Life Lately

Here are some little things that we've been up to. On one of our recent adventures, we saw a Tesla charging station with a couple of cars charging.

Every few months, we get treats from our boss with FedEx Office. I didn't know what I wanted so I asked for chocolate with caramel. Jennifer totally delivered!

Jonathan and I finally went the Family History Center in Salt Lake City. They were able to give us some direction on how to do our Family History. Next time, we'll get serious and go to the Family History Library!

Ryan and Tyler had their birthday. It was really weird getting family names ready for my nephew to take to the temple!

Stephanie Nielsen of the NieNie Dialogues, visited UVU and Jonathan saved us great seats. It was amazing! Personally, I loved watching how her husband was looking at her. The love he has for her is palpable.

We went up to Ogden for a mission reunion that ended up getting cancelled because Jonathan's mission president was in the hospital. We had dinner just down the street from the temple.

We went up to Temple Square to spend time with Chris and Annie and watched General Conference from the Tabernacle.

Nursery has been going well! We've been in it for almost a year and a half and we still love it! Another couple was called and so I finally made a schedule. I forgot to include all of the extra time for laying on the floor or running into the walls during the lesson and calming down after singing Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam...

It's hard to believe that another summer is over!

BYU Football

My brother Chris has been dying to go to a BYU football game this season. Lucky for him, he has the two of us to go with him and we don't need much notice for plans.

We went to the home opener against Boise. It was crazy! After the second to last touchdown, Jonathan leaned over to me asking that I protect him from my brother. I looked down the row and Chris wasn't there. I turned around and he was at least three rows behind us celebrating with everyone in his path.

It was a great game to go to!

Join Us!

It's that time of year again! General Conference is here! It started last week with the General Women's session and tomorrow morning at 10am MST (Mountain Standard Time, not Mormon Standard Time) will be the first of four general sessions. General Conference is for everyone and I invite you to take some time this weekend to listen. There are a large variety of ways to watch it and click here to find out how to watch it. This time, Jonathan and I are going to head up to Salt Lake to meet up with Chris and Annie. It is such a wonderful blessing to here the words of living prophets and I know that there will be messages that I need to hear.

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Last Saturday, I went to the General Women's Session with Annie. Each talk was amazing and exactly what I needed to hear. The talks in each session of conference are truly inspired!

The Favorite

In case anyone was wondering, Jonathan is everyone's favorite person.

Seth loves talking to him about WWII and planets. They were looking at pictures of some of the rovers on Mars. Jonathan is patient enough to explain and reexplain everything to them.

Joseph Machin

When my parents came out this summer, they brought a couple of binders filled with our family history. I went through them and photographed each page and now I'm typing all of the stories. It's not surprising that at some point many of my relatives were in Utah. As I read about where they were, I have been figuring out where they were and then we go visit those places.

Joseph and Sarah Machin  (he later changed the spelling to Machen) emigrated in 1869 and were able to take the train to Utah because of the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Promontory Summit where the transcontinental railroad was completed.

They lived in Minersville for about a year or two after that. I'm assuming that he worked in the mine in the area. When he was living in England, he learned how to work in a smelter and he was probably working in a mine before that.

My favorite part of visiting the mine was looking out to the mountains. They haven't changed very much since my great-great grandparents were looking at those same mountains.

After a few more moves, they ended up in Sandy. There Joseph worked in the Mingo Smelter along with farming and other odd jobs. I found out that there is a plaque and a little mine car where the smelter used to be.

After working in the smelter for 15 years, the family moved up to Idaho for a brighter future for their children.

I am so grateful that my great-great aunt took the time to compile the stories and that I now have the opportunity to visit the same places that my ancestors once lived. There are still more places to find and I look forward to visiting them.

Payson Temple

We finally made it down to the Payson Temple. It is a lovely and very large temple.

I love all of the details in the stone.

We only have a few Utah temples left to visit!

Remember

Last month, I found out that there is a monument in New Jersey called "To the Struggle Against World Terrorism" that was gift from President Vladimir Putin, the people of Russia and the artist, Zurab Tsereteli. 

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The world changed so abruptly that day, but there were others throughout the world that offered their hands and hearts out in friendship. No matter how bleak the circumstances, you can still find good.

Khan Academy

Two years ago, I needed to brush up on some of my math skills. I asked Jonathan if he had any ideas. He introduced me to Khan Academy.

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It is a FREE website that has a number of different subjects. I feel like math is currently the most developed subject they currently have. There are videos on how to solve the various types of problems and then you solve the same types of problems yourself. I can't say enough good things about the free education that Khan Academy is offering to anyone who is willing to work for it. It is my dream for Jonathan to work there because they are providing such a wonderful service to anyone with an internet connection. Just imagine all the lives that are changing and the people that are convinced that they aren't good at especially math. They are opening opportunities that would otherwise be closed off because of the limits people place on themselves simply because they believe they can never be good at math. Education is powerful at changing lives and Khan Academy is making it more accessible.

Differences

Jonathan and I are extremely similar, so much so that it's a little creepy at times.

There is one way that we are very different. Jonathan enjoys having variety with our dinners while I could stick to the easy, yummy recipes we've been using for years. Since I work all day, Jonathan has taken over cooking. (Yes, I am spoiled. Yes, I enjoy it thoroughly.) He has started making spaghetti sauce from scratch and I'm pretty sure he has now used our Kitchen Aid more times than I have. Sometimes on the weekend, I make dinner. It almost always involves the Crock Pot and frozen chicken. I have no problem admitting that I am lazy when it comes to cooking. Hopefully for Jonathan's sake I will become more like him in the future.

148

148 is a pretty big number. Sure there are a lot of bigger numbers, but I would say it is still large. Currently there are 148 temples throughout the entire world. For an added perspective, when my parents were growing up there were 13 temples and only 4 of them were outside of the United States. Now about half of the temples are outside of the United States. The latest one is the Indianapolis, Indiana.

Each temple is truly a House of God. I feel so blessed that I have always lived within a reasonable distance of a temple and now I am spoiled by living around so many. Honestly though, it doesn't matter how near or far a temple is to you. It matters if you take the time to go there. Even if you just spend time on the grounds of the temple, you will feel the spirit there. In the coming months and years there will be hundreds of temples throughout the world, so long as we go to the ones we currently have.

Promontory Summit

At the end of July, Jonathan and I went out to Promontory Summit (also known as the middle of nowhere) where the first Transcontinental Railroad was completed in May of 1869. I have been reading a lot about my Machen family history and my great-great grandparents took the train out to Utah when they emigrated just months after the railroad was completed.

They still have a little bit of railroad track for the replicas of the Central Pacific's Jupiter and the Union Pacific's No. 119. It was interesting to learn that the Jupiter is a wood burning engine while No. 119 is coal burning. Though it makes sense because the Jupiter was coming east from the forests of California while those coming west were struggling enough to find enough wood for the railroad ties.

I've grown up seeing the black and white photo of the two trains meeting, so I was very surprised to see how colorful they are in real life.

As we were leaving, we stumbled upon ATK Aerospace Systems. Jonathan and I both decided we should become rocket scientists so we can work there when we grow up.

It was amazing to see just how large the rocket booster that was used for the space shuttle is! I love all of the different adventures we are able to go on.

Flashback Friday

Jonathan has been backing up all of his pictures and videos to Google Photo over the past few weeks. (It's taking that long because of the thousands and thousands of pictures he has.) Well, after we got our camera Jonathan was practicing at we just so happened to be babysitting Lyla. Google saw the pictures and videos and made this cuteness.

I'm pretty sure this was the summer before her second birthday.

Elder Machen

I have been getting into my family history lately. It is fascinating learning who my ancestors are and their life experiences. One of my favorite things to learn about is my grandpa Machen's mission to Tahiti in the late 1930's. I haven't gotten my hands on his mission journal yet, but the stories I have read so far are wonderful.

This is one of my favorite stories:

"Then there was the time that Neal suddenly became very ill with an attack of kidney stones while he and his companion were laboring on one of the small islands. All of the members of the Church fasted and prayed with him and his companion until he was relieved of his pain and suffering. Those people had a child-like faith in the teachings of the gospel and their humility and sincerity were of lasting influence to the young men who had been sent to work with and teach them."

I can't wait until Jonathan and I have the opportunity to go and visit his mission. I think that there are many people there that still remember him because my grandparents served another mission in Tahiti in the 1980's and there were people that remembered my grandpa from his first mission.

It is such a blessing to me to have these wonderful memories to draw strength from as I face my own challenges. Our ancestors were real people that faced real challenges and we can still learn from them.