Mari's baptism was a wonderful experience.  It is always a special privilege to baptism my children.  Iwas wanting to make sure I savored everything I could about this one.  I've told the kids that if they marry right this would be the last baptism I perform.  The Spirit was strong.  Grandma Mildred gave a great talk about Baptism.  She covered the covenants we make.  She has Kits Kats to hand out to the kids.  Mari felt the Spirit and began to cry.  It was as perfect as it could be.  Mari invited everyone she knows.  Most could not come but many did.  It has been a challenge to see by baby girl grow older.  I want to keep her small for as long as possible.  She doesn't quite fit on the lap like she used to.

I have great kids.  They try hard and seem to be making decisions that will provide them happiness.  Emma has had a string off rough outcomes.  She went to DECA state as a Finance competitor instead of marketing.  I think she did this do to a cute boy with a great smile.  She did not place high enough with State to go to the National competition.  I tried to suggest she play to her strengths but she was pretty determined to try something new.  She went to Drama State and did very well.  She did a Comical piece as a crazy Cheerleading Coach.  We went as family and watched her compete at Bingham High.  I thought she did very well.  She was easily one of the better performers.  The judge we witnessed judging her gave her a lower mark than Superior which kept her from medaling.  She took this hard.  To make it worse she and one other act where the only performers from the school who did not medal.  In the past Riverton and Lone Peak have tied for first place as the top school for Drama.  Riverton missed being the top school by one medal.  Emma felt like she should try to be an SBO for her Senior year.  She did not get that either. She is due for a win somewhere.  She wanted to compete for Miss Riverton.  I feel like she has been too busy trying to be everything that she had not been able to be her best for these things she has been trying.  She has been coping well.  She has had a great attitude and I have been very proud about how she has been handling it all.  She will be OK.

It might not have helped that eve has had some unique success.  She has been selected in being part of a Mormon Message.  She will be playing her cello in an inspirational message. We went to Provo for her audition an shortly after Tiffany got a call that she had been selected to be the cello girl.  tiffany took her to Provo a few days later to shoot the scenes.  They called a few days after that to have her do the voice overs.  They did this at the conference center.  Tiffany and I both went to that appointment.  They took us to a small recording studio.  I was impressed with all the buttons that were on the sound board.  Their were two women who where asking Eve to say many lines over and over in slightly different ways.  There was a man who was starting the recordings.  It took less than 30 min.  They let us know that the recording studio is used for many things by many important people. They recently had Elder Christopherson record his Conference talks.  He is fluent in Spanish and can do OK in Portuguese.  He prerecords his Conference talks so those who want to listen in their native tongue can do so with his voice.  They try to prerecord most of the foreign languages.  I think they said they record the messages in 77 different languages.  It could have been 44.  I remember ti was a big number.  They said the Elder Holland caused them some concern with he talks.  he likes to provide some ad-lib to the beginning of his talks.  it keeps them on their toes.  when they have a talk that is done in the "native" language they have a small army of translators who translate as the talk is happening.  This last Conference they did not have any native speaker which made them happy.