Bishop Mathieson

I am including a couple pictures of Don serving as Bishop here in the Kamloops 2nd Ward. His two counselors right now are Cam Pierson and Doren Quinton. In the picture at the bottom are Jack Sabey, his Ward Clerk and Armand Pinegar who is the Executive Secretary.
Don has been serving now for just over 3 years so we expect he will probably be doing it for another couple, they are usually called for anywhere from 4-6 years. He started out with Doug Armstrong and John Franks as his counselors but that was changed just in this last year. I know although it has been a tremendous amount of work, he has learned so much and grown so much in the last few years. Don has been so grateful for his counselors and the real help they have been many, many times.
I have worried about him so often but have seen the Lord help him in so many ways. We know that he is being prayed for, strengthened and looked after every day. I have seen him counsel, pray, worry and never give up on people and wonder how he carries on. We both have seen "tender mercies" of the Lord in too many instances to ever doubt that what Don is doing is always being directed by the Lord! Prayers have been answered, calls have been made, work has went forth and continues to go forth every day. I have to say that I loved the man he was before but am amazed and impressed at the man he has become and continues to try to be! We have been so blessed and are so grateful to have each other. I pray that each of our children will have the same blessings in their choice of eternal companion!

Sunday Dinners

This is last Sunday just after dinner. As you can see we regularly have cute boys over, gee I wonder why! This is Kevin Smith (from Salmon Arm) and his cousin Geordie Murray (from Victoria) visiting from Salmon Arm. Geordie was buying a truck here in Kamloops and since they had to bring Melodie home from Salmon Arm they stayed for supper. Sunday dinners have been pretty busy lately, we often have people over and thank goodness for the girls! I usually have one of them make the dessert, one of them do the salad, one of them peel potatoes and then we all do dishes, so it ends up being pretty easy!Not sure what I'm going to do when they all leave home and I have to do it myself. Then again I won't have to shop for 3 hours every few days to keep food in the house.........It has been spring break this week and so we have been going through more food than usual, have to admit my favourite question is "What's for lunch?".....not....... I just give them the look, LEFTOVERS....... Good grief its hard enough coming up with ideas for supper, I am not going to wrack my brains for breakfast or lunch!!! There's cereal in the cupboard and bread on the shelf.........Can you tell I'm ready for school again!!!

Melodie is still in school though, a little choked that everybody else gets to sleep in..... she is so looking forward to being done in April. Then she'll have 2 years left.

We all want summer......and the weather has been so funny, warm and then rainy, even a few days with snow. April is around the corner though.........and that means mowing the lawns!!! Oh well, we've had a nice long winter break........

Computer Times!

Isn't life crazy.......couldn't resist adding these pictures. Don and I went down to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago to apply for our passports and we stayed the night with George and Sharon Hara. Sharon did the beautiful decorating for Danielle's wedding and they lived here in Kamloops for years before they moved down to Abbotsford after their mission. It was so funny because Sharon and I both had our computers out sharing pictures and websites....... so much for wallet photos!

Looking Forward to Cub Car Rally!

Couldn't resist posting this one of Mitchell! We found out about the cub car rally from our friend Deanne Pierson, who is our cub leader. Mitchell will be going into cubs when he turns 8 in May....so we decided to go take a look. There were lots of cars, races and prizes to be won.......someone's eyes were big and bright. Well you can just imagine all the excitement and fun....... so Mitchell is pretty excited about doing this next year. He will be our first cub, so it will certainly be a new experience for us, we are pretty familiar with young women, scouts will be a whole new world!

Sleeves and Sleeves!

Vanessa with her friends Alyssa, Theresa, Melissa and Sophie! Here they are having fun at one of our Stake dances, it was a big band dance and they were asked to dress up for it! The girls all went looking into the thrift stores for dressy dresses.........problem was most of them have no sleeves! So Vanessa and Sophie found these cute ones but decided they would use shirts or sweaters over them....or" Mom can you put sleeves on them?" Vanessa asked. Now I've made lots of sleeves but have never put them on a dress that wasn't intended to have any so that was craaaaaazy.

I spent the Thursday night before making a pattern with scrap fabric, added a strap to sew it to, and tried it on Vanessa about 3 times (I was using the material from the bottom of the dress because it was so long and Vanessa wanted it shorter).........then Friday it took another 2 hours to cut the bottom off the dress, hem it and then make the sleeve and somehow attach it and make it fit........then when Vanessa came home and tried it on, after all that, it was still gaping at the one shoulder, arghhhhhh, so I unpicked 2 seams and sewed it tighter. It looks pretty good in the picture, just glad you can't see it up close, lol. Would never have been able to do it a few years ago, my friend Bonnie Sherwood has taught me lots........she's an amazing seamstress and she showed me how to keep trying it to fit before anything is done completely, of course she only has to do it once!!

Vanessa was very happy with it! Sophie her friend that was with her put sleeves on her own dress (what a cutie) and ended up winning best costume for the night so they were pretty happy. Too bad I missed it but we had just drove back from Vancouver the night before and really didn't want to be on the road again! Let's just say I sure hope Vanessa wears that dress more than once!!!

Missionaries Coming and Going!

Here are our cute girls Vanessa and Melodie with Will Hara! Will just returned from his mission in February. He served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Japan. The neat part is that his father George served in the same area. Although he is Japanese, Will did not speak it except the little that he learned in school. When he was talking at the Collingridges he mentioned that it took him about 6 months to be able to carry on conversations and about 9 months before he felt really comfortable! I had to laugh, it is a miracle to me that someone can learn another language in 9 months, our missionaries are so blessed!

Don is pretty excited, well we all are because Andrew Lamb is still on his mission in England and we have 3 young men coming up.........Mark Jensen was called to Paraguay and his brother Corey and Lorne Razeau should both be getting their calls this week. We also have 3 more coming up this year so lots of missionaries serving from our ward by the end of the year. Kind of fun because Don as Bishop can check online now and know when the Salt Lake office gets their applications and when they are sent!