Christmas is coming and Lara's getting FAT!

... with a baby that is.
But, I tell you what, the combination of being pregnant and surrounded by delicious food and attending lot's of Christmas parties is a bad combination. Not to mention the cold weather and lack of a gym pass does not give me much motivation to exercise as much as I did when I was pregnant with Caleb. But, as I keep telling myself, "oh well..." (I know, real self control and determination huh)

I turned the big 26! I am now closer to thirty than to twenty. Again, I say to myself, "oh well..." because there really is nothing I can do about that.

We have been enjoying this season with the snow, fun decorations, and our traditional gingerbread house decorating which this year went quite well because I made a point to tell Adam that we have to plan it out and work together as opposed to just throwing whatever on top. The key really was he glued the sides together and I did most of the decorating while he watched Caleb and ate the candy!
But, the best part of this Christmas season has definitely been the music. I have been lucky enough to attend the best two local Christmas concerts available: the BYU Choral Christmas Concert and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert which this year featured the King Singers, of whom I am a big fan.


The two best numbers without a doubt were "Oh Holy Night," an arrangement by the incredibly talented Mack Wilburg and I believe it is a new arrangement done just for this years concert. It had just the men from the choir singing along with the King Singers, mainly a tenor soloist. It was absolutely wonderful.

The second was by a fairly new composer, at least one I have never heard of. He is only a few years older than me, and obviously extremely talented. His name is Dan Forrest and the combined BYU choirs and orchestra sang his song, "Carol of Joy." As I read the words and listened, I could not keep myself from crying I was so moved. He has a recording of "Carol of Joy" posted here. It was recorded with just piano and choir at Carnegie Hall, I believe. I really look forward to the recording of the BYU choirs with the orchestral arraignment. The words are also posted on Suzanne's blog. I encourage all to take a look and a listen.

Encouraged to blog for missionary purposes

It has been confirmed to me that blogging can be a good thing! I mean, I thoroughly enjoy reading about other people's lives, but as I have expressed before I don't feel absolutely comfortable with posting my personal life completely online for the whole world to potentially see, even though I realize that most likely, only those who already know me are going to be coming to visit. However, recently, Elder Ballard, an apostle for the church, encouraged us (the internet savvy) to use these forums as a place to talk about the church. What a novel idea! I mean, who can count the numberless sites full of misinformation and anti-church propaganda that people probably stumble upon and read everyday. I loved this quote in his most recent General Conference address.

"I would hope that those who know very little about the Church would seek to learn more about us. I would hope they would get to know our members rather than judging us by the misinformation given by those who do not know and in some cases by those who would deliberately mislead or defame."

As I have been following the current presidential election campaigns, I of course have been very keen to hear what people say about Mitt Romney and his religion. I am not surprised to hear the bad, but I have been shocked at how many people have such bogus information about the church and how they cling to it as doctrine without the slightest ounce of open mindedness to other possible truths.

Thus, as you may have noticed, I have added a little sidebar containing links to church websites, including the Kiev, Ukraine mission website, which is where I served my mission.

Here is my awsome companion Sis. Oyuerden from Mongolia talking to a local vendor in Kiev about the Book of Mormon. The next is me and my companion, Sis. Cook, with a wonderful member of the church, Anna at her chastnie dom (meaning she had her own free standing house and yard, which was rare in Kiev).



Now, this does not mean that my blog is becoming completely church oriented. I still have lots of other things to post about. I just wanted to let you all know why I have attached the church related links and to maybe encourage others out there to start a dialog on their own blogs about the church. Because, I know that many of you out there are much better at this than I am.