Wonderful Day Off

I work 6 days a week and do not get home till usually 11 at night. So it has been tough to find time to update my blog or do anything except try to spend every free minute with my wife and family. Yesterday I took a day off to celebrate Kiera's and my birthday. I only get two flex days a summer so we wanted to make the best of my day off. We woke up and picked up the house before the babysitter came over. We ended up leaving late which made us not make it to the Temple session (which we found out later we were the only married couple and were supposed to be the witness couple). They made room for us in initiatories. This is a small Temple and it is amazing how small it really is. There is only one initiatory room where only 3 people can be doing initiatories at one time. I have to say that I felt the Spirit so strong as I stood waiting to start initiatories. I felt so happy to be there in the Lords house and I was impressed with the whole operation of the Temple and felt a great love and admiration for Temple Presidents. I can't express all the things that I felt but I can say that it was a most glorious time and my love for Temple work was increased. After initiatories Kiera and I met in the Celestial Room. This is always the highlight my Temple experience to see my beautiful bride all dressed in white and to me her countenance glows in Temple and I love to look at her. She told me that apparently I am not the only one. She told me that one of the Temple workers told Kiera that she is so young and beautiful that she just loves to sit there and look at her. She also said that women are the most beautiful when they are pregnant. I would have to agree, I love it when Kiera is pregnant. If I could go to the Temple everyday with my wife I would be the happiest man alive.

Next we went to eat at Red Robin because we had several coupons, a birthday coupon for Kiera and Alexa and a $3 off coupon. Our entire bill was only $6 with tax. We love Red Robin, they have the best hamburgers and we love their bottomless fries.

We then went to Nashville Shores (water park) because we have season passes. They were having Elephant rides and we have never been on an elephant before. We did not have enough cash at the time for us all to ride and so I was just going to go and then the girls were going to come on Saturday since this would be my only opportunity. But Lacie cried and cried. So we decided to wait and see if we can get more cash and ride it together. After we finished swimming Kiera got enough money for us all to ride the elephant. Kiera could not ride because she is pregnant but she was able to sit on it quickly so I could take her picture. Elephants are big and there backs are very bony. Lacie yelled while we were riding it that its wings were hitting her and Alexa said that "his wings are flapping my feet". I told them that those are not wings but ears. It was fun.

Lastly we went to Hard Rock Cafe to eat since Kiera has never been there. I sold a security system to a guy that works there and he said that he would give us a good discount. He said that he is off all Tuesdays and so Kiera and I switched our day to Wednesday so that he would be there. We got there and he was off, we were frustrated. We ended up not eating there because nothing looked good and it was expensive. We had a hard time trying to decide where to eat and we finally decided to eat at D&D restaurant that was at the mall across the hall from the movie theater. My hamburger was good and big but Kiera did not like her Chicken Alfredo that much.

After we were done we went and watched Oceans 13. It was a pretty good movie but Kiera sleep through the entire movie. She is so funny, every time we sit down and watch a movie at home Kiera falls asleep. She is crazy.

At least we had lots of fun on my day off, even though everything went wrong and Kiera was stressed the whole day.

Knowledge is not by chance

I reflected on my earlier experience where the Lord brought to my remembrance the name of Vaughn J Featherstone. Micha had told me about his scripture memorizing program and I had wanted to learn more about it. When I was home I could not remember his name. The Lord brought his name to my remembrance (John J. Featherstone, which when googled it came up as Vaughn).

I was in the shower thinking about this experience when the Spirit began to teach me. I was taught that all knowledge and experiences are given by either of two sources, either the Lord (righteousness) or the devil (evil). This is applied to agency as well, because either we are enticed by evil and choose evil, or by good and choose good. Our obedience to either, gives greater power to whichever side we yield to, therefore allowing increased enticement. Therefore, all knowledge is given to us and it will be to our benefit or condemnation. Others may assist us as well, like Micha, he was guided to impart that information to me, whether he realizes it or not. We are all instruments of the Lord or the devil at all times.