Week one of Summer!

It was a big week for us.  I finished the district meetings and began teacher Summer school.  More importantly, Tim took the MCAT.  When he got home he felt that he did alright, but the test was definitely harder than he thought it would be.  Now we need to wait for his scores to come back to see how things really went.  Now his job will be to find a job and to work on secondary applications.

It was a hard start for Summer school.  Some of the kids clearly did not want to be there and some did not even show up.  By Friday the kinks were worked out and we were rolling.  We have only a short time with the kids and a long way to go academically.  I admit it was very nice walking out the door at 12:30 to head for home.  It is amazing what one can accomplish when they don't have tons of kids to worry about and how much one can get done when they have regular business hours to do them in.

With things calming down for the both of us, I was able to get together with some former roommates and chat (notice the color coordination in the picture below).  I thought it was funny and very characteristic of Tim, but the first thing he did after he finished the MCAT was to play soccer.  The second thing was to go and eat an all you can eat ribs and chicken at Sizzler.  He will be playing a lot more soccer now that he doesn't need to be studying every minute of the day.

Our big adventure this weekend was camping with Tim's family.  He had a brother come in with one of his children and she requested to go camping.  We had no idea how much of an adventure it would be.  We left the house at 3 pm to run to the store to buy food for dinner and breakfast.  We headed to American Fork Canyon where we promptly got lots with our terrible directions.  Thank goodness for friends that can come to the rescue.  Upon entering the canyon we found out that all the camping areas were full and so we decided to go to Provo Canyon.  We finally made it to our destination at 6 pm.  We set up camp and made some delicious polish dogs and Tim's roast pepper and asiago chicken sausages.  We did s'mores and hot chocolate before we called it a night.  I slept like a baby, but I guess Tim had a more difficult experience with being cold  and not fitting into the sleeping bag, because he is too tall.  Our morning included waking up with the sun and making breakfast, finding a snake in a tree, taking out a mountain biker, and then enjoying some Frisbee at the park before some went hiking and others left. We were apart of the group that left, because we had stake conference this weekend.  In case you were wondering we were exploring in the brush when we found the snake coiled in a tree.  There was a big mountain biking event and they were coming down the mountain fast.  They didn't see us on the trail when they turned the corning and ended up colliding with us.

I am pretty sure I have mentioned how diverse our stake is, but to give you an example...I was sitting listen to a recent convert bear their testimony when it dawned on me there there were three people speaking at the pulpit.  One was bearing his testimony in Spanish, while some one was translating his words into English, while a third person was signing for the deaf members of our stake.  It truly is amazing that we can do that and everyone can get something out of it.  I think my favorite quote/saying for conference was spoken be a deaf sister who had her husband translating for her.  She said if you someone can't tell by looking at you that you are a member then you probably need to repent.  I think she is exactly right.  I know I have wondered about people, and I am sure there have been times that people wonder about me and I think how embarrassed I would be if someone had to ask if I was a member or call me on the carpet for doing something that I should not be doing.  The second quote was by a bishop who spoke this morning.  We were discussing about hastening the work and he talked discussed several ways in which we can hasten the work, one in particular was finding one new person to say high to every Sunday.  He flat out said we are a stake filled with 5,000 sinners led by sinners and how great it is for us to be able to meet new sinners every week that need to Lord's atonement just like we do.  I think it is a very good perspective to keep that it is not an "us" and "them" but a "we" because we are all sinners and need the atonement.

An added bonus of Stake Conference is that it is 1:30 and we are already done with church instead of just starting.  Next week is the week we get to volunteer at the temple laundry and I am super pumped.

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