Stan and I at the devotional, 11/18/18

Here is a photo of Stan and  I that was taken at President Nelson's devotional on Sunday, November 18th. Patricia Hodge shared a photo with you  View photo You received this mail because Patricia Hodge shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here. Get the Google Photos app Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Easter in Rehab

(Stan and I out on the patio by the cafeteria.  I think I look a lot thinner than my photo taken at 189#.  I haven't been able to weigh in over 2 weeks.  What do you think of my "bling" around my wrist, aren't we stylish couple)

Today is Easter.  Today is also General Conference for those of us that belong to the Mormon religion so there was no church today, which I'm sure seems strange to all of  you Catholics and Baptists because Easter is an important reason to go to church.  General conference is a wonderful time though.  We get to here our prophet speak to us.  This time we even have a new prophet,  Russel M. Nelson.  In addition to being a prophet of God, he created and invented the 1st heart-lung bypass machine  to make open heart surgery successful.  He is famous world wide for his work as a cardiac surgeon.  As many lives as he has saved with his amazing surgeries, he will save even more in his current capacity as prophet, seer and revelator for the  world, not just our church.  I'm looking forward to going back and listening to these talks.

Stan and the boys came  up today to celebrate Easter.  We played games for a few hours and just relaxed.   I didn't have therapy today.  You only get it one day on the weekends got therapy.  I did practice going to the bathroom a several times and figuring out how to get my pants and underwear off.  That part is exhausting.  I need to talk with Dr. Northway, my urologist and have him help me figure a few things out.  I'm falling asleep.  I'm going to try to write earlier tomorrow.

Betrayal at Baulder's Gate.  We just stated so not much of a game play area.

Spiritual weekend

This weekend was a wonderful, spiritual weekend.  We had stake conference this weekend.  For those of you who are not LDS, stake conference is a conference for  a group of congregations, also known as wards, that make up a stake.  Stakes are kinda like a school district.  There is usually about 10 wards in a stake.  We all meet together and listen to our stake leaders speak to us.  We have them twice a year.  This conference, we had a visiting general authority from Salt Lake.  He was a member of the Quorum of the 70's.  His name is Elder Hamula.  He is an excellent speaker.  The  purpose of a 70 is to testify of Jesus Christ.  He did exactly that when he spoke and I could feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost testify to me so strongly of the truthfulness of the gospel.  I'm so grateful that I have the gift of the Holy Ghost to be my constant companion.  I am also grateful for the knowledge that my Heavenly Father loves me.  It makes these challenges I have to endure a little easier at times.  I'm not as likely to lash out at God even though I get frustrated at the never ending pain.

My most recent frustration is lack of sleep and daily fatigue.  I fall asleep all day long while I try to do things around the house and in my daily like.  Many of the things I fall asleep doing are not very safe to fall asleep during such as driving my wheelchair, cooking showering, washing dishes, sewing, standing and just about any other way you can imagine.  I broke my ankle on January 1st by falling asleep on the edge of the bathtub and falling over.  I rolled over with my entire weight on my foot and bent my ankle in half.  I had to have plates put in my ankle.  I spent 4 weeks in the hospital after that fall between complications after surgery and rehab.  I broke my ankle on my good leg, so I had to have a lot of rehab.  I'm not anxious to repeat that again.

My neurologist referred me to a sleep specialist last week.  I think I see 7 specialists on a regular basis now.  .On Wednesday, I had a 45 minute consult with the sleep specialist.  She is going to test me for sleep apnea.  She thinks I might have central sleep apnea from the MS.  I may not be breathing deeply enough to be getting enough oxygen at night because the proper signal is not getting from my brain to my airway.  She said it is a little more challenging to treat but it is treatable.  I have to have a sleep study done.  I am just waiting on insurance to authorize the sleep study.  She also put me on some medication during the day to keep me awake so I am not falling asleep in unsafe situations.  I"m still working on finding the right dosage, but I noticed a big difference even with the dose not being right.  I hope she can figure out what is causing my sleep problems.  I'm tired of not sleeping well  I rarely sleep more than 2 hours at a time at any given time.

Women of Faith Quilt, or Book of Mormon Quilt

Here is the first block for our block of the month program we are starting at our church quilting group.  Our group is called Sisters in Stitches.  It is a group of LDS women who meet once a month to share our love of quilting and to teach new sisters how to quilt.  We decided recently that there are other quilts about Women of the Bible and such, but we wanted one that represented the LDS faith.  This one is going to be all about our testimonies as LDS women.  

For those of you who don't know what LDS means, it stands for Latter-Day Saint which is how we refer to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as Mormons.  

This block is called the Cornerstone.  I chose this one because the Book of Mormon is the cornerstone of our religion.  President Ezra Taft Benson said " The Book of Mormon is the Keystone in our witness of Jesus Christ, who is Himself the cornerstone of everything we do.  It bears witness of His reality with power of clarity."  In the introduction of the Book of Mormon, it says, “Concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.”  I chose the colors I did because of the YW colors.  In the YW colors, green is the color for knowledge.  We receive much of our knowledge of the gospel from the Book of Mormon.  The gold color stands for virtue.  As a virtuous women, I will be able to return to live with my Father in Heaven.  I plan on using YW colors for all of my quilt blocks.  For me, this is going to represent more a Women of Faith quilt than just a Book of Mormon quilt.  This past year, I have really struggled with my relationship with my Heavenly Father and my faith has been tested.  This quilt is going to represent that test of faith that I have had.  It is going to be very personal for me.  I hope other people can find their own personal journey through their own quilt.

I plan on putting the instructions for this block on the web site some time soon.  I have it in word format and I'm not sure what the best way to put it on here would be, especially since I have some pictures included that are jpg format.  I'll think about that and get those instructions up soon.  I'm sure there are other members of the church who would love to make a Book of Mormon quilt.  I hope to have the instructions up by the end of the week.  Bug me if I don't get them up, if there is still anyone reading this blog.