HAVEN OF REFUGE: Christmas vacation Festivities...

Just because everyone came over Christmas day doesn't mean they

all won't be over again the next day.

I had leftovers, with 3 new salads for lunch. The boys got dressed up

in their shooting attire and played with the pellet guns

and air guns.

Does it hurt? yes, and they still played!!

I don't get it.

The next day we went with Ethan's family to see mission impossible.

loved this show too.

Joe and Marci hosted a Christmas party with my family on Tuesday.

My sister, mom, nieces and nephews and my brother and his family

came from Denver.

We had taco soup and lots of treats. we played rook until midnight.

Here's Beau showing off his woody pj's.

My Brothers wife Jill and daughters Jackie and Whitney, and Mark.

Grandma wonderful and Joe and Annie

In the midst of all our celebrating we learned of a dear

friend who had passed away.

Nita Kearl was a mom and grandmother who died 3 days before Christmas.

3 of my sons and some of the wives attended the funeral.

It was so sad and happy at the same time. Nita

has buried 3 of her young children early in her life. Her only

daughter, and 2 sons who died in a car accident while in their teens.

All the family said she died of a broken heart, and wanted to see

her kids again. She left behind a husband and 3 more sons.

I was able to spend some more time with my family at Italian village for pizza and salad.

It was fun to talk with my siblings and enjoy them especially after such a sobering funeral.

We enjoyed going to a soc cor game of McKenna. Her team won!

Friday was the bowl game for BYU. My BIL is one of the coaches,

and my nephew Matt Reynolds had one incredible game.

Emma gave Matt the splits over his helmet-less tackle!!

There is Matt running to get his guy after he lost his helmet.

down you go boy!!!

There's Little Lance watching his brother play!!

I paused the TV to get these shots..Here they are saying Matt

will probably go in the 3rd round for the NFL..

(look at the ticker).

After his helmet-less tackle which made the play of the day on ESPN

they say his status just increased..

Good Luck Matt we love you♥

Friday night after a nap I decided to start putting away Christmas..

YUK!!!!

I so.... didn't want to do it, but have a crazy week ahead,

so I thought I could get it done Friday night

and Saturday morning before our New Years Eve Party.

I started boxing when I got a phone call

from Jake asking what I was doing?

"I said putting away Christmas"

he said I'll come over and help.

I said "NO, I wasn't quite ready.

Next thing I know the door bell rings and Jake

and his son Drew came to help me.

In 2 hours we put everything away and all the old things up.

BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER!!!!!

****

New Years Eve was yet another fun party at Joe and Marci's.

We had a taco Bar. We played a ton of games.

I went to bed at 10:00 pm

*****

Guess Who was asked to speak on New Years Sunday?

My husband, that's who.

I was so worried for him, because he had the flu all week long.

Add that to his pain issues and he had some serious doubts he could do it.

He did an amazing job, in spite of a General Authority and Stake presidency

visiting our Sacrament meeting. (no added pressure there)

***

Below is a copy of his talk, which created quite a stir in Sacrament.

I mean everyone loved his talk!!

Self Reliance - Mark Heugly

The Bishop asked me to speak today on self-reliance. A good friend of mine told me that if I grew a beard I would never be asked to speak in Sacrament meeting. I need to get back to him and tell him it didn’t work.

After the Bishop called and asked me to speak on self-reliance, as is my custom I studied the subject of self-reliance, I pondered the theme of self-reliance and then I prayed, nothing. So I prayed harder and longer and finally I heard a still small voice. It said softly, hello, self-reliance. So from here on I am on my own.

Genetically speaking I don’t believe there is a gene for being a conservative, but if there was my family tree would evidence that this is a dominant gene. We are not descendants of royalty or blue blooded liberals, my ancestors were serfs who struggled to have sufficient. Isn’t that a wonderful word sufficient? Think about what that word means to you because it means different things to different people. This morning I will talk a good deal about my father’s family because while in many ways we would not be good examples of any other gospel subject we are pretty good at being self-reliant. “Entitlements” is a word we reserve for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. “I deserve” is a foreign concept to us.

I remember a few stories of self-reliance in my family tree that I will share with you. My intent is not to high light my family but to give you examples of self-reliance I am familiar with, hopefully helping you to define what sufficient is for yourself and decide how to obtain it yourself, how to be self-reliant.

The oldest story I remember is the story of my father’s grandmother who lived in Nauvoo. Her husband had died of malaria working to drain the swamp land Joseph Smith had purchased. She and her, I believe four children, lived in a small log cabin her husband had built for her. They had sufficient to live on with her garden and chickens and with the sewing that she could do for other families. It was a modest life but even this was to be taken from her. The mobs broke into her cabin and said she had 30 minutes to leave Nauvoo. She took what food and clothing they could carry and wrapped her children in the patchwork quilts she had made and crossed the frozen Mississippi to the far side where she and her children lived in the open. Two of the children soon died of exposure and malnutrition. Brigham Young came by one day and introduced her to a man and his wife and told grandmother that this man had agreed to marry her as his second wife and to provide for and take care of her and her remaining children. She was ever grateful to God and to this family for their charity for taking her in because once again she and her children had sufficient to live. As the family prospered in Salt Lake her husband built her a home on the corner of 39th South and 13th East. It stands there today. It looks like a small copy of the Beehive House. Later her husband was asked to settle in the Kanab area but my father’s grandmother stayed there on the corner, farming, and trading with the Indians. She had sufficient the rest of her life to raise her remaining two children. She was self-reliant.

My next story is about my father’s father. He also was a farmer, primarily a fruit farmer. He grew the best peaches I have ever eaten. Each fall grandpa would harvest his fruit and sell it in front of their home on 33rd South. There was no question that my father and I would help with the harvest but I was always surprised at how much work my grandfather could accomplish. It seemed his every movement had a purpose and a rhythm that lasted all day, never slowing down. I learned from him that a full shovel was one way to measure a man. My grandfather believed in God but he always took a full shovel expecting that God would give him the strength to move the mountain not do it for him. Lorenzo and his wife Mary lived a modest life in a small home. My father like the other sons slept on the back porch year round because there was only room for the girls in the house. With a little help from his family my grandfather was able to harvest his fruit himself and sell it in his front yard into his late seventies. One day he was by himself picking pears when the ladder slipped and he fell and broke his back. Being alone the only thing he could do was to use his elbows to crawl from the orchard to the house and ask Mary to take him to the hospital. I remember the High Priest group in his ward showed up to pick his little remaining fruit for him. I could tell he was grateful and somewhat surprised because he had not asked for help. He had thought my father and I could finish the harvest on Saturday. Into his eighties he didn’t climb the ladder anymore and it seemed his crop grew smaller every year until he died, but he and Mary always worked and always had sufficient. Sufficient to them was to pay their tithes and offerings, to feed themselves, pay their bills and to send their children on missions. Lorenzo was self-reliant.

For the next story I remember growing up in my father’s house, my bedroom was in the basement and there was no heat in the basement. I used to get a thick layer of ice on the inside of my bedroom windows each winter. I mentioned to my dad how cold it was and told him about the ice on the glass and he simply said, well at least you have windows, I slept on the porch. Dad didn’t talk a lot but what he said was easily understood and I was grateful I had glass. Dad started to take me to work with him each Saturday when I turned six. He owned a small hardware store and nursery in the Holladay area. I remember how proud I was when I could carry a gallon can to a customer’s car by standing over it and using both hands to lift it along. Over the next six years I got pretty good at helping out at the store. It was at age twelve that my father got me my social security number so that I could get a real job. I was paid to clean up behind a grocery store. The smells were not nice but once in a while I would find half a melon or half of a squash that was in pretty good shape and I would take them home to mother who would carve out the bad parts and serve the rest. I was glad to help the family. We had sufficient by our standard and we were self-reliant. I was happy for those who had more than us, especially happy when they came into our store.

Later in life I married Sue. We couldn’t rub two nickels together when we were first married. We were grateful for any unwanted furniture people gave us because that way we had a bed to sleep in and a table to eat on. I remember taking Sue and our first son out on the town one Friday night. We only had one dollar. That was enough to buy two hamburgers one fry and one drink. That night I decided even though I had a full time job and was going to school that I would get a part-time job because by my standard a dollar date was not sufficient. Sometimes I wonder where the line is between pride and self-reliance. Sue was as happy then as she is now, and has always been grateful and happy with anything we had. My personal standard of sufficient was to be grateful that my ancestors had worked hard and that I had been taught to work. It included being grateful that I had been provided with an education, raised in America and raised in the gospel. My sufficient was to honor my ancestors by doing as much as I could with what I had as they had done before me. I have been sick for fifteen years now, and the illness is such that it makes going to work painfully difficult most days but how grateful I am that I have been able to work and take care of the two of us. Being self reliant to me is a way of life, it is in our genes.

I remember a few years back, Sue and I attended a fast and testimony meeting in Clearfield where the infant daughter of a friend was being blessed. Do you know how some moments in your life you will never forget? This was one of them for me. A woman in her fifties stood and bore her testimony and said how grateful to God she was that her husband had been given enough hours at the plant so they could pay their rent, pay their utilities, buy some potatoes, pay their tithing and they still had two dollars left to pay in fast offerings for those not as fortunate as they were. I was already choking back the tears from the first testimony when a severely crippled man limped up to the podium using a cane and said how grateful he was to God. He had been injured at work and paralyzed but now his right hand and leg worked well enough that he could do something to help support himself. These people felt entitled. They felt entitled to be self-reliant and grateful to God for their good fortune so that they could take care of themselves and help others.

In my life I have seen how not feeling I deserve something, how not feeling entitled, how hard work, how obtaining and using an education, how going to your family first for help, how home production and food storage, how conservative finances and how being grateful that you have sufficient has all been a part of self-reliance. As a banker I have learned a long time ago that if you spend less than you make you are a rich man and no matter how much money you make if you spend more than that you are poor.

God told Adam to go forth and work by the sweat of his brow and to tend his garden. God has told us to pray for our flocks. I have taken this to mean that we are meant to work, it is good for us. We are to tend what we have and keep it clean and well cared for, a good neighbor. We should pray for the success of our righteous endeavors. I don’t take that to mean however that we should pray to God that he will give us a beautiful bountiful orchard when all we have done is to throw an apple in a field. The desire to be self-reliant is not enough, it takes effort.

Living in this land, being raised in the gospel, being self reliant and working to have what I feel is sufficient is what I inherited from my ancestors. I am grateful for them. I am grateful for the gospel and the priesthood. Fifteen years ago I became sick to the point of death. I received a blessing through the hands of Lee Bitner here in the ward that has allowed me to continue to work and support my family. I am grateful that I have a calling in the church, and wonderful families to home teach. I am especially grateful for having married a beautiful partner, a friend who has worked for our family more than I have especially recently and I am grateful to God that we have always had the ability to be self-reliant and to help others be self reliant when we can.

The spiritual and the temporal we are taught are two sides of the same coin. If we are blessed with sufficient and blessed to be self-reliant, then the Church has another plan on how we can do more. It is the welfare plan. It is a good plan to temporarily help people with the temporal until they can become self-reliant. It is hard to be spiritual when you are really hungry and the Bishop has the responsibility to see that his flock has sufficient. The opportunity for us to be charitable by giving our fast offerings is also a blessing for us. I honestly believe it is better to give than receive and the Lord has even made it easy for us to give and has told us it is the right thing to do. The love people show with their charity by giving through fast offerings to help the Church help people become self-reliant is good for everyone. I believe we emulate the Savior when we have sufficient to be self-reliant and then help others as the savior did.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

(A copy of the talk given by Grandpa on January 1, 2012)

**********

The day after New Years we went to see War horse, we cried our eyes out.

It was worth seeing.