Happy Birthday Nana

Our Family Home Evening tribute video for Nana Gurney's 31st birthday!




Love,
Merinda, Rich, Isaac, Russell and Graham

Rich: Famous Again

My company, Freescale Semiconductor, was ranked #10 in the top companies to work for in all of India by Business World Magazine. A proud moment to be sure. They wrote an article about us and a guy came and took some canned pictures of us pretending to be technical as we looked at the blank screens of our test equipment.

So I made the news again, more because of my blonde hair and dashing looks since nobody interviewed me. Here's the famous picture that appeared in magazines all over India...


Check out why you should quit your job in the USA and come work for Freescale India in the article: Business World Magazine's Top 25 Places to Work

Our Humble Submissions to the Conference Ensign

You know how there's always those great pictures in the Conference Ensign of people watching Conference all over the world? Well, here's our attempt at getting our faithful pioneering members in the limelight too. Let us know your favorites!

The Boys: Boddu, Vattikuti & Savio.
Vattikuti is a month away from marriage,
Savio is still in the negotiation process,
and Boddu has a pretty firm temple date but no girl yet!

Genesis John & Stephanie Mani

Sister Siobha, Kunal & Shiva Kumar

Rebecca John, Sister John, & Brother MasseySister Grace Moradi & Sister Nora Daas
All having fun at Conference!
The American girls trying to fit in with their chic Indian sisters.
Sister Nisha John giving me pointers on how to wear the sari right. Graham wasn't amused.
Selvi & Sonia Sharma

Margaret Mary, Lakshmi Sunderaj, Stephanie Mani, Grace Moradi & Sister Daas

Lakshmi Sunderaj

Mother & daughter Carolina & Vimla Mani

Sister Selvi

This Day

In my Institute class I had the students write down before Conference any questions they had in their lives. One of mine was:

"How do I choose to spend my time when there are so many good things to do and so little time?"

The conference talk that answered my question in part was Elder Eyring's talk "This Day." I had never thought about how procrastinating the little important things today directly relates to procrastinating the day of my repentance eternally (duh!). Very humbling thought for me.

So here's a plan of action from Elder Eyring for every day to avoid that deadly procrastination bug:

"A morning prayer and an early search in the scriptures to know what we should do for the Lord can set the course of a day. We can know which task, of all those we might choose, matters most to God and therefore to us. I have learned such a prayer is always answered if we ask and ponder with childlike submission, ready to act without delay to perform even the most humble service."

And a searing critique of any self-righteous feelings I have about "helping" the branch members "step up" and start running the branch on their own without expatriates helping:

"Complacency can affect even the seasoned adult. The better and the longer you serve, the more likely that the tempter can place this lie in your mind: "You have earned a rest." You may have been the Primary president in your little branch twice. Or you may have worked long and hard on your mission and sacrificed so much to serve. Or perhaps you were the pioneer in the Church where you live. The thought may come: "Why not leave the service to the new people. I have done my part." The temptation will be to believe that you will return to serve again, someday."

We did lunch after conference on both days. Loads of people came, even people who don't normally come to church. Probably because it was Easter, but we'll take what we can get. On the 1st day we fed about 60 people for about $30--Chinese takeout. Then Sunday several families brought rice with peas and carrots and yogurt salad and everyone gobbled it all up and then an Easter cake Isaac and I made for everyone.

Johnson John, Rebecca John, Nisha John, Nixon John

The boys were rather reverent for all four sessions in the dark chapel--cutting, coloring, drawing, pasting and picking up on some talks in the process. Isaac was so excited to be there in his calling as audio-visual specialist to get the TV, DVD player and speakers working properly. Russell cut up little pictures of the prophet & apostles over and over again, pasting them in interesting ways. And Graham has been sick with some sort of fever thing for several days so he did lots of cuddling and sleeping.

Here's the boys trying out our new cabinet in their usual hilarious way.

So I got lots out of the conference--more than I have for several years, I'd say. I think a big part of it was that I had to practice all that I've been preaching to my Institute students about preparing yourself physically and spiritually and then taking notes, etc. Being a CES teacher is bringing me loads of blessings. So lucky am I.

So off I go to try to make the most out of THIS DAY.

First Video: Last Summer's Jetlagged Kids

Okay guys, I think I've got it right this time. Welcome to our first video on our blog. Thanks to Katie Baird whose blog inspired us and helped us find vimeo.com.



This is perhaps our all-time favorite home movie of our kids. We shot this in the middle of the night just after we got back from our 6-week home leave to the USA last year. Gearing up for more fun again this year . . . USA here we come, ready to flip our world upside down again!