Shopping and Sacrament Meeting Talk

On Monday and Wednesday this past week Jeff and Tammy finished up most of his missionary shopping. He checked out the stuff at the Missionary Mall. He needs to have a dark colored backpack for his mission to carry things. He found a nice CamelBack backpack at the Missionary Mall that should work pretty good. Other than that the inventory at Missionary Mall was pretty sparse when we were there. We may go back and pick up a raincoat that they normally carry but they were currently out of Jeff's size.

On Wednesday we returned to Mr. Macs to pick up his purchases from several weeks ago that had been tailored. While there he purchased his shoes. He decided to go with one pair of Eccos and one pair of Rockports. I guess we'll see how each works out. They recommended that he alternate shoes each day to help avoid blisters and minimize pressure points that a specific shoe might have.

Saturday the family went to Brighton to snowboard and ski. Grandma Sharron gave the family ski passes for a day for their Christmas. It was kind of an over cast day but a great day for boarding. The lift lines were generally short most of the day. The only time we waited was right after lunch as everyone was returning to the slopes. As soon as the crowd dispersed on the mountain we pretty much rode up to the chair each time. This was the first time that Tammy had been skiing in many year since raising kids and then break her wrist in 2007. She had a little fear to overcome but did pretty good by the end of the day. The debate between snowboards and skis is alive and well in our family with Tyler and Tammy preferring skis and the rest of us on boards. Jeff and Tyler spent the day on the upper mountain while the rest of us stayed on the lower "green" runs most of the day.

Jeff spoke in sacrament meeting on Sunday. The program consisted of Caden Christensen, Joe Grant, Jeff, and Patrick Campbell. Caden is a Teacher in the ward. Joe is from the Knoll Park ward originally but most recently has been attending the Salem Hills ward, a ward for Young Single Adults. Brother Campbell is my second counselor in the bishopric.

Jeff gave a great talk on loving God. He used the talk that President Uchdorf gave in Conference last October called The Love of God as a basis for his talk. Being his dad I am a little biased, but I thought that he did a great job. For the having a reputation of being shy and not saying much, he spoke for about 14 minutes using the scriptures, quotes from general authorities of the Church, and shared a great testimony. I'll try and post some of his talk in a later post if he has it in soft copy. There were a good number of his friends that attended in addition to family.

Following the meeting some of his friends and family came to the house for a light lunch. I had to stay at church but from the pictures and what everyone said it seems that they had a good time. I think it is great the way the other young men support each other in preparing for their missions. Some of Jeff's closest friends are all leaving at various times over the next year. One of his friends, Dallin Jack, bought each a grey tie that they are all going to wear when they speak in sacrament meeting and each Thursday of their mission. Jeff had his on this past Sunday. A big group from the Timberline staff were there and took group pictures. Timberline is a leadership training for Boy Scouts. Jeff has been a staff member for the past 4 or 5 years and has made friends with some great young men.