Journey to Bethlehem

I know Christmas has passed but this is my favorite picture of all time. I share it with you in hopes that you can feel the spirit of it by looking at it. We have this picture hanging on the wall in my room. I wanted to learn more about this artist because this picture had a very special influence on my life the first time I saw it. I was serving as a missionary in Brazil in 2004. The Sao Paulo Temple was being rededicated in february of that year. A bunch of the sister missionaries in the Sao Paulo missions were able to serve making contacts, help people with questions during the tours and work hard to follow the spirit to know who needed the gospel truth in their lives. It was the most amazing part of my whole mission BAR NONE!! :) So yeah I was so physically and spiritually exhausted from getting no sleep and talking to a million people in a 12 hour period that I just needed some peaceful time for a couple minutes. One of the mission presidents wifes took us downstairs to one of the rooms that we hadn't seen yet before in the temple during the open house. I saw this picture and felt and knew that the Savior loved me!! The spirit filled my heart and an overwhelming peace helped me to continue being a missionary.
Something cool I learned about the artist :Joseph Brickey is that he served his mission in Brazil and that is probably why his art was hung in the Sao Paulo Temple! You can find more of his artwork at www.altusfineart.com

Journey to Bethlehem
As a foreshadowing of His future triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the Son of David and the King of Israel, the unborn Christ is carried by a donkey to Bethlehem to be numbered of the house and lineage of David. Mary looks tenderly, perhaps knowingly, at the shy shepherd boy they pass along their way. Would she have remembered the prophecy that spoke of her future son as the “Shepherd of Israel”? (Psalm 80:1) Mary’s hand is held to her womb as she meets the gaze of the shepherd boy as a reminder that “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” (Isaiah 9:6). Joseph’s focus is on the path ahead, and his hands, one opened and one closed, reflect both the strength and gentleness of the provider and protector.

Meridian Magazine: Interview with Artist Joseph Brickey, Art that connects the senses and the spirit.

What a stinkin cute kid!!

This picture just makes me smile!! I love my baby boy :)

Elder Ballards talk at BYU HAWAII about sharing the gospel through blogs!

my bro-in-law brad call was grauduating and we got to see elder ballard in hawaii. Mayley didn't last the whole time at the graduation so we missed his talk so i wanted to hear it today and share it with you that are avid bloggers!! SHARE THE GOSPEL BY BLOGGING :)
PS its kinda long but its a great talk.
its also on the front page of lds.org

December in Hawaii!

Hawaii was beautiful and everything you could possibly imagine! I LOVED IT! I will post more later but here are some of the fun things we did while we were there :)



Bry got to go on stage at the Polynesian Cultural Center and play the drums and do funny things with a Tongan Guy that his Brother Brad knows Personally. He got a cool weaved hat for doing it!

We went to a true Hawaiian Luau by ourselves! We got pretty lay's too. I loved that part :)

This is an amazing and gorgeous walk we went on that is lush full of trees and plants. It was beautiful. At the very end is a fun waterfall that we swam out to see.

The famous shaved ice with icecream on the bottom called "matsumotos!!" It was delicious!

The Waiema Waterfalls. Mayley looks a little scared or sad here probably because it rained the whole time and we were all wet!!

A beautiful Sunset that we caught on our last night there!

On Sunset beach saying "HANG LOOSE"

Hunter had fun eating and playing in the sand!

Brutus the huge sea turtle!!

There is a beach where they come out to sunbath and they have people that volunteer and watch the sea turtles so that they don't get hurt! It was amazing to see a huge one up close!

Hunter Talking to Cousin Megan

Hunter is such a happy little baby! Here he is talking to his cousin Megan :) Megan loves him so much she grabs his bib to take a closer look at him. We were eating really good spinach artichoke dip that is why nancy is chowing down :)

Yummy Cheeseball!

Ok Guys!! This is Paula Deen's (from the foodnetwork) cheeseball recipe and I made my first cheese ball last night and it is soooooooooo yummy. I was so proud of it that I had to show all of you how yummy it really does look! I wish you all could come over and try some. Try making it..its super yummy. I didn't put in the green onions or the poppyseeds and still turned out good!

Temple Square Adventure!

Getting here was quite the adventure! We circled around 2 or 3 times temple square looking for a parking spot. Then we had to bundle ourselves and the kids up after getting out of the car which took a good 15 or 20 minutes then it took another 10 minutes to walk down to the temple grounds. It was soooooooooooo cold and are faces felt frozen! The sister missionaries took this picture of us and so many people would walk past mayley and just do the "OHHH how cute!" it was fun!

Then we traveled over to the galiven center to Bry's work party and Mayley got to see Santa and Mrs. Claus! You can see the huge bag of candy that she got! Wow! She was more excited about the candy then anything else that night :)

More pics of temple square!

She was in awwwwwe by all the lights!!!

Mayley loves the Doggies!

Do you lika da weenie dog?!

Parker had a companion on his mission that would ask him this quesiton..."Do you lika da weenie dog?" Growing up my dad had a weenie dog and then we were older my parents got us a weenie dog "neena" she passed away 3 years ago and it was soooooo sad to loose her. So we took mayley to the pet store the other day and we found a weenie dog at the pet store!! It was so much fun! We only got to play him for awhile. I wish we could've taken him home but maybe later :)