Marathon Week

I'm sure that lots a people are busier than I am every week, but this week seemed especially busy for me. As I said before, Jeff and I are starting a new business and things are definitely busy there. We've been trying to nail down a location for our office in North Scottsdale. We've now narrowed it down to 2 and are waiting to see which one give us the best deal. We also started advertising for a NMD to work in our office and spent time looking at resumes and interviewing. We opened up a bank account for the business as well, so we've got the ball rolling on a lot of the stuff. We need to pick our Doctor and our location so we can get moving and be up and running (if a little slowly) in December.

On Monday night we went out with Jeff's siblings for Sandy's birthday dinner. We had a great time. I'm so lucky that I really enjoy being with my in-laws. It's great to have people I love on both sides of our family. We brought Jackson home afterwards to spend the night since there was no school for Veteran's Day on Tuesday. Tuesday morning I still had Notations as we are trying to get our Christmas show ready. I left the kids with house cleaning assignments and instructions to gather everything they wanted to sell at our Garage Sale (am I crazy? - I think so) on Saturday. Shelby had a Viola lesson (during which I wisely used the time in my car for a catnap), then Jeff and I ran around North Scottsdale. The day had been set aside for cleaning and getting ready for the garage sale, but that was put on hold.

Wednesday night I attended Harris Park's Young Women in Excellence Program, then on Thursday I spent the day preparing for our Stake YW Leadership meeting that night. I must give huge thanks to my Heavenly Father for the inspiration for that meeting. It's been so amazing for me to see how clearly I've been directed in this calling. I was talking about it with my mother this evening. I wish that in all aspects of my life I could sense the direction of the Lord as much as I've been able to in this calling. I'm writing this down because Jeff gave a Sunday School lesson that talked about the importance of recording our spiritual promptings and answers. I've found that my best inspiration for this calling comes as I'm on my treadmill with the mp3 of General Conference addresses playing in my headphones. I have ideas come to me that just seem to develop easily and I'm always amazed that I get to be the instrument for those ideas. One of the ideas that came for the leadership meeting was to ask a young woman from each ward to share an experience they've had in Young Womens that has strengthened their faith. I felt that this was the highlight of our leadership meeting. Those girls brought the Spirit with them as they let the young women leaders see that the little things they do can make such a big impact on the testimony of a young woman.

I got to speak at the end about making sure that all of the interactions with these young women are experiences that can be counted as building blocks of their faith. I fully believe that the youth today are going to have to be rock solid in their convictions and willing to stand strong for their beliefs in the gospel. I was able to talk about how surprising it is that in the state next to ours we have protestors marching against our temples and missionaries and members of church being threatened because we stood up for our beliefs regarding the marriage amendment. I don't think that youth who are waivering in faith will be able to make it. Anyway, the Spirit was great at the whole meeting. We finished in exactly an hour (which is always my goal because YW leaders are so busy). We had most members of the presidencies from every ward attending. What a great night!!!

Friday was our next big business day, but I spent the morning in the playroom going through all of the toys and deciding which ones were junk (a couple of big garbage bags proved that there were many), which ones were still playable, and which ones we should sell. What a great feeling to get that done!!! We were up late that night after all the business stuff was done finishing up with garage sale prep.

Early Saturday morning came fast, but we were ready for our first customers, unfortunately our profit wasn't as big as I would have liked it to be, but the kids made some Christmas spending money and now I've de-junked my house -so it was worth it in the end. Cooper had a football game that I had to miss because of the Garage sale. I had the truck loaded and dropped off at DI before Jeff and Cooper got home. I had a good nap that afternoon before heading off to another YW in Excellence program for Hillside ward. Jeff and Cooper watched the Sun Devils win their game and Shelby had a nap over at Leslie's house. I came home and wrote my talk for Harris Park Ward's sacrament meeting today. I spoke on the importances of being fully committed to the Standards found in the For the Strength of Youth Pamphlet.

Tonight we had our Stake Standards night. It was wonderful. We have a woman in our stake, April Price, who is an amazing speaker. She spoke on following the standards fully and being "tight like unto a dish" in our resolve ot follow them. The youth loved her and I wish I could speak like her. She followed three of our youth committee members who gave great personal examples of the importance of the standards, then President Ahlstrom spoke about the protection that comes with following the standards. It was a great evening!!

I got to come home and visit with my mom for awhile who came back from watching Doug's kids in Utah this past weekend. I don't think she's utilizing her nice Granny Flat near enough, she thinks she'll go home tomorrow to get her bills paid there.

Now I'm looking forward to a low key week, but I'm sure that won't happen. Next week is Shelby's 15th birthday, and we've still got a lot to do to get this business up and running. Wish me luck!