one step closer to heaven

my sweet friend aniwa made it one step closer to heaven yesterday as she went through the temple for the first time and received her endowment, before being sealed to her parents along with her brother. it was such a beautiful moment to share with her and be a part of... she asked me to be her escort (the person who sits with you and helps you through). it's the first time i've had such a privilege and i felt so loved to be asked.

watching this sweet girl come back to church, be married just over a year ago and now this, has my heart bursting with love! there is such joy to be found from the blessings of the temple and i know she is so happy to be closer to her father in heaven.

some of the lovely girls from our ward... there to support our girl! ♥

instagram top nine

it's a new year and i keep seeing these instagram top nine photos appearing in my feed, so i thought i would jump on the bandwagon and see what mine had in it. i honestly cracked up laughing when it came back with these 9 pictures that make me look like an absolute molly mormon. 

left to right, top to bottom:

the salt lake city temple during my visit to utah in february

our little family at the pinker wedding

an evening session at the perth temple

provo city centre temple also during my visit to utah

dallas texas temple with the demkes

rocking my mary poppins outfit at the madeley ward trunk or treat

another evening at the perth temple

madeline's moana party "heart of te fiti" cookies

the salt lake city lds conference centre

it was definitely a great year, with some excellent memories - and being that most of them involved church this is a perfect nine for me. 

let's hope 2018 is just as good. ♥

relief society pjs party

last night we had our additional meeting for october: a "pjs party" 

• prayers • journals • scriptures • 

the things you'd do before bed...

the purpose of our evening was to increase a love and desire in our sisters to participate in regular prayer, journalling and scripture study. we had each of our presenters speak on the evening for around 10 minutes (with the exception of blogging, which was 2 minutes following the journal speaker)

sisters arrived dressed in their pjs and were seated in the relief society room then given a journal each to take notes on the evening and then keep using at home. we watched a short clip found on youtube before each speaker introducing the topic, as they spoke on prayer, journals (one sister covered scripture journals, bullet journals and general conference journalling, with another (me!) speaking briefly on keeping an online journal- a blog) and scriptures. 

the speakers were given these pointers to cover during their time:

prayer

-how to to have a good relationship with your father in heaven

-how to feel a greater desire to pray regularly

-perhaps a specific example of how/when you have received an answer to prayer

-how prayer can help us grow stronger as families

journals

-how to feel motivated to make journal entries

-what to write about

-how you feel when you look back on past entries and see how you/your family have changed spiritually (and just in general!)

-how you feel your journals will be to your family and future generations

scriptures

-how to more effectively study the scriptures

-how to feel a greater desire to do so

-how to retain the information you read

-how to grow closer to your heavenly father as you do so

decorations were simple, lots of cushions, quilts and lamps about the place... with desserts to share afterwards, accompanied by fruit infused water and crock pot hot chocolate. 

crock pot hot chocolate

ingredients:

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 x cans sweetened condensed milk (i always buy the woolworths or coles brand, they are exactly the same)

1/8 teaspoon salt

8 cups water

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

marshmallows to serve

directions:

1. in crock pot combine, milk, water and vanilla

2. add dry cocoa and salt, stir until smooth

3. cover and cook on high for 2 hours or on low for 4 hours

4. top each serving with marshmallows

water with frozen strawberries and mint leaves

+ water with frozen lemon slices

we were especially thrilled because it's almost summer here and it was cold and raining! perfect for getting around in your pyjamas.

  

as usual there was plenty of food... mormons gonna morm!

our three lovely speakers who did an incredible job (yes we had a bishopric member as a special guest speaker).

we have the best relief society... i feel so lucky to be surrounded by such amazing women ♥

sister kendall

dominique and i have a joint pinterest board - called sister kendall, which is mostly inspiration for mission clothing. the description for the board says, "i refuse to look like an idiot..." and she is doing well to ensure she doesn't. seeing as her papers will be going in soon... today she had a trial run of packing, ensuring that everything she packed could be worn with multiple other items... so it was a fashion show in my bedroom.

she has certainly done well though... with the cheapest sister missionary wardrobe the world has ever seen... between random things she has, hand me downs, things from my closet (mostly also from the opshop and hand me downs) and opshop finds

from top left...

1. cardigan a hand me down from a past sister missionary to me, dress from the local op-shop

2. dress and cardi from the op-shop

3. cheap $3 cardigan from supre, op-shop dress (worn as a shirt) and restyled skirt (bit of running in on the sewing machine, really not bad for a first attempt)

4. dress from 3, cardi from 2

5. dress from 1, worn as a skirt, shirt $10 from valleygirl, hand me down scarf from a friend of mine

6. cardi from 1, shirt from 5, $10 maxi skirt from dotti at harbourtown

i can't wait to see what else she comes up with... but there'll be 18 months worth of opportunities! 

sister kendall here she comes!

temple pics!

last night my gf bianca and i got together and had a girly craft night. our project was to gold and silver leaf pictures of temples that are special to us, hers being perth (where she and her husband rob were married) and johannesburg (where she grew up). we had such a good time together... gasbagging, catching up and trying our hardest to do a good job of our pics.

just in case you want to make one (and of course you totally should)... you will need:

picture of your favourite temple (disclaimer - none of the ones in this post were personally taken by me - or bianca - if you happen to be the person that took them, i apologise in advance, but you should totally be complimented that your mad photography skills are on display in our homes) google images is your new best friend. save that sucker to a usb stick, take it to your local officeworks and have it printed in black and white on acetate (transparent) paper. this will cost you a grand total of 

60c per piece. (for an a4 size - easy to find a frame for that...)

spray adhesive - get it here

gold/silver leafing - here and here

a soft brush (i used my makeup powder brush)

old crappy sheet for your table (things can get messy)

this is what they will look like before you start! all you do is turn the page over, spray with the adhesive, then lift your gold or silver leaf carefully from the protective pages. you then need to place it on the glue and press  it down with your brush. this is the hard part. touching the leaf is hard because it is very fragile and can easily damage or tear. using a pair of cotton gloves is a good help.

once your page is covered it will look like this below... not attractive...

but it will dry and then you can pop it in a frame ready to keep and hang or give as a gift!

so much harder than we imagined, but well worth the trouble. can't wait to find frames for my ones and get them on display! (these are bianca's - so organised!) but they look great and i am so glad we made the effort, it's something a little different than a regular print.