Conference Weekend

David served in the Tulsa, Oklahoma mission for 2 years.  One of the states that he served in was Missouri.  He had the wonderful opportunity of serving in Lebanon where he met Susan.  I should have David get on here and write his own experience because I could never get it quite right.  Getting it into words that would describe how much he loved his experience there and especially Susan, just wouldn't turn out the way he truly feels.

 Susan and her husband, John, drove out to Utah to be able to attend one of the sessions for General Conference.  But before going to conference, some missionaries that they had grown close to (that have now left their missions and moved back home/college) over the years met up with them at In-N-Out Burger in Draper.  

The drive to Draper was nice, as David and I were able to just talk.  I love these simple things...especially when I notice that they are indeed special.

But seeing David and Susan together was so very special to watch.  It's not like I haven't known how close these 2 are.  David has spoken of her many times throughout our marriage.  When someone is able to teach about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then is able to baptise you in Jesus' name, well, I can only imagine.  Knowing Jesus the way that he did at this time in his life was rather new to himself.  I'm sure it was very personal to him to be able to share it with her at that time in his life.  And then to think of Susan's side of it.  How do you not have a special love and bond with someone who shares with you something so life altering as this? 

It has been years since she was baptized.  We have seen her here and there throughout the years and their bond just doesn't change.  It really is a sweet thing to witness.

It was also fun for me to hear John's accent.  It made me miss home!  And my dad...  I loved listening to him talk about the Church and how he saw things.  Reminded me so much of my own father.

And then there is conference weekend.  I look forward to it.  I need it every time it rolls around.

But I forgot just how hard it is to actually get things out of it with a toddler!  And sadly, the older boys just feed off of it.  As you can see, it wasn't long before they were rolling up in blankets and trying to smash into each other.  I also witnessed pushups, paper airplanes running into the ceiling fan, and food being thrown on the floor in different directions.  

Ok, so maybe the last one was me.  Hahahaha!  I have freeze dried corn that Ruger loves.  The other day I was so tired and he was sooooooo not!  I got desperate and was sitting on the ground feeding him by throwing the corn, one by one, in different directions to get him to run some of his energy off.  Yep, mother of the year here!  So I tried it again during conference and it worked like a charm!  He was finally quiet as he was running from corn piece to corn piece.  At one point, he got down on his hands and knees and picked up a piece of corn by his mouth.  We just giggled and giggled as he looked like a little chick pecking at his food!  

Interesting enough, the talk that spoke the most to my soul was the one about the difficult child.  Elder Nattress' talk couldn't have been more of what I needed for raising Ruger!  I told David that I was going to print out his talk and read it daily!  Ha!  But in all seriousness, I definitely walked away with the assurance that Ruger can have a great future.  

I am so tired all of the time.  He is so very active and there is not a day that goes by that he has not done SEVERAL things to danger his life.  There are days that I just don't understand how he doesn't learn to stop doing dangerous things when he knows he gets hurt.  But I also know that he doesn't feel things the same as everyone else.  But just to try to get whoever reads this to understand, that first conference session that lasted only 2 hours, yeah....  In that amount of time he bit into his tongue twice (once by falling on his own and the other as he had snuck down stairs.  Hyrum was trying to get him back up and unfortunately when Hyrum did that, he didn't have the strength to pick him up completely so he decided to just push him up the stairs.  Yeah, that lead to Ruger's head hitting one of the stairs as he was being pushed up which lead to Ruger biting into his tongue) and fell down the stairs!  We have a gate but he has figured out that if he pushes it hard enough, he can open it by himself.  He rarely can get enough strength to do it, but as you can see he was able to do it twice in 2 hours!

I'm getting off track but I did come away from that talk knowing that if I just keep on going...If I just try my hardest and if I can push a few words of wisdom in there here and there, he is going to make it.   He can not only reach adulthood but he can be a great leader too!