Meet the Mormons

Today for family home evening we saw the movie Meet the Mormons. A video put by the Church which originally was intended for the Legacy Theater but had so much favorable reaction that was made into a real documentary movie. We went with Jamie, Andres and family to see it in Utah although we have one of those rare watermark copies they give the movie critics and that is what we watched today. I love the fact that the movie takes to into the lives of six families around the globe. It is not preachy and one can very well take friends to go see it. All the proceeds go to the Red Cross.

Primary program

Every year, the Primary puts together a sacrament meeting program. It takes about an hour or so where the children take over in singing  and speaking. They all have a part in it.
 Some are very well rehearsed and others need a little help. I was so impressed at how the children were able to memorize their lines and some even improvise their own talks. The theme was tittle Families are forever.

A big day for the Merkleys

Today I called Bianca to find out how everything is going over there in her neck of the woods. Idaho. It looks like she closed on a house and is moving in this weekend. She has also adopted a puppy. This was Mandy's idea for sure. I am so happy to see my little girl get a break. I am grateful for all our blessings as a family and didn't want to take this one tender mercy for granted. At the temple today in my prayer I thanked my Heavenly Father for these blessings. I am now feeling a little home sick but hope that perhaps I can manage to take a trip there sometime soon. There is a quote I saw the other day as a good reminder to stay calm and not obsess.  It reads: " Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think, wonder, not imagine, not obsess, just BREATH and have FAITH that everything will work out for the BEST !!!

That advice doesn’t just apply to Bianca or my life. We don't know where we are going to be a year form now. Daniel is coming on his fifth year in the DR and has done everything that could be done to fix this area and now what's next? What would be our fate? Where would we go? Is it going to be back to Utah or another country? I imagine we all have things in our lives that we are obsessed about so this applies to all of you reading this blog.  All of us have those moments when we get so wrapped up in worrying and stressing and even downright obsessing and we all sometimes need the reminder that we need to take a deep breath and realize that once we have done the best we can do we need to turn it over to the Lord and have faith that everything will work out for the best.  No matter how many times I have seen that to be true, and I can tell you that I know it to be true 100% in my life, every now and again I find myself needing to be reminded of it anyway.  So I was grateful that the quote was brought to my attention today because today of all days I needed that reminder.  And for any of you that have been stressing over things in your own lives, hopefully my passing the quote along to you will help you in your lives as well. 

Activiy days of Joseph Smith

Today I wanted to do an activity of Joseph Smith and the first vision with my activity day kids. I had some idea but not too sure on how to make this theme interesting so I went to pinterest and found a ton of  things in English but the most amazing thing is that even though when I woke up this morning I didn't have a clue on what to do, by the time the kids came it was all planned perfectly fine in Spanish which is always tricky.


At the end I even had Daniel tell them about the time when he was ten and the missionaries came to his home to teach him about Joseph Smith and the special feeling he felt that it was all true. The next time we meet we are going to watch the movie of Joseph Smith. I am so grateful for the courage he had to do all the things he did. Like people say he is either a charlatan or true and I believe he said the truth. It is still a miracle!

5 year ago today...

This was my post on facebook:
 5 years ago today I became the luckiest girl when Daniel R. de Almeida said yes at the altar. I've been trying my hardest to make this amazing guy glad he made that choice! My husband is the light and joy of my life and the best friend I've ever had. Daniel, you are my inspiration, my motivation, and I am in awe of you every day. Thanks to our many friends, from around the globe. And special thanks to our kids, who have managed to turned out wonderful in spite of us. You make our lives so amazing and incredible!! Thanks for being such a great example not only to our children and grandchildren but to everyone you meet. Happy Anniversary my love! You are my anchor when the world is spinning, my biggest cheerleader and my best friend!! I love you more today than yesterday, and I will love you forever my darling!!! Here's to eternity! Thank you for being my husband FOREVER!!!!


I love when I am invited to weddings because it is one of the most thrilling things you can do in this life. To find the one! That one person who will want to be with you forever in the good times and the bad times in sickness and in health is indeed the biggest blessing. Psychologists suggest that the manner in which couples argue indicates the health and longevity of  their relationship, and go so far to say that those who don't fight at all may be in the worst shape of anyone. Jonathan Franzen said it best " Self expressing adults are bound to band heads at some point, and if they don't, it means that there is likely a lot of unhappy repression going on. Those are the kind of couples where everything seems fine for years, and then one morning, without any warning, one partner pushes the other down and empty grain silo from a great height. It's usually caused by something very small; according to the statistics, an annoying habit regarding socks."


Rabbi David Cooper and author of God is a verb uses the fast forward method: " Since I know we are going to get over it eventually, and be friends again, whether it be in three hours of three weeks, why wait? I just mentally fast forward to the end of the fight and get there sooner. I have it down to about three minutes now. If I'm really paying close attention to the trajectory of the conversation, I can sometimes catch it in under three seconds. No matter who is wrong or at fault, our agreement is that I will apologize. Which I do fairly quickly, and it works! She is tickled pink, thinking she won, and everyone is happy. Those are the things that keep us together, and they are precisely the type of things that don't necessarily show up in psychologists John Gottman's famous "love lab" Gottman is the marital studies guy who claims to be able to predict with 88-94% accuracy the future of a relationship within three minutes of listening to a couple bicker in his lab. I read all his books and completely enjoyed them!

My October trip to Utah

Our October trips to Utah are all very busy. We leave with a dozen or more things we need to do and come home realizing we only scratched the surface but try to do our best. From October 2 to October 14 this is what happened. We get to Utah one day later because the flight got stranded in Austin bound to Dallas. The pilot simply said: "we can't land in Dallas because of bad weather and don't have enough fuel to take us to Houston so we are going to land in Austin" ...and there we were sitting on that plane from 1:00 pm to midnight when the plane finally landed in Dallas. But does is not all, there was not a gate available when we arrived either so we sat on the plane another hour.
Daniel was smart enough to call the airline and arrange are re-booking over the phone rather than to wait in line for another four hours. The good thing is that we at least got to see Vale in Dallas. She showed us the  Hospital where the fellow was who contracted Ebola was hospitalized a few blocks from her home.
Next day we get to Salt Lake, checked in our Hotel, got the car and met up with Cristi and the boys to go to the museum but it was closed for renovation so we just went out to eat and met with Mandy, Spencer and Hilda. The next day was General Conference. In the evening at the Priesthood meeting we saw Mari, Manu, Bianca, Mandy, Cristi and the kids, Margie, Ana and her boys, Kimmy and Hilda. It was great to see all the cousins. We headed to the Corn Maze at Thanksgiving Point. That was soooo fun for the kiddos.
 Next morning it was General Conference again and we went to a nice luncheon in between sessions and later on we said good bye to Mari, Manu, Bianca, Cristi, Brooks, Nixon and Beckett. The visit as always was too short but worth it!
The next day I went to get my hair cut at sister's Mahom's salon in Hunstville and started the Meeting with the DTA wives during the day and a marathon of things I needed to do as time permitted: Doctors appointments, pick up prescriptions, buy needed things and gifts, paying bills, going to the baby shower,  looking at all four properties, visiting family and friends and the dreaded Deposition. By the time we got home last night from this trip we were exhausted! I have come to the conclusion that all our trips to Utah although necessary are tense and full of stress not your typical vacation.

Keeping a budget

 I taught an Institute class yesterday on finances and have had some heavy discussion with Daniel about investing. He hates to get into debt when buying houses for investments but I see it more as an opportunity to get an even bigger nest egg. Well, the class today helped me realized that now that I am married I should not make decisions on my own.