Church

Tonight we went to the Young  Women in Excellence program at the church.  True to form, they had a great program!  The theme was Mission Possible and each of girls had secret agent names.  It was cute.  Brittany was Special Agent OSO, and Kirstyn was Special Agent Caramel.  We got a laugh out of that.

They had a great video presentation and then some wonderful words from the leaders.  The project tables were out in force as well.  Brittany showed her cooking interest, and Kirstyn showed some of the knitting she had been doing for baby blankets.  What a great night!  We sure have great young women!  🙂

Tonight, we had a GREAT event over a the church.  Our long-planned “Meet the Mormon’s Night” finally came to pass and we had a wonderful attendance.  We had lots of friends of ward members come and it was wonderful to share with them everything about the church and what we believe.  The official program was great and the “tradeshow” format after was just as effective.  We were there much later than expected because people kept hanging around, asking questions at all the booths, and having a wonderful time eating refreshments.

Ben was an absolute kick in the pants tonight!  One of the booths had mint lifesavers, and not too many of them were being taken, so Ben took it upon himself to do something about it.  He totally filled his pockets to overflowing with them and walked around giving them out to everyone!  🙂  His pockets so full he could barely walk and we were dying laughing!

I didn’t get a very good picture (head blurry) because I was laughing so hard and couldn’t hold my phone steady.  What the little character!  He sure has everyone by the heart strings, though.  They just all love him to death.  The problem is that he knows it!  🙂

Today, Angela had her first official scouting training at East Aurora High School!  It is so cute to see her walk out the door with her binder in her bag and her scout shirt on!  🙂  She had a fun time there with a couple of the other leaders from the wards that go to our building and combine with our pack.  She learned first-hand how quirky scouting can be.  🙂

Tonight was pack meeting, and Zach received his Bobcat award!  He was so excited to go and get his first rank advancement!  He has been working really hard and doing all his requirements.  Angela has been doing an outstanding job so far, making sure that they plan activities that will help the boys to get their requirements done.  When they called Zach up (and his parents), he was ALL smiles and barely could contain himself!  🙂

We are so proud of him and his hard work so far!  First step to Eagle, Zach!!!  Great job!

Today, we had a wonderful experience at the College of DuPage (COD).  Angela in her role with Public Affairs went and gave a wonderful “Mormon’s Next Door” presentation to a comparative religion class that one of the young men in our ward is in.  He helped set it up and the teacher was pretty excited.  I went along as the “tech” guy and got everything set up.  Bishop Brown also came, along with the stake’s Public Affairs Director that Angela works with.  She did an OUTSTANDING job and handled herself VERY well.

At first there were not too many questions, but then the flood gates opened and the kids started asking all kinds of questions.  We were surprised that there were not too many controversial questions asked.  The kids were more interested about missionary service, humanitarian service, and things like that.  I guess that goes to show the maturity of those kids who are taking the class because they WANT to.  We were supposed to take up about 3/4 of the class time, but ended up going all the way to the end and then we stayed after for about 30 minutes still answering questions.

Great job Angela, Bishop, and all involved!

Angela had her first cub scout roundtable tonight!  I had to give her a hard time as she went out the door in her new scout shirt!  🙂  What goes around comes around Angela!  All those times you poked at me leaving in my scout shirt have come back!  🙂

We can’t believe that school is just around the corner again!  Tonight we had our end-of-summer swim party at the South Pointe pool and clubhouse for the young men and women in our ward.  We had a great turnout and a lot of the kids had friends come to join us.  Brittany had 4 I think.  No surprise that all of them were GUYS!  Oh well, we can’t take the total and complete boy-craziness out of her so we might as well learn to live with it (to a certain extent).  😐

Angela attended her first roundtable as a cub scout leader tonight!  She looks so cute in her new scout uniform!  🙂