(Other favorite things from this month are posted in other areas, like the hike to Mt. Raymond with David, Arsenic and Old Lace with Kevin and Amy, and loads of adventures with my kids.)
This was my last Stake Primary Leadership Training meeting. My presidency and I hosted a beautiful night of training, encouragement, and testimony. We focused on "filling our buckets with joy", served a delicious dinner from Pizzaria Limone, and had a round-robin training exercise where we talked about women and the priesthood, updates to the handbook, and teachings from President Nelson. I'm so happy with the way that it turned out. I didn't know at the time that it would be my last official primary training meeting, but I felt prompted to share some tender thoughts. First, how beautiful it was that I had seen each one of them embrace the call to serve in their ward primary presidency, stepping into the stewardship with faith and courage. Second, how much I have loved serving as the Stake Primary President, so much so that it has become a part of who I am, but that upon reflection I want the defining characteristic of my life to be that I am someone who chooses to serve the Lord and I will serve the Lord wherever he needs me. We sang one of my favorite Primary songs "I will Choose to Serve the Lord" and it was beautiful. This was a tender mercy for myself because I feel that it prepared me for the meeting with President Gardner just a week later informing me that I would be released in the next couple of months. I will write more about this later - but I wanted to note this personal feeling of comfort and of determination to serve the Lord wherever he needs, and of peace that "Stake Primary President" doesn't define me "Servant of the Lord" does.
-Ali Middleton and I started a Mother's of Influence group for homeschooling mothers over the summer but I feel like we are just getting into our groove with our meetings matching our vision and the relationships between the women deepening. We switch off each month as to whose house the meeting is hosted at and I'm so grateful that I get to host but don't have to host every single month. I'm also so grateful for this group of women who strengthen, uplift, and support each other in this homeschooling community.
-I finished up some of my travel watercolor artwork this month. I was introduced to the concept of "travel watercolor" and I have a little travel journal filled with paintings from places that we have gone: Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the pier in San Diego, Stone Bridge in Minneapolis. However, I often start working on the painting while we are there traveling but don't end up finishing it in the time that I have. So I flipped through my book and finished all the paintings that weren't quite finished. I love the way this disneyland photo turned out- and finishing this painting of my sisters at the ocean in Mexico made me want to go back with them so bad!
Even though we couldn't make it back to Mexico this month (ha), we did get together for Sisters night. We went out and ate tacos and then came back to my house to practice with gouche paint and do a waterfall tutorial. I am grateful for such wonderful sisters.
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