Spending time together

This morning started off with a a World Wide traning for adults on the importance of family. It was great to hear from the general authorities as they taught about how to find balance in our lives and the importance of putting family first. There was nothing new, but it was great to hear their counsel. I also was able to hear from President Monson for the first time as the new prophet. What a great man, I look forward to seeing him as our prophet.

This afternoon Dallin and I went to the Discovery Sceince museum. It was fun as we wenton a little hike, and then sae the animals and played with various exhibits. He had a nice time and it was great to see him learning and discovering new things. When we got home, Dallin, Carson and I went outside and played. Dallin and I played catch with a baseball, and Carson played on the swings. Dallin actually caught a few balls in his glove. He sure has a strong throwing arm, there were a few balls that he through a bit wildly, and I feared that they were going to hit the windows. He missed the windows, but had he hit them, it might have been bad!

This evening Megan and I went to a stake adult dinner dance. It was a nice evening, we did some dancing and enjoyed time with friends. It is always nice to get out for a bit as a couple. I wish I could dance better, reality is I just never feel comortable on the dance floor. Maybe that will improve with time!

So my take on the day is that being together is time well spent. I wish that everyday had time for quality time spent together as family. I am so grateful to have been blessed with a great mother, father and brothers. And so glad that the blessings continue with an amazing wife and two wonderful boys. I truly am blessed!

Lucky 13!

Well 13 years ago today I entered the MTC starting my mission. It is hard to believe that 13 years have already flown by.

I am so grateful for my mission and the many experiences that I had while I served. I don't think a day goes by when I don't reflect back on some aspect of my mission. Serving in a Spanish speaking country alone has blessed my career, giving me many opportunities to speak Spanish and work with Latin America. The leadership experiences helped prepare me for callings and for work opportunities. Living with a companion taught me how to deal with people and helped prepare me in many ways for mariage. But most of all the opportunity to learn about the Savior and to serve his children left a mark on my life that will last forever. I truly gained a deeper love for my Savior as I served and grew to know Him more intimately.

Some say that going on a mission is a sacrifice, I disagree, not having gone on a mission would have been the sacrifice. To have missed that opportunity would have been a regret that would have haunted me forever. I am so thankful for the gospel and the opportunities it provides to help us grow, and boy did I grow while I served the Lord by serving his children in Venezuela!

Gotta love technology

We live in an amazing time. I am sitting here typing on my smart phone posting a message on a Blog that will post on the internet and be accessible around the world. Yeah so what? Well technology is a true miracle in my opinion, guided by divine inspiration. The internet alone makes it possible to broadcast general conference in many different languages to people all over the world. Geneology is now as easy as ever because of the internet and other technologies. Messages of great importance can be posted or broadcast via satellite and reach virtually every corner of the Earth. It just amazes me how all these things work. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the hand of the Lord is behind it all.

It is too bad that some people take these gifts and then manipulate them for evil. But then again as the scriptures say, there must be opposition in all things.

Personally I love new gadgets (like my new phone), I love to see how they work and what they do. I went to the Consumer Enterainment Show in Las Vegas last month, it was unbelievable how many cool technologies there are and how many ideas are developed every day. It will be interesting to see which new technologies developed today will advance the work of the Lord in the future. I can't wait to see it all unfold.

It's 2008 and I'm collecting Kanz!

Well its a new year -- actually its February already, and I have a desire to be better at keeping track on what is going on in my life. I recently taught a lesson in Elder's Quorum that was based on a conference talk by Elder Henry B. Eyring from the Cotober 2007 conference. The basis of his talk was that we need to do a better job of recognizing the hand of the Lord in our lives and making record of our blessings so that they can be shared with others. Just happened to be that while on my drive to work this morning I listened to this talk again, and felt like I needed to start taking note of how the Lord blesses my life. Elder Eyring spoke about how he took time every day to note how he observed the hand of the Lord in his Life that day, and how he passed those comments onto his children later in their lives. So while thinking about that I felt that starting a blog like this would be a great way to capture my own experiences and preserve them for my boys and for others who may like to take a peek.

I am calling my blog collecting Kanz, because I am collecting my experiences, my personal collection of Kanz!

So the first thing I wanted to record are my feelings about how my life has been blessed by having a prophet on the Earth, especially Gord B. Hinckley. It has been a little over a week since he passed away. I am so glad that I lived while he was the prophet. I first witnessed his amazing witness when the Family Proclamation was published during my mission, from there I watched him lead the charge to bring Temples to the people, first to Venezuela, then to my own front door as the Sacramento temple was built. In a day of much chaos, it is such a blessing to have a prophet who leads us, and is guided by the Lord to help us find peace and our way back home. As the Hymn goes, I truly thank God for the Prophet. And I am now excited to follow our new prophet Thomas S. Monson, I know that he too will fulfill his calling with all the reverence it requires and he will help point us along our path home.

Stay tuned, my goal is to chime in every day....I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can be so dilligent!