Beautiful Saipan: Or "The View from the Deck"

We see the northeastern cliffs as well as beautiful and interesting cloud formations, rainbows,

and sunrise over the Pacific.

If you look closely at this photo, you can see an image above the sun--I don't know if that is a reflection on my lens or some type of atmospheric phenomenon like a sun dog or pillar? (I thought those had to be in cold places.)

Pioneer Day - Island Style

We had a Pioneer Day Celebration on July 21 at the Smith's.

We started out with a tug-of-war (that's a plastic tablecloth with water in the little depression--oh well).



Next was the stick-pulling competition. Jake won against Arthur-- Tori and Madison--

and these four brutes!

His loss came against--




Limson--as did Roland's.

Learning the Virginia Reel...
rounded out the activities. Then it was time for the food!

but others just kept on dancing...

It's Heeeerrrre!

And because my beloved daughter has been so sick (but is now feeling much better), I gulped only once when I paid the full retail on-island price. So she gets saved from the boredom of having to stay inside watching videos and playing Speed with Mom (but it was for jelly belly jelly beans so that was fun!). And she gets to read it first, but with one condition: no telling ANYTHING! She agreed it would be hard, but was quick to agree in order to find out what happens to Harry.... It's not really any big sacrifice for the rest of us--she'll probably be through with it in about 24 hours.

Bye-bye Tikla!

I'm a little slow getting this up, but I wanted to post this picture that Shauna took after church a few weeks ago--the Sunday after the Prance. The black and white is the photoshopped version that Tikla did. She's off to the "Y" and we're [ALL] really going to miss her! (I'm having trouble with the color photo--tune in later.)

Prance Pics

I said a while ago that I would put up photos of the guys with their dates on the night of the Prance (prom/dance). This was back in May. Enjoy!

Kaitlyn has...

books and
movies and
Sprite and
doctor's appointments and

pneumonia.

The Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem

From http://www.usaflag.org/

"The pledge of allegiance should be rendered by standing at attention, facing the flag, and saluting.When the national anthem is played or sung, citizens should stand at attention and salute at the first note and hold the salute through the last note. The salute is directed to the flag, if displayed, otherwise to the music. "

Last week in church our closing hymn was "The Star-Spangled Banner." As I began to play the intro I realized the chorister was not going to signal the congregation to rise (she's only 16), and our congregation is of mixed nationality, but I thought for sure that the Americans would stand out of respect for their country. Just before reaching the chorus when I realized that for whatever reason--probably self-consciousness--that was not going to happen, I stopped playing. I told the Branch Presidency that I couldn't play it if the Americans in the congregation would not stand--it was just too disrespectful. They stood. Everyone else did also.

No wonder the Lord refers to us as "sheep"--we are such followers. It's easier to follow than to think. There wasn't one American willing to take the initiative and stand, so none of them did. Once one group of people were asked to stand, everyone stood. I'm not railing on my brothers and sisters--I definitely include myself in this also--but it seems like we are scared of so many things. Ezra Taft Benson once gave a talk on pride and said that it was the root of all sin, but I think fear may be the root of pride. Maybe that's why the Lord so often commanded, "Fear not." Maybe that's why he's so merciful to us--because he knows that many of our mistakes, sins, actions are influenced by fear.

I found out later that last Sunday was Canada Day, and I told the Canadians that told me that if I had the music for "O Canada" I would have played it. They said that if I had, they would have stood.

Seminary Class 2006-07

Thanks for the great photo President Benson!