Easter Blessings

Celebrating Chris's 40th birthday, four days after the fact!

Birthday: March 28th. Party: April 1st.

Easter weekend was packed full of activities for our family this year. To start with, besides falling on April Fools Day, Easter also fell on General Conference weekend. This is the time when, twice a year, the general authorities and other leaders of our religion address the worldwide members of the Church for two days, on the first weekend of both April and October. This event is highly anticipated by most LDS members, because we recognize the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be a prophet, seer, and revelator. Who wouldn't want to hear the words of a prophet of God and receive guidance from His apostles?

General Conference is held in the Conference Center in April and October

(the upper left building, surrounded by crowds, with gardens on the roof).

Front left is the dome of the Tabernacle. Front right is the Salt Lake Temple.

This year's conference packed a powerful punch. Our former prophet, Thomas S. Monson, passed away at age 90 in January, and this would be the first General Conference over which our newly ordained prophet--Russell M. Nelson-- would preside. President Nelson is already well known to us. He has served as an LDS general authority for thirty-four years, and during that period has spoken often in General Conference. At the time of Thomas Monson's death, Russell Nelson was the president of the twelve apostles, which placed him in position to become our next prophet. A retired (and world-renowned) heart surgeon, President Nelson is now 93 years old, with the energy of a man one-third his age. In fact, he still enjoys skiing!

President Russell M. Nelson with his newly-chosen counselors,

Dallin H. Oaks (on left) and Henry B. Eyring (on right).

Due to President Nelson's calling as prophet and the recent passing of apostle Robert D. Hales, two new apostles were announced and sustained on Saturday to fill those vacancies: Gerrit W. Wong and Ulisses Soares. In most years, having a new prophet and meeting two new apostles would be the culmination of all the anticipation and excitement. Not so, not this year. President Nelson had a few more big surprises for us.

During the Saturday evening priesthood session, he announced the elimination of a long-standing tradition of separating the Melchizedek priesthood holders into an Elders Quorum and a High Priests Group (high priests are those who've served in bishoprics or stake presidencies, as stake patriarchs, or on stake high councils). Now, all Melchizedek priesthood holders at the ward level will serve together in Elders Quorums only, with the High Priests Groups being done away with, allowing for all to benefit from one another's wisdom, youth, enthusiasm, experience, creativity, and so on. I like it!

That was surprising enough but, during the final session on Sunday afternoon, President Nelson stunned us with more unprecedented news, that the home teaching and visiting teaching programs of the church will undergo restructuring. In home teaching, the men are assigned (with a companion, who might be their wife, a teenage boy, or another man) to visit two or three families in the ward each month, seeing to their needs and well-being. Visiting teaching is similar, in which pairs of women are assigned to visit with certain sisters of the ward, checking on their overall welfare. Usually, a short, prepared lesson would be shared during the visit. At the end of each month, the home teachers and visiting teachers would submit the number of assigned families/sisters they were able to contact.

First of all, the titles of "home teacher" and "visiting teacher" are being retired. Now, all who are called to serve members of the ward will simply be known as ministers. And what they will be doing is ministering. I love the simplicity of returning to biblical terminology. I also love that there will no longer be lessons delivered (unless the Spirit prompts, of course) and no more monthly contact numbers reported. Instead, President Nelson spoke of serving as the Savior did. Not by checking items off a monthly list of duties, but instead by being more in tune with the needs of those around us. No more lessons; rather, little interactions of love and concern and service throughout the month as we seek inspiration on where and how to serve. I love that, too.

The new temple in Rome, Italy, is slated to open in early 2019.

And then, to add the cherry on top of this surprise sundae, President Nelson took the stand after the final speaker of the final conference session and, with a gleam in his eye, made an announcement. During the coming year, seven new temples will be built in the ongoing quest to make these sacred structures readily accessible to faithful LDS members all over the world. Only two of those announced will be constructed in the United States--one in Utah and one in Virginia. The others will be built in Argentina, Philippines, Nicaragua, India, and...wait for it...Russia! 

It has long been foretold by prophecy that temples will one day stand in every nation of the world, in the Lord's own time. As a young person, I admit I had my doubts. Strictly Catholic-only Spain? China? East Germany? Russia? Even today I wonder... Saudi Arabia? Iran? Turkey? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Palestine? Iraq? But I no longer doubt. When I was born in 1954, there were only eight operating temples, one each in Hawaii and Canada, with all the rest in the United States. When I graduated from high school in 1972, there were fifteen temples in total, including one each in England, New Zealand, and Switzerland.

Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple now under construction.

Today, there are 159 temples in operation around the world! They include such diverse countries as South Africa, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Nigeria, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Fiji, Australia, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Panama, and Ukraine. And so many more. Many countries, such as Mexico, have several temples. Heck, our little state of Arizona has six temples of its own!

There are currently eleven more temples under construction (including in Haiti, Portugal, and Rome, Italy). In addition to the seven announced today, twelve more have been announced in previous conferences and are in the planning stages (including in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, and Thailand). When all these have been completed, we will have 189 temples serving faithful saints worldwide. And, by then, more will have been announced and broken ground. None can stop God's kingdom from going forth!

Sarah helps prepare Easter dinner.

After all the excitement of the changes announced at General Conference, which ended at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, it was finally time to start preparing Easter dinner. Sarah and Chris came over around 4:30. I'd already put the ham in the oven, so they helped get the potatoes ready and boiling for mashed potatoes, while I readied the corn-on-the-cob and country gravy. Sarah also handled prepping the rolls. (As my son-in-law Jake observed, "It's like Thanksgiving, but without the turkey and stuffing." And without the green bean casserole. I kept it simple this time. Less mess, less stress.)

Finally, a holiday with ham instead of turkey, at Mark's request.

By the time Mark had the mashed potatoes well-mashed and Sarah pulled the rolls out of the oven, it was time to fill our plates and enjoy the bounty. It was delicious. I had to remind everyone not to stuff themselves too much, because we still had a birthday party to throw for Chris, which would include cake and ice cream!

Corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and country gravy, ready to eat!

Jake gets ready to chow.

Chris and Dylan prepare to dig in.

A friend from church, Dina, surprised us with six of her famous cupcakes.

She didn't even know there would be exactly six of us here for dinner,

or that Chris had requested a Reese's-peanut-butter-cups birthday cake! 

Originally, we'd planned to have Chris's birthday party on Friday night so it would be a little closer to his actual birthday, which was on Wednesday. Besides, it was his 40th birthday, a milestone he shouldn't have to share with a holiday. However, when Friday rolled around, he was asked at the last minute to work until late that night, caring for a disabled client whose mother was ill. Saturday night was also out of the question since Sarah was scheduled to work until 10:00 p.m. So his party landed on Sunday despite our efforts.

Chris's birthday gifts and cake, plus Easter goodies for everyone.

Chris had asked for a Reese's Pieces cake. I thought maybe he meant the ice cream cake version available at Walmart, or maybe he'd seen one at Safeway's bakery. But no, he sent me a picture of the cake he wanted, along with a pretty complex recipe. I had to laugh at his enthusiasm, but I texted him back and told him that was more cake than I had energy for! My health and strength are finally noticeably improving, but I still have to portion out how much I expend each day so I don't overdo it.

Instead, I baked a chocolate cake, found some chocolate-peanut butter frosting by Jiff, and bought bags of Reese's pieces and mini peanut butter cups. Then I had fun decorating his cake in whimsical peanut butter-style. 

Dylan duct-taped Chris's gift completely shut. It took awhile to unwrap!

Of course, when it was time to start the birthday party, we were all still stuffed from dinner since Dylan worked until 6:00, meaning we couldn't start our Easter meal until after 6:30. So we began with Chris opening his presents. Dylan insisted that his gift be opened last. He'd wrapped a video game in four or five plastic bags tied tightly shut; placed the game and bags in a pizza box; and then bound it up with duct tape before wrapping it in gift wrap. We had fun watching Chris work through all the layers.

Chris and gifts: Mickey Mouse hat from Sarah (while at Disneyland);

"Life Is Strange" video game from Dylan and Jake; $15 iTunes card from Mark;

and a Star Wars comic book tee-shirt and an electric drill set from me.

It was about 8:30 when we finally ate cake and ice cream, but even then it was a bit too soon. I ended up sending a lot of cake home with people at the end of the evening! All in all, we had fun, and I think Chris enjoyed his special day.

What a memorable weekend it was, in so many great ways! I'm grateful for the blessings of family and gospel truths, and especially for the gift of a Savior who sacrificed His all to save each of us. And that's what the blessings of Easter are all about.

Too much birthday cake is left over! I also made a sugar-free cheesecake

for Sarah and me (with sugar-free chocolate chips and chocolate frosting).

Even Dylan chose the cheesecake, saying the cake "looks like diabetes."