Temple: Janelle Endowment

Tonight we had the opportunity to bring Janelle to the Cedar City temple to receive her endowment!

Rick and I left early with her and brought her out to dinner in Cedar City before we went to the temple. The St. George Temple is still under construction, which is why we went to Cedar City. Because of the ongoing effects of Covid, masks are now required in the temple. 

The rest of our adult kids were planning to meet us at the temple before the session. Janika texted and asked us to pray for them that they would make it in time. They got stuck in really bad traffic in Spanish Fork due to an accident which put them behind schedule and she was worried that they might not make it. I checked the GPS and it showed that they would arrive thirty minutes after our 8:00 session was to begin. Nonetheless we prayed for a miracle -- and our prayers were answered! They were able to arrive twenty minutes before the session started.

While I was with Janelle as her escort, Rick managed to lock his keys in his car! He talked to the temple presidency who gave him a phone number to call and then joined us in the session. His keys were waiting for him at the front desk when we finished the session. The locksmith had offered his services for free, but Rick called him back and insisted on paying him. 

Other than those two things everything went smoothly and we were able to enjoy a beautiful, sacred experience with Janelle and our other endowed children. Afterwards we took pictures with our family and with Janelle's friends, Brea Bulkley and Clay McFadden, who had also come to support her. We had a funny moment when we went to leave and saw that Clay was still inside the gates, which were now locked. He was locked inside the temple grounds! After a few moments of wondering what to do we realized that the gate was still open on the other side of the temple! 

Just a little bit about the temple endowment from ChurchofJesusChrist.org: 

The word endowment means “a gift.” In this context, the temple endowment is literally a gift from God whereby He bestows sacred blessings upon you. The endowment can only be received in His way and in His holy temple. Some of the gifts you receive through the temple endowment include:

1. Greater knowledge of the Lord’s purposes and teachings.
2. Power to do all that God wants us to do.
3. Divine direction and protection as we serve the Lord, our families, and others.
4. Increased hope, comfort, and peace.
5. Promised blessings now and forever.

Janelle Graduation

Janelle graduated from Snow Canyon High School this morning! Last year the high school graduation ceremony was virtual due to Covid. This year it was outside at the high school football stadium (I am assuming this is still due to Covid) instead of at the Burns Arena at Dixie State University, like it usually is.

Honestly, I would have been fine with the virtual ceremony that they had last year where pictures were all taken beforehand and the ceremony was all professionally recorded. Instead we sat in the sun in sweltering heat on hard bleachers with a spotty sound system trying to tune out the chatter of the people sitting behind us. Janelle sang (along with the other Senior Madrigals) and I tried to hold up my camera with the heavy zoom lens frustrated that the people behind me wouldn't shut up. Needless to say I didn't get a very good video. I still might add it to this post when I get a chance. 

But anyway, Janelle is graduated and very ready to move on! We were going to take her out to lunch at Cliffside, but there was an hour wait and the streets were filled with traffic due to all all of the graduations from the various high schools that were taking place at the same time. So we went to Lamys, which is just a few blocks from us. I had never been there before and it was quite good! Janelle then met up with friends to go to Gunlock Reservoir for kayaking and cliff jumping! Janelle had a great time at high school and we are grateful for the amazing friends she has! We look forward to seeing what the future holds for her! 

Here is a HUGE poster that Jaiden helped make, along with the other Exec Council members! 

Janelle Seminary Graduation!!

Janelle had her seminary graduation tonight. She was one of the speakers and she (and the other speakers) all did a great job! Janelle's good friend, Brea Bulkley (pictured) was the Seminary Council president this year. (She also lead the SCHS girls' track team to a first place victory in State yesterday!)  Janelle was on the Seminary Council this past year and really enjoyed it! Everything went smoothly for the graduation. For past Seminary graduations click HERE!  

Trina Lang, Janelle Jensen, Brea Bulkley, Justin Gulbranson, Adam Dunn

 

Night of Excellence

We had our Night of Excellence on the 7th. These are all our Young Women.  There were two girls missing but I think everyone else was there. We had about 25 YW in the 5th ward and only 17 in the 17th ward. The girls helped to make the decorations for one of their YW nights and also brought items to display. All of the girls sang "Peace in Christ," which they sung at Girls' camp last year. They also sung it in church a couple of weeks ago and were asked to sing it at the Missionary Fireside coming up next month.  

 

Night of Excellence turned out really nice. I had taken pictures of all of the girls on Sundays and had them printed and put them in little frames for the event. The Young Women's organization has a lot of big activities, but they also have a lot of leaders, which really helps to spread the responsibilities around. I love serving with the girls and leaders. It is a busy but fun calling.

 

Janelle earned her Young Womanhood Award this year back in February along with Sophie Smith and so those two were asked to speak. Janelle talked about one of her final projects, which was making a personal history book. I have made a Blurb book for a few of my kids of their early years with tons of pictures and the annual histories they write along with our annual family histories and funny anecdotes and stories. 

 

Janelle's book covers her first five years and we thought it would be a great final project for her to make another book that covered several more years of her life. The ten hour project ended up being more like a hundred+ hour project with the two of us working on it. It turned out really nice and is a wonderful and precious history. Out of all of my kids Janelle is the one who has enjoyed the history books I have made the most and has read them often and pretty much has all of the funny stories and anecdotes memorized. 

 

SCMS Warrior Honor Evening

This morning I had a couple of interpreting jobs and then took a nap!  I picked up the kids from school and then Jenna had a fun "Un-birthday" party for Activity Days which included swimming at Sister Phillip's house. I wish I had known that it was her leader's actual birthday today so I could have sent Jenna with a gift for her!

I brought Jaiden and her friend to dance at 4:45 and then stayed at the studio and waited for her since Jaiden had to leave early for the Snow Canyon Middle School's Award's Night. Jaiden and Janelle were supposed to be at the school early in order to greet people and pass out programs. Jaiden and Janelle both received awards for achieving a 4.0 all year long and Janelle also received an award (like last year) for perfect attendance! Jaiden and Emily helped to pass out cookies afterwards as part of their Student Council responsibilities.

I was also really proud of my Miamaids tonight! Each department gave out a special award -- typically one to an eight grader and one to a ninth grader. Four of those awards came from my Miamaid class! Layla Purdy received the award for Language Arts (9th grade) and Jaymii Bonadurer received the award for Language Arts (8th grade). Gracie Newby received the Fine Arts award and Ruby Bolton received the award for Science! Way to go girls!!

Junior Science and Engineering Fair at SUU (Janelle age 13 -- 7th Grade)

Today I went to the Junior Science Fair at SUU! It was so fun! I had to be at my school at 6:00 that morning and I arrived back to the school at 6:00 that night!  We rode the bus an hour to Cedar City.  We set up our boards and everyone made sure there wasn't a violation in their project.  For my project I did an experiment to see if the moon gives off energy.  I went outside on the new moon, full moon, and the days before and after at multiple times and used a multi-meter to measure the voltage.  I was excited when my project was one of the ones chosen for the Science Fair today!  

We had some free time before we were judged! And by free time, I mean we went to get f 'real shakes there! They were so good! I got a lot of brain freezes though...:) it hurt! When we got bored we found the rest of the class in the corner playing a fun game called "Superfrog" where everyone has a special position and animal noise. But when someone gets out, everyone switches positions! Then we got judged, for two full hours! At first it was fine, but then it started getting boring because judges became more scarce.

After that we took down our boards and ran to try to get a good spot in the lunch line! Luckily we did, it was so worth it! There was yummy pizza, salad, cookies and lemonade.  We had a little more free time after that and then went to the afternoon workshops. Chemistry Madness was full, so I went to Exploding Bridges instead. Turns out the bridges don't explode, they just flew everywhere when you pulled one of the popsicle sticks out. Kind of a bummer. After that we went to the Egg Drop. Kind of fun, but my team's egg totally cracked. Whoops. I had another idea to crack the egg ahead of time inside the bag so it couldn't break when we dropped it, but it was after we already made it.

After that, we went to the awards ceremony which was actually pretty boring. All my friends got 3rd place or above in their category though, so that is exciting! After the ceremony, we started heading home. I almost got left! Mr. James handed out the leftover pizza on the bus. It was cold, but still yummy! We also got T-shirts for going. I got two, since they were throwing them out during the awards ceremony. One is white and the other is red. It was so fun and I'm glad I went! This makes me want to visit again soon!

                               -Janelle Jensen

Nov. 18-24

The kids were out early all week because of SEP's.  Tuesday morning I brought Janika in for a "teeth whitening" appointment since that is what she wanted for her birthday.  The appointment was at 7:00 a.m.!  I drove her over and got her checked in and then went home to get the kids ready for school and Jaiden to and from piano lessons.  After getting the kids off the school I went back and picked up Janika.  After my class that night I went straight to Pack Meeting where our Bears were in charge of the skit.

Wednesday I went to school early because Jaiden and Janelle were receiving special academic awards at school.  I still need to scan in their certificates and include them here.

I went to Janelle, Jaiden, and Josh's SEP's. They all got raving reviews, although Josh's teacher admitted that he is a talker.  He is VERY loud at home so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  But I still was surprised because teachers have always said how quiet all of our kids are (even if they are loud at home.)

Thursday Nov 21st was Rick's birthday.  We weren't able to really celebrate today because I had class and Rick had carolers.  But the carolers sang "Happy Birthday" to him and got him a big cheesecake (to share with all of them of course)!   Rick and I will celebrate next week with an overnighter to Las Vegas!

Friday the 22nd the girls had activity days and then Jenna went to Eva Conover's Birthday Party and Janelle went to Heidi Wakefield's birthday party.  They had a great time.

Saturday 23rd:  We went to Rick, Jaiden and I went to watch Janelle perform at Dixie's Tellabration at the St. George Opera House which featured all of the District Storyteller Winners along with a couple adult story-tellers.  All of the kids who participated got a certificate and a $10.00 award.  It was fun to watch the story-tellers perform their stories and Janelle did a fabulous job!  Later on Janelle got awarded a medal at a school assembly.

 

Science Fair Winner

Congratulations to Janelle (age 9) for winning Second Place in the Science Fair for the Third Grade!