God Sent a Blessing Amongst Chaos - HE Loves Me!

I have had a few crazy weeks. I am not going to go into it right now as I am exhausted and have a long day tomorrow as well but wanted to share this blessing and try to get to bed. It is after 1 a.m. and I will be up early again. 

I was driving the long distance between my fathers home and my home worried about his home and my home as I found I have some water issues at my house. I stopped to drop off some items to one of my girls and she needed a specific item and I suggested we hit a second hand store to try and find that item she needed. 

I went to look for that item and behind where that spot was at the store, there was a tall plastic covered item and I was about to leave not seeing what she needed and I felt to go back and look closer at the thick bag. There was a label at the bottom saying it was weed control fabric from Preen company. 

I nearly laughed out loud as I had been stressing that only half of my yard is done for the landscaping that I am working on to keep the cats out of my play area in my yard. I ran out of weed barrier and needed to go buy more before I could put down the bark I purchased for that section. Here is a link to where I share my plan a few weeks back. 


The bag contained an entire roll of barrier in contractors length for $20. I nearly cried wheeling it out of the store. Here I was on my way home after a horrible two week nightmare and it isn't over as I have stuff going on at home and at my dads. My Heavenly Father knows that I am struggling with everything and he took care of that one concern for me. It saved me money and more importantly saved me stressing about going and buying it. He placed it right in my path on my way home where I didn't have to drive anywhere extra and now I have enough to finish the job and hopefully keep the cats from using it as a litter box anymore! 

I know my Heavenly Father loves me when these tender mercies happen in my life. I feel very blessed today! 

Have  BLESSED DAY! 

Be The Sunshine

 I shared yesterday how I was asked to give a little update to our church congregation on Sunday and wasn't sure I would be in town. I contacted the man who asked me to do the update and told him I could be in town. 

I get a text back saying there are only two people speaking for the hour and I should plan on 15 minutes and look up a talk on how to be a good missionary and share what I find. I felt a bit "played" in the situation as he KNOWS I have been super busy and crazy for a few weeks and really I don't have time to study that talk he wants me to share about. 

I almost wanted to tell him I couldn't make it and let someone else read the update Princess Five sent, but I would hate to have to get people to speak every week so I figured I could handle 15 minutes. So that is the "played" part In the GIF above, 

I have a few family members who don't know how negative they are and I had to pull away from them in the past due to how they made me feel when I would be around them or talk to them. It seems like every so often I "try" to be open to being around them more at family gatherings and so I had been making efforts and in one short text, post, mail, or conversation it is amazing to me how people can shut you down. I KNOW they don't realize they are doing it, but I believe it has to do with them not wanting to have to help, or feeling guilty they aren't doing as much or "measuring" up in some way in their own eyes. 

I have some distant relatives whose father was very negative and they don't have much to do with him, however, they are just like him. They come into a space where people are happy and content and they stir the pot just to stir the pot. Many family members have shared that they just don't follow them but are afraid to unfriend them. I have had that thought many times when I see how they take a situation where people are content, and stir it up and ruin things for everyone else just to make a point that really didn't need to be made. I have found that being around, or in contact with these types of people leaves me feeling dirty and stressed. I feel like I need to decontaminate my mind and spirit after even texting sometimes. 

I really enjoy when I can go home to my peaceful house and recharge and I have decided, I am going to choose to not associate with those people. I shouldn't have to put up walls and defend myself, my opinions or thoughts. I want to be a ray of sunshine in peoples world so they feel better after leaving and having seen me. 

I need to work on it more and more, and I am aware of where I am at in the process. I really feel sad for those people who need to have that type of contention and negativity in their world. I was blessed with a mother who used to sing us, "You are my Sunshine" and would always teach us to see the other side of situations when we would judge. I pray for those who are stuck in the negative as it must be a really unhappy place. Until they are ready to shift into some light, I will be taking a different path. 

Have a SUNSHINNY Blessed Day!  Be the SUNSHINE! 

What Princess Five Has Learned So Far On Her Mission

I was asked to give an update in church this coming Sunday about how Princess Five is doing on her mission. I had the chance to talk with her just after a funeral this week and asked her to give me an update as to things she has learned as a missionary that I can share with our church congregation.  My sister who was with me at the funeral happened to be talking to her son who is serving as a missionary in Chili currently and is one of Princess Five's best friends! We held the phones together on speaker and allowed the two cousins to visit with each other in Spanish for a few minutes! My other sister snapped this picture through the restaurant window while we were holding the phones together. It was a fun moment. This is what Princess Five sent me to share in church on Sunday. 

"I've learned that God won't ask me to do anything that is beyond my capability. Even though speaking Spanish is hard, even though driving through potholes and the snow is hard. These are things that God knew I could do, and I have done.
•I've learned a lot about diligence. If you really want to learn a new language or have a greater knowledge of the gospel, you must work on these things continually.
•I'm not the Teacher, the spirit is, and I have to continually remind myself of this. I've learned the importance of frequently sharing my testimony, and let the spirit work.
Right now I'm serving in Kearny, we have a wonderful view of the New York Skyline. We meet a lot of people from Peru and Ecuador. I love being in a walking area because I get to talk to everyone as we walk to and from appointments.

I never thought I was one that had a lot of faith. I knew what I was supposed to do growing up but I never thought of me doing these little things as an act of faith. We talk to people everyday that say they have so much faith. We ask them what they do to show their faith and a lot of times they fall short of an answer. But as I've looked back at my life and the choices I've made, I've seen that through following the commandments, I've been growing and strengthening my testimony.

With that, I have found a love for reading the scriptures! One of my favorite scriptures is in The Book of Mormon, and is 2 Nephi 28:21. "“And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.”

Before my mission I didn't cherish the scriptures, and I kept telling myself that everything was ok, and I was doing the bare minimum.  But in exaltation there is no "bare minimum" we must be continually striving to repent and become better. And if anything this is the greatest lesson I've learned this far on my mission. I have a greater love and understanding for Jesus Christ and His gospel. I'm grateful to be serving a mission. I'm grateful for the love, letters, and support I've received from the congregation! My companion right now is a recent convert of 2 years, and I've loved looking back, and sharing with her the experiences I've had growing up in the church. From Primary to seminary and young womens. I'm truly grateful!"

Have a Blessed day! 

Beautiful Princess Five is Loving The Mission Life

Hola Hola!
This week we were waiting at a cross walk and someone yelled, "Hey, look it's the church girls!" from their car as it drove by.

We had zone conference on Tuesday! Sister companion and I did a training about being better listeners and it went super well! 

We started teaching a new friend in English class, she's so cute! After we taught her, she told us that she loves talking about Jesus and she loves Christian music, we have another appointment with her tonight, and we are so excited for that!

This last week we were knocking doors, and this man opened the door, we told him we were sharing a message about Jesus Christ, he told us that he was trying to make a big decision in his life, and that he literally just finished praying. He told us as well that he normally doesn't answer the door, but he was really glad he did. He told us that us being there in that moment was truly a miracle. We testified and told him that there was no such thing as coincidences, and that it was through his faith, from his prayer, that God was able to send us to his door. He speaks English better than his Spanish, so the next day we had a pass off lesson with the English sisters. He didn't answer our calls that morning but we decided to stop by anyway. When we got there, he told us that God was working his miracles again. He said he was nervous that morning and was planning on canceling the appointment, but soon realized he had left his phone at his cousin's house, so he was unable to cancel. He said God really wanted him to hear this message. During this lesson he shared a lot about his needs, and doubts and questions. At the end we asked him to pray for us, in his prayer he asked God to help him, so that he could build up the kingdom of God. He literally prayed for himself to become a kingdom Builder! This is every missionary's dream.

But it's been a wonderful week!

Cuídense!
Hermana Princess Five

Cutting Down Vines Off Arbor - Dirtiest Job Of My Life

I was visiting my dad recently and while there, my Step-Mother (love her like my mom) showed me her arbor and showed how my nephew had cut it back on the outside edges of the arbor. 

She said she wanted it cut back more but he cut the bottom edges off around the outside edge but didn't cut all the over hang off back to the edge of the deck and arbor wood. I contacted my brother as he was, at that time, pruning his father-in-laws trees, so I asked if he could come and just prune back the vines on the OUTSIDE edges of the arbor for her. 

He came while we were out and did one side of the arbor and when we talked to them later, he shared that even using an industrial hedge trimmer, they couldn't get through the thick vines and so much black dirt was falling on them, they got filthy and had to use eye protection and a mask and weren't getting very far so they pulled out a chainsaw but that isn't the best tool on small things as it bucks each time you start cutting into a new item, so he said there was NO way to do it as holding their arms up for that length of time with the heavy tools and all the "stuff" (not the word he used) falling down on their faces, he couldn't do it and suggested paying his son to come again with his landscaping crew to take it down. 

We were going to leave it at that due to other projects she wanted help with until I went out and heard somethings nesting inside of the vines over my head. I told her I thought there were some birds nesting in the vines and she said it was too late for bird nests. I told her that I heard something burrowing in the vines in two spots over my head. 

Shortly after our conversations, and my brother having been there, I found a dead rodent (I think it was a small rat as it looked really big for a mouse) dead just below where they had cut the vines. I think they had trimmed off the vines the rats had used to get in and out of the nest and had fallen to its death. This made me nervous and I felt like I needed to deal with it sooner than my nephew could get to it. I also knew the tools he had and that they would struggle with the situation and I felt I could use my knowledge to make it easier. 

I have been pruning all sorts of things for more than 20 years. I have many posts of pruning of my trees. Here is one about my fruit trees. Here is one about the large tree in my yard. Here is a post about my front trees. You can type in "prune" into the search box for MANY more posts on pruning. I use my reciprocating saw so much that I had to purchase another one within two years of use because I used it to death! I just bought a new one, but since I wasn't near my home, I had my sister pick one up at the store and asked her to get me a "PRUNING" blade. 

Reciprocating saws are a finicky thing. You have to be using the right type of blade for your project or it won't go well. She purchased a "wood with nails" blade which has tiny hook teeth on it. A pruning blade has long triangle teeth which are more like fangs. They are VERY different things. There was an all purposed blade that came with the saw but it was a six inch blade and we needed a 12 inch blade. I showed my "mom" that neither of those blades would work well on the project.

We went and purchased a three pack of 12 inch pruning blades for the saw. We dug into cutting out the vines between the 4x4 posts on the arbor. The first seven sections went fairly quickly even though we kept running into chicken wire at the one end that we didn't know the previous owners had placed there. The pruning blade doesn't do wire and pulled it towards the motor so I knew when I felt resistance to stop sawing and pull out the blade and use a wire cutting blade to get through those areas of metal. Also, after each cut, the air intake on the motor would be full of mulching black dirt. It was horrible! I had to get a little scrubber from the kitchen and brush out the debris after each swipe of the saw. 

The further we got to the one side of the arbor with the thicker vines, the more black mulchy stuff we hit, and it was falling so thick and fast as I would cut I couldn't look up even with mask and eye protection. I was covered after the first cut with black mulchy dirt. I had my arms above my head for about five hour cutting vines and I called my brother to bring me a trailer so I could haul away the vines but he was a trooper and saint to stay and help me until it was all down and a full trailer load was finished. He missed his Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice to help me get the thickest vines down in a better way as I couldn't get through the three feet of vines above the arbor and the foot to 18 inches of black mulched dirt mixed in! 

My hand started to cramp and freeze in a claw manner for the last hour of working as I had been holding the saw over my head and squeezing the power bar for so long. I have never had that happen in all the years I have pruned. I kept having to cut deeper and deeper and try and pull the cut vines out to get to the higher stuff. 

In this pictures, I pushed the pitch fork to the top of the growth extending my arm to full length and the fork is just above the growth. You can see my brother is six foot four inches, if I remember right, and he had his arm extended with the rake and it was only about a foot over the top of the vines new growth in one area. 

I kept cutting more and more trying to free the vines from the top of the arbor and then we had to push the black soil off as the roots had taken hold in the dirt and had grown into the cracks of the boards so we had to force them out or break them off. 

I am guessing, had someone else come, they would have taken the entire thing down. There was so much weight on top that the cross beams had been pushing out and one had already fallen out. We need to replace a few rotted out boards, but for the most part, it is still functional, but she wants to start over with twine rather than chicken wire as that was what caused all the mulch to build up. 

It is amazing how much light gets into the house without all that growth there, but they will miss the shade until the new vines grow ,but that is a quick thing so it shouldn't take long to get some good coverage. 

Here is a recap to cutting vines that are thick. Hedge trimmer works best for thin vines. Thick vines need a PRUNING blade on a reciprocating saw! If there is metal, you need a metal blade. Get familiar with the blade types for the saws as using the right blade for the job makes life so much easier and enjoyable. The jobs go quickly! 

The next day we worked on using the dark mulch material to scatter in the garden beds as it was really nice mulch. While working, we found another dead rodent that fell to its death, most likely while we were pruning and we didn't notice it because it crawled away from the vines, so we found it while working on the sprinklers and mulch the next day. 

I shook out my pants outside and turned out the pockets because I had so much fine black dirt all over me. I washed and dried the clothes alone and when I pulled them out of the dryer, black dirt fell out into the dryer and the little dryer screen dumped lots when I took it out to clean it. So wiped it all out and washed the load again and dried it again but that black dust just doesn't seem to want to get out. 

I only had one pair of shoes with me and was wearing my Birkenstocks to work. Every time I put them on, I get black lines all over my feet. I wiped them down with a damp paper towel, have stomped them out, I put on some white footie socks to spray some bug poison as we were getting some spiders in from the vines being taken down, and my socks got black stripes on them. I can't get rid of all the black dust from the mulching debris. 

I am glad we could help her take care of that and get rid of the rodent nest before they found their way inside! 

Have a blessed, rodent and dirt free day! 

Still busy, Enjoy this WONDERFUL Jewelry Sort Bag - Top Five EVER

Once again, I woke with a sore throat and had a super busy crazy day. I got a lot of few things off my list running errands but took a project I thought would take me a few hours and it was going great but hit a snag 2/3 of the way through and had to call my brother to help as I couldn't get it finished and have never been so dirty working on a project on my life. 

I will post about the project next week when things calm down a bit and pray that I can just get through the next few days and get more done. I will share next week hopefully and pray that I can feel better. finish what I need to do and that everything will turn out well. 

Enjoy this jewelry sorting video. LOTS of gold and silver in this video. Definitely one of my top five bags ever! 

I hope you have a BLESSED Day! 

Oh You Patient People - Super Exhausted and Crazy Day

Once again I was up early and it is now after 2 a.m. and I need to get this posted and get some sleep for another crazy day tomorrow. Today was super rough with news of a family members death. 

I will just be posting jewelry sorting videos for the next few blog posts as I don't have time to do much else.  I also have had a sore throat for three days now when I wake up and have a horrible sore throat now. I have been dealing with two floods and think some mold may have started the sore throat as I am super sensitive. So, lots of crazy situations in my world and I pray that next week will bring better news as it has been a rough week so far on many fronts. 

Hope you are all healthy and having a blessed day! 

Crazy Things Still Going On - Hope It Gets Better Soon

I wish I had time to share what is going on, but really, I have been crazy from early morning until late at night. It is nearly 1 a.m. and I have been up to past two a.m. for days and days and am up about 8 a.m. 

I don't have time to post about things, so I am going to just share another jewelry video until things calm down enough for me to post. I hope you are enjoying your summer and have a blessed day! 

Princess Five Has a New Companion and Fake Front Houses in NJ

Hey Friends!
This week fireflies started popping out around dusk, and it is such a little tender mercy, they are so majestic, and fun to see on our walk home every night!

This week we had TRANSFERS! I had to say goodbye to my sweet Hermana "old companion", but I know she's going to rock it in New York! 

I'm so excited to spend this next transfer with Hermana "new companion"! She is a recent convert from Nevada! She is so fun! We've already had so many adventures this last week! 

We had a lesson with a member and our friend Lindon, he is having a hard time committing coming to church, the member spent five minutes after the closing prayer trying to help him commit to come to a ward party. Our friend kept saying, "if God wills it I'll go" and the member told him, God does want you to go, that's why He's brought the missionaries into your life! Sadly, he didn't end up coming, but our friend Jarek finally came to the church! He came for our ward activity for fathers day and he loved it! He told us, "I don't know why I didn't come sooner." But it turns out, he recently moved to Newark, so the Elders will be teaching him from now on, so we will miss him!

We talked to a man on the street the other day and some of the first words out in his mouth were, "I saw Joseph Smith the other day in the corner drinking coffee"
It's never a dull day here in Kearny!

We've really been improving my contacts this week. We've been focusing on the "Why" of the Gospel (God loves us) instead of the "what" of the gospel (the book of Mormon) at the beginning of our contacts. And it's been amazing! The mission is amazing!
Cuídense
Hermana Princess Five

Pictures: 

My cute comp

The top of these houses are all fake so that's fun!

Happy Fathers Day - I Will Update You Later

Lots going on in my world and I wish I had a few minutes to update you on what is going on. 

Instead, I am going to share a jewelry sorting video and it may be a rough week for posting. I will have to play it by ear. I just wanted you to know, I hope you had a good Fathers Day and I count myself lucky to have such wonderful Father Figures in my life and to have a loving father who has always been concerned for my well being as well as my children's. I am also grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who has never left me without my wants and needs being covered. I feel truly blessed. 

Have a Blessed Day! 

Cub Scout Day Camp - Lots of Fun For Everyone

I spent a long day enjoying Cub Scout Day Camp For Bears today. 


They had it so organized and did the cubs, webelos, and wolfs on other days to keep it more doable. 

They had six groups and six stations. Each year they do different activities to keep it fresh for the groups who went the year before. 

Last year they had bebe guns, ambulances, and a hawk. Several of the boys remembered the activities and commented on them. 

This year they had forensics, fire safety, fire department and wild fire fighters, drug dog k-9 unit, soil conservation and soil types, and archery. 

The boys each got a backpack the color of their group. Our pack of Bears was combined with another small pack and still our seven between the two of us was the smallest group. 

They had flags to match the color of the backpack and group and the flag moved with the group. There was enough time for each class but not so much that it was boring but we never felt rushed and were able to let each boy try on the fire suits, pet the dog, take their finger prints etc. 

We had a nice picnic lunch and enjoyed a not so hot day as clouds kept us cool. I was worried it would be really hot and it was good until we were about to finish and then it go hot about 2 p.m. I was glad to be headed home at that point due to the heat. 

They had a package of Gummy Bears for each scout at the end and the boys all were glad they attended. 

Because our group was so small, the boys got more time at the archery range as that was our last group. I even took a few tries and got a few "bullseye" hits. I would hate for my survival to be dependent on my archery skills but I can see it is something that takes practice to master. 

I like shooting better because I can aim through the slits or scope, with the bow, I kind of had to come up with my own way to aim. I am sure if there were lessons, I would pick it up better but it was interesting anyway. 

I appreciated those that took the time to share their knowledge and talents with us and those that planned such a great event. Having no sons, I have never attended a day camp before. It was an interesting event. 

Have a knowledgeable and blessed day!