Teaching the 11 year olds at their summer camp

Council Summer camp for our 11-year-olds got cancelled so Sister Allen develop one at her own backyard (and little farm). Ward members helped her with the program (July 20-21). I did two presentations, one on Citizenship and the second on "No Trace Camping" The latter was quite fun. We marched to an imaginary camp and set it up (200 feet away from water, and setting up waste disposal, etc. , using Leave No Trace principles.

Nathan employment

With Nathan’s permission and support, Matthew, Emilie, Scott and I have prepared a cover introduction to his employment resume, with the idea of distributing these through our three Spanish Fork and Mapleton stakes. Our thinking is that this method may identify some added options for employment, that don’t seem to be known by Voc Rehab or regular job search channels.

Thanks to Valerie for the picture. Handsome guy, isn't he?

At the cabin, July 5-10

This week at the cabin we had about everyone in our family part of the time. Nathan and Gloria stopped by Tuesday, returning from an anniversary camping trip at Jordanelle. Valerie and the three younger boys were there all week. Angela brought her three youngest up for the day Wednesday. Alison brought 6 for a couple of days. Emilie and all her kids came Thursday and stayed until Friday night. Matthew and Kimberly and all came Friday morning and stayed until Saturday.

It was cool at night, and there were afternoon thunderstorms every day.

Some highlights:
--Fishing (twice) at the pond by the Wasatch State Park Information building: All of the kids who fished caught something, about 20 in all. All of the fish were pan-sized except Jeremy pulled in a whopper Rainbow, 17 inches long and weighing a pound and a half. There was a lot of interest in cleaning the fish and Trenton was even brave enough to try it.

--Picking flowers

--Hikes

--Apple Pancake eating contest Friday morning–winners tied with record 17: Justin and Jonathan. Note Jamison’s look, presumably about the time that he dropped out of the competition.

--Erin celebrating her 14th birthday Friday

--Lots of playing and visiting

--Admiring the scenery and the clouds

The poetry of God

I awoke Thursday morning with the happy thought: “Today I will be able to go to the temple and say some of the greatest of God’s poetry.” I am grateful for this insight that I largely received in a conversation with Richard Dilworth Rust in the Raleigh temple, that poetry has been said to be “the highest form of expression” and the words of God and his prophets often can be seen to be expressed in poetic forms.

The temple being the epitome of spiritual instruction, a person should expect to discover in the temple ceremonies poetic expressions and language. I have not been disappointed in this expectation.

What are some of the poetic forms that one might discover, that increase the power of the temple ceremonies?
1) Rhythm and tempo in the wording
2) Alliteration, that is, the repetition of sounds usually in the starting of words
3) Imagery
4) Parallel expressions
5) Words repeated with stronger emphasis
6) Phrases of increased then shortened lengths that build intensity and then sum up a subject

Pictured: the new Kansas City temple