Seminary Blesses My Life

My mom sent me this article by Orson Scott Card which was written in the Mormon Times. I thought it was a great way to start of the year.

Seminary's at our house this year, and we couldn't be happier.

And not just because that means we don't have to drive our high school freshman daughter to somebody else's house.

Seminary was held in our house before, back in the fall of 1992, the first full year we lived in Summit Ward. Our firstborn, Geoffrey, would get himself up, turn off the house alarm, turn on the lights and open the doors. My wife and I didn't even have to get out of bed, though usually Kristine was up before seminary was over.

Then, after two years with other teachers, my wife was called to teach seminary and continued through five years. Seminary only moved out of our house when Kristine was called to teach institute instead.

Seminary left its mark on our house -- literally. There's a dark line on one wall where chairs got bumped up against it, day after day for seven school years.

We also learned to make some rules. For instance, nobody was allowed to sit on the couch -- it was too soft and too deep, and hardly anybody was able to get through seminary awake while sitting there.

Now, after eight years as stake Relief Society president, Kristine is back teaching -- just in time for our youngest. This gives us a perfect record -- we never had to drive our kids anywhere before 6 in the morning.

And since I was never the teacher, I mostly saw the seminary kids when I stayed up working (or not working) really late the night before.

There were adventures -- like when the sprinkler system reset itself and came on right when a big bunch of the kids were walking to the front door.

Or the time Geoffrey groggily punched the wrong code into the alarm system and summoned the police. Not a SWAT team, despite how the legend has grown.

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And as a very young child, our youngest used to sneak down and sit at the foot of the stairs, just out of sight, listening to the lessons. A seminary spy. Now she gets to be in the room.

This year it's New Testament -- and Kristine was relieved that this time around the Church Educational System (CES) manuals don't try to "harmonize" the gospels.

It's just too confusing to keep skipping from book to book in the New Testament. Much better to take the gospels in order, one at a time, so everyone can read straight through the New Testament and stay right with the rest of the class.

The class began again as it always does, with a review of the plan of salvation, so that everything in the scripture can be viewed through that lens.

Kristine has always given her classes a "quiz" at the end of that first week, consisting of each student drawing their own graphic rendition of the stages of the plan.

She keeps them -- so it was fun for her to pull out examples from a decade ago just to show what's possible. Jon Lewis, for instance, now a senior in high school, got to see his older brother Jason's drawing.

(Our youngest daughter would have seen what her older brother and sister drew, but apparently they took theirs with them when they left home.)

Fortunately, the assignment does not depend on artistic talent (though you aren't penalized for it, either). These are graphics, not art, and you can use labels if the art doesn't communicate the full idea.

A lot of kids had fun with spirit prison. One drew and labeled his high school to represent the concept. Paradise, of course, was represented by more than one tropical island.

Most drew planet Earth to represent mortality, "where," as Kristine said, "we all live."

Well, this year, Augustine Cortes, remembering a song that says where "we all live," represented mortality on his drawing with a yellow submarine.

(And in the priests quorum class the next Sunday, when I was talking about marriage and said, "That's what it's all about," it conjured up a song even older than "Yellow Submarine." I challenge anyone to make a coherent medley out of that combination of tunes.)

I'm not going to get mystical and talk about the "spirit" that these faithful teenagers bring to our home. Our feelings are entirely subjective, the direct result of having them here.

When I look at our living room, chairs arranged for seminary class, I see my home through their eyes, or as I imagine they see it.

Because they study the gospel here, our home is a place of learning.

Because they pray here, they experience our home as a house of prayer.

Because they sing a hymn each day, it's a house of song.

Because they come so early and reshape their lives so they can take part in seminary, it's a place of righteous sacrifice.

Because they laugh together and help each other understand and provide rides for each other, because there are waiting parents at our kitchen table for the 50 minutes of class, and because they are kind, it is a house of love.

Those ideas would never appear in a real-estate listing. It doesn't add a dime to the cash value of our house.

But our house never feels so much like home to me as when the seminary students come.

Happy Birthday DAD!

A few years ago, I was googling LDS articles on marriage for a lesson when I came across about.com's list of 10 best articles on marriage. I was quite surprised when I found that one of the top ten was an article written by my dad in 1983. My dad is a great list maker and is a great example of someone who works to make his good marriage great!

Thank you for your example DAD &
Happy 68th Birthday!

Twenty Ways to Make a Good Marriage Great

1. Night and Morning Prayer … to say thanks, to ask for help in your marriage and family, to worship together.

2. A Weekly Planning Meeting … to discuss the calendar, talk over needs and problems, decide priorities and next steps. (Write decisions in a journal, including goals and discussion topics, and reasons for each.)

3. A Daily Phone Call or Personal Conversation … to say “I love you,” to touch base, to discuss the day, to show you care.

4. A Weekly Date … to a favorite park, a concert, the library, the gym; or staying home for a candlelight dinner, a game, or a mutual hobby.

5. Patience Regardless … of missed meals, tardiness, forgotten favors, a thoughtless remark, impatience.

6. Daily Service … helping with house or yard work, mending a piece of clothing, taking a turn with the sick baby, fixing a favorite meal. (Write it down. Do it!)

7. A Budget … to tie down income and expenses, help set financial goals, and give you control over your finances.

8. Listening … not only to what is said, but also to what is meant.

9. Regular Attendance … at church—and where possible—the temple.

10. Daily Scripture Reading … to learn the gospel, to receive inspiration for yourself and your marriage, to become more like Jesus.

11. Working Together … caring for a garden, painting a bedroom, washing the car, scrubbing floors, building a piece of furniture, writing a poem together, team teaching a class.

12. Forgiving Each Other … always learning from each other, trying a different way, being the first to make peace.

13. Courtesies … like saying please and thank you, not interrupting or belittling, not doing all the talking, continuing the niceties of courtship.

14. Soft and Kind Words … of tenderness, compassion, empathy.

15. Learning Together by … reading to each other, discussing ideas, taking a class.

16. Respecting … opinions, ideas, privacy.

17. Supporting Your Spouse’s … Church callings and righteous goals.

18. Caring for Your Spouse’s Family by … enjoying their company, praying for them, serving them, overlooking differences.

19. Occasional Gifts … such as a note, a needed item—but mostly gifts of time and self.

20. Loving with All Your Heart. “Thou shalt love thy wife [thy husband] with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her [him] and none else.” (D&C 42:22.)

“Twenty Ways to Make a Good Marriage Great,” Ensign, Dec 1983, 64

My CEO can beat up your CEO and he rides a Vespa. . .

Fidelity Trust & Bank CEO find new way to save money
Washington Business Journal - by Tierney Plumb Staff Reporter

Motor scooters are becoming more common around D.C. than black SUVs. But if you see a guy in a bespoke suit riding one down MacArthur Boulevard in the morning, chances are it’s Barry Watkins, chief executive officer of Fidelity Trust & Bank.

Watkins commutes from his non-Metro accessible Potomac home to his office on Eye Street NW on the Vespa he bought three years ago. He says the commute takes him about half the time it does when he drives, and, at 75 miles per gallon, uses half the gas.

"It's fun to go to the pump and fill up on $8, compared to $85. The problem is municipalities haven’t embraced the concept," says Watkins, referring to the lack of sanctioned scooter parking spots in D.C. He parks his on a sidewalk and chains it to a meter.

Scooters are no longer just the ride of choice for gamine students and hipsters. Overall scooter sales were up 24 percent across the nation in 2007, with the Washington area ranking ninth out of 1,000 markets, according to the Irvine, Calif.-based Motorcycle Industry Council. Sales are up 25 percent from last year at the Washington Vespa dealership at 2233 Wisconsin Ave. NW.
“And ‘tire kicking’ is way up,” says Kevin O’Neil, assistant manager at Washington Vespa, referring to the spike in shoppers browsing the $3,200 to $9,000 Italian bikes in the 6-year-old store. “We are also seeing an increase of sales of bigger-engine bikes because people are commuting farther.”

George Buder, owner of Mopeds Mpg in Fairfax, says his showroom isn’t bare yet, but his $1,250 to $2,295 cheaper Asian models are going fast- and the shipment-to-customer-store process can take up to seven weeks.