We are now Endowed!!!

I knew the day would come but I never quite realized how fast it would be here. It was so wonderful to be able to go to the temple with such a wonderful husband!!! I can not imagine going through that without having the past that I have and having gone through the repentance process. I am so grateful for the atonement and all that the Lord and Savior do for us.

The temple...

Now onto better news... Andy and I are going through the San Diego Temple on May 9th at 7 p.m. We will only be taking our endowments out since we want all of our family to be there when we get sealed. Hopefully this will bring us closer to God and closer as a family! I am excited to be able to go do work for my ancestors and am lucky to have the true Gospel in my life! I know that had I not been born and raised with this Gospel truth that I would be long past the point of return (in a sense).
Until moving to Cali I never really understood that a lot of people had NO religious background in their lives. In Utah I would hang out mainly with people that were not LDS or were not active in the Church and thought I understood how people could feel the way that they do about the church itself. However, moving out here has opened my eyes to peoples ignorance and/or lack of knowledge.
Being one of the only LDS people that works at the Vista Costco I get a lot of questions and misunderstandings of the church. There is a Jehovah's Witness that I work with which causes a lot of confusion as well. For example, right before Easter I got a lot of "Have a Happy Easter! Oh wait...You don't celebrate Easter do you? I'm sorry" and I would have to correct them. Let them know that it is Jehovah's Witness' that do not celebrate the holidays. I think it is wonderful that they would try to be considerate and apologize, but I just wish that they would take the time to learn a little bit.
I was told by one person that worked there (not knowing that I was LDS) that Daniel had lied to him saying that he was Christian when really he was Mormon and was not a Christian at all. I never thought that I would get so offended by somebodies ignorance as much as I did right then! Asking him to explain to me how a "Mormon" is not a Christian but then him just walking out when I explained it to him and it all started to make sense. How stupid can you be?
I have been trying my hardest to learn of others religions out here...come to find out the only person that actually knows what their religion stands for is Chris, the Jehovah's Witness. I have a lot of friends that were born and raised Catholic. Some of those even going to the Catholic High Schools. When asked about what Catholics believe they can not tell me a single thing aside from Christ. I try to dig deeper by asking more direct questions and they know nothing. It's incredible to me that these people were raised all their lives with this but know nothing. Is it true that our Church is one of the only to actually TEACH anything?
Aside from all of that, here is my dilemma. My good friend was not raised with a religion. Both of her parents were raised strict Catholic and with good intent they decided to let their children choose. They planned on taking them to a bunch of different churches to help them kind of get some knowledge of what is out there. Like most of us, their lives got away with them and never ended up following through with their plan. She now has the Bible and has been reading it, but has no more knowledge then what is in that book. When we start talking about religion I take for granted the fact that even though my friends back home were not LDS, they were still raised around it and had some knowledge of what I was talking about. She has no idea. She is a very smart girl and understands what I am saying but of course it gets confusing and overwhelming at times. I am not a person that explains things very well unless I am in a planned debate. How do I explain things without sounding preachy or pushy? She wants to know, but she wants the knowledge in little pieces and she does not want to meet with the missionaries (which I can understand completely). She is coming to church with me next week and I am going to have my boys teach her the things that they know. Do you have any suggestions of what 10 and 11 year old boys could teach her?
Here are some topics that I have thought of... Joseph Smith, the word of wisdom, Baptism and the Sacrament, the plan of salvation, Tithing, and Families are forever. If you have any ideas I would LOVE to hear them! I will be calling my boys on Tuesday to have them start planning their lessons for her (each boy will take a separate topic and then help each other out).
I will try to do better at posting from now on!

Updates

So, I have been very bad at updating our blog. Things in Cali are good but I have become extremely homesick recently and am trying to get over it. I guess it doesn't really help that I have been forgetting to take my pills either. :O Opps... Anyway, Easter was not Easter this year. We went down to his dad's house and hung out, just like any other Sunday. Nothing fun, nothing exciting. But it was great to know that I have family here.

Here is something fun...I did Makemebabies.com and this is what our baby ended up looking like....Since having an ugly baby is one of my biggest fears (petty, I know) this helped out a lot since I think she is adorable. LOL