MaeLyn's Musings

I just got home from dropping Hannah off at the airport. She is flying to Salt Lake, where my sister Lindy will pick her up and take her to the MTC in Provo. She enters the MTC at 12:30 this afternoon, and will officially be Sister Hiatt, missionary. I don't know how I feel about this yet. It doesn't seem real that I'm not going to see her for eighteen months, that she'll spend most of that time *hopefully* on the other side of the world. I am grateful that she made the decision to serve a mission, and I think she will be amazing. She seems so self-confident and grown up - much more so than I felt when I left to serve, and I was a couple years older than she is now. Last Friday, we received an email from our stake president to inform us that Hannah's visa hadn't arrived yet, so she was being reassigned to the Provo MTC. It was a bit disappointing that she wasn't heading to Brazil immediately, but this gives her a little more time to learn some Portuguese...

Institute this morning was on Alma 17-24. Here are some of the things we discussed: Ways to prepare to serve as a missionary: (See Alma 17:2,3,11)    1. Search the scriptures    2. Pray    3. Fast    4. Develop patience    5. Develop long-suffering    6. Become dedicated    7. Learn to serve (v. 25) Gifts we can receive through our preparation: (same verses as above)    1. Gift of Prophecy    2. Gift of Revelation    3. Power and authority    4. We become good examples    5. We are instruments in God's hands    6. Be able to speak with boldness (Alma 18:24) It was pointed out that the great missionaries of the Book of Mormon taught three main things (See Alma 18:36-39 and Alma 22:13-14):    1. The Creation    2. The Fall of Adam    3. The Atonement When the king of the Lamanites found his mortal life was t...

Saturday was a busy day for us. We got up and dressed, then set out for the church to help with an Eagle project for a young man in our ward. For his project, he had collected pieces of fleece for blankets, so on Saturday, we got to cut strips on the sides and then knot them to make blankets for the Children's Hospital. The patients at the hospital would receive the blankets and even be able to bring them home with them. By the time we finished, there were about 68 blankets finished. Peter was bored a lot, but even he helped to tie knots around the edges of the blankets. When we left the church, we went to the home of friends in the ward who were having a garage sale. It wasn't for sale, but they had a tandem bike that they were kind enough to let us ride around. That was fun. After playing with their bike and their drum set, we eventually bought a stuffed cow, a hiking pack thing, and a fancy tricycle (a green machine). From there, we ...