computer. She began to realize that her queue was so full of minutia that she had no room for anything else.

The grateful wife began to wonder why she should say thank you when a father took care of his children and why she should say please when a husband took care of his house.

She began to realize that being grateful meant being responsible. Being grateful meant assuming that you were in charge of children and laundry, and running out of toilet paper. Being grateful meant having to ask. And ask. And ask.

Her husband was not an oppressive or even thoughtless man. He was helpful. But helpful doesn't have to remember vacuum cleaner bags. And helpful doesn't keep track of early dismissal days.

Helpful doesn't keep a Christmas present list in his mind. Helpful doesn't have to know who wears what size and what colors. Helpful is reminded; helpful is asked. Anything you ask. Please and thank you.

The wife feels, she says, vaguely frightened to find herself angry at saying please and thank you. She wonders if she is, indeed, an ingrate. But her wondering doesn't change how she feels or what she wants.

The wife would like to take just half the details that clog her mind like grit in a pore, and hand them over to another manager. The wife would like someone who would be grateful when she volunteered to take his turn at the market, or his week at the laundry.

The truth is that after all those years when she danced her part perfectly, she wants something else. She doesn't want a helpful husband. She wants one who will share. For that, she would be truly grateful.

Written by "At Large"
December 1979

Old Eddie

It happens every Friday evening, almost without fail. When the sun resembles a giant orange and is starting to dip into the blue ocean, old Ed comes strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony had is a buck of shrimp.

Ed walks to the end of the pier where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is golden bronze now. Everyone is gone except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts... and his bucket of shrimp.

Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing on the end of the pier.

Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him. Their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, "Thank you, thank you." In a few short minutes the bucket is empty.

But, Ed doesn't leave. He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat, an old military hat he's been wearing for years.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs. And, then they too fly away, and old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like a "funny old duck," as my dad used to say, or "a guy that.s a sandwich shy of a picnic," as my kids might say.

To onlookers, he's just another old codger lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket of shrimp. To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant, maybe even a lot of nonsense.

Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of boomers and busters. Most of them would probably write old Ed off, down there in Florida. That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.

His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World War II. On one hof his flying missions, across the pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the pacific. They fought the sun, they fought sharks; most of all they fought hunger. By the eighth day, their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one
knew where they were. They needed a miracle.

That afternoon, they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried ot nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his miliatry cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear
was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull. Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal of it. A very slight meal for eight men.

Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish which gave them food
and more bait, and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and recued after 24 days at sea.

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull, and he never stopped saying, "Thank you." That's why almost every
Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

In the Eye of the Storm
by Max Lucado
pp. 221. 225-225.

P.S. Eddie was also a Medal of Honor winning Ace in WWII,
and he started Eastern Airlines.

Appreciation

These are the beautiful flowers ( received from my husband
when I was in Park City on our anniversary...


and this is the iPhone 3G that he has on order for me...


I have a very thoughtful husband and that is
only one of the reasons I love and married him...

Thank All Your Teachers Today

A little girl came home from school and said to her mother, "Mommy, today in school I was punished for something I didn't do."

The mother exclaimed, "That's terrible! I'm going to have to talk to your teacher about this. By the way, what was it that you didn't do?"

The little girl replied, "My, homework..."

Zach Voorheesm the general manager of Noodles Company, will be giving free food today to all teachers (with ID) to show appreciation for all they do. This will be all day long. Teachers will be welcome for lunch or dinner in Orem (200 E. University Parkway), or
Draper (East of I-15 on 12300 South).

Prophet, Seer, and Revelator

President Gordon Bitner Hinckley

23 June, 1910 – 27 January, 2008



thank you...

A Prophet's Voice

..of all the things for which I feel grateful, one stands above all the others. That is a living testimony of Jesus Christ, the Son of the almighty God, the Prince of Peace, the Holy One.... Jesus is my friend, He is my exemplar, He is my teacher, He is my healer, He is my leader, He is my Savior, and my Redeemer. He is my God and my King. Gratefully, and with love, I bear witness of these things...
Gordon B. Hinckley.

Amen...

Thankful for Greater Things

Ability to work
Books
Christmas
Dolphins
Education
Freedom
Gardens
Home, Health, and Hugs
Insurance
Job
Kindnesses
Love, Life, and Laughter
Music
New ideas
Opportunities to learn
Prayer and Priesthood
Questions and Quiet
Restored gospel, Revelations, and Repentance
Scriptures and Seasons
Testimony
Understanding
Voting
Water
X-rays
Y chromosome
Zero; the number

Happy Thanksgiving

Thankful for Lesser Things

Air conditioning
Bagpipes
Chocolate and Computers
Dee's cereal
Electricity and E-mail
Flash drives and Flat irons
Great foot rubs
Hot baths and Harleys
Internet and iTunes
Jokes
Keepsakes
Lawn mowers and Loons
Magic Bullet
Naps
Orange juice
Phones and Plastic
Quarter collection
Recipes shared freely
Spandex
Television and Toilet paper
U.P.S.
Velcro
Wide-width shoes and Walmart
Xerox machines
Yards with trees
Zip-lock bags

Thankful for Places

Alaska and Australia
Bedford Falls and Barbe Drive
Chef's Table
Disneyland
Eustatia
Farmer's Markets
Gym
Home
Islands of the Pacific
Jamba Juice
Kinkos
Lake Temiskaming
Mountains
Nauvoo
Oceans
Pringle, S.D.
Quebec
Roxbury Road
Sacred Grove
Temples
U.S.A. and Utah
Valley Forge
Wasatch
Xanadu
Yukon Territory
Zion and Zarahemla

Thankful for People

Ana
Brothers
Children
Dennis
Every one of the Tanners
Family and Friends
Grandmas and Grandpas
Heavenly Father and Home Teachers.
Isaiah
John, Shiloam, Skyler, Casey, Courtney
Kaye and Tom
Lexie
Mom and Dad
Nelsons, Nortons, and Nathan
Oz and Oprah
Prophets
Quakers
Redeemer, Jesus Christ
Scott, Tiffany, Ayden, Jacob
Todd
U.S.M.C.
Visiting Teachers
Walt Disney
Xela and Xiao
You
Zebulon Walton