Rachel

So I am a month behind but here are some photos from Rachel's 8th birthday and baptism. 

Primary Temple Trip

    Our Stake has been challenging everyone lately to do more genealogy.  Since I am Primary President I started thinking about how the Primary children could take part in family history work.  They really can't do much internet searching or indexing, but I really felt that they could be part of it in some way.  

    After thinking about it for some time and further promptings during October's General Conference of last year, I challenged the primary kids to bring me 100 family names ready for temple baptisms.  

    I was a little leery of setting this goal.  I didn't want to set up the children to fail, but my councilors assured me that they would help by submitting their names and that 100 names was an achievable goal.  So, I made a thermometer-like chart to measure the progress.  I also filled a jar with 100 pieces of candy that I gave out, a piece for each name.  (The children liked moving the thermometer up, but they really loved the candy.)

    Then the miracles started happening.  I shouldn't have been worried - Heavenly Father wants His children to succeed even more than I do.  

    Families were inspired to start searching their genealogy or to come back to it again.  Sometimes even the kids themselves helped find new names; Elizabeth went on to my Family Search account and just started clicking until she found some green arrows indicating work had not been done yet for that person.  One of my councilors submitted her 25 names that she just hadn't gotten around to doing yet.  Mom found names on the Gibbons side that the girls were able to turn it.  It was amazing to see that thermometer creep more and more toward 100.  We reached our goal in the middle of March.

    When we got to 100 names, I promised the children that we would celebrate in some way.  I envisioned a trip to the San Antonio Temple, but I wasn't sure if it would be possible, so I didn't announce it at first.  We have over 75 active children in our ward and most of those are under 8.  I wasn't sure if it would be too much of an endeavor to take them all on a 2-3 hour drive to San Antonio. 

    Once again, things worked out.  The Lord wants His children at the temple, even if it is just to visit the temple grounds.  We sent out sign up sheets and the response was great.  We ended up having over 35 children come.   

    One of the members of my stake presidency just told me, "Be diligent and constant, but allow the Lord to do His work."  This is one of those times that the Lord did His work and I was blessed to be a part of it.

    The pictures below are from the temple trip that we did yesterday.

So in the interest of just telling you all stuff, because I hate it when people don't tell us stuff, I thought I would tell you that I broke two ribs and got a concussion yesterday.  I wish it was something cool, but I broke them playing racquetball.  Really, just running after a ball and I somehow did all of that!  I really do not remember it.  I just woke up sitting on a bench wondering where I was.  The doctor gave me good pain pills so life is good, I just may be a bit slower moving for a while. Love you all,
Tom

Happy Anniversary Yesterday Roy and Heather!

Happy Anniversary David and Heather tomorrow!

Happy birthday, Gwen!

Hope you have a great day! We love you!

Happy birthday again, Emily

(Grandma hit the wrong button!!!!)
Now for the real post ---

Such an important birthday, too. 8 years old - baptism!

Doesn't exactly look like you and Daddy. Hope you have a fun birthday.  We love you!

Happy birthday, Beth!

We love you, Beth!

The last little while.

 Matt camping on the beach with the scouts.

 Happy baptism day!

Hiking in Wrightwood

Hello.

Happy Birthday, Heather!

Mom and Dad wanted to send this special birthday wish...

I thought it was a little crude, but I promised.  Happy Birthday, though!

Roy's first big boy job!

It occurred to me that others in the family besides mom and dad (and Bippy and Mel) might want to know about our little family's upcoming plans.

Roy graduates from BYU with his Masters in Information Systems Management at the end of this month. He interviewed with multiple companies, mostly here in Utah but also with a promising one in Idaho, and then one in Wisconsin (yikes!).

His first pick was with a company in SLC called Primatics Financial and that's the one he got! It turned out perfectly and we could definitely see the hand of the Lord in how it all played out. Basically, the position they had they were going to give to someone else when the HR guy happened to see Roy's resume. He told the SLC office to hold off with offering the position til they could meet Roy. Roy had multiple interviews with them but everyone just fell in love with him right from the start! So they eventually gave Roy the position!

Roy will be an analyst. He will be assigned to a client, which will be a bank from somewhere here or this western part of the country. He will have to travel, at times, to meet with the clients to see how they want to "fix" their systems and then he will work on it! (This is all my basic understanding of it all, because everything that Roy will be doing for a living is over my head haha).
The company is based out of Washington, D.C. but the market is pretty tapped out there so one of the head VP's started the branch here in SLC to work with banks/financial institutions here on the west coast. Because of that, it has the small business feel that Roy really wanted to work in, to see his projects make a difference and to be able to wear many different hats. But with none of the instability of a typical small business because Primatics is already established so largely on the East Coast. He will also be able to grow within the business, moving up in leadership positions. He's really excited!

It sounds like a great company to work for and we are relieved to know what will be happening at the end of this month. He starts the Monday after graduation, the 27th.
So sorry, Missouri family (specifically Aaron and Shannon, who have been trying to recruit us), looks like we are staying in Utah for the foreseeable future! :)