I'm not sure what I think about today. Parts of it were really nice.
I started with in-person high council meeting at 7:00 am. It was nice to be together again with the stake presidency and members of the high council. I attended one of the Fourth Ward sacrament meetings today. It was odd sitting on the stand wearing a mask, looking over the sparsely filled chapel, 2/3 of whom were also wearing masks. I came home from Church and we had the sacrament here as a family, and it was nice too.
After the sacrament I was reading a story to Emma and Camilla and realized my words were slurring together and I was falling asleep. I finished the story and stretched out on the couch for a short nap. Julie covered me up with a blanket, and the next thing I knew almost three hours had passed. Wow, I guess I was more sleep deprived than I thought. Getting up a couple times last night with Emma who was afraid she was going to throw up didn't help. Taking a little nap on the sabbath is nice, but sleeping through three hours isn't how I want to spend my Sundays. I feel a responsibility to make good memories with my children and serve Julie, all while worshipping the Savior. I guess several weeks of not quite enough sleep finally caught up with me, but I hope to do better next week.
I had a fun scripture activity that we did this afternoon. I chose five passages of scripture from this week's Come, Follow Me lesson and wrote two questions for each passage. The first part of the question asked what Alma taught, and the second part related to how we can apply the teaching. Each scripture and associated question was in a different color. I gave each person a slip with a question pair, then they had to go find the matching color-coded scripture that was hidden. Once everyone found their scripture we read the scriptures together and answered the questions. I think it was a good way to study the scriptures together.
Dinner tonight was garlic-butter pork tenderloin cooked in the oven. Everyone really liked it, except Julie who likes her meat well done. This was cooked to medium-well with just the faintest hint of pink in it. I even served her slices from the end that were most done. Still not done enough for her taste. Next time I'll put hers on the griddle and sear hers there until it's done just the way she likes it too. I could have done that today, but didn't realize how well-done it needs to be. Everyone else is looking forward to leftovers tomorrow!
Tonight was a little disappointing. We went to dad and mom's house for a visit with Stephanie, who is in town with her kids for a visit. Some people were busy playing on their phones and others were discussing a variety of non-sabbath topics. That's all right, but as the conversation delved deeper into current events (and they are really messy now), we tried to pull the conversation around to something doctrinal. That totally failed, and we left shortly thereafter. It would have been nice to have some sort of spiritual discussion with my family. When we got home we sang a few hymns together to finish the day on a more spiritual note.
I really hope I am able to use this week well at work. I am beginning to feel an increased sense of urgency to accomplish good things. I need to build the capacity of the members of my team and develop their abilities. I don't want to do things the way we have in the past. I want to magnify my impact by combining my efforts with the unique talents and skills of others to do more together than we could ever do individually. Stephen Covey called it interdependence. I'm still too centered in the independence sphere, and I'm tired of being there.
Thankful: I am thankful that we are slowly beginning to transition to a "new normal" in life. I don't want to rush things prematurely, but I am anxious to get back to the temple, eager for my missionary children to be able to share the gospel, and really hope that my school-aged children will be able to return to the classroom this fall.
Ministering: Today I indirectly ministered to others by serving in my calling. That's good… but I want to do more intentional, direct ministering.
More later…
A surprise selfie I found on my phone. (Don't look now, but I think Isaac has an actual smile!!)
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