Last Friday (October 30th) I finished the weekly post by 10:00 am. This week, I will be lucky to finish it by 10:00 pm! Here's what we did last Friday, after I finished the weekly post: I read scriptures, played some games, and did some reading (continued to read an old favorite book and also started reading Dracula). I tried to read some info for my stake communications calling, but I started to fall asleep, so I decided to do some dollhouse roof shingling instead. I did all but the last row of the lower roof.
After shingling, I made some chili for the ward chili cook off and Frank made some cornbread and some macaroni and cheese to take also. Frank was on call for work and an emergency came up shortly before we were supposed to leave, so Seth and I went over without him and I wasn't sure if he was going to make it or not. But thankfully, the issue got resolved and he made it over before the activity officially started. It was a pretty fun evening. Much to our surprise, our chili won third place in the chili cook off! My motivation for making chili was so there would be a chili there that I knew didn't have a bunch of stuff in it that I'm trying to avoid eating; I didn't even care about the competition. 😂 There were not as many kids as usual, so we had a TON of candy left over from the Trunk or Treat.
Award winning chili with our prize:
Saturday October 31st: The YSA stake had a stake temple day, and Frank and I had volunteered to help with that as temple workers. There was a dinner afterwards, so we were basically gone all day. Our temple shift began at 11:15, so we had to leave home at 10:00 am. Seth had volunteered to help with the dinner, but he didn't have to be there quite as early as we did. He could have driven himself, but instead he got a ride with one of the other guys in the branch who was also helping with the dinner. It was a long day, but I really enjoyed it too. It was great being in the temple for so long (our shift ended about 4:30). The prayer meeting at the beginning of the shift was particularly good, and we also had another prayer meeting for the YSA workers at 2:00 that was also really good. I got to help with name issue, clothing rental, initiatories, baptistry, and veil. After our shift ended, we went over to the visitor's center for the dinner. I enjoyed getting to know / visiting with some of the YSAs and other leaders. Seth was riding home with us, so we stayed to help with the clean up. We got home around 6:30, after trick or treaters started showing up, so we didn't give away as much candy as I'd hoped. We still have two gallon size ziplock bags full of candy left; I put them away and we'll take them with us on our next road trip.
Sunday November 1st: It was nice that we didn't have to get up early after the previous long day. I read scriptures and did some mission work in the morning, before church. Frank came to the first part of our sacrament meeting with me, then he left to go to YSA Branch Council and YSA meetings. After church, I had choir practice. Then I went to the YSA RS meeting and then to the YSA break the fast meal. Frank and Seth were both planning to go to that, so I didn't want to go home and eat alone. After church, I did some more mission work and I also did all the first day of the month activities (change pillow covers and S&P shakers, etc.) Frank had to go back to the church for a little while to set things up for the single adult broadcast from SLC. Right before I went to sleep (Frank was already asleep), I checked my phone and discovered that Tanner had sent a message saying that he and Linsey had just got engaged! I wasn't totally surprised; we knew it was coming soon.
They have not picked a date for the wedding yet, but they are hoping for early February.
Monday, November 2nd: I woke up around 5:00 am, after Frank left for work. I felt a little off-balance when I got up. About 10 minutes into my morning jog, I got really dizzy and had to sit down or I would have fallen over, so I decided I was done jogging for the day! (It's probably just my vertigo acting up a bit. I've had a few moments this week when I felt the room spin around, but mostly it hasn't been an issue.) I've been watching the Twilight movies while exercising--I thought that was appropriate for this time of year. Plus, I'm reading Dracula, so it's all about vampires right now. 😂
We had a pretty sunrise and the fall colors are looking nice:
I got groceries and got all the chores done (except laundry) by 9:00 and then did a couple of hours of mission work. Then I talked to Jared for a bit (we weren't able to talk on Sunday). After lunch, I read scriptures, folded laundry, made a cake (healthy chocolate cake that doesn't have anything in it that I'm trying to avoid eating--and it's yummy!), and finished the last row of shingles on the lower dollhouse roof. Frank made dinner while I finished the shingling, which I really appreciated!
I was supposed to video chat with my friend that afternoon too, but she had to reschedule.
Seth worked 11:30 - 6:00. He came home and ate dinner and then went to YSA FHE, so we didn't have time to do our own FHE that night. I did some reading before bedtime.
Tuesday November 3rd: I woke up when Frank left for work. I did my morning routine and then 3 hours of mission work. Then I ate lunch and got chores done before my weekly mission devotional. We have time to chat / share / ask questions at the end of the devotional, and one of the missionaries shared a feature on Family Search called "my contributions", which I had seen but never really looked at very closely. It's super cool! It tracks the names you have indexed, reviewed, or attached records to and records when those names are taken to the temple and which temple they are taken to. It was really sweet to look at that--helped me see in a way that I haven't seen before that my mission work is really contributing to getting temple work done for many people.
After the devotional, I started working on shingling the tower roof. I have to stand on a chair to reach it, and it's kind of a pain because both edges of the roof are angled, so I have to cut more shingles. (And cut some really awkward shapes too.) I got the first row done, though, and started on the second row. I also glued the dormer roofs onto the dormers. I haven't been able to work on the dollhouse since Tuesday.
After dinner, I got out some vases (with help from Seth--I had to wait for him to get home from work because I couldn't reach them) and washed them--I need them for the RS activity we're having tomorrow. I also got to talk to Tanner for a while and I did some more reading. Frank got home late since he did his temple shift after work.
Wednesday November 4th: Seth worked from 10:00 to 6:00 and went to Institute shortly after he got home. I was awake about 6:00. I started my mission work around 9:00, which included my weekly one on one meeting with one of my team leads as well as a team meeting. After I finished my mission work, I went to the church to see how many glue guns and glue sticks were in the closet (we also need those for our activity tomorrow). When I got there, I noticed there were no cars in the parking lot but a lot of lights were on inside the building and when I went inside, the door to the electrical panel was opened. I didn't hear or see anyone, though. Then when I was leaving, I realized that one of the doors was unlocked. At that point, I decided to walk all over the building to make sure no one was there--I didn't find anyone. So I turned out all the lights and locked the door as I left. Then I drove to the other set of doors on my way out (the one set of doors I hadn't checked already) and stopped to check those doors and discovered that one of them was unlocked too! I texted the Seminary teachers to ask if anyone was doing work on the building when they left that morning and they said that they hadn't seen anyone, but there were two utility vans parked by one of the sets of doors when they left. So it sounds like someone was there working that morning, but when they left they neglected to turn out the lights and lock all the doors. Not great! Anyway, after that I went to the store to get a new tank for Frank's soda stream. After I got home and we had dinner, I gathered a bunch of items for tomorrow's activity and prepared a spiritual thought for that as well. Then I did some more reading and got to talk to Scott for a while before going to sleep.
We've been having really lovely weather this week, by the way. It has been much warmer than usual, with most days getting up to the low 70s. Wednesday was also sunny; it was perfect!
Thursday November 5th: I woke up around 5:00 am, did my morning routine, went grocery shopping, and started the laundry before I had a training meeting for my communications calling at 10:00 am. It rained in the night and was still pretty gloomy (but nevertheless pretty) in the morning:
By afternoon the sun had come out again:
After my training meeting ended, I finished chores, finished reading the book I've been reading (now I can focus on Dracula), and did some advance preparations for dinner. (Chicken needed to be marinated, and I mixed up some cole slaw to go on the tacos we were having.) After that, I went to meet the missionaries because they had asked me to join a lesson with them. When I got there, they had just found out that the guy they were teaching wanted to move the lesson to later that evening, so I came back home. I couldn't go to the lesson later because we had planned to have FHE that night. After dinner while we were waiting for Seth to get home from work, we tried to sign up for benefits for next year but Frank had some issues with his log in, so we couldn't do it. After Seth go thome we had FHE, which included playing Bananagrams--Frank won.
Friday November 6th: This morning I went to the temple and did an endowment session. The temple grounds look really beautiful right now with all the fall leaves:
After I got home and had lunch, I helped one of the members of the RS activities committee put together the supplies for tomorrow's activity. Then I worked on updating finances, taking a break to eat dinner (Frank made dinner for me again; he's awesome!) After finishing the finances, I started working on this post, and I am thrilled to say that I managed to finish it BEFORE 10:00 pm. 😊Now I need to head to bed soon so I can be up early to get everything ready for the RS activity. Wish me luck!
