Sunday 24 September 2006

Service

Our stake has just finished another major service project today. It's been quite interesting the last two weeks being involved in some service to the community.The first was a Food Bank drive. We do this annually. Every stake in our city delivers flyers and bags, and then a few days later picks up food to donate to the food bank. I organized it for our ward. It was an interesting challenge. We got it all done though. Last year they said what we collected was more than any food drive in Canada has ever collected. This year we beat that by 10%. We collection over $650,000 worth of food! Quite amazing. The front page of the Calgary Extra had a picture of it.
We have a new children's hospital that has just been built here. So all the stakes again joined together in a service project. We made a quilt for every child that will be transported from the old hospital to the new hospital this next week. There was about 300 or so quilts made around the city, I guess. We did that today. We tied quilts and finished quilts from 1-5 pm, then we had a light dinner, and then watched the RS Broadcast. We had a fabulous turnout. They were hoping for about 75 women - and got double that. It made a bit of a challenge for the dinner - but just like the loave and fishes story, it all worked out and everyone seemed to get plenty to eat and there was food left over.I quite enjoyed the broadcast. I think spending the afternoon in service was a good way to prepare our hearts for the messages given.

Thursday 7 September 2006

Teach the word

I'm always interested to see how teaching from the scriptures makes such a difference. Alma was right. If you use the word of God it makes all the difference! I really have a testimony of the scripture that says:
Alma 31: 5
5 And now, as the apreaching of the bword had a great tendency to clead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.
Recently my daughter has been nagging me to have a later bed time. It's the usual "All my friends go to bed at such and such a time....why do I have to...."

Finally, last night I read a scripture to her that seems to have ended the discussion. I read D&C 88:124 to her. It says:

124 Cease to be aidle; cease to be bunclean; cease to cfind fault one with another; cease to dsleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be einvigorated.

We talked about what all the different phrases in there mean (idol versus idle, being clean versus being unclean, having an invigorated mind, etc.). And that was about it!

When she said her prayers that night she thanked Heavenly Father for a number of things - including that scripture - and then hopped into bed at the regularly scheduled bedtime!

Perhaps we're finished with that issue now! Yea!!

Saturday 2 September 2006

The results are in....

CBE has lost their court battle. This is from the CFCN news website

CBE loses case to reclaim two schools
calgary.ctv.ca
POSTED AT 4:57 PM Friday, September 1
The Calgary Board of Education went head to head with another school division in court Friday and lost.
The CBE accused the Palliser Region of overstepping its authority by taking the two Calgary area schools into its fold.
The case revolves around Calgary’s Heritage Christian and Menno Simons Christian School.
Some time ago they asked to become alternate program schools with the CBE. The Board rejected the schools because they teach religion which goes against its policy.
The Palliser Region, based in Lethbridge, welcomed them both.
Lawyers for Palliser argued the move was done with the assistance and approval of the Department of Education and falls under the School Act.
CBE lawyers say Palliser has no right to run schools outside its jurisdiction.
The decision will have a big impact on the schools and the parents of the children who attend them.
When Heritage and Menno Simons were private schools, they were funded sixty percent by the Province. Forty percent had to be made up by constantly rising fees.
Now as public schools with alternate programming under Palliser they qualify for full funding. The fees parents pay will be significantly less.
The children are assured of receiving a Christian education but they will also benefit from stable funding and an association with a school board that really wants them under their wing.
Classes at both schools starts Tuesday morning.