Fun, excitement, change, scariness, relief, spiritualness, and goodbyes.

These past few days have been filled with a lot of fun, excitement, change, scariness, relief, spiritualness, and goodbyes. I will start with the fun and excitement.
It was my very good friend Mandy’s birthday. We celebrated by getting pedicures, going to eat, going shopping, going to the Jensen Pumpkin festival, shopping some more, and a nice long soak in a hot tub ;) It was lots of fun, and a much needed getaway. HaPpY BiRtHdAy MaNdY!!! Here are some pics:





The next day the fun continued as we took the kids to the corn maze. We had so much fun picking pumpkins, feeding goats, playing in a corn bin, going through a kids maze, and eating some super yummy caramel apples. Here are some pics:






Next off we will go with change. I was finally released as the Visiting Teaching coordinator, and I am now the Enrichment Night Leader. My job as VT coordinator was EXTREMELY stressful. I never realized how hard it was, until doing it myself. With a ward that constantly has new people moving in, change is always going on, and it is never "done" for very long. I have been at it for almost 2 years. I have handled it pretty well, but during the past few months as things have been crazy with kids, my grandparents, and lots of other things, and I have felt very overwhelmed. On Monday the 6th of October (I have to get technical with dates here…lol) I prayed so hard that either the lord would help me have the time and energy to fully do my calling, or else that the bishop would be prompted to release me, since I refuse to ask to be released myself.
Well, low and behold, on Tuesday the 7th, Hallie had her baptism interview. After she was finished, the bishop turned to me and said, “Do you want your interview now? We have another calling for you.” I quickly assured him that I could do no more than I was already doing, and he told me that they would release me from my current calling. All I remember saying was “oh hallelujah, the lord listened to my prayers…-yes, I will do whatever calling.” I think he was a bit taken aback by that, but he did say that he had felt that the massive calling I was trying to do was a bit much for a young mom. I was so glad that he had this prompting and that I didn't have to "give up" so to speak.
It gets even further into promptings. I guess Heather Eskelson who is in our RS pres. had the same prompting and had been wanting me to fill this Enrichment calling for some time now. Finally they felt it was right and so now here I am, and couldn’t be more excited. I love planning parties, events, activities and so forth and everything that comes with it. I already have so many ideas.
Well, the spiritual part comes in now. G.J. and I had the opportunity to do Temple Sealings last night. I sat by one of the ladies in our ward, and had the most overwhelming feeling that she would be the person that took over my calling. I told G.J. as we were leaving that I was 100% sure she was the one. I had not been told by one soul that she was, it was just the feeling that I had received in the temple. Well…guess what, today she was the person called, and it was so neat to experience such strong impressions like that and have them come true.
So now for the scariness. A few weeks ago I received a phone call from a neighbor saying that the ward music lady had called to ask her family to sing in sacrament meeting. She had told her NO WAY. Well, as soon as I hung up, the phone rang, and it was our ward music leader asking ME to sing a duet….I did not have the heart to tell her no because of her previous rejection, but I was like OH CRAP….I do not sing!!! They had passed around a sign up sheet that had solo, small group, or choir. Well I signed the CHOIR part....lol. Well, ironically, I was paired up with Heather Eskelson who is over me in my new Enrichment calling. We practiced several times. I had to remind them that I was a dancer in high school, not a singer. This was my first time singing in a duet or anything like that other than doing things in the ward choir. Well, Heather sings beautifully. I on the other hand just made it through. I think it must have sounded o.k., we did receive a lot of compliments, so I will take all the praise I can get. I do NOT however look forward to doing it ever again, nor will I make it a habit to do such scary things!
And finally, the goodbye part of my post. G.J. headed out to Laramie, WY today for training. He won’t be home until Friday. I do NOT do well without him. He is such a good husband, and I just love him so much and really miss his helping hand when he is gone.
So, there you have it, my weekend in a nutshell. Now I am ready to crash. Have a great week, and wish me luck as a single mom once again. Thank goodness the next training isn’t until April.