November News

 Welcome back for the November edition of the Davis Family 2024 year in review.  Happy Thanksgiving and all that jazz!  Lets just get down to it and talk about November 2024 shall we?

I know, I know, this picture was from last month, but I had been messing around with an AI thing and it made some interesting pictures that look a little like Jimmy, but really nothing like him at all at the same time, and this is the picture of Jimmy that I used.  Here, see for yourself, and I'll let you be the judge of it.

Well, what do you think?  Does it look like Jimmy at all?

Naturally I had to then see what it would do to me.  Not really a fan of any of them, but see for yourself.

Yeah, not a fan of how it made me look.  It looks absolutely nothing like me!

I had an overnight sleep study done.  It's just so stylish, I think everyone should try it.

Cocoa Bean LOVES her face rubs.

This was on my ballot!!  I have to admit, I was tempted to vote for him..... I talked to my cousin Elizabeth who lives in Colorado to see if he was on her ballot.  He was not, which I found odd.

Jacen holding his newest cousin.

IIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTT'SSSSSS GAMEDAY!!

It's also freezing cold gameday!!

We played Kanas, and sadly lost.  It was our first loss of the season. 

But Cosmo saved the day!!!  You can't see it well here, but the video screen shows Cosmo and Cosmo was up on TOP of the video screen doing his 4th quarter ramp up.

See him, he's right next to the Y.  Silly cougar!!  Hands down, he is the best college mascot, and I would dare even go as far as to say THE BEST mascot of all time, including the NFL.  Prove me wrong!

Say hello to Cilantro

And Buffy.  The awesome thing about Buffy is that he has a fog horn for a horn.  Yes, you read that right, Buffy has a FOG HORN, and it is loud, awesome, and EPIC!  I just can't wait until someone cuts me off on the freeway and I can blare that horn at them.  Okay, story time.  I'm sure you all are wondering what in the world what all of the stressful things I mentioned several blog posts ago is all about.  Well, like I also mentioned a couple of blog posts ago, some of it I can't talk about without the permission of two of my children.  They haven't given me permission and so I will respect that.  I'll just say that it's been a big challenge.  So, on top of my health concerns, my children's health concerns, Nathan's health concerns, and Henry's Kyphosis,
we started having our cars drop like flies.  First the Sequoia died.  It's currently sitting in my back yard and we have no idea what to do about it.  Then, my beloved Moby died, and he's currently sitting in my driveway, and has been sitting there for the past four months now.  Then the Jaguar died.  Then the transmission in Jacen's car started acting up, and we are worried that it could die at any minute.  We kind of started feeling like we just couldn't catch a break.  Nothing seemed to be going our way.  So, we had to go out and purchase two KSL Classified specials, we ended up having to buy a third one, but I don't have a picture of him.  He's called Civicus.

But at least Cocoa is cute and snuggly.

Whitley being his cute self.

This phot is from Thanksgiving at my parents house.  I'll explain the massive earrings in the next photo, but for now I have to tell you about Thanksgiving.  Earlier in the month of November we did Thanksgiving with Nathan's family and so we were with my parents on Thanksgiving.  Because of our various children's schedules, we had to do Thanksgiving on the day before Thanksgiving and then helped my parents decorate for Christmas on Thanksgiving Day.  Anyway, a couple of days before Thanksgiving, my 82 year-old father had a mini stroke!  That brought up some trauma from my experience in July!!  Thankfully my mom knew what she was doing and quickly got him to the hospital.  Also thankfully it was a very minor stroke and now you can't even tell that my dad even had a stroke!  It was still pretty stressful though.

Okay, now to explain those massive earrings.  So, my Grandpa Weidenheimer, in the course of his lifetime, was a miner, a spelunker, and a Colonel in the Air Force.  He loved to collect rocks and he had all the things for cutting and polishing them.  Well, I inherited his love for collecting rocks, and I'd probably inherit his love for cutting and polishing them if I had any of the equipment.  Anywho, my grandpa cut and polished these huge crystals.  They technically weren't made for wearing as earrings, even though they have earring clasps on the end.  If you are wondering, no these aren't for pierced ears.  They are "clip-ons." The clasp doesn't clip so-to-say but it has a twisty thing that you turn until it tightens up against your earlobe.  From what my mom says, he never made them with the intent of anyone wearing them, but he made them so he could hang them from his fireplace mantle.  All throughout my childhood, though, I would try to wear them as earrings, but was too little to be able to get them to stay because they are HEAVY!!  Well, Richard brought his fiance, Olivia to Thanksgiving dinner and I got to showing her all of the rocks and gems that my grandpa had polished, and I came across these "earrings."  I had almost forgotten about them.  Well, naturally it meant that I needed to try them on, and now that I am much bigger and older, I was able to get them on.  I did not keep them on for very long though, because as I said, they are HEAVY!  Don't I look gorgeous though?

Meow-meow posing for his yearly Christmas Star photo.

And the last football game of the season.  It was freezing cold, but I took ALL the precautions and stayed nice and toasty warm through the whole game.

They did a drone show.

It was AWESOME!!

They did a lot of different formations.....

And naturally I HAD to get pictures of all of them.

GO COUGS!!

Then there were fireworks!!

Loudest student section and the loudest stadium in the nation.  I will die on that hill!!  We ROC it, and we get LOUD.  We've gotten it up to over 130 decibles.

COSMO!!

Y?  Because we are the best!!

It was Native American month and so they had some Native Americans come out and do some awesome dances for us.  It was really cool.  And I love that we thumb our noses at political correctness because I thought that kind of stuff was frowned upon.  *cough cough* Washington Redskins.  *cough cough* The Runnin' Utes weird mascot that they had to change from a Native American and also had to remove the feathers from their logo.  *cough cough* Dixie State.  *cough cough* Anyone else who has had to change their logos and crap because it might hurt someone's feel bads.  Stupid snowflakes ruining it for everyone.

YES. WE. DID.  We played Houston and soundly trounced them 30 - 18!!  It was such a good game!

Speaking about Jimmy (ya know, because I spoke about him at the beginning of the post)..... Let's take a peek into what our Elder Davis was doing in the month of November.

 

We only got one email from Jimmy in November.  This email was from November 11th

Wow, sorry I missed last week again. It's tough sending out weekly emails, but I must be 100% responsible, so I will strive to do better. As you see, my email is on Monday because we had transfers, News at the End! What a fun couple of weeks. We had a great zone conference, fun stuff, learned lots. Had Halloween time, we just weekly planned and cleaned our apartment. Elder Hamilton got sick over the first week end, so we went on an exchange with some Spanish elders because they also got sick. Miracle exchange really, met so many Spanish and English people and had a pass off lesson with someone they referred to us. We had our last district councils for the transfer. Got some yummy canes. Sadly on Thursday I got sick aswell, and I'm still sick today which be tough. On Friday we had a sweet trio exchange, with elder lefoll and elder Flores. We got cookies. David got baptized, such a miracle. That's pretty much it, lots of work, lots of lessons, lots of fun people. Hope you all have a great week, stay safe, God bless. Miss you all, luv ya bye. 

Transfer News: I am staying in North Las Vegas as a ZL, and me and my companion are in a TRIO. we are getting an elder named elder Patterson, he was a DL, he's a funny elder. My zone is huge now too, we are adding 5 more missionaries, with 2 new areas opening up. And we are getting 7 new missionaries which is crazy. So in total it's 25 missionaries.

Now I've talked about desire before. In 3 nephi 19, the people in ancient America desired the Holy Ghost. Wanting the gospel is a huge need in missionary work. Wanting to do missionary work is such a huge need aswell. 

D&C 4:3 "3 Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work"

You must want the gospel for it to really work. Wanting to repent means that you are penitent. When you don't feel happy the way you are, when you feel guilty, dirty, like a spot on a record, and when you want to change that, its called being penitent. The dictionary describes it as so: Feeling or expressing remorse for misdeeds. A synonym for it is repentant.

Alma 41:5 "5 The one raised to happiness according to his desires of happiness, or good according to his desires of good; and the other to evil according to his desires of evil; for as he has desired to do evil all the day long even so shall he have his reward of evil when the night cometh"

A key component to The Plan of Salvation is Agency. We are given the blessing to choose. We chose this plan before we came here. And we can choose what's up next. 

Now getting the right desires can be hard. Especially when you need to change bad desires to good. The humility process helps but ultimately it is up to you to choose. 

One way I have seen this is the phrase "I Want" Phrases such as:

"I want to think celestial" 

"I want to to study my scriptures"

"I want to come forth unto my savior and partake of his eternal goodness"

"I want to pray"

There are so many more desires, good desires, righteous desires, celestial desires, that we can choose.

 I have seen the choice of going on a mission has blessed me so incredibly much. I have been healed, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Even just the simple desire to study the word of God has helped my so much. And once you have gotten these righteous desires, you will recieve the promised blessing

Our prohpets, president Russell M Nelson, Think celestial "As you think celestial, your heart will gradually change. You will want to pray more often and more sincerely."

I'd like to invite you all to find something that will help you think celestial, and desire it. In the name of Jesus Christ amen. 

And with that, we have reached the end of this blog post.  I hope you have enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, and hope to see you back tomorrow when we will wrap 2024 in a nice, neat, little bow, and send it off burning into the sunset, praying for a better 2025 (which, by the way, pretty much started where 2024 left off.  I need a nice, long, vacation).

October Outings

 Hey there, welcome back to today's edition of the Davis Family 2024 Year in Review!!  I took a few more pictures in October, but there still isn't a lot, but I do have a good excuse for that.  So, let's talk about it, shall we?

Isn't he just the cutest thing ever?!?!?  He's getting to be an old man now.

Nathan snuggling with our cute little niece.  He's a baby hog by the way.

Me and my buddy Grignard hanging out on the hammock.

Meow meow got his green belt.

It's GAMEDAY!!  I believe this is the BYU vs. Arizona game.  Naturally we won that game.  We trounced them 41 - 19!!  I had to miss two home games because of my silly surgeries, which is sad, because they were epic and awesome games.  But I was happy to get to go to the games I did go to.

My little yard buddies.  Grignard is sitting on top of Scoot.

My cute old man

And this here is my excuse for why I didn't take more pictures.  I am high as a kite and four sheets to the wind here, and the reason for that is because this in on the way home from PAYSON where I had my SECOND surgery of the year.  This surgery is where they permanently placed my spinal cord stimulator.

Help!!

A lovely fall day, hanging out on the hammock, enjoying the last few days of warm weather and the beautiful wildflowers on my island

Tiger Lily has been doing an internship at a fire station down in Bountiful.  They were getting rid of some of their old equipment and so she snagged some.  

For Halloween, Jacen decided to dress up as Wolverine.

His friends jokingly called him the Walmart Wolverine.  We all thought it was hilarious and so we officially called him the Walmart Wolverine

Meow-meow won the Whitesides Warrior award for having a positive impact on others.  There was a whole huge assembly where he was given his award.  He even got a metal.  It was really fun.

Well, that's it for October 2024.......for those of us in Utah anyway.  We've still got to talk about our Nevada missionary........

We only got one email from Jimmy in October.  That email was on October 29th.

How's it going? Well, it's been a minute. I'm so sorry about that. Things have been going off here in north Las Vegas. We've been doing a lot of the work, like a lot. Our area is huge. It's like half of north Las Vegas. There are so many humble people and so many people that need this gospel. My companion and I have been having lots of fun. He's great. He's from California and plays the guitar as well. The rest of my district is great, same with the zone. We have been going on a lot of exchanges, about 2 to 3 a week. So far, we have been with every companionship in the zone, and we have gone almost 2 times with every district leader. It's fun seeing the difference in missionaries as we go on exchanges. One of the new missionaries gave his suit jacket away to a homeless guy. There are so many unique things that have happened, and I can't remember. But at least it's sweater weather. We took a recent convert to the temple. Crashed a hatian creole birthday party by accident. They wanted us to take a picture with their kid. We've been teaching a lot of people. The general conference was great. We had our mission leadership council, powerful. Shows how much work goes into creating a mission improvement plan. That's pretty much it. Wish I had more for you all since it's been like 4 weeks, but I'll start journaling better. Have a good one, stay safe, God bless, luv ya bye!

These few weeks, I've been taking a deeper look into humility. More specifically, I've been looking into four words. Patience, penitence, peace, and prayer. 

Starting with patience. Patience is a blessing to have naturally. A long with humility and faith, it is a christlike attribute. It is "cheerfully doing all things that lie in your power" as preach my gospel teaches. Patience is thinking celestial. It is trusting in God.

President Holland taught from alma 32 in his general conference talk titled "waiting on the Lord" that "Many lessons are taught in this remarkable chapter, but central to them all is the axiom that the seed has to be nourished and we must wait for it to mature; we “[look] forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof.” Our harvest, Alma says, comes “by and by.” Little wonder that he concludes his remarkable instruction by repeating three times a call for diligence and patience in nurturing the word of God in our hearts, “waiting,” as he says, with “long-suffering … for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.”"

Patience is needed for us to grow the Word of God inside of us. It requires patience to hold on to the iron rod and to keep going. So, with patience, we can study the words of the Lord. 

When I don't have patience. I have a hard time studying the word of God. When my mind is filled with anger, I struggle to be patient. When I am stressed, its as if my patience gets shattered. Now, the opposite of stress is peace. How can we get peace? 

Alma 38:8 

8 And it came to pass that I was three days and three nights in the most bitter pain and anguish of soul; and never, until I did cry out unto the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy, did I receive a remission of my sins. But behold, I did cry unto him, and I did find peace to my soul.

Alma had most bitter pain and anguish of soul. But when he "cried" unto the Lord Jesus Christ, he was then filled with peace. And was able to be one of the most amazing missionaries.

Now I love the word "cried". Crying is an interesting thing to use. Most of us would say, "Ok, well, he just prayed." But no, he cried. He didn't just mutter the words. He shed forth tears. Maybe they were tears of pain. Or ... maybe they were tears of humility. Tears of being truly penitent. Praying is a huge form of humility, especially when you "cry" unto the Lord. Crying unto the Lord is humbling your emotions, not holding back. And when you kneel to pray, you are humbling your body to the ground. You are being humble physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So what's the point of praying? Why be humble? Why be patient?

Elder Holland furthermore teaches: "So while we work and wait together for the answers to some of our prayers, I offer you my apostolic promise that they are heard and they are answered, though perhaps not at the time or in the way we wanted. But they are always answered at the time and in the way an omniscient and eternally compassionate parent should answer them. My beloved brothers and sisters, please understand that He who never sleeps nor slumbers cares for the happiness and ultimate exaltation of His children above all else that a divine being has to do. He is pure, love, gloriously personified, and Merciful Father is His name."

I brought this subject up with my mission president. He told me there are means and ends. A big house is the ends of a good job, the good job is the means to a big house. The means to a good job is good schooling. So on and so forth. 

So prayer gives us peace, peace helps us have patience, and patience allows us to hold to the Iron Rod(studying the word of God). Prayer is humbling. humbling ourselves, and studying the word of God leads us to faith and hope. And that leads us to the rest of the gospel. 

All of these things are means. 

3 nephi 11:5 

5 And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came.

But what are the ends?

3 nephi 11: 10- 11 

10 Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world. 

11 And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning

The Lord Jesus Christ is the end. These things point us to christ. They help us look up to him. I love my savior. For he hath redeemed my soul, and I say these things in his holy name, Jesus Christ amen.

And that brings us to the end of October 2024.  Everyone had a great Halloween.  Meow-meow invited some of his friends for school over to have a little party and go trick-or-treating, and I did my best to not go stir crazy and recover from my surgery.  Come back tomorrow for November, Thanksgiving, and more news from our Elder Davis.  And I promise that there will be more pictures.