December 2012 Newsletter

 Adam and Siera Olson

Adam and Siera were married in July in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. They were high school sweethearts. Adam served a mission to Fiji where he wore a "sulu" instead of slacks. He loved his mission and loved the people. He is currently attending BYU and is studying communications. He wants to attend medical school and become a surgeon. Siera recently graduated from UVU in dental hygiene. They have many hobbies and enjoy riding bikes and watching movies together. They enjoy cooking though Adam's favorite part of that is the eating! Adam enjoys sports and reading anything fiction. Siera enjoys photography, particularly photographing families. Siera is an adviser in the Young Women and Adam teaches in the Elders Quorum. They both play the piano and Adam plays the saxophone and the ukelele. Siera plays the viola and they both like to sing. They enjoy traveling and honeymooned to Orlando. Adam's favorite place he has visited was Matuku, an island on his mission where he was the first missionary to ever serve there. Siera loved St. Thomas. Siera's favorite snack is watermelon and Adam loves gummy bears. They love Christmas (though for Siera, it was a tie with the 4th of July) and love all the traditions that come with Christmas. They can't wait to start some traditions of their very own.

The Olsons talked about several experiences that strengthened their  faith. Adam was able to read the Book of Mormon in great detail and Siera was able to be a leader on Trek when she was 18 and really felt the spirit as she walked in the same steps as the pioneers. If they could change anything in the world, Adam would like to change people's attitude of entitlement and be rid of the laziness of the world. Siera would like to see people just be a little nicer to each other and care for each other more.

 Laurel Banta

Laurel was born and raised in Utah county and has been in the ward for 25 years. And has loved every single ward change in those 25 years! She has 2 sisters and 3 brothers and is the oldest in her family. She was the first in her family to be baptized at 12 years old. She was very curious about where all the kids would go after school and started going to primary. She never missed a day and finally was able to be baptized when she was 12. Her parents supported her decision to be active in the church. Laurel has 5 children; 3 boys, 2 girls and a Navajo foster son. She has 21 grandchildren and 1 great grand child. She loves being a grandma and says the best part of being a grandma is remembering that it ties her to her ancestors and helps her identify with them. She loves history, reading biographies, and the scriptures. Her favorite part of history is the optimistic periods in America that happened after the wars. She has a lot of Jewish heritage and loves reading about Jewish history and observes Hanukkah. Christmas is her favorite holiday and loves the music and the lights. Laurel loves to collect antiques and has many in her home. She loves photography, especially landscapes.

She has had several jobs in her life: a car hop at Kirk's drive in when she was younger, working at a book store and worked at the deaf and blind school. She currently is the manager at The Cleaning Solution. She talked about several experiences that strengthened her faith and she mentioned the many prayers that have been uttered (and those that were not uttered) that were answered. She said, "Heavenly Father knows my heart so well." 

Bob and Robyn Steed

Bob and Robyn have been married for 42 years. They met at Weber State and were married in the Salt Lake Temple. Bob is from Granger and Robyn is from Bountiful. They have 3 sons, 2 grandsons and 3 grand daughters. Bob served for years in the military and was stationed in Germany for 4 months during Desert Storm. He worked in anesthesia in American Fork and Orem hospitals. Robyn is a retired 4th grade teacher and taught for 20 years. They have been in the ward for a year and live with Robyn's mother to help care for her. The Steed;s love to travel. Some of their favorite place are Alaska, Boston, Puerto Rico and Fiji. They take each grandchild on a trip, just the three of them, when they are 8 years old. They served a mission to the Marshallese Islands and loved it. They had some amazing experiences while there and truly grew in their faith. The hardest thing about serving a mission was being away from family. When they returned home they continued to serve and for a year, did a service mission at the MTC working with all the missionaries.

Bob collects American coins from 1850 on and Robyn loves sports, especially baseball. Her favorite teams are the Red Sox and the Atlanta Braves. She also loves history and collects children' stories. Bob likes crawdads, fruitcake and cookies while Robyn loves ice cream, chocolate and Magnum bars. An experience that strengthened their faith was when they served in the Kiribati (pronounced Kit-a-bus) Nation on the island of Tarawa. They leaved that a lot of things don't matter and that we can all get along with a lot less. They had a lot of time to study in depth the gospel and grow stronger in their faith in the Savior. They kindly gave some advice to the younger generation on marriage: Look past each others faults and forgive each other.

November 2012

 Rhea and Frank Willie

Rhea Willie has been in the ward for 7 years while her 2nd son, Frank has been in the ward for a year. They live right next door to each other and are able to share a fence where Frank's dog, Zoey, can freely run back and forth between their homes. Rhea is a busy woman who takes care of her beautiful home, works at the MTC with the Spanish Missionaries and works at the Mt. Timponogos Temple one day a week. Her and her husband were married for 55 years and had many wonderful adventures together. They both served missions in Uruguay before they were married and then were able to serve a mission there together later in their life. They have also served in South America, Spain, Michigan and Nauvoo. While she was serving as a young sister in Uruguay, there were no manuals to preach the gospel in Spanish and spent a  lot of her time translating. Rhea has 6 children, 20 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. She enjoys knitting, crocheting and spending time with her grandchildren. She especially loves "grandma days." An experience that she recalls in her life that helped her faith was the time she truly put Moroni's promise to the test. Some advice she has for the ward members, "Stay close to the church. Stay faithful and keep trying."

Frank served a mission to San Diego, went to BYU for a degree in mechanical engineering but is a "computer geek by trade" according to his words. He has two children , a son and a daughter, and for many years lived in Michigan and Ohio. He served as a branch president for 7 years and a bishop for 3. He enjoys riding motorcycles and has a Suzuki Bandit 1200. He also enjoys being outdoors, camping, snow skiing and is an excellent photographer. He tells of an spiritual experience where he had just moved from Michigan to Ohio but was still the bishop of is ward in Michigan. He said while sitting in sacrament meeting in his new ward, he all of a sudden felt sick. As he thought about it, he realized that he had just been released from his calling as bishop and the mantle of bishop was removed from him. It was a great spiritual experience for him. Some advice he gave to the younger members of the ward, "Keep your priorities straight."

 Tacy Harrison

 Tacy was raised in Orem and is the 5th of 8 children. She has been in the ward for 8 years. She got her bachelors degree from BYU and a Master's Degree from the University of Phoenix in early childhood education. She works with 3-5 year olds as a Head Start Preschool teacher. She has been teaching for 17 years. She did high school for a few years but prefers the younger children. She served a mission in Spain. One of the weirdest things she ate on her mission was squid. She enjoys reading, especially historical fiction. She liked to read books that are "unabridged"  and has read the unabridged version of "Les Miserables" several times. She enjoys cooking (especially homemade pizza), baking and rollerblading. A few other fun things about Tacy: she was named after her grandmother, she broke her right arm in college, she loves all the holidays. Castle and White Collar are her favorite TV shows. One of her favorite place to visit is Sea World and loves spending her summer vacations visiting her sister in Arizona, reading and working on unfinished projects for the upcoming school year. One thing that she loves about teaching is that she is able to see that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and personalities.

David and Mickey Stinson

David and Mickey were married in August. They met online but it took a video "family home evening" for them to officially meet. They dated for two years before David proposed to Mickey at a concert. David was raised in Orem where he is working with his dad for an online restaurant company. He is also working towards a degree in Culinary Arts and would one day love to own his own catering business or have a food truck. He is a music guru, collects comic books, watch movies, enjoys traveling and of course, cooking. Mickey was raised in Twin Falls, Idaho and her parents now live in Battlemountain, Nevada which has been named the Armpit of America. They have an "Oldspice Armpit Festival" there every year. Mickey served a mission in Arizona. She loves to cook, knit (she once knitted a king sized blanket), scrapbooking, playing the viola and singing. She would one day love to travel to Europe. After they were married, they took a 3 week honeymoon to Arizona and the everything in between here and there. David's favorite snack is anything salty (with a soda along side it) and Mickey loves anything with chocolate!

October 2012

Sarah Sparks

Sister Sarah Sparks grew up in Delaware. Growing up she was one of eight children. She says she is the "youngest of the 4 oldest and the oldest of the 5 youngest." She met her husband in Delaware where she was a member of the USO (United Service Organization) and her husband was in the Air Force. Sarah would find that she would go to dances 6-7 days a week and at one of those dances, they met. She says the best dressed of all the servicemen were the Marines and one of her favorite dances was the jitterbug. They lived all over, her favorite place to live was in Germany. They have 4 children, 12 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. Her husband joined the church in 1975 in Germany and they were sealed together as a family in the Oakland California Temple in 1976. Sarah and her husband were married for 49 years before he passed away. She has many talents, one of which is baking. Her favorite thing to bake is peanut brittle around Christmastime but she makes some really yummy fudge too! She collects cookbooks and loves to cook out of them. For the past 21 years, Sarah and her family has lived in Utah. She worked for 12 1/2 years in the cafeteria of a junior high school. She spends a lot of her time volunteering at Orem Community Hospital. She loves spending time with the new mothers and babies and spends many hours making little hats for the newborns. One of her favorite church callings is the compassionate service leader and in second place, the library. She made sure all those young people knew how to say please and thank you when asking to use scriptures from the library. When asked what advice would she give to a couple just starting out she replied, " Work together as a couple in everything, chores and raising kids. And take time for each other."

Tony and Emma Pipes

Tony and Emma were married December 18, 2009 in the Nauvoo Temple. Tony is from Merced, California and Emma is from Missouri. They met in Missouri in a singles branch while Emma was home from BYU for the summer and  Tony was selling pest control. They are expecting a baby in March and will find out if it is a boy or a girl on Halloween. Tony served a mission in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Mission from 2006-2008. He is currently a senior at UVU majoring in Emergency Services Administration. He would love to one day be a fireman. He has a motorcyle and loves to ride that. He loves basketball and any other sport involving a ball. One thing he wanted everyone to know about him, he used to be a beekeeper! Emma is in her last semester at BYU going into History Education. She is doing her student teaching right now in Saratoga Springs. Emma loves reading, scrapbooking, sewing and TV. Her favorite TV show is "Say Yes to the Dress". Emma loves how funny and hard working Tony is while Tony's favorite quality in Emma is her domestic qualities. They enjoy traveling and have been many places together, one of their favorites was San Diego, California. They spoke about several experiences that helped strengthen their faith. Emma shared the patience she had to learn while waiting for Tony to propose. They dated for a year before Tony proposed and that was a great strength builder for her. Tony felt his mission truly changed his life but it took a lot of faith for him to serve a mission for two years. The Pipes' favorite snacks are anything pumpkin flavored and White Cheddar Cheezits for Tony.

Holly, Morgan and Oreo

 

 

 Holly McMahon and her family have been in the ward for 12 years. The house they currently live in was her grandmothers house. Holly is currently married to Scott and they have been married for 7 years. Scott has 4 children and 1 grandchild. Holly has 3 children, McKay, Melissa and Morgan. McKay is 21 and is currently working for a flower wholesaler. Melissa recently left our ward and is going to school at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg. She is enjoying school and is majoring in Elementary Education. Morgan, 14 is in 9th grade at Lakeridge Junior High. Morgan is very busy playing football for Mountain View (he is outside linebacker and wide receiver)and going to school. His favorite subject is History and his favorite snack is Takis (a mexican chip) Holly says it's very easy to bribe Morgan to do anything if Takis are involved! Morgan would love one day to play football for Florida State and maybe even the Green Bay Packers. Holly grew up in Tabiona, UT where her dad was as school teacher and a farmer. She loves to read (her favorite book is Gone with the Wind)  and spend time with her family. She owns "Flowers on Main" in Lehi and loves her job. She loves working with the people she does and interacting with her customers. One of the hardest things about having her own business was making sure she could spend enough time with her children. Holly is currently a teacher in the Relief Society. One of her favorite callings was working with the Young Women. Traveling is one thing that Holly and Morgan both mentioned they loved. One of their favorite trips was a cruise to the Bahamas and loved the snorkeling. A tradition is their family is to bake chocolate chip cookies together every Sunday. A faith building experience for Holly and her family was when she had to be alone with her 3 young children after her divorce. As a family, they feel their faith grew tremendously as they learned to depend of Jesus Christ.

 Ryan and KaceyAnn Johnson

Ryan and KaceyAnn met in a singles ward and have been married for a year and a half. They were married in the Manti Temple. KaceyAnn is from Chandler, AZ. She recently graduated from BYU and works as a CNA at American Fork Hospital. Ryan is attending UVU and is majoring in Marketing. He works at Simplifile as a support engineer and is from American Fork. Ryan loves public speaking and was an EFY counselor for two years. One day, Ryan would love to own his own business. Together, they love to go hiking, play board games and be outside. Ryan and KaceyAnn are expecting a child on 12-12 2012. Ryan served a mission in Boston, MA Spanish Speaking but never used his Spanish while he was on his mission. KaceyAnn's favorite snack is rice crispy treats and Ryan loves 7 layer brownies. The question, What quality do you most admire in each other, was asked. Ryan said he loved that KaceyAnn was so loving and faithful and reminds him of reasons to have faith. KaceyAnn loves that Ryan is so willing to change and his applications to gospel principles in his life. An experience that has strengthened their faith was the decision to start a family. It was not in the plan at the time and after a few experiences, they both felt it was time. This decision truly changed their lives and helped to greatly strengthen their faith in our Savior.

September Biographies

 Jim and Ethel Hansen

Jim and Ethel met when he was working at a Chevron gas station and she was the waitress at the restaurant next door.  They were married in Las Vegas and later sealed in the SLC Temple in 1963.  Ethel was born in California but eventually ended up in Utah where she attended Jordan High School.  She worked for a publishing company before raising their three boys and four girls. Now her passion is Family History and she is an expert in FamilySearch.  Jim was very involved in music growing up, as a drum major in the ROTC Band, playing saxophone in a dance band, and singing in the mens choir.  In 1951 he was drafted to the Korean War, but was assigned to Italy in the Army Band. He worked for Chevron for 45 years and now works at Lowes part-time for fun. Jim and Ethel now have 26 grandkids and 16 great-grandkids. They served a mission in the Denver Temple and now continue the work by doing indexing and family history from home.

 Deanna Carpenter

Deanna is the mother of 3 sons and 1 daughter. 2 of her sons are police chiefs and 1 is a fireman. Her daughter is currently going to school to be in the medical field. 2 She has 7 grandsons and 2 granddaughters. One of her grandsons, Landon, is living with her now as he attends school at UVU. She is also the proud owner of Lacey, a rescue dog and Snicker, a blue heeler/beagle mix whom she recently found out was deaf. Deanna is a wonderful woman with many great stories to tell. Currently, she is a visiting teacher in the ward though one of her favorite callings was to serve in the M.I.A (Mutual in Action). She loved serving with the young women and being able to go to youth conference. Deanna grew up in Salt Lake City and was baptized in the Salt Lake Tabernacle when she was 8 years old. She said it was an amazing experience and her 4 children were also able to be baptized there. Deanna has lived in the ward since 1990, when her home on Hanover was built. Though most of her life has been spent in Utah, her and her family spent some years in Colburn, Colorado where her husband was the director of the job corps there. They enjoyed living in Colorado and had some great experiences there. They were part of a small branch where they had to travel 60 miles for church and other activities. It made for a long trip and when one of her sons was a baby, the drive would make him sick and so Deanna would spent sacrament meeting in the foyer with her sick baby. During all of this, she would think of the pioneers and how they traveled so many miles across the plains in handcarts and wagons. It made her 60 miles to church seem a little easier. 

If Deanna could change the world she would want everyone to be a little kinder and to judge less. No one knows what the other person is going through. She also said it's so important to remember to take care of our bodies and eat healthy and exercise. The most fascinating place she has ever visited is Thailand. She was able to ride on an elephant and they walked right down the middle of the river! And she left a little advice for the families of the Stonewood 5th ward, to laugh a lot and to have fun with your kids. Let them know how funny they are!

 Mike, Deanna, Derek, Aubrey and Grace Rowen

Mike and Deanna have been married for 9 years. They met through a mutual friend and were married in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. Mike grew up in California and served a mission in Detroit, Michigan. Mike had 4 mission presidents and his mission was renamed while he was there! He has an English degree and one day would love to become a motivational speaker. He loves his family very much and also loves to go 4 wheeling with Jeeps. Deanna grew up in Orem and served a mission to the Netherlands. She was a financial planner for many years and is currently working for an insurance company and also working at developing her own business. A candy shop, LG's English Toffee (which is delicious!). She also teaches classes that are financially based. ("Pattern of Plenty" and "The Wise Steward") She loves to be with her family and also go hiking.  They have 3 beautiful children who are fun and energetic. Derek,8, is the newest member of the Stonewood 5th ward as he was just baptized. He is learning to play the piano and is in the 3rd grade. He is a good helper to his mom and dad and loves to eat chicken wraps. Aubrey, 5, is in kindergarten. She loves all animals, especially bunnies. She told us a story about when they were at This is the Place Monument visiting the petting zoo. She enjoyed the animals in the petting zoo but really wanted to feed the big bulls on the other side of the fence. She did and she was not scared! Grace, 3, loves to sing and dance. She loves pizza and is such a fun and happy little girl. 

Deanna is one of the gospel doctrine teachers in the ward and Mike is the 2nd assistant in the High Priests. If there was one thing in the world they would like to change, Deanna would want everyone to be able to see their worth and Mike would love to change lives through motivational speaking. The Rowen's love ice cream and that would be the one thing they sneak to eat when no one is looking. That or chocolate chips! As the Rowen's have been married for 9 years, we asked what advice they would give to the newly married members of our ward. They said to ground yourselves in the gospel and everything will fall into place. Focus on grace and mercy in your marriage and always be kind to yourself and to your spouse. 

Leah and Jesse Green

Leah and Jesse met while attending BYU-Idaho. Jesse's sister was good friends with Leah.  They were married in the Sacramento, CA Temple on August 20, 2011.  Leah is originally from Sacramento, CA. She studied Health Science at BYU-I. Her husband, Jesse, is originally from Portland, OR and served a mission in Taiwan. Jesse recently transferred to BYU to study Chinese. He is also starting a job in American Fork doing Tech Support.  Leah and Jesse are expecting their first child, a little girl, at the end of October.

Hello and welcome to the online newsletter

Hello Stonewood 5th Ward! We are Tyler and Carrie Hansen and we have recently been called to be in charge of the newsletter. We are very excited for this new calling and look forward to getting to know each of you as we put the monthly newsletter together. A little about us...we were recently married in June in the Idaho Falls Temple. We are originally from Idaho (Blackfoot and Salmon, respectively). We love watching movies, taking walks, being outside and spending time with family and each other. We are excited to be in the Stonewood 5th ward and are excited to get to know each of you.