Hope you had a Good Easter

I have been absent from my computer for the last few weeks.

First, we traveled down to Utah and spent 9 days with our children who live down there. It was a wonderful visit, despite the snowstorm we had one day out of our entire time in Utah. I had the opportunity to go by a couple of survival and emergency preparedness stores and I picked up a few more items to round out our emergency preparedness gear and food storage.

During this past week I remained very busy planting my garden during some of the warmer days. It is a little early, but I plan to cover my plants if we get another cold snap, in order to protect my new plant starts. I put in some ever-bearing strawberries, some broccoli, some cauliflower, some zucchini squash, and two kinds of lettuce. My peach tree is in full bloom and my apple trees are full of buds; so are my grape vines and my raspberries, and one strawberry plant. The warm spell has confused my plants to thinking it is later I believe. It is comforting to see my garden going in. I love the feel of the rich topsoil; it is something I cannot get enough of.

Today is Easter Sunday. I spent my day attending Church and then traveling to one of my daughter’s homes for an Easter supper. One of our sons joined us there also. Again another great visit with family and grandchildren.

My daughter did something unusual today. We hid plastic eggs throughout the downstairs and then called the children down and let them hunt for them. Each child was told that they were to find only eight eggs and then come to the table with their bowl of eggs. The hunt was fun and all of the children eventually met at the dinner table.

My daughter then picked out twelve plastic eggs that they had found that each had numbers on them from 1 to 12. We then sat around in the family room and the kids took turns opening the eggs one egg at a time in sequence. Each egg contained some item to remind the children of some part of the life, Atonement, death and Resurrection of the Savior and had a pre-printed scripture to tell that part of the journey to the Resurrection. The children looked up additional scriptures and they took turns reading from the New Testament story in Mathew and other books of the Bible.

About half way through, my son-in-law asked the children if there were any of the kids that could tell what was in the previous 6 eggs and what they represented. One of the older girls repeated the items with the other kids chiming in. I was impressed that they remembered what each of the items was and the symbol they represented. At the completion of the 12th egg, which was empty, they simultaneously shouted out the answer, there is nothing there; it represents the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. One of the youngest then volunteered to name all twelve items. She had some help, but she did very well considering she is only eight years old.

Instead of just an Easter of the world (the other plastic eggs had candy in them), the children enjoyed the Easter story just as much, while family all sat around in the family room listening intently. I am thankful that they know the real reason for the season of Easter and have there priorities straight. It made for a special evening.

My wish to all of you is that you had a great day with your family also and that we are all able to keep our priorities straight. Our country depends on our being a righteous people with strong families. There is much more to preparations than just being physically prepared. Today I was reminded of the importance of the spiritual aspects of preparation also.