Beneath the Wraps

                 Richard is always in a cooking or baking mood. On Saturday night he pulled 24 cupcakes out of the oven and decided that the three of us would decorate them.  I was planning on posting this yesterday but my pictures did not come through until this morning   Our frosting, you guessed it, banana.

                 Richard likes to go bowling.   For the most part we have gone to the Nickel Bowl in Myrtle Creek.   It is a convenient 5 minute drive compared to over 20 to Ten Down in Roseburg.     But yesterday we chose to go to Roseburg – and it was fun.   New look, new appeal – at least to my eyes as I don’t believe I have ever been since before 2020.              I loved the cleverness of their “pool ball” themed bowling balls and the filters used on photos each player provides for keeping score.   So here are some of the photos displayed as we bowled.

  On Friday one of the counselors had called Richard about another matter but ended up asking if he could give a talk yesterday.   The theme for the talk was to be Doctrine and Covenants section 19 as this is the reading topic for last week’s Come Follow Me.  Richard based his talk on one of Scott Woodward’s videos here *.    I really enjoyed the last speaker’s talk.   She said she had wanted to speak on Section 18, particularly 9-16 ( here ) focusing on the worth of souls.   During the course of her talk she used two different parables.   The first of these parables is found in Matthew 20:1-6.   It is one I’ve mentioned before in this post.   It doesn’t matter what hour we enter the vineyard, our worth is the same.      She also mentioned the Good Samaritan found in Luke 10.  She read some and paraphrased some – never using actual names; she is not that kind of person to point fingers – and yet I heard them...

           Tithing is definitely NOT a logical commandment.  But oh what tremendous blessings follow if we follow the promptings.           Two examples of tithing shared in Testimony meeting last week.   The first is a recent convert who upon talking with his sister learned that his niece would be turning 11 on her next birthday.   She wanted a violin.   The speaker didn’t know why she had mentioned it as she was aware of his financial struggles and so of course a violin was out of the question.           He wanted to pay tithing but did not have the finances to do so.   As he was headed out the door to go to church, he grabbed his piggy bank on an impulse.   He said he offered his tithing in all the change that the piggy bank held – about five dollars – maybe more.   It was all that he had.       ...

                We left the Marino Valley at 4:00 a.m.  We managed to miss any signs of congested traffic.  The heaviest we saw was going through Pasadena – but it was on the other side.  Our side was okay – the entire way home.  How blessed we have been!   We stopped at Santa Nella.  Richard recognized the town we were in.  He pointed out Anderson’s split pea soup restaurant where we had eaten two and a half years ago when we had gone on our Disneyland (extremely hot) vacation. We saw tons of hazelnut trees during our drive And got several pictures of Mount Shasta. This was taken about four hours before we got home This was taken on the day we left Oregon and let us not forget the countless rest stops we saw

  After church we returned to the house to change and drove toward Casa Grande as it is the halfway between Kevin’s house and Tucson where Richard’s sister is.   We met them for dinner at Cracker Barrel.   Met Sue’s new husband and her therapy dog, Pita.   Conner finally had the opportunity of opening all of his presents.     On Monday morning Kevin and Richard left the house as Kevin had arranged for Richard to have a job interview.   A second interview was set up for later that afternoon.   We said our good-byes and left for the second interview.   I was to wait in the car but managed to pop in and out as it was rather warm and the interview went for an hour and a half.   I don’t know if we’ll be moving to Arizona or not.   But need to keep in mind the message of Tracy Browning’s talk and how it made me feel.   I am ready to take that leap of faith. We chose to go back through California as it provided more places to st...