Utah Trip

During the last week of June, Zach, my mom, and my brother Garrett all drove with me to Provo. We had a great trip but sadly didn't get too many pictures.

Friday (6/26)
Drove to Provo. Zach did surprisingly well. It helped that we had Derrick's netbook so he could watch 3 Baby Signing Times. Melissa and Nate had a yummy dinner for us.


Saturday (6/27)
We visited with my Grandma Eddington for awhile. We didn't time things very well and had a late dinner so Melissa, my mom, and I had to really rush to make it to the Mt. Timpanogos in order to make it to the session for my really good friend Tara who was going through the temple for the first time. I was so glad I could be there for her and also see my old roommates! Here's a picture from the first time Tara and I ever hung out. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship :).


Sunday (6/28)
Lots of meetings in the morning for my calling. I got to go to my ward and it was so good to see so many friends. After church we went up to Sandy and visited with my Jones grandparents.

Monday (6/29)
We met up with my Grandma Eddington and went through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. It's a beautiful temple.

(http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/oquirrhmountain/gallery/images/oquirrh_mountain_lds_mormon_temple27.jpg)

After dinner we went golfing with Melissa, Nate, and Tara. Tara kept talking about how bad she was but she still beat us. It was a pretty close game for everyone though.

Melissa's prego belly. Golf balls make the belly a bit pokey.

Zach liked to help get the balls whether we were done with them or not.

With all Zach's playing he got pretty dirty.

Tara, my mom, Garrett, Zach, me, Melissa, and Nate

Tara and me

Tuesday (6/30)
Garrett watched Zach so I could go visit my friends Ken and Kelsey Ross in the hospital and meet their new son Jared. Later that night I helped put on the R.S. Quarterly Enrichment Meeting. After packing up we drove to Grand Junction and stayed the night at Derrick's parents' house.

Wednesday (7/1)
Zach got to play with Grandpa Bowen and then we headed back to the Boulder area where we had Zach's birthday celebrations.

Commentary on teaching in church

Does anyone else find it hard to teach people in a church setting? It feels like I've been asked to do this a lot lately - at least for a person who doesn't teach for their calling. First, Derrick and I were asked to give talks in church last Sunday. The most eventful thing that happened with that was that when I went to print off my talk 15 minutes before church by laptop freaked out. 15 minutes later we had managed to get my talk from my laptop that kept freezing to our computer and printed out. Luckily our church is 2 minutes walking distance away but there were some very relieved looks on the faces of the bishopric. Second, I was in charge of joint-teaching a mini-workshop on how to teach for my ward's visiting teaching conference. Nothing too eventful there.

With these teaching experiences I noticed that I have a lot more fun doing the research and that getting the information across to others is not my strong point. While reading up on the sacrament I kept distracting Derrick from his homework to tell him all kinds of random facts I was learning. For example, I never realized how much the ordinance of the sacrament does to help us weekly apply the atonement in our lives. I had only really thought of it as a way to remind us of our Savior and all He did for us. There were several others relating to the passover and such that I won't go into here. After finding out so many cool facts I have a really hard time condensing and piecing things together in a way that makes sense. If I can't sit with the teachees I'd much rather lead a discussion or be able to read a list like: Cool fact #1, cool fact #2, etc.

Hopefully for the next little while Derrick and I will be able to stick to our usual Sunday routine of sitting near the back and pulling faces at the babies.