The Day before thanksgiving and Erin and Darya are here with their family. Erin drove out with the kids last Sunday and Darya flew out last night. Alex and Andrew are having fun playing with Ross and Mackay. Ross and Mackay are good kids to play with Alex and Andrew the way they do. They have all been playing football and tag outside together in our previously warmer-than-average weather. Monday was 65 degrees, yesterday had a high of 42 and today’s high is supposed to be around 37. Not too warm, but not too atypical of these parts.

Taylor, Audrey, Katy and Lizzy all spent the night over at our neighbor Karen Kirkham’s. They stayed up till 1am watching Princess Diaries 2 and playing The Great Dalmuti card game. Darya’s flight arrived late and she and Erin pulled in to our house about 1am. I had fallen asleep with Jack but woke up and stayed up till 2am talking with them. Dalliene was quite tired and moved from the couch to our bed upstairs when Darya arrived.

We are deep in the throes of T-Day preparation. We currently have a smoked turkey and an additional turkey in a salt and sugar brine solution. Darya and Dalliene are off doing last minute grocery shopping and when they return will begin Pies and Stuffing preparation. My girls are at the mall with Taylor, which I guess is ok with me because they go to the mall so very infrequently.

Erin recently left to take his boys on a quick tour of BYU so I think I may brave the cold and try and make some progress on the shed I am in the middle of building.

“The best race pace is a suicide pace, and today is a good day to die.” Prefontaine

Click here for a cool perspective on why I run

“The will to win means nothing if you haven’t the will to prepare.” – Juma Ikangaa, 1989 NYC Marathon winner

“The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
Robert Frost

Well, I had the opportunity to speak in Sacrament at my BYU ward and related my “Failed” Marathon story since it related to the topic. We all have a variety of experiences in our lives that change us in different ways. Hopefully, we learn something from them. I think part of the reason that I had this particular experience was to use it as a teaching tool to help others and prevent them from making similar mistakes in their lives. This story illustrates two concepts pretty well: “Enduring to the End” and “The principles of obedience”.

I consider myself a runner. I am not a jogger and never have been. Jogging seems like an activity whose purpose is to prevent physical decline, usually embarked upon after substantial signs of decline are evident. Jogging gets you tired; running builds you up in alternating cycles of stress and rest.

I started running some 20 years ago, though I didn’t enjoy it at first. At that time as today, my true love was cycling. Running was the pain I endured during the winter months to stay in shape for cycling. I am a Southern boy at heart and the early years

Alex and Andrew are really excited to go see the Utah Jazz vs. the Sacrament Kings tonight. Our tickets are pretty good and Alex, especially, is quite excited to see Deron Williams and Paul Milsap play. The Jazz are doing pretty well and are currently 6-2 I think.

Alex is a bit of a sports fanatic and will watch just about any competitive sport available. He is a bit small for his age but is amazingly coordinated and lightning fast. On his soccer team last season, he ran the field scoring 70-80% of his teams goals. His coach was Rock Boulter, the husband of his violin teacher. Rock is apparently quite a competitive guy and just loved having Alex on his team.

David Nimmer has a son on Alex’s team (and has a daughter, Marissa, on Katy’s Celtic Storm team) and was trying to talk me into coaching a Competitive Team next year with Isaiah and Alex on the same team. Isaiah is also in Alex’s Spanish Immersion class at Orchard Elementary. They seem to be pretty good friends. I think it would be a lot of fun coaching Alex’s team again, but I don’t think I have the time for it. David Nimmer would love to be the coach (and has offered to be the assistant coach) but is already head coach of a different son of his and is asst. coach on another daughter’s team. I’ll have to think about it, but when I mentioned it to Dalliene, she reminded me how busy I already am with 5 kids and soccer and my church calling and my job etc. etc. Oh well, we’ll see.

Today in Priesthood mtg. President McAllister brought up a good point that I have considered before. He said to us: “We believe in prayer, scriptures, receiving answers to our prayers, etc.” then he went on . . . “President Bush is a God-fearing man, goes to church, prays, and we (the american people) respect him for it. If tomorrow morning, President Bush said ‘I have been praying lately to know what to do with this situation in Iraq and God told me to do …’, he would immediately be labeled a freak and a religious fanatic.”

Praying and Receiving answers to our prayers are fundamental to our religion. We live our lives by faith and every day ask the Lord for guidance and expect to receive and do receive answers to our prayers. The concept of ancient prophets like Noah and Moses receiving revelation is accepted by nearly all Christian denominations, yet modern revelation is disdained and relegated to fringe religious groups. This illustrates the sad state of modern religious thought and belief. I must admit that I don’t understand other religious people who pray without expecting an answer. What good does praying do them?

I know that I would be lost without the Lord’s help in my daily life. I am proud to be a “Freak”. Life would be a lot more lonely without a belief in a God that cares enough about me to answer my prayers.

It was Ward Conference for my BYU 244th Ward. We had the stake presidency teach us and it was great. (btw – our Stake Presidency consists of President Vern Henshaw, Bruce McAllister, and Ron Hirschi.)

President McAllister mentioned another interesting thought today that is going to require a bit more thought on my part: Temple Recommend Question #8 – Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and priesthood meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?

President McAllister said that there is something integral to our striving to attend our priesthood meetings that helps us keep our covenants. That is why it is a part of the temple recommend questions.

I will post an update after I think about this for a bit.

Btw- My home ward, Norhridge 3rd, got a new bishop today. It will be interesting to see who has that new resposibility. That is a big job!

UPDATE 11-11-07PM: As I suspected, Mark Longhurst is the new Bishop and Martin Anderson and Jeff Mclelland are Counselors. All will serve well I am sure. Martin Anderson was the one that didn’t come to mind when I was contemplating the choices originally.

Worked all day prepping and painting the exterior trim on the front of the house. It needed it quite badly and I was glad to have a bit of warmer weather that allowed me to paint outside. I paid Katy and Lizzy $10 each to help me with the job and I really enjoyed their company. I really wanted to spend some more time working on the shed but decided I needed to take advantage of the warm temperatures (upper 60s) to paint outside.

The evening was spent with Dalliene and me painting the white trim on the main level of our home while the furniture was all gone. Our furniture is still out because we are waiting for the floors to completely dry from refinishing. It is quite a pain surviving without a stove, or kitchen table while they are refinishing the floors. We spent Wednesday thru Saturday mid-day at Rusty and Danielle’s. They were very kind to allow us to crash at their place for a few days.

I will post a pic of our home when I get a chance later this week.

Well here I am, waiting in line to vote at Aspen Elementary in Lindon. On my way over, I listened to a podcast discussion on RadioWest about School Vouchers and specifically Referendum One. It seems that there aren’t any states with comparable laws on the books to look to as a reference point. I am kind of upset that so many half-truths have been told by both sides of the issue. I believe that though it apppears imperfect, there are not enough negatives with the wording of the bill to prevent me from voting for it. I do realize that for it to work effectively in favor of public schools that some policy-level changes will have to be made at the school district to apportion teachers appropriately. It looks like my wait is about over.

Time to go cast my ballot. Ciao!