Sacred Grove

Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi was the visiting General Authority at our Stake Conference on Feb 16-17. What a wonderful man! What a wonderful representative of the Lord Jesus Christ! I was so impressed with his teachings. I was able to listen to him in four separate meetings and it was, well, wonderful! :)

In two of the meetings, the Priesthood Leadership meeting and the General Session, he spoke of creating our own Sacred Grove - a designated place we can come each morning to pray and study - a quiet, calm and peaceful place somewhere in our home. He suggested we get up earlier than we usually do so that we have time to pray and study. He suggested that we comb our hair, brush our teeth, shave, etc., and get ready for the day prior to presenting ourselves to our Heavenly Father in prayer, rather than pajamas and messy hair. He promised us that doing this each morning would change our lives for the better. I have done this the last two mornings and plan to continue. I needed this counsel. We discussed it in our Family Council and all are going to try to do this.

He quoted a couple of scriptures that left an impression upon me:

Doctrine & Covenants 88

63 ^aDraw ^bnear unto me and I will draw near unto you; ^cseek me diligently and ye shall ^dfind me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

64 Whatsoever ye ^aask the Father in my name it shall be given unto you, that is ^bexpedient for you;

The Lord promises to draw near unto us as we draw near unto Him.

Doctrine & Covenants 50

28 But no man is possessor of ^aall things except he be ^bpurified and ^ccleansed from all sin.

29 And if ye are ^apurified and cleansed from all ^bsin, ye shall ^cask whatsoever you will in the name of Jesus and it shall be done.

If we are purified from sin, whatever we shall ask in the name of Jesus shall be done.

Whole wheat bread

I've been making whole wheat bread for a few months now. It's good stuff. For the first little while we used a manual wheat grinder. The kids really loved grinding that wheat by hand (not), but I decided to go ahead and get an electric one. Mom Smith actually gave us one that she didn't use anymore.

Then Jen and I decided to buy a Bosch Bread Mixer. Her aunt Ann Allred suggested it and also gave us a great recipe which is what I've been using for the last couple of months. I've almost gone through an entire 6 gallon bucket of wheat. I still haven't figured out how to make the bread rise more than it does. The loaves are kinda short, but they still taste great.

Jen makes the yummy strawberry and raspberry jam that we put on the bread. Everyone loves it, and I'm glad. I wanted to start using some of our food storage items and get everyone's bodies used to eating whole wheat.

Here is the recipe if you are interested. It's from Aunt Ann:

Add the following ingredients and in the order listed into a Bosch bread mixer not a bread maker!

5 cups hot water (microwave if not hot enough from the tap)

1/2 cup good oil (I use olive oil)

1/2 cup honey (Put honey into measuring cup after the oil and it will slip right out with no mess)

1/2 cup potato flakes or 2 T. potato powder

2 T. gluten flour

2 T. wheat germ

2 T. fresh ground flax

5 cups fresh ground whole wheat flour

2 T. saf-instant yeast (if using regular yeast use 3 T. and it will take much longer to rise)

Start the mixer going if you have not already. I usually pulse the mixer after each addition. But at this point mix it well for a couple of minutes. Then turn off mixer, put on the lid and let sponge for 5 minutes. It will start to rise and look bubbly. Sponging means to let the dry ingredients be absorbed by the liquids ingredients to prevent adding too much flour. Adding too much flour is the number one mistake in bread making.

Remove the lid and add 1 heaping tablespoon salt. Then continue to add an additional 5-6 cups of flour. It varies but until the dough almost pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl slightly cleaning the bowl. At this point turn the mixer to speed 2 and let it knead for 5 minutes. Stop the mixer and put on the lid and let raise for 5 minutes while you clean up and grease the pans.

Pour a little oil into your hands before gathering up the dough. It will not stick to you and add to the tenderness of the bread. Don't put dough out onto a flour surface like was done in the olden days. Repeat with the oil on hands for each loaf formed. Then proceed to form the loaves and put into the pans to raise for about 10 more minutes. Heat your oven and bake bread at 350 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes until browned well. Every oven bakes a little bit different.

Brush the tops with butter, dump bread from pans and cool and eat or if you prefer, eat while burning hot and let the butter and honey drip down your chin!!

Valentine's Day

I've made it a tradition of mine to buy a single carnation for each of my daughters each Valentine's Day, as well as a bundle of them for Jen. Jen's favorite flower is the carnation. The past couple of years, some other guys have started honing in on my sacred tradition and supplemented the flowers that I have given! Can you believe it! :) Well, we've got a table full of flowers now and everyone's happy.

Jen and I were able to get away for a couple of hours and go to a nice dinner at Johnny Carinos. We did a little shopping after and came home with a new game for the PS2 - American Idol. We played it that evening with the kids and had a fun time. You sing songs using a microphone as the words scroll by. You can see if you are on pitch or not and get judged and all. It's really quite a fun game.

Young Men's Fund Raiser

We had a great fund raiser this evening for the Young Men of the ward. It was a spaghetti dinner, followed by a cake auction. All the young men and young men leaders dressed up in white shirts and ties and cooked and served a great Italian style dinner. It was very well done. One YM leader created an Italian photo-op area - a street in Venice with a great backdrop that he painted, a gondola that you could sit on and a young man dressed up as a gondola "guy".

All the young men, the leaders and those who came to eat were invited to bring any baked goods. They were all auctioned off after dinner. There was also a silent auction for services donated by ward members, things like some dry wall work, Christmas light service, an afternoon out on a boat, reading tutor, babysitting, etc. etc. A number of items were also donated from people's work as well for the silent auction.

It was a fun night and a great idea for a fund raiser. We'll find out Sunday how much they made, but I'm guessing it was a couple thousand dollars. (Update: $3200!) One cake went for $400! - a multi-layer chocolate cake decorated with chocolate covered strawberries. Wow!

Republican Presidential Candidate

I voted for Ron Paul yesterday. I love his desire to get the country and the government back to its Constitutional foundations. I love that he is so different that the other candidates and the way he answers questions during debates, i.e., referring to the constitution.

In the final Republican debate in California prior to Super Tuesday, a question was posed to all the candidates regarding what they would do with regards to the military and the economy. Romney answered first, and then McCain. Both talked a bit about stimulating the economy in one way or another and a bit about how they viewed the military. Ron Paul then said essentially that the Constitution does in fact grant the President of the United States the responsibility as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces but no where does it say anything about the President, or the government at all, being in charge of or responsible for the economy. Why does everyone think that the government is supposed to do stuff to "save" or "prop up" the economy. The economy should be in the hands of the people and the businesses of the country.

Well, I know liberty according to Ron Paul will not make it far in this election, but I sure love his ideas.