Oh my goodness! How amazing is 2 Nephi 29!!!

Hey again! So I have had some epic breakthroughs this week in my Book Of Mormon studies. Let me share with you why. I have gotten into a funk with my studies for the last few weeks, and this may be because I was going through 2nd Nephi and all of the Isaiah chapters which don't make a whole lot of sense to me. I am more of a plainness that Nephi talks about kind of girl. ( If you you are reading this and you are not sure what I am talking about, you can go HERE and request a free copy if the Book of Mormon, or you can just call me and I will explain and get you one.) So I was in this funk and I started searching for some good ways to take notes or mark in my BOM to help me get out of this funk and I ran across this really cool looking study guide. It is called "My Book Of Mormon Study Guide: Diagrams, Doodles and Insights. It looks like this:

And you can get it from the Red Headed Hostess website HERE

So, I was so excited about it that I ordered one for me and both of my kids. Well it came in the mail in a week or so and I am loving it! My kids started from the beginning and Colby said " I can't believe how much I missed when I read the Title page the first 10 times." They both have made comments about how much better they understand the things they are reading. I can't wait to see them progress.

 I have been in my BOM class for 7 weeks now. I was already towards the end of 2nd Nephi, so I started from there and some day when my life slows down a bit, I will go back and see if I can learn a little more from these crazy Isaiah chapters.

Here are what a few of the pages look like.  Don't judge my doodles, they are not pretty, but they are fun and I have learned so much. I'm like a kid and I look forward to my doodling every day.

Before I discovered colors. 

Alright now on to the MAGNIFICENT stuff that I learned. My reading this week was 2nd Nephi chapters  28 - 33.  I have to say, my favorite chapter was 29. This chapter is all about why the Book Of Mormon is so important. It talks about how there will be so many that think that there is not other books needed besides the Bible. The thing is that I see this all of the time here in the South. When I have gone out to teach with the Sister missionaries in our ward and even in conversations with my friends, and I ask: 

• Why wouldn't you want another witness of Christ?
• Why wouldn't you want to learn more about Christ?
• How sad would you be if you thought that your Father in Heaven would not want to give you more guidance in your life. Times change and the world changes. Why wouldn't we want continued guidance.
• Why wouldn't you want to read a book that could change your life for good and bring you closer to christ? 

I also really love the thought that there will be more. More testimonies of Christ, More guidance from the Lord. More pieces to fit into our amazing puzzle.  

This is a video clip from Russell M, Nelson from my class this week, entitled "Scriptural Witnesses"  You won't regret watching these 6 minutes.  He can put into words so well the things that I learned from chapter 29 this week.

Scriptural Witnesses by Russel M. Nelson

I just want to close with my testimony of the truth of the Book Of Mormon. I know it is true. I know that reading this book can change your life. Reading this book along with prayer can give you the answers that you need to make your life better, it can and will bring you closer to Christ. The Book of Mormon is the road map to happiness, the road map back to a loving Father in Heaven. Who wouldn't want that? I leave this in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.  

It's been a long time, old friend!

Well Hello again! It has been a few years since my last post.

I started a new journey about 6 weeks ago and and I am so excited to share. I have gone back to school! I know, none of you saw that coming. I was not great at school when I was young so why would I purposely make myself do that again. Well here is why. A few months back I started having some dreams that kinda led to the fact that I needed to get some skills so that if I ever needed to get a job to support my family I could. Then after the dreams I started getting little promptings from my Father in Heaven. He was nudging me to look into the Pathways program through BYU-Idaho. So I did just that, or at least I thought I did. I thought that I was looking into the program to see what it was all about, how much it would cost, etc.... And then life happened and so many things came up and the prompting just kinda got pushed aside because life was becoming even busier. We found out that our small ward (Church) was going to be split into an even smaller ward and that Jamey was being called into the Bishopric (Leadership in our church) and to top that all off we also found out that he was on the list to be deployed this year..... Needless to say, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. So I put school completely out of my mind until one day, shortly after Christmas, I got a call from the sweetest elderly lady, Sister Grey. She informed me that I was all enrolled and that all I needed to do was go onto the website and e-sign my acceptance letter from the school. What? I enrolled? What? So I figured that was yet another prompting from my Father in Heaven that I could not ignore any longer.

I started the pathways program on the 4th of January and as busy as our lives have been I have not regretted it for one second. I have learned so much.

I have two classes this semester. The first class is Religion and we are studying the first half of the Book of Mormon. Through the Book of Mormon class I have been able to really dive into the stories. I have learned so much and my testimony has grown immensely. I get to go to gatherings once a week and meet up with people that are in my class and we get the opportunity to have so many great discussions. We also are given the opportunity to prepare and teach one of the classes. It is a little intimidating at first, but i don't know about you, but I always learn so much more when I have to teach the lesson to others.

My second class is called Life Skills. I know it sounds a bit strange. At first I had thought "Life Skills?" I have a pretty successful life and I have enough skills. What am I going to learn from " Life Skills?' but I have loved this class too. I feel like this class has helped me to feel like I can be a successful student even though it has been so many years since I have been in a formal school setting. Some of the subjects of the lessons have been things like: Life Long Learning, Goal Setting, Self Reliance, Giving Back, Time Management. I mean who couldn't use a little brush up on Time Managment skills? I know I sure need it.

I am hoping that I can make these postings a regular thing. I just want to share some of the amazing things that I am learning along my new journey.

Thanks for listening. See you again soon.

Jameys blog

Ok so I know that it has been 6 months since I posted and I am still hoping that someday soon I will catch up, but Today I am posting about Jamey. If you didn't know he has been deployed for about 2 months. He is at Al Asad air base in Iraq. He is doing pretty good. We get to talk to him almost every day and we skype with him about once a week so the kids can see him and he can see them. He is in a pretty safe area so that makes me super happy. Anyhow he has started a blog and has a posted a few times. If you are interested in reading it I have a link to it on my side bar and it is http://jameywest.blogspot.com/ So I know that I love comments so I am assuming that he would too. He would probably love to hear from people other than me.

Well thats that and I really do plan to catch up at some point but not today.

Thanks

I have not been thankful enough this year and I completely lost the thank fullness that should have came with THANKSgiving. Hence the word Thanks in Thanksgiving. So here goes... I am thankful that we had a small quiet thanksgiving dinner. I am thankful for pumpkin pie. I am thankful that I got to make all of the dinner with the help of my mom. (thanks mom!) I am even thankful that I had to figure out how to make gravy. I am thankful for the chance to be the mom even though some times I yell that "I don't want to be the mom any more". I am thankful to be a member of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints. I am thankful for Morgan and Colby. I am thankful that I got to be a mom to an angel even if it was for just a few months. I am thankful for a hot husband that is pretty awesome at everything. I am thankful for the job that Jamey has. I am thankful that Jamey is only going to Afghanistan for 8 months and not 18 months like alot of other father,mothers, husbands,wives, friends, sons, brothers ect. are. I am thankful for vampires and hot werewolves. I am thankful for brothers and sisters. I am thankful for nieces and nephews. I am thankful for a nice place to live. I am thankful that I have so much stuff that I feel squished because there are alot of people that don't have anything. I am thankful for the right to choose. I am thankful for my glee sound track it makes me happy. I am thankful for the chance to talk to my heavenly father. I am thankful for my calling because I learn so much. I am thankful that I am being released from my calling in a few weeks. I am thankful for my arms and legs. What would I ever do without them. I am thankful for autumn leaves. I am thankful for two loving parents that would do anything for any of there children. I am thankful for amazing friends. I am thankful for Love. I am thankful for all of the differences in people. I am thankful for blogs, I love to read how everyone Is doing, and I love that they are such a great place to express feelings. Now I feel so much better about not being thankful on Thanksgiving. I hope Everyone had a great Thanksgiving and will follow that with a magical Christmas.

Halloween

Here are some fun pictures from Halloween!

Happy Halloween

Thanks Emily for sharing your family doing the mash, I thought it was so funny I had to copy. If you didn't know the werwolf is big Neil. We needed 1 more person and the kids thought this would be best, they also think the funniest thing is when Neil the werewolf does the butt smacking dance and when Mo the mad Scientist shakes her butt. What is the deal with BUTTS. I guess they are pretty funny. And dosn't Colby make the cutest vampire. Happy Halloween everyone! ENJOY!

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Discussion about Morgan and ADHD.

I am the mother of the most beautiful 4 1/2 year old girl. She can be amazing in so many ways. Right this moment she climbed on my lap and said "kisses mommy kisses" and then she said "I love you." and gave me a big sloppy kiss on my cheek. Which is so great, but then she proceeded to wiggle and try to push as many buttons on the keyboard as possible and then jump down and run away. Anyhow I am writing this because just yesterday Jamey and I took her to her yearly well child checkup and the doctor asked if she knew her alphabet? I said no. Then she asked about colors, shapes, her name, and all the things that a soon to be five year old should know to start kindergarten. My thoughts went to embarrassment because I know she should know all this stuff and as her mother I am in charge of her learning these things. Colby knew all this and more by this age and I just can't get her to settle down long enough to learn anything. Today we tried to play candy land and after about the tenth time of telling her the color yellow I was frustrated and I could see that she was mad at herself for not remembering. Her Doctor brought up A.D.H.D. or attention deficit hyper activity disorder. We had joked about her having this before because she is always on the go like the energizer bunny, but I was not real worried until now. The doctor gave me a packet that was all about ADHD and showed me the questions that they ask to diagnose it. She also said that unless I think she won't be ready for school, we should just watch it until she starts kindergarten. Well we took the packet and went on our marry way and when we looked at the questions they were rated 0 being no problem and 4 being very often, well the first 30 questions or so the answers were all 3's and 4's. This got me supper worried. Do I need to do something about this now or do I wait until she starts kindergarten and hope she is not to far behind? I looked up a few things on the Internet trying to see if I could make some dietary changes that would help and alot of newer studies have shown that it only helps in 5% of kids. There were a few studies showing that psychiatric help may be beneficial, so we may try these things. What I really need is any experience or help that any of you (my friends and family) might have. Leave me comments or call me.

Im Back!!

I know I have been the worst blogger ever. I think I win the award for going the longest without posting.

I love the fall colors and I always try to get some pictures of my kids in the mountains. This year Jamey and I took them up to provo canyon, The leaves have turned wierd this year, you have trees that have turned and are already dried up and then you have the rest that are still green. Not to many inbetween, but I think my kids are so beautiful that they made up for it. My kids were such good sports they both think they are on americas next top model.

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