It’s been an interesting election year to say the least! We were glad we could vote by mail to be safe during the pandemic. Utah makes it easy to log in online to make sure your ballot was received successfully.
I had a meeting with a group of BYUI instructors. We discussed things that were going well in our classes and things we were working to improve. I was the only new instructor and enjoyed learning from their experiences.
Friday night Mark drive to Blackfoot to go elk hunting with his dad and Steven. They didn’t see anything, but it’s good to visit and Mark got to help them with a couple projects.
While Mark was gone I kept busy creating Christmas tree ornaments. It took some experimenting to find the best way to do it. My mom and dad helped me create the form to wrap the string on. The stars were very messy to make, but I’m really happy with how they turned out! I can’t wait to decorate our tree!
Sunday was a busy day! I had ward Council at 7:00am. At 9:00 we had sacrament meeting. The number of Covid cases has sky rocketed in Cache Valley so we are watching sacrament meeting broadcast in our home. At 10:30 we had Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum on Zoom. At 12:00 we taught the last mission preparation lesson to our niece. She’ll begin home MTC in just a few weeks! Finally, at 2:00 we had our virtual primary program! My presidency and the senior primary teachers put in a lot of effort to gather responses from the primary children. Due to the nature of the Zoom meeting only senior primary children were invited to participate. About 9 children came and each had a short speaking part. You could tell they spent a lot of time writing and practicing their parts. I gave a short talk and the Bishop gave a short talk. We had an opening and closing song, but everyone had to keep their microphones on mute to avoid echo. The whole program only took 15 minutes. It was short but very, very sweet. I loved the testimonies of the children. I hope next year primary programs can be held as they have in the past, but given current circumstances this program was perfect.
Monday evening we carved a Jack-o-lantern.
Tuesday evening I attended a virtual training for primary presidencies and primary music leaders. We heard from a sister on the general primary board. She talked about the purpose of primary and three things we should do to fulfill that purpose. We need to value children, protect children, and engage children in the Lord’s work.
Tuesday night Mark also had a meeting with a member of the bishopric. He was asked to be the second counselor in the Sunday school presidency. The new Sunday school president is Brother Loveland, who was the bishopric counselor over primary until a couple weeks ago. I enjoyed working with him and am excited for Mark to get to serve with him too. Mark is looking forward to his new calling and having the chance to attend Sunday school and Elder’s Quorum regularly again. I decided to order our Christmas cards early this year and got them printed just last week. I’ve been teasing Mark that he ruined our Christmas card because it doesn’t mention his new calling, but it’s ok!
Mark collected grebes and got to go hunting once more with his professor this week. He is staying plenty busy with school work too!
We had apartment cleaning inspections this week. We always use it as a good motivator to deep clean the things we don’t always get to in weekly cleaning. They did cleaning inspections over Zoom this year. Mark walked around and showed our RA the apartment on his phone.
The annual Murray family Halloween party was canceled because of COVID so we decided to have a small dinner with my parents. I tried to plan spooky food- mummy hot dogs, roasted carrots cut to look like pumpkins with Brussels sprouts (like a pumpkin patch), green veggie dip in a carved orange bell pepper, and “blood” red juice. We ended with spider web peanut butter bars. We had a nice, simple evening. I do miss seeing family, but it is nice to practice simplifying holidays.
On Halloween Mark spent a few hours helping his family cut out egress windows at his grandpa’s house in Richmond. He enjoyed getting to say hello, especially to his little brother who just came home from his mission.
We watched a few Halloween episodes of Sabrina the teenage witch when he got home. Then we decided we were done with Halloween and pulled out Christmas movies! With so many activities cancelled we thought it would be fun to make a Christmas movie bracket. We’re going to watch every movie on the bracket and choose our favorites to move forward until we each have our favorite. It should be a fun activity for the next couple months!
Mark accidentally locked himself outside on our balcony, haha!
Sunday evening I got to have a short ukelele lesson with a sister in our ward. I bid on a free lesson during our Relief Society service auction last fall and it’s taken a long time for us to get together, but we finally made it happen! We met over zoom and she helped me learn to play a few simple songs (hopefully I can find time to practice so I’ll remember them).
I got exciting news- I get to teach Parent Education for BYU-Idaho again next semester! And if enough students sign up I can teach two sections of the class. I have loved this job and am excited to do more. I’m hoping to read all the parenting books for the class before January. So far I’ve read one… oops time to get going!
Mark continues to power through school. He has a lot of homework this semester. He was able to move his comprehensive exams to next semester so he is taking advantage of the time to study for those as well. He flew over Great Salt Lake again this week.
Mark has been hunting a little more. This week I made grouse tacos. They were surprisingly delicious! I do love experimenting in my kitchen (though I won’t be disappointed when hunting season is over haha).
For my birthday Mark ordered custom made frames to put my copies of The Living Christ and The Family Proclamation in. Well the frames FINALLY came. So we spent time reorganizing the photo collage on our wall to incorporate the new frames. They make me so happy! It was a perfect gift!
Flynn sleeping through the drilling.
Aggie Village has annual cleaning inspections coming up next week. They decided to make it fun by creating a bingo sheet each week in October. If you clean 5 things on the list you can be entered in a drawing for prizes. One task this week was to wipe down the sides of the washer. I asked Mark to move it and much to our dismay we found a build up of grime and rust under the washer! We scrubbed for a long time and got most of it off. And Mark ran to the store to get gaskets to prevent future leaking. Long story-short it took a lot longer to wipe down the sides of the washer than we thought it would, but hopefully it will stay clean now!
We had the incredible opportunity to go to the temple with our niece as she received her endowment this week. She was allowed to invite sixteen guests to go with her. Temples have been closed/limited since March so it was especially nice to get to go again.
Mark has been doing more hunting. On Tuesday he got more grouse with his professor. Friday evening he went to Blackfoot to help his parents with a few projects and on Saturday morning he and his dad went elk hunting. They didn’t see anything, but Mark enjoyed getting out and looking.
Monday we got sandwiches from our favorite sandwich shop-Old Grist Mill-and went to second dam for a picnic. It was nice to walk around a bit and see the beautiful fall leaves.
Mark got to go hunting with his professor on Tuesday and Friday afternoon. Tuesday he got two sharp-tailed grouse and on Friday he got one. I definitely prefer farm-raised meat, but I want to support Mark’s hobbies and don’t want to waste the animals, so I try to be up for the adventures of cooking and eating what he brings home. I thought the grouse turned out pretty good. But there’s still a piece left in our fridge (five days later) so you know it wasn’t our favorite! It is a dark red meat which was just so weird to me because it was a lot like beef, not chicken like I expected.
Every day this week I met with a group of students from my BYU-Idaho class. I loved getting to talk with them for the first time. I just gave a short presentation about the parenting class they’ll begin teaching next week, and then I answered their questions. I was so impressed by some of the questions I received. They want to do their very best while teaching and I can’t wait to hear how it goes! I will say though- I feel much too young to be the instructor. I felt more comfortable imagining I was just another group member, haha.
Saturday morning we cleaned out our garden. We picked any tomatoes that were starting to turn ripe and hope they’ll finish ripening inside.
We have no idea how this happened, but Flynn gave himself a curly mustache!
On Sunday our ward was approved to meet in one group if there was less than 150 people. There’s been a spike in the number of COVID cases here so Mark and I decided to watch the meeting from home on Zoom. It worked really well-they used Zoom for the meeting and turned it off at the end to do the sacrament. Then we were able to do the sacrament on our own at home. It’s great to see how technology has been so helpful this year! We got a new bishopric on Sunday. I’ll miss working with Bishop Christensen and Brother Loveland (who was over primary), but I’m excited to work with the new Bishopric too! The previous first counselor became the Bishop and I’m sure he’ll be great!
Mark keeps trekking along through school. His “species distribution and habitat modeling” class has been especially challenging. He’s also been contacting the professors on his committee to see what they would like to test him on in his oral comprehensive exams. They each gave him a lot of reading assignments to prepare, so he has a lot to study on top of his regular school work.
Mark went hunting with his main professor, Mike Conover. They didn’t get anything, but Mark had a good time and hopes they can go again!
There wasn’t anything too exciting for me this week! I’m just keeping busy with work, housework, and my calling! My presidency met this week to discuss calling new people. We have one more baptism in our primary this year which will probably happen the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It’s fun to see these kids growing up and to be so excited to be baptized! Now that Mark and I have been in the ward almost four years we’ve seen a lot of changes in the kids here!
General Conference was amazing! We love how perfect the messages are for everything going on this year. We’re grateful for President Nelson’s messages of optimism and hope in the future. We also learned about loving others and building unity among many other spot-on messages.
Mark made us onion rings to munch on during conference with the biggest onion I’ve ever seen!
Our niece, Tanya, asked us to teach her mission prep because her ward isn’t offering it right now due to COVID. It’s fun to share our mission experiences and to discuss missionary work with her. She’s going to be an incredible missionary!
Mark spent the week studying and working on his classes. On Friday he presented his plan for research to the other grad students and faculty in his department. His professor called him afterwards to say he had done very well.
I’m getting in a better routine with my new work schedule. I’m having so much fun working with my BYUI students. This week I helped a few coordinate study groups which they will meet with all through the semester.
Flynn is the best little work buddy! Though his sleeping positions don’t always look very comfortable!
Saturday morning a girl in our primary was baptized. She was so excited! Her mom had made her a special white mask with a silver CTR shield on it. She didn’t wear it during the actual baptism, but she used it before and after. I was asked to play piano which was really nice. I miss getting to play piano and flute.
Saturday afternoon we planned a fun campfire dinner with our friends the Bowmans. Mark and I went up Green Canyon early to start the fire only to find that all fires are restricted in the canyons right now. We made a quick change of plans and used the fire pit at my parents’ house instead. We still had a lot of fun and didn’t get nearly as dusty as we would have in the dry canyon! Mark made apple cobbler and our friends provided the best hot dogs ever. I’m not one to really love hot dogs, but these were 100% beef and were amazing!! My dad also gave us a few potatoes to throw in the fire. My grandpa would do that at our annual Easter picnic. You just put the potato right in the fire-no foil or anything. Then you cut it in half and eat the inside. It’s delicious!
I tried more new recipes including roasted brussel sprouts and “tator tots” made from riced cauliflower. Yum!
Our favorite 2020 meme of the week comes from one of my favorite children’s books:
Mark is spending more time studying in preparation for his comprehensive exams. He’s compared them to a bar exam for a lawyer. They determine if he can earn a PhD so it’s extremely important that he does well. There’s a slight chance they will be moved from this semester to the spring semester. This would give Mark more time to study which would be great!
Mark also did two flights over the Great Salt Lake this week to count birds. He’s busy between studying, research, and classes.
Classes started at BYU-Idaho on Monday. It’s only been one week but I’ve loved it so much. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my students. I got to grade their first assignment this week and I loved hearing their insights and experiences. I also love that many include their testimonies in their work. I only attended BYU-Idaho for one semester, but I remember I loved having gospel principles taught along with the secular information. Now I get to help make that happen by sharing spiritual thoughts each week. It’s a good motivator for me to study the gospel looking for principles that will bless my students. I’m hoping to find gospel principles that apply to the class topics. This week I shared a quote about agency and discussed how Parenting with Love and Logic encourages parents to give their children small choices all throughout the day. Making choices teaches children about consequences and builds trust with the parent. Of all the books used in this class, I’m definitely most familiar with Love and Logic. I’m about done reading the parenting class manual, then I can begin reading some of the other parenting books my students are reading in their groups.
I had a meeting with my primary presidency this week. We met outside and stayed six feet away from each other. It was so nice to see them again! We spent most of the meeting planning for the primary program. Based on direction from the general primary presidency and our bishopric, we’ll have a Zoom meeting where the senior primary children will share their experiences and testimonies. We won’t be able to sing because on Zoom there would be echos and lags, but we will play a video for an opening and closing song that everyone can listen to. It’s going to be different than most programs, but I think it will still be special. I also got to have a Zoom meeting with a girl who will be baptized next week. It made me so happy to see her excitement and to see her desire to be baptized even though it’s disappointing to not have all her family and friends there.
We pulled up most of our garden this week. We still have tomatoes and peppers growing, but everything else was done producing or was damaged in the storms.
Saturday afternoon we had a brief but loud thunder storm. It literally shook our apartment. Then later that night we had an earthquake! It was the first earthquake I’ve noticed. Everything in our kitchen was shaking. I didn’t feel the shaking sitting at the table, but Mark was on the floor and he felt it. It was only a 2.7 earthquake, but the epicenter was just up the canyon near the Wind Caves.
After Ward Council and home-church, Mark and I drove to Blackfoot to attend our nephew’s baby blessing. It was nice to visit with Mark’s family for the afternoon.
Monday was Labor Day. We both had work to do, but we were able to end work a little bit early to have some fun. We went to a couple stores for things we needed and we also made creme brûlée for the first time ever. We had a lot of fun burning the sugar on top, and of course it was delicious!
Speaking of food, we had so many tomatoes from our garden that we decided to try our hand at home made tomato soup this week. It turned out delicious!
The rest of the week was pretty busy. Mark has school assignments and research to do. He’s still finalizing his proposal, but he did officially submit his plan of classes to take during his program.
I’m starting to find a routine with my busier schedule, and I’m also getting better at letting Mark help with what we jokingly call “women’s work” around the house. Mark is always happy to help, but I usually do housework while he’s at school so we can enjoy being together when he’s home. Now there’s just not time to do it all!
This week I finished training for BYU-Idaho and got my course all set up and ready to go. On Saturday I got my first email from a student! She asked if it was possible for me to update a setting in canvas which would put a check mark next to assignments she had completed. I’m so grateful I’ve worked with WebAIM for the last year or I would have no idea how to run the instructor side of Canvas. So thanks to my experience with WebAIM and a little help from Google I was able to figure out how to update the setting.
This week we had some very cold and stormy days. The cucumber plants in our garden shriveled (even though we covered them), and huge trees fell down around the city. There continues to be fires all over the Western United States and often the air is smoky here.
The Church of Jesus Christ just designed emblems of belonging for children eight and older. The emblems are a ring with an image of a temple, and a photograph of the local temple wherever the child lives. Our bishop had encouraged me and my presidency to create a meaningful way to hand them out, so we had a brief Zoom meeting where the Bishop and I spoke to the children. That afternoon the primary teachers delivered the emblems to the children. Mark had so much fun seeing his class and they were so excited for the emblems. They really are cool- I want one for myself, haha.
Sunday we got an alert from USU that COVID had been detected in the waste water from four single housing dorms. Those students had to get tested and then stay in their dorm until getting an all clear from the medical professionals. They’ve been testing our water too. We’re glad they’re preventing the spread, but we sure hope we don’t get locked down and have to get the dreaded nasal test. All sewage from campus is being tested regularly for increases of the COVID-19 virus.
Mark started classes on Monday! This semester he has: species distribution and habitat modeling, conceptual ecology, and two seminars. He continues to work on his research and writing articles. This semester he will also have an oral exam from each person on his committee. This is going to be a very, very busy semester.
Monday was also the day I started training for BYU-Idaho. The name of my course is Parent Education (not Parenting and Child Guidance like I was originally told). This is the very first semester this course will be offered online. The professor who designed the course had a Zoom meeting with me and the other instructor teaching a section of the course. My mini miracle this week was that the other instructor for the course is a girl I know! She did an internship at the Logan Family Center when I was doing my undergrad internship there. She’s actually the one who told me about ASU’s online MS program.
I’m definitely overwhelmed by all there is to do and learn, but I’m very excited about how the course is set up! Each week the students will teach a parenting class to their community. They will also meet with a group each week over Zoom. Each person in the group will choose a different parenting book to read, then they will share what they’re learning with their group members.
On Wednesday night our niece, Tanya, opened her mission call! I’m lucky to have nieces close to my age who are friends as well as family. Tanya gave me her email log in information so I could print her mission call for her. I was hoping to get a sneak peek of her assignment, but she asked me not to look. I successfully printed the call and put it in an envelope without reading it. I also brought one of my old name tags so she could take pictures with it. She is going to the Texas San Antonio Mission. We’re so excited for her! Also, Mark wins bragging rights for guessing she would go to Texas!
Friday night Mark got a call from a person he worked with at the Great Salt Lake a couple weeks ago. This man’s girlfriend had tested positive for COVID-19 and wanted Mark to know he may have been exposed. So Saturday Mark went to get tested. He was not excited for the painful nasal swab, but luckily the worker recommended the finger-prick antigen test. The worker failed to mention how expensive it would be, but we’re glad Mark could have an easy test. His results were ready in twenty minutes and showed he hasn’t had COVID in the past 90 days. We’ve been doing our best to stay healthy and are grateful we and our family have been well. There’s word that a vaccine could be ready by the end of the year and we can’t wait!
Speaking of vaccines, our date night this week was getting our flu shots! We go to the grocery store pharmacy for vaccinations and decided to buy a treat from the frozen section afterwards so we could call it a date 🙂
Our Story: The Bell Family 