This week started and ended with physical exercise. Labor Day was truly that! Our Branch had a service project at the farm of one of our members that had lots of damage from a severe wind storm. After a 40 minute drive there we worked for hours - cutting up broken trees, stacking piles of firewood, hauling limbs and debris for burning in a great bonfire, pruning, retrieving corrugated metal barn roofing from the fields, etc. No time to rest though because the Branch Opening Social for the new school year was at the Institute that evening - and we had food to pick up and prepare before all arrived.
Brenda taught the Tuesday lunch New Testament lesson and the Wed. & Thurs. night Church History "first vision" lesson. What a blessing that event is to all mankind. She spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday preparing (except for the time she was cleaning the 3 bathrooms, putting together the monthly family newsletter or preparing the Tuesday and Thursday lunches for the students. Gary taught the Thursday lunch New Testament lesson (did a great job) and spent Friday getting a head start on his lessons for next week. Works well to alternate weeks teaching the Church History lessons. Friday we took our morning walk to a nearby nature area Gary just discovered on Google
Earth. It was beautiful with nice paths, a lily pond - complete with frogs, and an amphitheater. Friday was Institute roll sheets,registrations, and receipts day - and laundry day for Brenda. It was a reading and study day for Gary. We hadn't been out to dinner for a while so we tried a new Hibachi Grill restaurant that night - to give us a good meal before our Saturday activity. We helped clean the church Friday evening. We had amazing thunder and lightning and TONS of rain on Friday night (kept the drinking students off the street Friday night!)
We joined the community Saturday for "Walk Indiana", a non-competitive walk along the great trails here. The marathon walkers started at 7 am (too early for us!), the half-marathoners at 9 am (too time consuming), and the quarter marathoners at 10 am. That was us. We loved the 2 hour 6.5 mile walk over trails we had either walked or biked previously. It was a fantastic weather morning - cool and beautiful. It was friendly and fun with periodic stations for snacks and drinks (and porta-potties). Gave a mormon.org card to a volunteer couple. They said "you must be Romney supporters." Answer, "We didn't come here to talk politics". The woman said, "well you are For him aren't you?" A yes! and a thumbs up and she said, "GOOD!". We got cool medals at the end of the walk!
We used part of our preparation day to watch some of the BSU (that's Ball State) football game. Not fun playing the #13 ranked team. Sunday was good - and especially the CES Fireside with Elder Holland. We watched it at the Branch President's home since the church satellite was out (lightening injury to the dish).
This week started and ended with physical exercise. Labor Day was truly that! Our Branch had a service project at the farm of one of our members that had lots of damage from a severe wind storm. After a 40 minute drive there we worked for hours - cutting up broken trees, stacking piles of firewood, hauling limbs and debris for burning in a great bonfire, pruning, retrieving corrugated metal barn roofing from the fields, etc. No time to rest though because the Branch Opening Social for the new school year was at the Institute that evening - and we had food to pick up and prepare before all arrived.
Earth. It was beautiful with nice paths, a lily pond - complete with frogs, and an amphitheater. Friday was Institute roll sheets,registrations, and receipts day - and laundry day for Brenda. It was a reading and study day for Gary. We hadn't been out to dinner for a while so we tried a new Hibachi Grill restaurant that night - to give us a good meal before our Saturday activity. We helped clean the church Friday evening. We had amazing thunder and lightning and TONS of rain on Friday night (kept the drinking students off the street Friday night!)
