A Tribute to President Gordon B. Hinckley

I'm sure everyone can say how President Hinckley has touched their lives in some way or another. And if they can't, they sure missed out on something amazing in life. I have always had the dream of meeting this particular Prophet ever since I was around 12 years old. He has always touched my life in way that I can't describe. The first Prophet I remember was Ezra Taft Bensen. I remember just being devestated as a 10 or 11 year old when I found out he had passed away. Then President Hunter died shortly after becoming the Prophet. I remember when I heard that President Hinckley was going to be the next prophet, I wasn't sure what to think. I didn't feel like I knew him very well like I did President Bensen. And Pres. Hunter just came and went so quickly that there wasn't much of a chance for me to know him very well. But I have to say that President Hinckley quickly became my new favorite Prophet, and for me, he will be hard to beat. As I have been watching and listening to all the tributes that have been made to him, I have enjoyed reflecting back on all the amazing things he has done for the Church. I loved his attitude towards everything. His answers were always so simple, yet so effective. He was always positive about every obstacle with the Church that ever came up. He is truely a man for everyone to look up to. Whether they are a member of the Church or not. One of my favorite memories of him was at every talk he gave, when he was trying to make a point, or say something that was very impotant, he would raise his hand out infront of him with his fingers slightly curved, and he would move his hand up and down as he spoke. I loved that. To me, that was his trademark. His humor was something that everyone looked forward to also. He always made the crowd laugh with every talk he gave. He was just the cutest old man ever!!!! I truely wish I would of had the chance to have met him while here upon the earth, but I know I'll be able to someday. I can't imagine what a warm welcome he got as he was reunited with his wife. He was an amazing, amazing man. One that I will always remember. As my personal tribute to him, I am going to honor a challenge he gave just over two years ago. Towards the end of 2005, he gave the challenge to read the entire Book of Mormon by the end of the year. I gave an effort to take on that challenge, but my heart wasn't completely there, so I didn't make it. I have regretted it everyday since. I have tried and tried over and over again to set a goal to read the entire BoM and it always gets broken into pieces instead of all at once. I am going to take on that challenge starting today to have the Book of Mormon read by the end of April. I would like to invite everyone to do this challenge with me! What a better way to honor our beloved Prophet. I can't wait to get started!

Word of the Week!

For one of my goals this year, I would like to expand my vocabulary. In order for me to do this, I have decided to have a word of the week each Monday. Some of the words will be completely new to me, and others I will simply just want to know more about. Sometimes, it will be the word for that week simply because I like the sound of it! This week, I was going to do a completely different word then the one I ended up doing. But when I went to look up the word in the dictionary, the definition just wasn't as exciting as the word itself. So I was a bit disappointed and therefore chose to do a different word. I started grazing through the dictionary but found nothing that struck out at me. I then decided to start at the beginning of the dictionary, and work my way through. However, like I stated earlier, these words will be in no particular order. They will just be random words that were chosen for some random reason that day (the word for this week is not random, I just like that word!) So in my search for my word, I came across more words that I knew than words that I didn't know! This actually surprised me. Sometimes people say these words in the middle of their sentence like it was nothing. When to me, I'm like "Okay - back up. What in the world does that word mean?" I never really say that though. I just smile and nod like everything is normal and like I totally understand what that person is talking about. So if I am ever in conversation with you and I smile and nod, and you notice a word you used around me as my "word of the week," then just know that at the time, I had no idea what you were saying, but I later found out and decided to share it with everyone! So my word for this week is: aberration 1: the act of deviating (which means to turn aside from an established way) esp. from a moral standard or normal state. 2: failure of a mirror or lens to produce exact point-to-point correspondence between an object and its image. 3: unsoundness or disorder of the mind. 4: a small periodic change of apparent position in heavenly bodies due to the combined effect of the motion of light and the motion of the observer. I hope some of you learned something, but if not, congrats on knowing more than me!

Making Milestones!

I know it's been forever since I've posted anything in here, so I figured I would update everyone on Mason's progress. He is now officially mobile, and I'm not sure we're ready for that yet. As of today, he is now crawling all over the place. Up until now, he would crawl for a second, and then collapse to his belly. Now, he just keeps on going! He is also eating a bunch of different table foods. He never liked jar food. Some people say they can't blame him! I do have to say that everything I tried feeding him, I pre-tested. Some of it was actually good, and the other stuff really wasn't that bad. But still, I guess I can't blame him! So he is now eating most table foods. He is typically a lot happier with these upgrades. He has been pretty sick lately though, so that has definitely put a damper on his spirits. He still tries real hard to stay happy! He is actually eight months old today. He's growing up way too fast!

Happy New Year!!!

I can't believe it is 2008 already. Life is way too short! Anyways, seeing that it is the new year, I feel like I can finally start with my goals and get my life in order. However, I tend to do the same thing every year. I have this long list of goals that I desperately need to get accomplished, but I don't really start them until the new year. Then my list is way too long and overwhelming to accomplish any of them because I try to do them all at once! Go figure. I'm finally realizing why I never make any changes in my life. And trust me, I have a rather large number of changes I need to make. So to get to the point, my main goal is to accomplish two goals at a time. Then maybe by the end of this new year, my "To Do" list will finally become my "Ta Da" list! I would personally like to wish everyone GOOD LUCK in achieving their goals this year! Happy New Year!!!!