Beneath the Wraps

            There is a couple in the stake who had moved into a house with lots of land.   The original owner had used some of the land was used to grow baco grapes.   When the couple moved in, he asked to continue with growing his grapes and maintained that part of the land.   He has now retired from maintaining the land.   It's not necessarily an investment the family was interested in and decided to invite all those who lived in the stake to come and pick as many grapes as we want.   These were offered for free.             So for family home evening, we loaded up the car with buckets, scissors, gloves and knee pads - though we did not need the latter.   The couple has grown into a family and had various children out in the orchard to direct participants on where to go and start cutting.  Cutting grapes off the vine was probably the ...

            As I was growing up, I can remember doing a lot of role playing with my family members.   What would you do if you were in this situation?   How do you think you would react?   What would you do differently? . . . I can't speak for my sibs, but I believe they felt prepared as I when we were approached with a given situation.   We didn't have to analyze because we already had the answers.           For example, when we had been approached by the doctors in the final stages of mom's life (before we knew they were the final stages)we were faced with a decision.   We could have put mom on dialyses and had her leg amputated.   Long before she got dementia, mom had been quite vocal about not ever wanting to be on dialyses.   With her state of mind, she really wouldn't have known whether we honored that wish or having even requested it.  S...