Sunday, January 27, 2008

Gordon B. Hinkley

The president of our church, Gordon B. Hinkley, passed away today. He was 97 years old. I think he is the prophet that I feel the most attached to so far, since he has led the church for my entire adult life. He dramatically increased the number of temples worldwide and the church experienced amazing growth during his years as president. He is loved and will be missed, but I can't help but be happy for him since I know he is now with his beloved wife, who passed several years before he did.

We had ward conference today and the spirit in the meetings was just amazing. Our stake president has a very strong testimony of the scriptures and he always teaches very simple but powerful lessons when he comes to speak to our congregation. We brought a friend to church today and then the missionaries came over for lunch and we watched a church video that I had never seen before ("Testament"). Overall it was a very uplifting day and I was glad to have been spiritually fed and uplifted.

Friday, January 04, 2008

I'm an aunt (again)!

Tayton and Breanne had their baby boy last night at 10:36 pm. His name is Liam and he weighs 6lbs, 8 oz. and is 19 inches long. They live out of state now, so I haven't gotten to see the baby in person, but I saw some pictures and he is super cute.

I completed a blog header for my mom a few days ago, which I think turned out nicely. I made my own header too, by the way. I'm still learning how to mess around in Photoshop Elements, but I'm having a lot of fun doing it. I decided to take part in a contest at one of my favorite digital scrapbooking forums. All of the competitors get a free digital kit to work with and have to create an original layout using only the kit. Some of the other folks have been scrapbooking a lot longer than I have, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway. If my layout is chosen to advance to the next round then I'll get another free kit and will complete another layout. I'm not getting my hopes up, but it is worth a shot. Here is my layout for the first round. Credits can be found here.