Favorite Weekend

Here I am again, making a cameo appearance on this blog .  .  . oh wait, this is MY blog? As in I should be posting consistently? My bad. I will say that in my absence of posts I have at least THOUGHT about posting so that's a step right?

I could try and catch up on everything that's been going on with us for the last 5 months, but I don't really feel like it. Today is a new day and that's where we're starting! ... it will still be a marathon post. Read if you please, or don't, it's fine.
Here we go.

Oh the Monday after General Conference. Some people compare it to the day after Christmas where you kind of just feel like "This stinks it's a whole 364 days until Christmas!" But with General Conference I'm not feeling that way (even though Conference IS as good or even better than Christmas). Today I'm feeling excited and empowered to DO and to APPLY and really LIVE the things the servants of God have been teaching us for the last 2 days. In some ways the actual exciting part is just beginning. Not to just listen to it, but to live it.

This Conference felt so peaceful for me, a confirmation about what really matters in life. That God will never change, we can rely on Him and His teachings. He will guide us. He loves us. He is constantly blessing us. We can be better, and we will, but he loves us unconditionally already.

I especially love spending conference with Russ. (ok yea, I love doing anything with Russ)
We're together the whole weekend, listening together, talking about what we like etc etc. For the last week or so we've talked and prayed about the questions that we each have personally and as a family that we were looking for guidance on through conference. I love the unity that comes to us and we strive for spiritual things. This weekend didn't disappoint.

We started out with Russ' mission reunion on Friday night. It's fun for him to see old friends and for me to get to know a little better people that I've heard about for years. President and Sister Thompson are the best. So loving and happy. As they each shared a small spiritual message I couldn't help but be taken up in my memories of Argentina. Man I love that place, people, my memories and the entire experience. A mission is a special time that's for sure. The reunion was a blast.

We decided to just stay in Murray the whole weekend, we slept at my parents house on Friday night. I got up early that morning for a nice long run, well not super long, like an hour. Then I drove over to Murray Park to do some hill sprints by the soccer field. It was a beautiful morning and I was flooded with memories from playing high school soccer there - good times! Then as I got home my mom was doing yoga in the living room so I jumped in with her. Can I just say that my mom is so amazing? What an awesome example! Eventually Val joined us...I love exercising with my sisters and mom and love that we enjoy doing that together.

Me and my handsome date.

Before we knew it, it was time for conference to begin! That first session was AWESOME! I especially love President Eyring's talk - check it out. For the afternoon session we got to go to the Conference Center since Grandfather was speaking that session. There is nothing like being in the conference center. Wow I love it. We drove up with Ricky, Katie, Grace, and Val. It was Gracie's first conference! She is just adorable and I am always so impressed with her! Grandfather's talk was amazing and was seriously an answer to my prayers.

Val and I (as always) had fun picking outfits out together, and as the perfect compliments to our ensembles we added these great clutches! (First time I've used one and it was FUN!) Also a fun trivia fact, the one Val has is inherited from our Grandma Mitton and the one I'm using is from our Grandma Larsen. Grandma's with a fashion sense I tell ya :)

For priesthood Russ went to my stake center with my dad and Robbie and Ricky (one of the perks of all 3 of those brothers marrying girls from the same stake eh?) Meanwhile Angie and I went up to the McKellars house on Normandy Circle with Emily and her kiddos for the Nelson donut night! (All the sisters get together and make homemade donuts and bring soup for everyone while the brethren are at priesthood, then the men come back and share their favorite parts about Priesthood) Angie and I had never REALLY been for the full donut experience, so we decided we needed to go. And as expected it was such a blast! Absolutely loved it.

This is only a small sample of the donuts! Marjorie even made a gluten free batch so I actually had one!

Traditions are so important, I love to participate and especially just have time and opportunity to get to know people better and basically just bask in their goodness! I especially enjoyed talking to Aunt Marsha about her earliest memories of donuts and how it started etc. She shared with Angie and I how it became an amazing thing to have a glimpse into the spiritual side of their brothers/nephews/sons/cousins as all the men-folk come back from priesthood and share some of their favorite parts of the Priesthood sessions. It was also fun to get to chat with Rosalie, Angela McKellar and some more of the cousins. I just feel like I am basking in their goodness, family is such a blessing!

Just a few of the donut makers...it is quite the process!

Saturday night we stayed at "The Compound" (aka the Irion's murray house) with Ricky, Katie & co. (Even though we randomly got there once they were just getting into bed and Katie thought somone was breaking in when she heard us downstairs! Sorry Katie!) Sunday morning was so much fun making breakfast with them, playing with the kids and we were even treated to a special magic show from Grace, Duncan and Charlotte. Seriously they are so clever, cute and smart. Love them.

Aren't these 2 the cutest? Love that Hannah Banana!

Charlotte and Grace wanted me to paint their nails, which was fine with me, I love painting there's more than mine so that's great!

When you're 3 it's hard waiting for your nails to dry.

Charlotte was not happy that the paint on her thumb got "fudged"

We watched the morning session over there. Ah! I loved it. President Uchtdorf's talk on gratitude really resonated with me.  Between sessions we headed over to my parents house. We watched the KSL special about David Archuleta's mission right before the last session. Let me just tell you that Chile is really similar to Argentina and a lot of the video was in spanish and I was missing Argentina so bad! The last session was as expected - amazing.

One of my favorite things about conference is talking to other people about what they liked/took away. Top of my list for these people is of course Russ. On Saturday night I loved talking about what we had been feeling from conference that day and what we wanted to DO. Then on Sunday after the last session we went for a walk and ended up talking the entire time about what we had learned and how to strengthen our family and just all sorts of happy things :) I sure love that guy and all he teaches me.

After a quick and delicious dinner with my family we headed up to the Websters house for the Nelson Family Conference Recap. I love that tradition. The spirit is so strong and it helps me to solidify what I have felt throughout conference.

There were a few things that I definitely don't want to forget about the recap this time. First was that as soon as Grandfather asked for volunteers to share something they liked about conference Brad Wittwer's hand shot up and he shared how (of course) his favorite moment of conference was the beautiful tribute that Grandfather gave in his talk about Emily Wittwer and her faith. It was so sweet to see him pour out his gratitude, add his testimony of how Emily lived with faith and also express how he see's so much of Emily in each of her sisters and how it was so special to him to embrace each of those sisters that were there at the conference center after Grandfathers talk.

Second was just the overall feeling of the importance of family, past - present and future. It is the center of the joy of life. I cherish the camaraderie and love that comes with family ties. I'm so grateful to learn from so many amazing people in our entire family, my side, Russ' side, just everyone. I can't even comprehend how blessed we are.

The final thing that really touched both Russ and I was with Grandfathers closing remarks he expressed how he wanted to make sure that each of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren to hear his testimony from his mouth and to know of his testimony of the Savior, the truthfulness of the gospel, importance of family and his love for each one. This was really powerful to us because of all people, Grandfather has already left no doubt that he has a testimony. Not only through his many conference talks but the way he lives his life, how the light and love of Christ is literally just emanating from him at all times. - But even though there have been so many instances that we could have heard or seen his testimony he wanted to make sure that we knew of that witness and testimony. What a lesson to us all of the importance to leave that heritage of hope and testimony with our families. To let them know of our testimonies and our love for them.

So with that I add a small part of my testimony, that I know the Savior lives. I know that he directs the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I testify that we can trust every word of his chosen Prophets and Apostles. I know he loves me. I know he guides our family and that if we follow him we will be blessed, and though it may not be easy, he will carry us through and we will grow in every way. I love my family, am grateful for my testimony and cannot even begin to express or understand the importance of the atonement of Jesus Christ.


Well, if you made it this far you're pretty amazing. Thanks for reading. . . . or just scrolling through the pictures.  -  I can handle the truth ;)
 Until next time...