This was a great day!

It was actually a great weekend, but on the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's house Saturday Gavin said, "This was a great day!"

We started our Easter celebrations on Saturday at Grandma and Grandpa Atwood's house for and Easter egg hunt.

This is Steve's cute Grandma Atwood. She's so sweet and we love her so much!!

Sunday morning Gavin woke up bright and early to find where the Easter Bunny hid his basket

A bunch of Steve family came to see us Sunday morning before church. We don't get together with his family very often so it was great to have them. Wish they could come more often.

This is Steve with his mom, dad, grandma, and 5 of his brothers and sisters. He has one more brother and sister who weren't able to be there.

My beautiful niece Karissa

Off to Church. Not sure why Gavin is holding up four fingers. Maybe he wants you to know how old he is.

After church my brother Mike and Sister Laura and ker kids came over for another egg hunt

I'm so thankful for Easter and the time we get to share with family. I'm thankful for may Savior and the Sacrifice He made for me. I had the opportunity to teach in Relief Society this Easter Sunday and wanted to share a quote I read in my lesson. I love this quote!

Well my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our faith that He experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t think of the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means that He knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer-how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows how it felt to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism. Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that He does not know and recognize. On a profound level, He understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to His disciples were, “And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother pain when your five year old leaves for Kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth grader, when your daughter calls to say the new baby has Downs Syndrome. He knows your mother rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year old. He knows the pain you live when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been lower that all that. He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save His people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He is not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and in our grief. You know that people who live above a certain latitude experience very long winter nights can become depressed and even suicidal because something in our bodies require whole spectrum light for a certain number of hours a day. Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world. We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness can see a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need Him and He is ready to come to us if we will open the door and let Him in.

Sister Chieko N Okazaki

General Relief Society Presidency