This week we visited the Provo temple in the morning before school started for Camille. She and Scott did baptisms while I did initiatories. When I walked into the temple, the woman at the desk had a nametag that said "Helen Hull." I suddenly remembered that I had a seminary teacher with that last name back when I was in 10th grade. I had a thought to ask her if her husband taught seminary and she said, Yes! I told her that he was my seminary teacher about 40 years ago! (I guess that makes me pretty old!) I asked her if he was still alive--because when he was my teacher he seemed kind of old but that's how it is when you're 15--everyone seems old. She said he was working in the temple that morning! She asked my name and I told her to tell him hello. That was a fun way to start my visit. But it got even better! After I was done, I met Camille out in the waiting room where Scott had left her when they finished nd he went to work. She told me that after they did baptis...

 This year we got to host Thanksgiving at our house. It's been at my brother's house the last several years but he let me do it this year. We had 35 people and a lot of great food and it turned out really well. We started the day with a Bergeson Fun Run 5K: Thanks to Caroline and Everett who organized it! We ran/scootered/walked about 5 kilometers out on the canal trail. Then we had breakfast. They brought bagels and cream cheese. I made some oatmeal and made a smoothie after the run to go with the bagels. It was fun and delicious. About noon, guests started trickling in, showing up with their contributions. We smoked a turkey, roasted a turkey, and warmed up a spiral-sliced ham and made some gravy. People brought mashed potatoes, stuffing, dressing, fruit salad, green salad, rolls, olives, green bean casserole, mac 'n cheese, and lots of different kinds of pie. We had English Walnut Pecan Chocolate pie, pumpkin pie, butternut squash pie, Oreo pie, apple pie, French Silk pi...

 Thanks to all my gardening, I really ramped up my food production this year. So with all that extra produce, I needed to do a better job preserving it. Thanks to some new cookbooks, recommended by the Seasonal Homesteader, I was able to do that. This book was probably my favorite and I have used it a lot. I made the Vegetable Marinara Sauce recipe which we enjoy as a replacement for our favorite spaghetti sauce. It used up lots of tomatoes as well as other vegetables like squash, green beans, and onions. I also made Roasted Peach Jam which is an easy way to make jam with no pectin. The author introduced me to the technique of flash freezing my peaches--we had a great harvest of  peaches this year and I had a lot to preserve. So I laid out peach slices on a big cookie sheet and froze them for 6-8 hours and then put them in a ziploc bag. I had done this before with raspberries but hadn't ever done it with peaches. We have really enjoyed those peaches on oatmeal, partially defro...

 We had the opportunity to attend stake conference with Elder Bednar while we were recently in Washington visiting Scott's relatives. It was an awesome meeting and I took lots of notes. The meeting actually started 5 minutes early since there were lots of people there quite early--that's one way to reward being early. After the opening, they called up several people from the audience to bear brief testimonies--simple statements of belief, including 4 youth. The stake president spoke and the Area Seventy briefly spoke. Then Elder Bednar took up the last hour. Elder Bednar first spoke to the investigators of the church who were in the meeting. He wanted to explain the name of the church. The first part is "The Church of Jesus Christ." He explained, We believe in God the Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. They are 3 separate beings but united in purpose. We are literally God's children. There are three things that set this church apart from others: 1....

While we were in Washington recently, we had the chance to attend a youth devotional with Elder Bednar. Elder Gary Sabin was also there and they both answered questions that were texted in. These notes might sound a little disjointed because there was more than I could write down. Q : What do I do if I distrust our current church leaders? How do I find time to study the scriptures and pray? A : Elder Bednar: Go to work studying their teachings. Study their lives and what they do. The Church is not hiding anything. Don't just listen to the internet. Don't rely on what others tell you. You don't find time to read the scriptures, you plan it. If you don't "find" time to do something, it's not important to you. Reading your scriptures because you need to check it off your list is not motivating. Feasting on the scriptures is motivating. Study as an agent, not an object to be acted on. Take a question to the scriptures and the Holy Ghost will help you find an a...

We recently came back from visiting Washington where my husband grew up and where a few of his relatives still live. At the beginning of the trip we visited the Olympic National Forest near Lake Quinault. This was a magical place for me since I had never visited any place like it before.  Here was what it looked like when we first showed up. Fortunately it stopped raining shortly after we arrived and we headed out on the trails. The trails were not muddy. They were gentle trails--it felt easy to hike at sea level coming from our higher altitude. This temperate rain forest averages over 130 inches of rain per year. For comparison, where we live averages 16 inches of water per year. Their summers are fairly dry and then it rains a lot in the other seasons. Thanks to all that life-giving water, there was life growing everywhere. There were also dead trees everywhere. Hurricanes sometimes come up there and the trees with more shallow roots go down. Because they get so much rain, the tr...