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!