Kimberly & Tyler got married on March 11, 2010! It was a great day! We are so happy for them!

Kimberly & Tyler

The Bride!


Sisters!

Ben gave a talk on Joshua 1:9 on February 28th...he did such a great job. Ben's dad came early and gave Ben a blessing and in it he said that he blessed him that he would be able to get through the talk without interference with his headaches and that he would be inspired to say something that somebody would need to hear. As he was sitting on the stand, I could tell that his head was hurting...I was so worried about him, but he was able to get through his talk just fine. After it was over, I could tell that his migraine was getting pretty bad. I asked him later how his head felt during his talk and he said that he didn't even think about it and that it didn't bother him...what an answer to his blessing that he was given. Ben is such an amazing dad and husband and rarely complaines about his health problems. I am so lucky to be married to him! I love you babe! Below is a copy of Ben's talk that he gave.

Good afternoon. I’d like to thank the bishopric for the opportunity to speak today. I know they took a chance on me [being able to be here] and I really appreciate it.

There are times when members are asked to speak in church because they are well versed in a certain subject. Take brother Lee and temple work as an example. There are other times when speakers are assigned a subject that will help them with that topic more than anyone. My talk today is certainly an example of the latter.

In the old testament, we read the story of Moses, and how he led the Israelites out of captivity and into the promised land. As they were near the end of their journey, Moses succumbed to old age and passed away. Moses had been a man of God, and in Dueteronomy 34:10 we read, “and there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”
That’s the legacy Joshua was left to follow. He had been ordained the next prophet and leader of Israel, and had a huge task in front of him. He felt down and discouraged and was daunted by the task at hand. In the first chapter of Joshua, the Lord speaks to Joshua to reassure him and lift him up. In verse 9, the Lord tells Joshua, “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: For the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.”

The Lord’s command to Joshua is as applicable today for each one of us as it was for the ancient prophet. We will each face discouragement, trials, sorrows and temptations, yet we must remember these words and endure to the end so that we can live with Him again.
That’s a much easier thing to say than it is to do. How can we keep an eternal perspective in the midst of our problems?

While pondering this question, I kept coming back to one of the principles in Stephen Covey’s very successful book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The second of the seven habits is to “Begin with the end in mind.” What does that mean? It means that we must have a clear focus of where we are going and what we are trying to do if we are going to do it successfully. A carpenter envisions, draws and plans a home before it is built. An athlete trains hard daily through the pain and injuries in hopes of one day winning a gold medal. This is just as relevant to our eternal salvation as it is in business or our personal lives.

So, then, what is the “end” we should be planning and preparing for? The greatest of all gifts, Eternal life with our Father in Heaven and our families. If we are able to keep this eternal perspective, life’s speedbumps, sorrows and problems will only be a small part of a much larger picture.

I just got the latest edition of the ensign on Saturday- who knows, it may have arrived last month, but we only check our mail every few weeks, so it was new to me. It’s too bad, because there is a great article by Larry Richman in it called “Learning through Life’s trials.” If I had found the article a week ago, I could have just read the whole thing from the pulpit and called it my talk- but that wasn’t the case.

In the article, Larry has a great quote from Brigham Young about keeping our eternal focus. Brigham states:

"We talk about our trials and troubles here in this life; but suppose that you could see yourselves thousands and millions of years after you have proved faithful to your religion during the few short years in this time, and have obtained eternal salvation and a crown of glory in the presence of God? Then look back upon your lives here, and see the losses, crosses and disappointments, the sorrows...; you would be constrained to exclaim, 'but what of all that? Those things were but for a moment, and we are now here. We have been faithful during a few moments in our mortality, and now we enjoy eternal life and glory, with power to progress in all the boundless knowledge and through the countless stages of progression, enjoying the smiles and approbation of our Father and God, and of Jesus Christ our elder brother."

I think he sums up the “begin with the end in mind” concept perfectly.

But, we will find no scriptural reference or quotes from our prophets telling us our lives here on earth will be easy. Fortunately, we do not have to do it alone. Our Father in Heaven wants more than anything for us to be able to return to live with him. As parents, maybe we can feel some of this profound love our Father has for us with our own children.

In Moses 1:39, God tells Moses, “For this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and the eternal life of man.” It is our Father’s work and glory to bring us home. Every one of us.

He has given us a Plan that we can follow to return to Him. This is not an easy path, but there is a way. It requires our learning through trial and error, suffering and tears. But, in the end, we can make it back, if we are faithful.

In the pre-existence, in the great meeting where Father layed out the plan, we all agreed to come to earth and receive our earthly bodies. We knew what it entailed, yet we still shouted for joy at the chance we had to do it.

Yet, many of us, when faced with the trials of everyday life, will say, “it’s not fair” or “why me?” Sometimes everything seems to pile down around us and life seems bleak. We all have different trials and faults, in different amounts- some more obvious than others.

But, we can rest assured, that life is fair. God is fair. He is just. If not, he would cease to be God. He has no favorites among us and loves us all individually, personally and perfectly. We will all be judged by the only one who could do so- our Savior Jesus Christ. He has walked in all of our shoes, and we will be judged according to what we have here and what we have learned compared to what we were given. The young child in the slums of Haiti and the wealthy church member in Highland, Utah will both have a fair trial by Christ’s perfect scale. If we are asking "why me?" during difficult times, we should also be asking, "why me?" when we consider the countless blessing He has given us.

Recently I was able to watch a tv show on the National Geographic channel about the making of a japanese samarai sword, or Katana. It is an ancient, spiritual process that dates back hundreds and hundreds of years.

To create the perfect Katana, it will take three men three months of labor. The first man involved is the furnace tender. He is responsible for stoking the fire that will be used to create the steel. He builds this fire and watches it carefully over a period of three days and nights. During this time he will not sleep, but will seek to create the perfect environment for the creation of the steel for the sword. He’ll add powdered iron ore to the fire over time, slowly developing a ball of molten metal at the bottom of the furnace. The iron ore will combine with the carbon and other elements present in the fire to create the foundation of what will become the sword. When it is just right, he will remove the metal.

The metal is then allowed to cool. With his trained eye, he will select only the parts of the melted ore that have just the right amount of oxidation to create the sword.

The sword will then be passed to the sword smith. The family of the man in the tv show had been doing sword smithing for 800 years. The smith will take the raw metal, and begin a tedious process of heating the steel, and beating it with a hammer. With every hammer strike, sparks fly. These sparks are impurities in the metal escaping. He will pound the metal flat, then fold it over upon itself. He will keep heating, pounding, and folding until the steel is uniform and perfect, and the impurities are gone. The finished steel will weigh 50% less then the original piece due to this purification process, and have over 5000 layers of folded steel. The sword is then heated to the perfect temperature, and dunked in a cool vat of water. This process sets the steel in its current state, locking the molecules in a lattice of strength and power. If done incorrectly, the sword will be brittle and break, or it will be too soft and will bend under pressure.

The sword is then passed to the craftsman who will do the polishing. Each sword is unique and certain stones will be used to hone the steel to a mirror finish. When completed, the sword will be the perfect combination of beauty, strength, and function. Every step in this laborious process is vital to the end product, and no corners can be cut.

In our lives, our Father in heaven is the one doing the perfecting- remember, it is his work and glory to bring us back home. This will require our bodies and souls, much like the sword, to be tested, hammered, pounded and folded. The tests will be given to us that will be used to drive out our impurities and bring us closer to our heavenly home, if we let them. Will we break and bend when tested, or will we face the heat, and grow from it? Our Father allows this to happen because he loves us. Were it not for the constant stresses and tests of mortal life, we would not, and could not, learn and grow.

Nobody is exempt from the beatings and fires of this life. Think back on the best men to ever walk this earth. In fact, it seems, they had more trials than most of us will ever see. Nephi. Job. Abinadi. Joseph Smith. And, the ultimate example, Jesus Christ.

Even God’s Only Begotton Son had to face the trials, troubles and sorrows of this world. In fact, he faced all of them. All of them. This is why he alone may stand in our shoes and judge our lives with a perfect, loving hand.

As we face our own trials, only we can determine how we will handle them. Will we take them and use the lessons we learned to grow closer to God? Or will we turn the other way, and grow weaker because of them? God has given us the most precious gift of our free will. What will we do with it?

At the age of 12, the poet William Ernest Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians decided that to save his life, his leg would need to be amputated. It was amputated at the age of 25. In 1875 he wrote the poem “Invictus” from his hospital bed.

I love this poem, and I have it taped to the mirror in my bathroom. It helps remind me that I am the one responsible for how I will react to what life brings. I’d like to read it now.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

When faced with the tests of this life, only we can decide what to do with them. We are truly the captain of our souls. Our Father has given us the chance to learn and to earn our way back to him through his Son Jesus Christ.

Like Joshua, we have been commanded to be strong and of good courage, neither be afraid, or dismayed, for the Lord shall be with us wherever we go. He has extended his hand, we need just take it.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Testimony and end.

Happy Birthday Parkerbear! I'm so glad you were born! You are the sweetest little boy ever! I love you so much! You have such a sweet spirit about you. I wanted to list some of the things that you do/love right so that I don't forget:

Payton is your best friend & you love to try to give him hugs/kisses but he tries to run away when you do that

You love to snuggle and would all day long if possible

You are so sweet

You tell me you love me several times a day

You LOVE eating chips, cookies, etc and if we are anywhere with them, you would rather sit there with a big plate of food instead of playing with your friends

If you start coughing, you usually will go to the bathroom and say "I have to throwup"

You love playing with baby Tanner

You love the wii

You love stuffed animals

You love webkinz

You would rather have me help you get ready, etc than do it yourself...you always say you are too little

This past year when anyone would ask you your name you would always say Parkerbear

You would rather stay home with me all day

You are a little smartie pants and love to learn to read

You are such a good boy and WE LOVE YOU!

I was putting Payton's contacts in before school and we were talking about how cool it is that he can wear contacts. I just wanted to remember this conversation, because I thought it was so funny.

Payton: Everyone keeps telling me I'm beautiful...

Me: Really? (smiling) Who's been saying that to you?

Payton: My teacher does and then when I went to library, the librarian asked me where my glasses were and teacher told her that I wear contacts. She looked at me and said, "well, you are just gorgeous!"

kinda funny and cute!

My BIG seven year old!

Payton is absolutely obsessed with Pokemon! He LOVES collecting the cards and so I thought that it would be fun to make him a Pokemon cake! They do not have any kits for those, so we bought a bunch of the caracters from Toy R Us and it worked out great!


Blowing out the candles



Tanner was having fun too!



Tanner is so funny! He sometimes likes to eat like a dog or cat and not use his hands.

Our tree...as you will see below, it is one of Tanner's favorite things.

This year Salisbury Homes decided to giveaway 8 playhouses to families in need.

4 were given to families in Utah County and 4 to St. George families.

Vickie and I were in charge of the Kuester family.

We bought lots of clothes and toys and some food and delivered it with the playhouse

on December 23rd. After it was unloaded, the kids came out and were able to see it!

It was a really fun experience!

Check out me and Vickie on the News! I was so nervous!

Me and the Channel 5 Camera Man

Parker and Ellie's Preschool Christmas Program was super cute!

They did a great job and sang the songs really good!

Payton has a GREAT teacher this year that has gone the extra mile to do special things

for the kids and parents. The school has an annual singalong that all of the classes

participate in, and Mrs Goettche had them prepare for that as well as a private

performance for all of the parents that had a bunch of different songs. I'm certain

that it took a lot of extra time and effort to have it perfect. It was such a cute

performance! The kids sang several songs with actions to go along with it and all of

them had speaking parts! It was seriously so cute! Before we went to the

performance, Payton had said that he hated singing and doing stuff like this,

but I swear, you would never had known it...he went all out and was totally

into all of the songs/actions. It was awesome to watch.

Payton's class sang two songs at the Christmas Singalong for the entire school.

It was really cute and he did a great job.

We had to leave right after the performance because he had an appointment with
the dentist to get his two crazy extra front teeth pulled...unfortunately, it didn't work

and we had to reschedule to have him sedated to get them pulled...he definitely does

NOT like being numb from the shots!