Christmas Spirit

I have been really getting into the Christmas mood as I listen to various Christmas songs on Deezer. I even found "It's Christmas at Ground Zero" by Weird Al. It made me laugh. Now I am listening to The Chipmunks Christmas songs.

I had a little mess up with this blog template when I tried to download a new template from a blog template site. I lost my original template even thought I tried to save it. Oh well. I guess this one will be fine for awhile. I realize I am not that smrt when it comes to technology. I need Bret to help me out a lot still. But at least I tried something new! yeah for me.

Looking forward to our trip back to the states!

Lessons from General Authorities

In the October general conference Elder Oaks gave a talk on Good, Better, Best. This week in church the talks and lessons focused on this topic. We had Elder Hallstrom from the Asia area 70's speak in our branch. After sacrament meeting he went to priesthood and Bret said he told a really great story about Elder Oak's talk during conference that not a lot of people know. He said that Elder Oaks didn't get to give two paragraphs of his talk in conference because he was short on time. These two paragraphs were not published in the Ensign and Elder Hallstrom was curious to know what Elder Oaks was going to add to his already great talk, so he asked him. Here is what Elder Oaks said.

"It is good for a man to be moral and try to follow Christ and if he does so he will be rewarded with a place in the Terrestrial Kingdom. It is better for a man to make covenants with God and live to be like Christ and he will be rewarded with a place in the Celestial Kingdom. It is BEST for a man to be sealed to his companion in the temple of God and that man will be rewarded with Eternal Life."

When Bret told this to me I felt many things come to my heart. I wanted to share with my family how much I really believe this is true. There are so many good things we do, and we find happiness in the good things. But as President Kimball said, we should "lengthen our stride". We should evaluate our lives and determine what it is we are striving to achieve here in mortality. What is the end goal? I have been taught all my life and firmly believe that I want exaltation. I don't want to settle for what is good, or better. I want what is best. And I pray daily for all of my siblings that they will have the same desire so we can all be there together. We are the authors of our life. We choose what we will be and where we are headed. We are responsible for our happiness.

Every day I will try to do a little more to be the best I can be. Some days I don't do so well, but I will pick myself up and start again. Oh boy do I need to pick myself up a lot, but it is in the struggle that we become stronger.

Hey everyonebody, this is Nephi and I'm finally posting. I've been super busy with my school lately. On Turkey-day we had a party with my school and students. I made mashed potatoes, gravey and chicken (turkey isn't a good idea here in Japan as there are no ovens to cook it in) . I boiled the chicken and used the broth to make gravey. It wasn't too bad. (well, no one has died yet)
Naomi is still pretty excited about the gift exchange thing and is looking forward to Christmas. I'm pureetee excited to. I hope I can see my kids too.
I move into my new place at the end of this month (November) so I'll try to post some pictures then. No promises though... sorry. At least no promises soon.
Well, I hope ya'll R happy. I finally posted, and hopefully I will again sometime soon.
Love ya'll and hope everyonebody is donig great.

Still Waiting!

Hi. I am still waiting to hear about Quentin and Yesenia's trip to Disneyland. And I want to see pictures too!!! And someone better tell how Thanksgiving was there in AZ. Did anyone take any pictures? And how did Nephi spend the holiday? Are you going to post about your new apartment?I am sure Jacob and Millie took some kind of pictures while at the Ropers. Tell us how your Turkey day was!!! Come on guys, there has to be someone brave enough to post!!!

Home for the week

Hey all! Well, i am finally on line, for the time being. Mostly because I am in Lakeside and Mom and Dad have internet.
It is Sunday night and me and mom and Quentin and Yesenia are sitting in the Kitchen talking about nothing. It is very pleasant. There is much laughing and making fun of each other.
As usual I am taking the brunt of the abuse because I stupidly walk into it and fail miserably to retaliate adequately, but it is mostly fun.
Quentin was outside just a few minutes ago choping wood and singing the wood chopping song from 7 brides for 7 brothers. We laughted heartely.

As far as updating everbody about my life, be rest assured that I am doing well. I am very busy at work and mostly enjoying it. I am getting a little restless because I am getting comfortable, and comfortable is always something that I don't really know what to do with. I will someday learn how to appreciate it, but I'm not sure how.
I actally just got moved up to the 4th floor and I have most glorious view! I totally lucked out on the cubicle they assigned to me. Sometimes life is sooo good!
My personal life is going well, but also going nowhere. I have great friends but I'm not dating. (Surprise!) I don't really know how to go about letting a man into my life, but Dad gave me a great talking to last night and I may be ready to take another step down this strange and elusive path that I was obviouly not hard wired to comprehend or succeed at. Well, this is what we are here for, to learn, grow, change and overcome our weaknesses. Finger's crossed!
I am reading The Poisonwood Bible and I am a little more than halfway through. I am finaly getting into it. I have a hard time with books that are almost nonfiction. I'm working on it though. I have found that it is worth it to finish these kinds of books, so I muscle through.
By the by, aren't we going to start a family book club or something? I think this blog would be a great vehicle to discuss books..
Well, I hope this rambling has been enlightening.
I do love my family and am thrilled to have this blog to post to. I hope to contribute more, and more interesting things.
Peace and love family, peace and love.

Church Today

Today when we got into sacrament meeting Bret noticed right away a familiar face in the congregation. I would never have known who this person was, but since Bret had been on the same flight as her his last trip the U.S.A he would of course recognize her. Sister Oaks was in our congregation today! The wife of an apostle. During Relief Society all the visiting sisters were asked to introduce themselves. She, as well as sister Cook (also visiting) stood up and just gave their names, no mention of who they were married to, and where they were from. Now maybe it was because they have visited here so often that nobody seemed surprised they were in RS. The thing that stood out the most to me was just how unpretentious they both were. They made normal comments during the lesson, they were sweet and friendly to all the sisters and they didn't feel the need to tag onto their introduction that they were the wives of apostles. I was moved and humbled.

The lesson itself was very good as the sister presenting it was well prepared. There were no new revelations (oddly enough that is what the lesson was about) that came to me, rather a sweet witness of many of the times I had personal revelation in my life. Times when I was looking for guidance, times when I needed to have comfort, times when I wanted to know truth. I am so grateful that revelation happens to all who are seeking for it, especially for the revelation our prophet receives for all of us in this church. We are indeed blessed to know this truth.

Webbs :)

Our Return to the States

So, Bret had a meeting with his boss today. They discussed her plan for Bret. As it currently stands Bret's contract states that he will be here in Hong Kong for six months. Which would put us back in the states in mid February. This seems to be the plan that she wants to stick to. She has put an offer to someone to take over Bret's role here in HK and if she accepts the offer she would be starting here in January. That would give Bret a month and a half to train her. If she doesn't accept the offer then the plan would be to send the kids and I back in February and have Bret stay on some extra time until they find someone to fill the position, and then Bret would train that person. Either way, the kids and I are coming home in February sometime. I want a great big birthday party for Malik and I with lots of presents, a 3 tiered cake, a band (a good one) and Orson Scott Card to write a story just for me, and read it at the party! That isn't asking for too much is it?

On a side note to Risa, this is not public knowledge in the working realm, (one of the reasons I am not posting it on the Walls Abroad as many Pru people read that one) so mums the word until it has been announced in this office. Bret says that will be a week or two, depending on when they know if this person will take the offer to fill his job.

We still have no clue what Bret will be doing once back in Phoenix, but we will leave that up to fate. He has a couple of things up his sleeve if things don't necessarily go as he would hope. We are not worried. We are just happy that we have had the opportunity to be here in Asia. This is a wonderful place and we can now understand more how Nephi can love it on this side of the world so much. And it has been awesome getting to know Nephi better too since we are closer to each other time wise. Well, and distance too!

The First Post

Hi family! I have been meaning to set up a family blog, and Aubrey gave me that little extra push to get it done by sharing her blog with me. It might be a challenge to try and maintain two blogs, but this one is more personal and tailored to our family alone. The other one is for a larger group of family and friends.

Anyhow, I am hoping that through this blog we will be able to keep in touch with each other and perhaps share things with each other.


If you aren't quite sure how to contribute to the blog, here is a quick lesson. I will invite you to be an author on the blog. You will get an email from me to accept an invitation to this blog. You sign in with your gmail account. Then you will be able to post as well as comment on posts. I know that some of you are already familiar with blogging, so if anyone would like a tutorial, I will be more than happy to help you out.

I am also going to post here the names we picked for Christmas for your reference. Here's looking forward to many happy blogs!

Christmas Names:
Dad gifts to Bret
Mom gifts to Jacob
Bret gifts to Mom
Tevs gifts to Quentin
Nephi gifts to Dad
Naomi gifts to Millie
Risa gifts to Naomi
Jacob gifts to Tevs
Millie gifts to Yesenia
Quentin gifts to Nephi
Yesenia gifts to Risa
Everyone gifts to Brandt!