Relief Society Retreat

We had a Relief Society Retreat last night at the Bringhurst's cabin in Fairview Canyon ~ very close to one of my favorite places on earth: Camp MiaShalom. I loved being able to hike to Lone Pine and view the beautiful fall colors, and see the night sky away from the city lights ~ two of my favorite activities. Along with visiting with my sisters, eating yummy food, and knitting up some newborn baby beanies for humanitarian services ~ a lovely 24 hours away from home!

on our way to Lone Pine ~ check out those awesome clouds!


Camp Shalom in Autumn splendor

Marie, AnnaRae and Taryn at Lone Pine

AnnaRae and I have hiked to Lone Pine together twice in 2010!

I recently got the pattern for these darling little newborn beanies from Humanitarian Services and I knitted the four on the right, AnnaRae crocheted the one on the left. I forgot how much I enjoy knitting and it feels good to create something that is useful.

I love to imagine these little hats on a little baby head!

I learned to knit from a German woman in Rancho Cordova, California when I was in sixth grade. She gave free knitting lessons to anyone who wanted to learn. At the time it was hard because she didn't allow us to talk while we were knitting at the lessons and we had to complete our projects during the week before our next lesson. I'm so grateful now that I know how to knit. I prefer it to crocheting; I like the rhythm.

Ministered To

Our Relief Society Presidency was invited to meet with the Stake Relief Society in preparation for our upcoming Ward Conference.

We arrived at the beautiful home of the Stake RS President and were greeted with love and hugs. We enjoyed the amazing beauty of her home including religious art and a fire in the fireplace.

We were served a lovely brunch: fresh fruit, sausage, blueberry french toast with buttermilk syrup. It was delightful to sit at an beautifully set table, supping on yummy food, and visiting with each other.

We moved to the exquisite living room where we were spiritually fed and encouraged in our callings.

And we even got to take home a small loaf of delicious bread prepared by the counselor who couldn't attend the meeting.

I truly felt ministered to by my sisters.

This Week's Theme

The theme of this week has been Relief Society:

Monday: Cleaned the Stake Center Kitchen
Tuesday: Temple and RS Presidency Meeting
Wednesday: Visiting a sister for her birthday
Thursday: Met with Stake RS Presidency in preparation for our upcoming Ward Conference (which has its own post)
Friday: Visiting Teaching

It was a wonderful week and I'm grateful to spend so much time with my dear sisters in the Relief Society.

Three other fun things:

Cleaning and restoring the Teddy Bear guestroom
and
Go to the ballet at BYU with Jenny. The ballet wasn't that impressive but it's always a joy to be with Jenny!
and
Running errands with my Mom, one of which was taking advantage of Michael's 50% off custom framing sale for her birthday gift:

Brian Kershisnik's Nativity

Next week's theme:

Painting two bedrooms downstairs

Relief Society

I realized that I wrote about being released as Young Women President, and at the end of that post I wrote a teaser about my new calling, but then I never reported back. (I guess all the people who might read my blog already knew anyway)

Well, my new calling is Relief Society Secretary. And I am enjoying it. It is always a joy to serve in a presidency and very blessed to get to serve with Shari and Luana and Clyda. Here's some trivia for you about our presidency:

*All of our names have five letters
*We're all grandmothers
*Three of us have six children and one has fourteen (overachiever!)
*Three of us live on streets named "Heather"
*Two of us are pretty serious about homemade cinnamon rolls and . . .
*Two of us really like Rhodes Anytime cinnamon rolls!
*We all love the gospel and serving in Relief Society

It was a rather busy RS week this week:

We had a presidency meeting to plan our upcoming Leadership meeting

Shari and I cleaned out the RS closet:


We spent three hours redoing the Visiting Teaching routes:


That was after I spent several hours making these "names on magnet strips" for the new board - it took longer than I thought, but the result was good.

I'm grateful for my new calling!

(I have to admit I still miss my YW, but that's likely to be a permanent state)

This Week

There have been a couple of focus areas this week:

#1 This handsome boy:

On Monday we spent several hours at government offices completing the name change of Michael Thomas to Michael Lincoln. The birth certificate office and the social security office and we tried the driver license office, but there were like two hundred people in there so we went back early Thursday morning and got the new license, followed by a trip to the school office and now I believe it is official he is MICHAEL LINCOLN RIFE.

We also went shopping for a suit - his first in real men sizes (40 R) so that he could look really handsome to go to Preference with this cute girl: (aka Taryn York)


We also ordered his birthday present (he'll be seventeen in one week) online: a lift kit for his truck - yes, I think it's ridiculous, but I'm just the Mom.

If you want a laugh about the black shirt, check out My Dear Husband's blog

#2 Home projects

I put the trim on the lampshade. I got the garage door opener serviced - it's quiet now! I got the carpet cleaned and decided to adopt a "no shoes in the house" policy to hopefully have it stay clean longer, which led to the purchase and assembly of a couple of shoe shelves. I cleaned the ovens, the dining room floor/chairs, and basically all of the main floor. (Yes, it does seem like I just did this last week, and downstairs is next week's project)

#3 Relief Society
(but that is its own post, to follow, or I guess come first since I'll post it next and that's how this blogging thing works)

and #4
I went to the temple with these two lovely ladies:
If you make this picture bigger (and ignore the giant wrinkles around my eyes) you can see the Angel Moroni on the temple