Continuance of the Theme

A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could. He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him.He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it. We see that person as less important
than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them. I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.~~author unknown~~

The Lord sees not as man sees.....

Here are some thoughts from our Stake Leadership Training Meeting last night.

The theme was "The Woman at the Well" Found in St John. The Lord did not search out the queen of Samaria, He revealed himself as the Messiah to the everyday woman at the well.

Reference scripture Alma 8:13-14 "Lift up your head and rejoice"

The Lord accepts us and sees us as perfect women. He sees us as exalted because He sees us through His perfect atonement. The Lord knows who we were in the pre mortal realm, who we are here, and who we will become. That is how He sees us and loves us.

"Be Still and know that I am God"

We need to fill ourselves "vessels" with the living waters of Jesus Christ so that we can be ready to share those waters with those that come to us and need some of that water to help them. We need to make sure we replenish our wells often through scripture study, prayers, patriartical blessings, temple attendance, meditation and pondering so that we can feel the Holy Spirit guide and direct our lives for good. We need to recognize that we are trying and that it is good and acceptable to the Lord.

Needless to say it left me with much to ponder and reflect on.

WILD WEST ANYONE?!

There is a hotel called the pioneer. I took many pictures at this location. They have old wagons like these pictures. Authentic and now used as tourist attractions. More on this later!

RAIN, THUNDER, LIGHTENING, and RAINBOWS OH MY

Okay so Laughlin is a town of little to no precipitation. It is located in the tiny little point of Nevada on the map. It is a tri state town. You can cross into CA, NV, and AZ within about 1/2 hour. That little tiny point on the map is in reality surrounded by mountains. The mountains get a lot of natural storm activity and you can usually just guess what is happening. The "point" is generally surrounded by darkness but outside and above is beautiful sunshine and not a cloud in the sky.

We arrived in Laughlin on Sunday. On Monday, things changed in that quiet little village. They had a STORM. Lightening, Thunder, HUGE raindrops. It was AWESOME!!!! The topper was the double, that is correct, double RAINBOWS. Brilliant colors that my camera could not capture. BEAUTY BEYOND MEASURE!

This picture is a single rainbow because of course as I left the room, I told myself there would not be anything to take a picture of at breakfast! So of course the double rainbow happened at breakfast and this beauty happened later in the day.

Planet of the APES

On the river walk by the hotel we stayed in are these weird monkey statues. They are really creepy and remind me of the Planet of the Apes movies. I try my best Charleton Heston imitation every time we walk past them. I think the others think it gets old by the end of the week, but I still think it is VERY FUNNY, EVERYTIME! The creepy monkey is the green one....Hee Hee Hee

VACATION plus FAMILY equals AWESOME

So our vacation was truly awesome. The drive to Laughlin seemed way shorter than it really was. I guess I was just ready for a road trip. I don't mind the driving until about 4.5 hours into it and then I am truly ready for the signs leading me to the final destination. We left on Sunday morning and surprised Mom and Dad by stopping in on the way to the hotel. They were very surprised and excited and happy to see us! It is always a wonderful thing to have people happy to see you! Here are some pictures of dad and mom S and of course my sweetheart!

HOMEMADE PIZZA-The Best Pizza EVER

So a few weeks ago I made pizza dough, we froze it, the next weekend, we unfroze it (it was still a little bit cold). We made homemade pizza. It was good.

The next weekend we decided for fresh made pizza dough to compare the results.

OH MY GOODNESS!!!

Freshly made pizza dough it is! It won hands down. It is so simple to make with the kitchenaid my sweetheart got me for Christmas last year. :-)

It is easy, takes only 1 and 1/2 hours from mixing to rising to punching down (always fun) to spreading on pizza pan.

It was so good, together we ate a WHOLE PIZZA!!!

We were stuffed but delighted with our new way of having our pizza pie!

BLESSED NATURE

Today my lunchtime walk was absolutely delightful! What a time of renewal is taking place right in front of us. As I walked I was watching the sidewalk (I tend to trip over air so I am extra careful) and I could not help but notice so many small creatures moving around.

Ants on their errands, rolly polly bugs enjoying leisure walks, fuzzy caterpillars quickly moving (perhaps looking for that most wonderful spot to build their cacoon), even the sparrows, hummingbirds, and my ever favorite lizards were enjoying the day. The pond that I walk next to has lilly pads in bloom.
EVERYTHING is in bloom.

It smells delicious and it was nice and warm out today. I thoroughly enjoyed my little stops to enjoy the scene and the chocolate curls of bark on the trees. There is nest material for the birds lying every where and I pictured these aeried homes and how nice they would feel with the different materials laid out for the tiny chittering builders.

It was a GREAT day to be alive and walking and seeing and smelling and hearing and BEING THANKFUL!

Divers Places

So how wonderful was General Conference! I will expand that theme on another post. I want to talk about the earthquake that was felt only about 45 minutes after the conclusion of the conference. It brought to mind the talk on Revelations and the things that will occur in the last days.

The quake was the biggest I have actually experienced here in California. It lasted longer than most and was a 7.2 on the rictor scale epicentered in BAJA, Mexico. Although the length and the intensity growing as the earthquake went 30 to 45 seconds kind of spooked me a bit. BUT I was not scared. We are prepared. We have our water and food and have a plan. My soul did not quake and ALL IS WELL!

What a blessing the Spirit of the Lord provides for us. My thought afterward when the newscasters were interviewing people and asking what they would do was, we will take care of our family. I don't need government intervention, I and my sweetheart will take care of our family, with the Lord as our guide we can overcome ANY eventuality with peace in our HEARTS and MINDS.