Daily Tender Mercies

After work today we had plans to paint our front door a dark gray. It is always best to use a spray gun for doors in my opinion. The sprayer I bought is great for large jobs, but overkill for small jobs like this. The other night when we helped the Bonhams sand and paint some tables I noticed he had a smaller sprayer that I thought would be perfect for the task so I called and asked if I could borrow it. Of course he said yes. They are such a nice family. I generally don’t like to borrow things like that, but I wasn’t in a position to go buy a new one. We got the front door and our porch railing repainted. It really looks nice now.

I had a mastermind mind meeting again today with my good friend Brandon. His business is going well which is always good to hear. It is fun to get together to share and get new ideas. It helps me focus on next steps and what may be the most important action items to work on. So far our mastermind consists of just the two of us and I’m fine with that. We may expand it in the future but frankly it didn’t even come up today.

Today I got engaged in some dialog on a forum regarding religion. It was basically a lot of Christians trying to convince me that I was not a Christian. I was basically trying to defend our faith. The Mormon Messages channel on YouTube was a great asset to send people to to explain well points that we believe. I enjoy defending the faith, but I don’t enjoy name calling and ignorant & hypocritical remarks. I think what I enjoy most is while others are asking (intelligent) questions, it leads me to ponder and confirms my faith and gives me greater gratitude for it. As I was singing primary songs tonight to Nolan I was again grateful for the many truths that have been revealed through modern prophets and apostles.

Rachel had a night out with friends so it was just me and the kids tonight. For the past month or so we have really struggled keeping Nolan in bed at nights. He is so wound up and will not fall asleep. Tonight I was using the "Super Nanny" technique of just sitting on the floor with my head bowed so he won’t get out of bed, but at the same time not giving him any attentions. I figured as long as I was in the position I might as well pray. As I was praying I prayed that I would know how to calm Nolan down to get him to sleep (he was still jabbering and bouncing around in his bed). The impression came to me to massage his head. So after I finished praying, Nolan was in the process of climbing out of bed again. I put him back in bed and started massaging his head, mostly on the sides above his ears. I was surprised at how relaxed it made him. Normally he doesn’t really like anyone touching his head. As I was doing this I got another impression to give him a fathers blessing. I did so by the power of the priesthood. I blessed him that he would have a happy demeanor and learn to control his temper. I blessed him that he would be able to calm down and relax at bed time so that he could get adequate rest. I blessed him that he could sense when he made others happy or sad and that he would have a desire to make others happy – especially his mother. It was a sweet experience. He fell asleep very shortly after that blessing.

We had a family home evening lesson on Patriarchal blessings tonight. It was basically drawn from random out of our bag, but it was nice to try to explain it to the kids.

At 7:00 we went to the Bonham’s house with the bishopric and all our families to help sand and paint some tables. They are preparing for their daughter’s wedding on the 13th of August. I took my sanders and my paint sprayer. My sprayer made quick work of a couple items. It was nice to have. It was a fun evening and the kids had fun playing in their backyard as we worked.

After church and after home teaching we went to visit my mom who just had knee replacement surgery. I had talked with her yesterday and she was in a lot of pain and her basement was leaking and she said it probably wasn’t a good time to visit. When I was talking to her she said Matt was there and he was going to fix her sprinkler that was leaking into the house. I had no idea that she was talking about my step-brother (Connie’s son). I suppose Alex must have called him. In any case that was very kind of him to help his step-dad’s ex-wife!

Afterwards we went to visit Carrie & Bert. Gehrig said yesterday that he wanted to go to Gramps’ house, so that’s what we did. They are always too kind to us and our kids. They make a big meal and we ate outside on the patio. Nolan wasn’t interested in eating. Gramps turned on the hose slightly and so he played in water the whole time. He’s just a little water baby!

My alarm went off at 8:45 this morning reminding me that I had signed up to help clean the church. It’s a good thing too, because I would never have remembered. I’m glad that the church is having its members take more responsibility for cleaning and maintenance. I cleaned the mens bathroom and vacuumed the halls. It was an enjoyable experience and it gives me a greater appreciation for what we have been given to worship in each week.

This morning we went out to clean the garage a bit and do some yard work. We just wanted to get it done before it got too hot. We have some stones in our front yard sporadically placed from the front gate to our porch. I was curious to see just how big these rocks where and how sporadic they were so I started tearing sod off the top of them to get to the edges of the stone. I was surprised to find it was a full 4 foot path. I spend the next few hours digging and cutting sod. It was 95 degree weather so I was drenched in sweat. Our two garbage cans are pretty much full of sod. My fingers and knees are so sore! I made it about halfway to our front gate. Here’s a picture of the result of today’s work. (This white stuff is ant powder. I disturbed a lot of bugs today.)

Tonight as I was cleaning the kitchen I decided to listen to my iPhone. I generally prefer learning something over listening to music. I don’t know why, but I’ve never been a big music listener. The church has released an iPhone application called LDS Radio. You can listen to all the latest conference talks, church magazines, even scriptures. It’s great because you don’t have to download anything, it just streams to your device. I listed to a couple of the most recent Ensign articles. It was nice. I want to do that more.

Tonight I took Nolan for a walk around the block. I checked the distance on Google Earth and it looks like we went about over half a mile. That’s not bad for 2 year old. We were hoping to wear him out so he would go to sleep sooner, but I don’t think it worked.

Just as we were about back home Rachel called. Apparently there was a bishopric meeting that I wasn’t aware of. So I got dressed and went to the meeting. It was an enjoyable night. I enjoy working with our good bishopric.