What an amazing week - great activities to start the New Year!

Dearest Family,

Happy 1st Birthday Paisley & Brindle, Monday, Jan 8th!  Happy Birthday, Michelle next Sunday, January 14th!  

Love & prayers to Ethan!   He was in a fender bender!  Very blessed - lots of bruises, sore places & aches - car is totaled! 

What an amazing week - great activities to start the New Year!   We enjoyed so very much having Allen, Amber, Melvin, Ira, Leanne, Camille & Neil here!!!!! Played Ping Pong, colored, worked on hats a little, Monopoly card game, enjoyed Nacho's!  Was very cold outside, shucks, not able to go sledding.  So enjoy having them come visit!

In the evening we had a Flinch party - Rob had organized it & it was lots of fun!  Rob, Michelle, Josh, Krysta, Darece,Ken, Bo, McKenzea, Nathan, Bri!  Had a lot of fun - will have to keep doing it occasionally! Gdpa played with Athena and Conner.

On Tuesday evening, we attended the baptism of Elyssa Croft, she is the daughter of Jay & Trisha Croft.  She is 10 & was so excited for this special day! There was a special spirit there among the more than 60 family and friends who came. She is truly a latter-day pioneer! !

It was great to have 4 Zoom trainings this week. We have so enjoyed working with two couples who have been called as Stake Lead Consultants!  Both really have caught the vision of their calling & are letting the spirit guide them. Another sister/consultant shared with us a sweet experience.  She was wanting to help a young mother in her ward & the sister was just not interested, to busy, to difficult, etc, but  she finally gave in.  The first problem/success for the young mother was whenever she went into her tree she was linked to her step-father, not her father!  That was an easy thing for the consultant to fix & the sister's countenance began to change.  The consultant continued to help her on her smart phone, looking at her tree, adding hints, etc.  Several days later the young mother expressed how much she was enjoying doing her family history - she could even do it while her children napped!!!!

Today we visited one of the Lovell Wards,   Dad met with the Bishop & Counselor & I went to the FH center.  When we are visiting wards like this we try to find time to share the new FH Guidebook for leaders in Gospel Lib and the  FH Activity Report in LCR on LDS.org site. This is available to all ward & stake council members plus consultants!  Most do not even know it exists - has been available since May 2017! 

I shared the same info with several consultants in the FHC  & also a Stake HC. I also shared it with the Stake RS President after another mtg which we attended tonight.  All are amazed & it opens their minds to things which we all can do!

We witnessed another special blessing now available to all church members - Self Reliance Services.  The Lord provides a way for us to accomplish His work by being able to take care of our physical, temporal, emotional and spiritual needs. The Atonement and the Holy Ghost team up with us to make it possible.  Rob is over this at the HC level and Darece has just been called as a group facilitator along with a dozen others from the stake. These folks provide direction to the groups over the 12 wk courses (eg: financial mgmt, find a better job, entrepreneurship, etc)  provided by the Church. Last night the Bakers, an Area Self Reliance Missionary couple did the training! 

We have our Billings stakes schedule well underway for the next 3-4 months plus where we will stay on the wkends. It's so exciting to work with these new leaders! 

We love you all,   keep up the great work & CTR     Our love,  Mom & Dad