Worship on Christmas

mtseamonsfam So thankful for my knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! So blessed to have this little family to share this life with. At this Christmastime; as I reflect on my role as a woman, I am in awe of Mary, the mother of Jesus- her faith, her diligence, her ❤️.
From Luke 1:46-49- "...and Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name."

In this coming year-- May I magnify the Lord a little more, rejoice a little more, and have the desire to follow the Savior a little more- for He has done great things in my life and His name is holy!! #oneluckymom #oneluckywife #daughterofgod

faybono5 (Fay Bono, friend) Merry Christmas, you guys rock!!!!

Scripture Reading- the Seamons Way!

We are pretty perfect about Family Scripture Study in our home. We haven't missed a night in over 20 years. (Seriously!) It has been a blessing in our lives for sure.
But let's be real------ it's not always accompanied with halos and an overwhelming, uplifting Spirit- this is a pretty decent picture of reality! Dad "resting" his eyes. Glory getting a back tickle while she reads from the iPod. Justice making faces. Victoria foot to back massaging her brother (or is she beating him with her foot?) Liberty sitting as far away as she can from the chaos. And Mom thinking we don't have to always read so many verses each night. It's reality people- but I'll keep them! 💗😘😘😘😘

Ward Christmas Party Bethlethem

• mtseamonsfamHelena 3rd Ward Christmas Party! Yummy dinner. Musical numbers from all auxiliaries. Justice sang "Do you want to build a ⛄️ ?" with the YM. Liberty sang a song with the YW. Victoria played "The First Noel" on her violin. They also had a 'Build a snowman' table set up for the kids. Fun times!

• demerryMy girls said Victoria did a beautiful job on her violin! Sorry we missed it all 😞

Here's a clip of Victoria playing. She was super nervous and actually skipped her turn 3 times before she gained enough composer to perform. The whole room went quiet when she started playing. It was really beautiful and then the audience roared with applause after. Way proud of her!

mtseamonsfamTo end the evening – the primary participated in a live nativity. Cooper Lynch read some scripture and the kids sang some songs. Then we had a special visit from the wisemen that brought gifts to share. What a fun way to end the night!

mtseamonsfamCute Victoria came home from our Ward Party & set up her own Nativity in her room. So cute!!! Come, Let us adore Him!

Favorite Scripture #lighttheworld

Matthew 14:27-31 has been one of my favorite scriptures for a long time. I think that part of it is that Jesus encourages us to Be of good cheer and to not be afraid- To simply trust Him and walk on water. How awesome does that sound!? That's what I want! But so often (at least in my life)- real life gets in the way & I lose sight of Him and I begin to sink. It's scary and lonely. But this scripture reminds me – it's very simple. All I have to do is to say "Lord save me" & He will IMMEDIATELY! #lighttheworld

Christmas Devotional

Love ❤️ starting out December by hearing messages of the Savior and hearing music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. #christmasdevo #lds

Light the World

We're excited to Light the World this Christmas season. Wanna do it too? It starts tomorrow. Check out the video on Mormon.org #lighttheworld

Church in Anaconda

We went to the Regional Broadcast with Elder Rasband in Anaconda. Uplifted & encouraged! Allow the Temple to be a sanctuary from the world. Jesus ministered one by one- that's how we should live. Kids love back tickles & hair-dos. ❤️ Love this family!

4th Floor, Last Door- Women's Broadcast

After going to dinner with my good friend, Kris- I took my little girls with me to the Women's Broadcast. {Liberty had to work} This was Glory's 1st time. Our favorite talk was Elder Uchdortf. He talked about never giving up when sharing the Gospel. They had ice cream for us afterwards. My girls were in heaven!!! ;)

Activity Days (FIGGS)

We just started up Activity Days again in our Ward. (We had the Summer off.) We are joining with another Ward to increase the amount of girls involved. The other Ward calls it FIGGS (for Faith in God Girls)  I had the opportunity to help out with their "get-to-know-you activity to kick off the year, It was so fun. I'm in love with all these cute girls!  

They started out by doing a little Duck*Duck*Goose with an opportunity to tell each other something they admired about each other. We got a lot of "I like your hair" or I like your shirt" comments but it was still way cute.

We played a game with a lot of statement that could be applicable to the girls. Examples- I love chocolate! I have blue eyes. I love activity Days! etc. If it applied to someone they followed the directions to either move to the left or move to the right. (even if someone else was in that chair LOL) It was pretty funny!! The goal was to make it all the way around the circle and back to your orgiinal seat. Silly!

The last game we played helped the girls learn each others names. We did a little Memory practice with them and then played the game. The leaders, Annie Hartwig and Kim Jenkins divided the girls into 2 groups. They held up a blanket in the middle. One girl from each side would sneak up to be right next to the blanket. We would count to three and drop the blanket. The first girl to name the other girl correctly was the winner. Super great way to learn each others names. 

Here's our cute group of girls & their leaders:

And being Silly:

And silly-er:

Decision America Prayer Ralley

All our Prayer group ladies decided to go to the Capital this morning to participate in the Prayer Rally with Franklin Graham. It was a way neat experience to be surrounded by other Christians on the steps of the Capitol praying for our Country. Brett was able to take a minute to join us. Heaven knows we could use a little extra help these days.

https://decisionamericatour.com/

Secret Mission: Youth Conference

Youth Conference was this weekend. Liberty was at Nagu Con so she didn't attend on Friday. The kids fourteen and up went to the Lewis & Clark Caverns all day. It sounded like it was a lot of fun and some hard work.  Justice was only able to go for the Saturday Session. It was held down at the Zipperian Ranch where Trek was held last year. Remember Trek here, here, here, here and here. Fun times!!!    Brett & I were asked to go be in charge of a group on Saturday. (Thanks to my good friend KrisL Fife for taking care of my little girls and bringing them down) It was super hot but they did some great service as well as had a lot of fun together. Thanks to all the Stake leaders that put so much work into a fun weekend.

Brett & I were over the Hinckley Group (all of the 12 year olds) They were some fun kids!

 For our group's service project, we hauled tons of wood to the burn pile. They were some hard workers!

Back at the main site and eating lunch, a water fight ensued, Mostly due to Brett's enticing of the 12 year olds against his Senior Seminary Students. LOL Way to go Honey! He also payed Garret (BubbaBob, our Trek son) $5 to dump a bucket of water over President Christensen's head. It was hilarious!!! I got some pretty awesome shots!!I love the closeup because it looks like Pres. Christensen doesn't even care. Garret's face is priceless as he dumps the water on him. So funny!

They also had some other Water Games for the kids to participate in. This is one where they threw wet sponges at each other. Justice is in his Captain America shirt in the middle.

We ended the evening with skits from each age group. Here's Justice in his skit as the Disappearing Leprechaun. LOL

Our group  lip-synced to Frozen! They were awesome!!

Here's a video of them starting out! Love it!

And it wouldn't be a Helena Stake Youth activity without the Christensen Brothers rockin' out! Love these guys! Here's their debute of Press Forward. (That's this years theme)

Glory was Baptized!

Glory had quite the special day!!! Brett was able to baptize her today!

Here's the men that were able to stand in the circle when she received the Holy Ghost and got confirmed a member for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

 She was blessed to have quite a few friends support her in her decision today. Here's their group hug!

Here's all the youth that came. Thanks so much for supporting us today!

Here's all of Glory's extended family that came up for this special weekend. 

Glory was so excited to have them all here!!!!!

What a lucky family we are to be a part of Glory's life.

Afterwards- we had a bunch of people over for dinner. So glad to have a place to host all these wonderful people.

Changes to our Ward Family

At Stake Conference, President Bingham announced the organization of a new Ward in our area. They are creating a Helena 6th Ward & reorganizing the boundaries. I'm excited for the opportunity that The Church has to grow in this area. But for today, I have a sadness in my heart for the loss of some of my best friends. I'm excited for their opportunity to embark on a new adventure. They will be such a benefit to their new Ward. I know that we can still do things and get together but there is something about seeing & serving with each other each Sunday. I will miss them dearly! Love you ladies!!

On top of these 2 dear friends I will miss--- our Ward also lost 7 of our 14 Primary Workers. Also of whom will be missed dearly!  Serving as the current Primary President, it has been a bit overwhelming. I have had my share of tears this week. I do know the Lord is in charge. It will all work out. But in the meantime- extra prayers & a little faith will be required. ;) Thank heavens Brett is my unofficial sub! He's pretty awesome like that. He can teach 5 classes & play the piano, right? LOL

Genealogy Work

"Do you young people want a sure way to eliminate the influence of the adversary in your life? Immerse yourself in searching for your ancestors, prepare their names for the sacred vicarious ordinances available in the temple, and then go to the temple to stand as proxy for them to receive the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. As you grow older, you will be able to participate in receiving the other ordinances as well. I can think of no greater protection from the influence of the adversary in your life."- Richard G. Scott, Oct 2012

Our family had our Genealogy Specialist come to our home this evening to help us figure out how to search for names of our ancestors to take to the Temple to be baptized.
She walked us through the steps on the Church family search website.

Family Search.org- Official LDS church Website for Searching & Temple Work
Ancestry.com- Another website to help search for ancestors.

I love the blessings associated with doing Genealogy. I hope that we can participate as a family in this great work.

186th General Conference

Grateful for the opportunity we had to listen to the Church's Conference this weekend. It's a special time to hear what God wants us to hear. It challenges us to make better choices, grow closer as families, reach out to others and follow the Savior more meaningfully.
I love that my kids got out our Conference Bingo. Even before I got any candy out as an incentive. Love those kids! They spent the weekend listening for words to fill their boards. If nothing else, they filled their minds with uplifting, God-like words. ;)

 Saturday:

Sunday:

Provo City Center Temple Dedication

It just happened to be that while we were in UT- the whole Salt Lake Valley (maybe more of UT) was invited to participate in the Provo City Center Temple Dedication in place of regular Sunday meetings. Only those 8 and older & with a recommend could attend. Luckily, we were able to get in contact with our Bishop and the local Bishop in order to get a special recommend for Victoria. She was a bit nervous and super excited as well. {Glory stayed with Grandma Seamons and collected snail shells) It was a broadcast viewed at the local meetinghouses. They had a choir and speakers and the dedicatory prayer. It was a  special experience for our family to be there together. I love that the kids had a chance to see how a dedication works and be there with us.


We also had the opportunity to take the kids by the actual temple a couple days later so they could touch it. It was super cold & windy but it was a little miracle for us as well. On the way down to Payson- it was snowing really bad. However when we got out in Provo- there was no snow at all. Then when we left and got back on the road- it again began to snow. The Provo City Center Temple was our little oasis in the storm. Love it!

The story behind the new Provo City Center Temple is amazing!! It was originally built in 1861 so it's has been around for over 100 years. It used to be a Church house then a Tabernacle until it burned down to it's outer walls in 2010. Then it went through huge renovations to become a temple. I love the symbolism of being burned down and reborn as a new beautiful and eternal thing.

Historic photo shows Provo Tabernacle with the baptistery in the foreground and the Provo meetinghouse behind. (Source:history.lds.org)

Fire destroyed the tabernacle on Dec. 17, 2010

Reconstruction leaving outer walls but adding basement, underground parking and beautiful temple grounds.

Completed & dedicated Provo City Center Temple March 2016