So let me just tell you all what has gone down these last few days!

Friday I arrived at home feeling a little worn out and less than my normal self...it got worse into saturday.  After we went to do baptisms at the Mesa, AZ temple we went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart.  Well I should say that my wife was the one that went grocery shopping!  You see I was feeling sicker and sicker by the moment and opted to just stay in the car, kick the seat back, and listen to some tunes.  It was a good choice because as the day went on I got worse...I felt ok after a nap but then it started to hit me again towards the end of our meeting with Brother Don Crandell(He is a financial managment assistant and we wanted to meet with him and get the ball rolling on our financial decisions.  We had a great meeting with him, Sister Crandell made us a delicious salad and then we went to a friends wedding reception(Rob Bentley and Liz Higby).  I opted not to have any cake and stuck with the lemon water.

We went to visit Bella(My mother-in-law's crazy poodle who seems to be obsessed with me everytime we go), and my mother in law.  It was a good visit we talked about the boys on their missions and how much that they are learning and preparing themselves to serve in Argentina and Uruguay!  I keep forgetting that since Steve is in the MTC in provo, he is still going to his mission outside the U.S. as soon as his 9 weeks are up!  I keep hoping he will stay state-side spanish so that I can give him all sorts of advice and enjoy his letters even more!  But oh well, I'm sure he is super excited to get down to Argentina in a week and preach the gospel amongst the natives there! :)

Anyways we then headed home and my sickness started to come back so Kristen drove and I read scriptures to her(Helaman 14 which by the way was an awesome doctrinally packed scripture) all about the 1st coming of Christ and the spiritual and physical death!  It was a great scripture and though I've read it dozens of times I was in a weak bodily frame at the moment that the Spirit nearly overwhelmed me!  How grateful I am for the gospel in my life!

Saturday evening took a while to fall asleep...I was cold, I mean really shivering cold underneath my blankets!  And my stomach kept making weird noises but it didn't seem like I would be able to eat anything!  I finally ate a bowl of rice checks, and popped a few ibuprofen and was out.

We prayed I would be well for today(sunday) as there was a lot at stake!  I was being called and set-apart as the 1st counselor in the Elders Quorum and we had planned as much as 2 weeks before to have the missionaries over for dinner and one of the brothers I home-teach(Matt Elliott), and his girlfriend Delia(who is not a member and Matt is becoming more active!)...So we wanted that to happen and when I woke up on sunday I felt great, I didn't have any pain, and I felt ready to go to church.  We went and I was set apart!  And it was a great experience to receive the blessing that I did and the sustaining by the other Elders in the Quorum.  But that experience didn't even compare to the experience that happened tonight.

We came home, the wife and I did our Visiting Teaching and Home Teaching respectively to finish the month strong and then we came home and started preparing dinner.  At 5pm the Elders and Matt and Delia arrived we had a great time conversing there over dinner, there was plenty of food and it was very well enjoyed by all.  After dinner and cleanup we moved things to the Living Room where we could hear a lesson from the Elders.  They taught the Restoration first by showing how easy it is to be confused about who is a false prophet and who is not.  Then they taught the lesson perfectly just like it is in Preach My Gospel.  The spirit was so strong, Delia had tons of questions, and taught us all by sharing her personal experiences and what has helped her to develop faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  There wasn't a dry eye in the room for the whole lesson and the spirit was particularly strong at the end when we all shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and how it is an expression of God's love for us!  She accepted Elder Christopherson's challenge to be baptized once she knows for sure it is true, agreed to read together and as a family from the Book of Mormon and to pray about the truthfulness of it and of the prophet Joseph Smith.  Then she offered the most sweet and exquisite closing prayer! :)  We invited them to come on over next saturday/sunday to watch General Conference with us and they accepted.

Then everyone left and I immediately started feeling sick again!  It was such a testimony to me of how the Lord had answered our prayers to allow us to have this sacred sweet experience and help the Missionaries in the work!  I was shivering again and sick and Kristen suggested I call someone for a blessing.  2 of the brethren in our same apartment complex came over and administered a blessing to me.  And I immediately felt 90 percent better!  Wow what a multitude of sweet experiences and Joy that I feel for my father in heaven and for how he has blessed us to know that there is a prophet!  I felt such joy today it was almost like I was on my mission back in sweet Iowa/Nebraska!

The church is true and that's all that there is to it!

Good Weekend!

Well this weekend we went to see Jaimie take out her endowments in the Mesa temple.  It was great!  And there were a lot of people there!  Afterwards her family took Kristen and I out to sweet-cakes which is a little restaurant right by the temple!  The food was pretty good but Kristen quickly got sick of the buffalo chicken sandwich she was eating because of the spicy mayo.  And she doesn't really like mayo anyways so who can blame her!

We went and did some quick shopping for picture frames and other odds and ends we needed around the apartment.  It was a good time though!  Then we came home and moved some things around and cleaned(well Kristen cleaned as I had fallen asleep on the couch watching mighty ducks!  We were preparing for our date with Jaimie which didn't actually happen :p

Then we went to get some mexican food, and invited Sether (Seth and Heather) over for Nintendo and a movie.  We watched Princess Bride!  :)  Classic!

Sunday we went to two primary programs instead of  our home ward.  Both programs were great and since each used practically the same songs they are now all stuck in our heads.  The funniest thing was that in the 2nd program there was a little red headed girl who was getting way into the songs!  And when Kaitlynn and her partner went up to sing their solo of Follow the Prophet...Kaitlynn's partner hummed along with the piano in anticipation of her part.  HILARIOUS!!!!

Then we ended the night with mexican sonoran style hotdogs at my folks place!  Good weekend and now it's back to the books and work!

The Garden of Steven(not Eden)

So about 3 weeks ago I mentioned to Kristen that if it wasn't gonna be too much work, I would like to start up a little garden out on our nice patio.  It usually has shade and we don't have anything out there so it seemed like the perfect spot for a nice little garden.  I talked to my mother about it and asked her what advice she had.  She told me to go down to one of the garden nursery's and talk to someone about what would be the best to plant at this time of year and get specific instructions from them!

So that is exactly what I did!  And the result: 3 pots, bagonias, dianthus, irish moss, basil, and mint as well as a myriad of beautiful flowers!  So check out the pics and be jealous!

Mexican Food On Labor Day Weekend!

So a few days ago at work, Rudy my boss threw out a spiff(bonus cash for most sales).  Only this time the spiff was for a great meal!  He promised if we reached a certain amount of sales by 4 pm then he would get us all some hot tacos with fresh lemonade!  He kept talking about it and it started making me salvivate!  I was a little bummed too, because I knew that even if we did hit the sales that he wanted, I wouldn't get to benefit from the tacos as much.  The rules and spiffs are just different when you are a manager and don't have time to make many sales.

But regardless the concept of tacos kept going through my mind and when I got home Kristen and I started talking about how I should make my delicious Mexican tacos.  I learned to make some pretty awesome tacos on my mission!  So we prepared a list of all the ingredients we would have to pick up.  When it came down to it we had: tomatoes, tomatillos(little green tomatoes that are very juicy), peppers, cilantro, corn tortillas, steak, onion, jarritos soda, limes and tapatio hot sauce!

So since today was fast sunday, it was our break the fast meal!  We started preparing at 4pm or so and the whole meal: preparation, cooking, portioning off the food, eating and cleaning up took about 2 hours but was so worth it!  We had strawberry Jello for our first dessert and just finished off our 2nd dessert of hot fudge chocolate cake and monster cookie ice cream!  Yes my friends we are celebrating labor day the right way!  And we both have only a little bit of work to do tomorrow! :)