After having posted one blog entry for the entire year of MMVIII, I think I may take up the keyboard again and see if I can improve upon that performance.

From its outset, this blog is intended primarily for my own family members and, even more specifically, those of my children who are married. I guess that's all but Jacob who hears enough from me up close and personal as it is.

We enjoyed a nice, quiet Easter Sunday, although my high council duties kept me from attending our own ward with Mom and Jake. I am presently assigned to the Mt. Graham 4th Ward which is the young single adult ward in the stake. We have three college ward for the students at Eastern Arizona College and one single adult ward for young people who live at home while attending college or who are single and not attending college. It's a small ward with about 55 or so members.

Conference weekend was very nice and we enjoyed the sessions of conference very much. I'm sure each of us hears our own special messages and themes based on our own needs and how the spirit works within us. I was impressed with what I thought was a theme of strengthening our own personal faith and testimony, recommitting ourselves to the work of the Restoration and making sure our "lamps" are filled with oil in preparation for whatever the future may bring.

Along those lines, Mom and I (mostly Mom) have been spending time reassessing our physical and financial preparations -- Provident Living, if you will. Mom is great in this area and seems to have us well-prepared from a food and basic necessities perspective. Financially, we have a bit of work to do but are taking steps to better prepare for retirement, etc.

I would encourage all of you young families to spend a little time considering and learning how you might begin (if you don't already) some small steps toward long-term savings and investments. It is quite amazing how a relatively little amount of money saved regularly over a long time in the right investment instrument can grow to a very large sum over the course of 30 to 40 years. Had we done that better in our younger married years, we might not have quite so much concern now. (We don't really have a great deal of concern, but we more clearly now understand the missed opportunities of our early married years.

Our big home project currently is planting a back lawn. Jake and I have worked hard to excavate an area in the back, fill it with topsoil, till in manure and now get a sprinkler system installed for what we hope will be a very nice, fairly large patch of grass. That feature, combined with a retaining wall and other work, will help tremendously in making our back yard a useable place and an extension of our living area. We've had several days of quite heavy wind the last two or three weeks which has not been helpful in completing this project.

We spoke with Rachel "face-to-face" over the Internet this evening and saw her beautiful new baby girl, Eva. What a fantastic birthday gift for our second daughter. Mom is beside herself with anticipation of flying to Washington to actually hold the new granddaughter in her arms. Jake and I are not looking forward to our own cooking and cleaning for 10 days.

We are proud of all of our children and their accomplishments and activities. My patriarchal blessing, received when I was 17 years old, describes my future children as "loving and serving the Lord... with a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their hearts..." It promises that "this indeed will be [my] reward for [my] faithfulness in serving the Lord and keeping His commandments at all times." I have more work to do in that latter phrase, but seeing my children make good and right choices and staying faithful to their covenants and our covenants is truly the blessing I value most -- with the one exception of the blessing of being married to your mother.

I hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Dad