Feeling better

Dear Jessie,

Happy Sunday!  I hope you had a very good day today.  What do you think about attending multiple sacrament meetings each week?  I have had that opportunity in several callings and enjoy the opportunity to take the sacrament multiple times and learn through different perspectives.  Interestingly, I never had that opportunity as a missionary.  In my service, we often had multiple companionships assigned in the same ward or branch, but I don't know of any area that had one companionship assigned to more than one unit.

Here's today's journal entry.  Happy reading!

Love,

Dad

Sunday, July 19, 2020
9:23 pm

I joined the Fourth Ward council meeting this morning via audio only because I was still in my PJ's with uncombed hair.  Zoom meetings aren't all bad! 😊  Their ward is doing a really great job administering the programs of the church and caring for their members.  It is a privilege to work with them.

I was going to attend their sacrament meeting today, but with a number of sick people in the house decided to err on the side of caution and stay home instead.  I would have enjoyed attending with them.  Our sacrament was nice.  After administering the bread and water, we sang some hymns.  Sitting in the throne, I fell asleep after two songs.  I heard the family continue singing more songs, including a forte rendition of Come, Thou Fount, but it wasn't enough to keep me from sleeping.  I heard Julie explain that I was up several times with different children over night.  That was true, but Julie was too.  On the other hand, she got to sleep until about 9:00 am, and I was up before 7:00.  That's the wonderful thing about a giving marriage – there is no keeping score, only trying to serve each other.

This afternoon we had a Self-Reliance class online.  This meeting was interesting because I didn't know what I wanted the outcome to look like.  Often times meetings are to present a plan and get buy-in.  This one was not.  I had no idea what the "plan" should look like and was hoping for good ideas to come from the discussion.  I think that happened, which is nice.

Julie planned an activity from Alma 33-34 related to prayer that they did while I was in my Self-Reliance meeting.  After dinner I did an activity related to humility, using finger puppets to have the kids teach practical applications of humility.  Honestly, I didn't think my activity was nearly as good as some others we have done together, but the kids really seemed to enjoy this one.  Go figure!  I'm just glad they enjoyed it so much and hope we are able to cultivate additional humility and teachability.

Thankful: I am thankful that most of the kids seem to be feeling better.  I checked on COVID symptoms in kids, and it was totally unhelpful.  Each symptom listed was displayed by one child, but no one had more than two symptoms, and none of us has been exposed to anyone who has tested positive (that we know of).  So the fact that everyone seems to be on the upswing already leads me to believe (HOPE) that this is some other mild virus and is on its way out.  Unfortunately, Julie is developing the sore throat that Neil started with.  ☹

Ministering: Today we ministered as a family by NOT getting in contact with anyone else.  Spreading germs is stinky.

More later…

Our finger puppets for teaching about pride and humility...