Joy + Spiritual Survival

Do you know when you just happen across something that is the answer to what you have been puzzling over?

I am very grateful for this little video, its a talk I've heard before but it was meant for me right now.  

I love my family,  I love my Saviour and I love how the way I live my life makes me feel.  I have been preparing a talk for Church this weekend, its about becoming as a little child and accepting Heavenly Father's plan.  

A big lesson to me this week has been the reaction of a group of faithful Missionaries in Australia to the passing of one of their fellow Elders.  

Their pure testimonies of their love of the Lord and their faith in his plan has strengthened me.  Their absolute faith that they will see their friend again and their outpouring of love for the things he taught them.

Finding Joy everyday in whatever situation we find ourselves in is vital, having hope in His plan can allow us to do this.

My Audience

So here I am after another huge gap.  Who knew I still had an audience?!?

So much has happened sine I last wrote but writing is what I feel like i need to do now.  Before I became aware that someone out there still looked for new posts on my blog, I had this feeling that I wanted to write more.

I believe my last blog was when Ross had his mission call.  Well soon after that he fell in love and brought a beautiful young lady into our lives, Harriet, more on her later.

Ross continued on though with his progress towards his mission and left us on July 4th 2017, our silver wedding anniversary. He loves his mission and we hear from him each week, he is not a big writer but we hear enough to know that he is safe and happy, learning and growing.  We have had two of our FaceTime calls, Christmas and Mother's Day, and he looks well.

So seven weeks after he left we welcomed Gareth home from California, in the two weeks preceding his homecoming I spoke with him about the beautiful young lady he met before he left on his mission. (can I just add here that there is a certain pattern to this in our family as Calvin and I met just before his mission too!)  He said they were thinking about meeting up when he got home.  Well to cut a not very long story short they met up in September, October, December and February and got married in April.  Karo is from Iceland so their meetings were spread apart and took place in different countries but they got engaged in Iceland at Christmas and married here in our beautiful chapel in Wales, before being sealed in the London Temple where they had first met back in May 2015.

We spent the time from September to April supporting Gareth at University in Telford and getting to know Harriet and Karo better.  Its been so much fun outnumbering the boys!!

A few short weeks ago we waved goodbye to harriet as she left for her mission to Temple Square in Salt Lake City, she will spend her 18 months giving tours and testifying of Jesus Christ to people from all over the world.

So here we are now, Calvin, Martha and I living in Wales, Gareth and Karo have settled for now in Shrewsbury and we await the return of Ross and Harriet next year.

I guess you might like some pictures of all that?

Ross and Harriet July 2017

Farewell Elder Ross Williams

Welcome home Elder Gareth Williams

The wedding of Gareth and Karo

Ross down under in the outback

Mother's Day and Ross Birthday 2018

Family time

Sister Harriet Woods, ready to go!!

So the last year and a bit has been quite an adventure and the experiences of motherhood just keep on going and changing.  It seems like such a short time ago that they were all small and now we are almost doubled in number!!  I am really looking forward to the experiences to come in the next chapter of our life.

Thanks for being there reader, you know who you are, thanks for always thinking of us and remembering our special days

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