We had a good Sunday today, though it started out a bit hectic (as usual). Alana got asked to give a talk on Thursday or Friday, perhaps because it's her birthday this week. Anyway, that wasn't a lot of time to prepare, but we gave her the task and she started working on her talk last night. It looked like she was doing okay, but then we discovered that she was basically just reading a Friend article (Jumping Rope with Emma) and writing the text down in Notepad. We tried to explain to her that, first, there are easier ways of doing that (copy/paste), and second, she should be putting the story into her own words. She doesn't generally take well to any form of criticism, so she was a bit grumpy.
Sunday morning, I got up around 7:30AM, ate breakfast, read some scriptures, showered, and got Alana up around 8:30AM. The plan was for me to head to choir practice at 9:50AM with Alana, as the choir was singing For the Beauty of the Earth today; however, as 10AM approached I noticed that Alana was getting increasingly anxious and unhappy about the whole talk. At that point, I decided to skip choir and help her work on her talk.
The big problem she was having is that she wasn't comfortable with the idea of telling the story with her own words. She can be a bit of a perfectionist, so the idea of missing parts of a story doesn't really sit well with her, but I explained that reading a story from the Friend verbatim doesn't leave any room for the Spirit to be a part of the process. So I wrote a short outline for her that basically said, "Say good afternoon, introduce the subject of you talk ("I can be a missionary now"), and then tell the story about Jumping Rope with Emma. Finish with your testimony and close in the name of Jesus Christ."
Even on the first attempt with me, she did fine -- and it took five minutes. I used that to explain to her that a three minute talk is basically nothing in terms of length, and with the first practice run complete she finally understood what I was saying. We ran through the talk once more on the way to tithing settlement, but sadly we arrived five minutes late and the bishop had apparently left for correlation meeting. Ugh. So we went back home, ate some lunch, and then went back to the church.
The meetings were the usual affair; nothing bad or super noteworthy to report. Then we came to Priesthood/Relief Society and I had Caleb with me. He was getting grumpy and tired, and I couldn't find a pacifier, so I went to the RS room to ask Becky for the pacifier. She came out and said, "I guess we should go to hear Alana's talk now." Doh! I had totally forgot; thank goodness for Caleb.
We went to the Primary room, heard them practice one final song, and then it was time for the scripture, Alana's talk, and the closing prayer. When Alana got up to give her talk, I could tell she was still feeling nervous, but she did great! She got a bit lost for a few seconds once and had a bit of a nervous head twitch while she tried to remember the next part of the story, but then she moved on, finished with a great testimony, and Primary was over. Afterwards, at least six or seven people came up and told Alana how great she had done, and how amazed they were that she had "memorized her whole talk!" I could see while she was giving the talk that everyone was paying attention, probably because they could see that Alana was really putting some thought into the story. There was a great spirit in the room that I could feel, and I was really grateful Alana had the opportunity to talk.
After church, we had to wait around for almost an hour to get in for tithing settlements, but I felt so blessed to look at how much we had been able to contribute over the year. My base salary for AnandTech is exactly $55,800 but our total tithing and fast offering contributions came to closer to $7500. That means between Becky's babysitting and cleaning and my extra computer work on the side, we probably brought in close to an extra $20,000 this year. It's amazing to me how greatly we have been blessed, because I'm not sure how we would have fared if we had to live on just my AnandTech earnings (minus taxes).
Which brings me to the final topic. After many years and one bankruptcy with my ex-wife around ten years ago, we're finally in a position to buy a house. Becky and I have been looking at many places for the past few weeks, and after putting in an offer on one house (there was another higher offer at the same time that got accepted), we found a place in Tumwater that we liked for $200K. We put in an initial offer earlier in the week, and the bank countered with a full price offer plus 3% for closing costs. Our realtor Alex said that Fannie Mae foreclosures almost never go for less than the full asking price, but we decided to go back with a $197,500 offer yesterday. I have a feeling whether or not the bank comes down we're going to buy the house, even if it means paying the full $199,900.
When we got home from church, Becky and I felt we needed to go look at the house again, and we also looked up members from the Tumwater ward that lived on the same street. I got a hold of Brother Lyle Tillett on the phone, who lives a few houses away from the 6618 Kirsop Village Drive SW address, and we chatted for 10 minutes or so. He was quite friendly and he said there were five member families in the subdivision, including one member of the bishopric, so we were excited to hear that. The house will need a bit of work, but overall this sounds like a great place for our family! So, unless something crazy happens, we're buying our first home! Hooray!
No comments:
Post a Comment