President Gordon B. Hinkley

1910-2008

We as a family just wanted to write our own small tribute to our prophet. He passed away Sunday night after serving diligently for most of his life. He has influenced both Adam and me in so many ways.

His words have always been words to uplift and inspire. I remember when he and his wife surprised our stake by attending our stake conference unannounced. I remember that he said that we were all doing a wonderful job and the he was so grateful for the faithful members of this church. I was impressed at the time by his constant optimism as well as his hard work ethic. He said that when he had a weekend off, he and his wife would travel to local stake conferences to visit the saints. I know that if I were in his situation, I would have much rather had a relaxing break on a Sunday afternoon as opposed to traveling some more. He was a constant and diligent man.

On my mission, our mission president showed us a video of President Hinckley's life during a zone conference. It has since become a movie I really enjoy watching because it is so inspiring. It is called, "Gordon B. Hinckley, Man of Integrity, 15th President of the Church."

My favorite story from that video is related by Elder M. Russell Ballard concerning President Hinckley's trip to England for the dedication of the Preston Temple, in which area President Hinckley had served as a missionary. Elder Ballard relates,

"When he learned that a brother with whom he had tracted was in the audience, he immediately picked his way through the crowd of more than 10,000, searching faces as he walked. When he spotted Robert Pickles, now confined to a wheelchair, tears began to flow. And as he bent down to embrace him, and then stood holding his hand as they talked, it was obvious that years of separation hadn’t diminished the feelings for his old friend." He then says that this love and compassion were typical of President Hinckley.

I must admit that I am happy for him, that he is now with his sweet wife. Maybe now, he can have bit of rest and relaxation.

Start of a New Year!

It's 2008 and the Mills family future is so bright that...

.... we need to wear sun glasses! Even Caleb.

Here's a little re-cap of the holiday's.

Christmas was great. Caleb had more fun with the wrapping than with his clothes that Santa brought him. We had Christmas morning together with the family and then dropped by Grandma and Grandpa Ellertsons' house for a spell. Then we spent the rest of the day with Grandma and Grandpa Mills up in Clinton. It was a busy day.





Caleb also had his monumental first hair cut. His mother has cut his dad's hair a few times. It turned out alright considering the squirming and the stylists lack of experience. Here are a couple of before and after shots. He looks so much older with his short hair. I am glad to report though, that his curls have grown back just as curly, so it wasn't as dramatic of a change. In fact, he's already due for another cut.





New Years we were all sick so we spent it at home and played games with Bryan, Suzanne, Brad, Jessie, and Daniel.

Good news for all those who don't know. After some grueling pre-recs and one failed attempt, Adam has made it into the Construction Management Program at BYU and now has a graduation date in sight. We are so proud of him!
(This picture is exactly one year old. It's from last year's birthday, but I think he looks so cute in it, I just had to post it.)

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.

Happy First Birthday Caleb!

Caleb turned the big "1" last Tuesday. As far as we can tell, the mile stone has had no serious affect on him. He doesn't even really seem to notice. He has just the last two days started saying "no no" but it's more to himself. He'll say it when he gets into the kitchen cupboard that he knows he's not supposed to get into.

We celebrated as a small family Tuesday morning with a nice breakfast of pancakes and party hats. Caleb opened one of his presents from us which he thoroughly enjoyed. The were small balls with fun toys in side like a rattle and a disco ball. He liked ripping of the wrapping paper. Here is Caleb with his crown party hat enjoying his birthday breakfast.





On Saturday we had an extended family birthday party, mainly to have Adam's family down to Provo. They all live up in Davis County and haven't seen where we live yet, so we thought it was a good excuse to have eleven people drive an hour and a half. It was really fun though. We played pin the "Y" on the mountain in honor of the BYU football game earlier that afternoon and had pizza and cake. Caleb's cake was in the shape of a "1" with little blue footballs all over it. We all had fun watching him eat it exactly how he wanted to, all messy with his hands as can be seen in the pictures.





He got sick of it because the frosting and cake were so thick on his hands and he couldn't get it off, so he gave up on the cake in order to have his hands washed.

Adam and the Goliath Stump

Ok, it really wasn't that big but it was such an exciting event to get that stump out of the garden. It had been this giant, overgrown, spider-infested, bush that we chopped down about a month after we moved in. Now, one month later, Adam got the gumption and the time one Saturday morning to spend about four hours and single handedly chop the stump out. What a man! Now we can plant our tulips in our nice and organized garden.

Adam, conquering the stump.

He kept referring to it as "the bloody stump of a stump" like on the office when Michael burns his foot.

It was pretty deep.

Caleb tried to help, but he just kept patting the shovel instead of trying to pick it up and help move some dirt.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some of our festive Halloween pictures.

Carving pumpkins.

We were a princess guarded by the fire breathing dragon who is defeated by the brave prince charming.

From left to right: Caleb (dragon), Adam (prince charming), Lara (princess), Jane (octopus), Maren (lamb), Jessie (Mom), Amy (white trash hiker).