Today in Elders Quorum we had a "Teachings For Our Times" lesson. The talks that we discussed were from the April 2006 conference. The one that we spent the most time on was by President Hinckley called "The Need for Greater Kindness". I taught the lesson and we had a good discussion about a lot of things, the first being racial profilling. The fact the President Hinckley has to talk about it in general conference is troubling. There were other parts of the talk that we discussed, including how we treat people and the long term effects on our actions.

It excites me to be able to hear general conference again and to hear the leaders of our church. This next weekend is the fall session of the conference. It is always a good opportunity to recharge battaries and re-commit to to better for the next 6 months.

Tonight is family night.

I got home from work today and Cami had to run to the store to get a couple things for us for the family night treat and a few other miscellaneous things.  Right before she left she asked me if I would plan a lesson for family night. I said that I would, but shortly after she left the boys woke up and demanded a lot of my attention. So much so that I didn’t have time to plan anything.

After she got home we ate dinner and got cleaned up and we were talking about what we were going to do for family night. We weren’t sure what the lesson would be but thought that we would get something for the boys, as we always do. It was a nice night so we decided to go to the park while there was a little daylight left. We got out to the car and realised that we didn’t have the keys to the car. Our garage door wouldn’t open. Sometimes when it does this, I have to go in and pull the plug because it get overheated and doesn’t work. I thought that it was no problem because I would just go around and get the spare key off the deck, but Koby had taken it and played with it in the house and it didn’t get put back. So, we were locked out of our house with no way to get in.

I remember giving Jaris and Marcie a key to our house back when we moved in, but when I called them and asked them, they didn’t know where it was. We decided to walk to the park and wait to see what to do when we got back.

Jaris came over and tried his garage door opener, but had no luck either so we figured that we would have to call a locksmith.

We walked home and when we got there, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to teach the boys the power of prayer and faith. We had our lesson on faith for family night. We talked to them and told them that we needed Heavenly Father’s help and that we needed to say a prayer. So, Cami said the prayer and tried the garage door opener and low and behold, it worked. Cami had a little shock on her face and I am sure that I did a little too. Koby was so excited that Heavenly Father helped us and was really impressed. We went in and talked about prayer and faith. I read a scripture from Mormon 9:37 that talked about prayers being answered because of faith.

It turned out to be a pretty good lesson.

We have a direct challenge from a senior apostle to have 30 progressing
investigators for each of our wards by October. Basically what happened
was Elder L. Tom Perry went to the Sterling ward for a baptism of a
family member (niece or granddaughter or something) and he wanted to
have a special meeting with the ward mission leader and missionaries in
the ward. He asked them about their progressing investigators and their
member involvement/participation in the ward. When they told them about
their investigators and Elder Perry said "That’s pathetic"

How would you like to hear that from an Apostle? Yikes, I am glad that
it wasn’t me when I was the ward mission leader. It was done in a
loving way, obviously so it was more of an inspiring interview then a
degrading one from what I heard. Well, word got back to our stake
president and he said that he wanted the whole stake to accept the
challenge and not just the Sterling ward. We got Elder Perry’s personal
email address and are supposed to report to him on a weekly basis, so
it is pretty serious and interesting.

Well, I do not know how the other wards in the stake are doing but our
ward has really pulled together and put together a solid plan to get
the help to the missionaries on track. Each of the auxilaries are
required to have a certain amount of investigators each week. It is
interesting to see the ward really put a concerted effort toward a
worthy goal and it is going to be good to report to the Brethern about
our progress and I will update our progress from time to time. I will possibly put a link to a conference talk if and when that occurs.

We have had a lot going on the last couple weeks. I am not sure where to start.

Business is looking good. I have a few good things going on right now that are exciting and I am looking forward to doing things right. We (Jaris, Dad and I) are partnering with Mike Butcher at his business. His partner, Bevan Wilde is moving to Utah and we are going in to help out with what they are doing. It is exciting because they are doing a lot of really good things and making a big impact on people in Northern Colorado. We are moving our office the end of the month and we are going to have a new office built. There is one in Windsor that they are building, but we might have one somewhere else. We are not sure yet.

Church has been pretty good. We have a lot going on there in elders quorum. We have had a bunch of moves this summer. It is really taking a lot of time and I am trying to make sure we stay on top of them. We had one (the Gollhofer’s) on Monday night that, for family night we went and helped out with and they are finishing tonight. Tomorrow all day the Adams’ are moving and Friday the Tracy’s are moving. We had one last week and two the week before, one of which being the Bennett’s that took all week and I am not sure it even got all the way done. We will see what happens and try and keep the work balanced out so that the same couple elders that always show up do not get too burned out.

The boys are doing good. They are riding their bikes a lot and doing really good. Spencer is still having trouble getting started and stopped on his own, but he is doing fine with kepping upright, as long as he keeps peddling. He likes to crash into the grass and thinks that is funny. Koby is a maniac and goes and stops without problem. It is pretty funny to see.

We have a ward campout this weekend. It is at some place in Briggsdale. I can’t remember what it is called, but we are excited to go. I think that it will be a good time and we should have fun. The boys are looking forward to it.

Koby had his 4th birthday this last monday. I can’t believe that he is getting that old. We went to Chuck E Cheese and had a lot of fun. Here are a couple pictures.

You can see more pictures here.

Life has been interesting in the last 24 hours in the Hansen household. Life is challenging and stressful, but at the same time I feel excited about the future. I know that our situation is only temporary and that we will make it through the trials that we are going through. I am working on a couple joint ventures at work, along with some other things that will pay off in the near future, assuming it all goes right. I have a mortgage group that is willing to send out a letter referring my services to all their clients and letting them know what I do along with a gift certificate of sorts for a free consultation about what I do. I also have a few other things going that will be positive. If I can just get through the time being.

Koby gave a talk yesterday in church about prayer and how prayers are answered. He did such a good job. I was so proud of him and the courage he had to stand right up there and give a good talk. Cami helped him and he did great. They are great kids, even though they get on our nerves sometimes. But, what kid doesn’t get on their parents nerves once in a while.Well, I know that we all go through challenges in our lives. I also know that our Father in Heaven hears and does answer prayers. I have a testimony of that. I have faith that we will never have challenges that are too much for us to bear and I am grateful for the strength and lessons that I have to go through that help me now and prepare me for the future. We will succeed.

Cami left today for Girls Camp. It is just me and the boys. She left about 11:00 and it is now 1:15. The house looks like a tornado hit, we have a fewnew  scratches and bruises, nothing major. We have eaten popsicles, french fries, corn dogs, granola bars and grahm crakers. I am not sure how she keeps the house in control, but she is good.

We made little notes to stick in her suitcase. The boys colored flower pictures and loaded them up with stickers of police and fire trucks, all kinds of sports, Thomas the Train, morotcycles and who knows what else. They were pretty ecxited. I wanted to put them into her suitcase and have her find them when she got up there, but Koby wouldn’t go along with it and told her that they made them and wanted to show her before she left. She liked them and was excited. She then made them little cards and left them on their beds. They found them a while later and thought they were really neat.

One of my goals while she is gone is to teach the boys to ride bikes without training wheels. They are doing really well and making progress. Spencer is a little young still but has no trouble keeping up with Koby. He is actually doing as well as Koby, maybe better. He is only 2.5 years old. It is pretty cute. I have been trotting back and forth with them to Scott and Janna’s house and then up our driveway. Then they got into going around the garage, out the driveway and down the hill into the neighbor’s yard. They can go if they are concentrating, but when they stop and look around, down they go. No major accident’s…yet.

We are making a big poster that says "Welcome Home Mom" for the garage. I drew the letters and they are working on coloring it in. I will take pictures along the way and keep track of our progress. They think it will be neat.

We are planning a camping trip tomorrow at Boyd Lake and then the next night at my mom and dad’s house. I am not sure if we are going to sleep in the tent again, but we might. Jaris, Tyson and Erica might go down also and I think they will sleep in the house, so we might end up there also.

Well, I really like keeping a journal in a blog format. The boys are playing pretend night time and want me to go back and reac them a book and sing them a song.

Unitl next time,
Brandon

Today in Elder’s Quorum Collin Richardson taught out of the WIlford Woodruf manual about journalling. I have thought that I need to be more consistent about it and have not been very goo lately. So, I thought that starting a blog to journal my activities and days would be one easy way to do it.

I am going to be more consistent and will continue to make progress towards following what the prophet has asked us to do.

I got the following email that I thought was cool. I don’t like to forward mass email’s, so I will just post it here for anyone that wants to see it.

Malachi  3:3 says: ?He will sit as a refiner and purifier of  silver.?