Saturday - Sunday

Saturday morning my family had to clean the church for our final time. We were done fairly quick. After this we cleaned the house and began decorating Christmas. We have our tree up and the wreaths the lights and all sorts of other things. The house looks really nice. This year was my first year actually setting up Christmas lights out front. I did all the bushes and had help with the really tall bushes. I think it looks really good for my first time doing it. I also got shocked by an old strand. I got electrocuted on my calf muscle and had to sit down. After being afraid of touching that strand I had Connor take it down and throw it in the garbage. Guess what... Connor got shocked to lol. I felt bad for him cuz it hurts.

It was a lot of fun and am so excited for Christmas this year.

On Sunday I had to give a talk. It was definitely my best talk yet. I sounded smooth and looked up at everyone. Here is my talk if anyone would like to read it. :)
--
My name is Jonathan Hooper and I have been asked to talk about the Spiritual Development requirement in Duty to God. There are 12 different goals in this requirement and I will only be talking about 3.

One of my favorite goals out of all 12 is collecting a dozen quick meals that can be used on my mission. I love to cook. A lot of the time I will be peeking over my mom’s shoulder when she is cooking dinner to pick up a helpful tip. Before my mission I would like to learn how to cook Sour Klopse. Sour Klopse is a German dish with meatballs and potatoes that my grandma makes every now and then. It is a very delicious but kind of a tricky meal. On my mission I am sure that I am not always going to be fed lunch or dinner and macaroni and cheese or spaghettios get really old really fast. I need to be prepared with quick and easy meals. By the time I have completed this goal, I will have 12 meals that I can easily cook in a short amount of time.

Another goal is to regularly add to my mission fund. Missions are not cheap and it is up to me to plan and save for my mission. It doesn’t have to be a lot of money all the time, but a little bit at a time can add up over time. I have noticed that when I pay for my clothes or things I want by myself I end up taking better care of them. Especially if I worked hard to earn that money, I don’t want to see it go to waste. Paying for a mission by myself as much as possible will help me to be a better and more dedicated missionary.

Last but not least, memorizing the articles of faith. Almost any question that a person can ask about our church can be answered by one of the articles of faith. My favorite article of faith is We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. It says as long as a repent of all my sins and obey the commandments and laws of the land, I will be saved at the last day. Joseph Smith was inspired when he wrote the articles of faith and I know that they are true. I am trying to memorize them so I can use them on my mission to help people that are seeking answers about our church.

The spiritual development requirement is, in my opinion, the most important requirement in the Duty to God program. It has definitely strengthened my testimony and has helped me understand my priesthood duties more fully. I know by completing this requirement it will help me become a better young man, and a stronger member of the church.

My ThanksGiving

In the morning I get up and get ready for my flag football game that our ward is doing. We had like 16 people show up which means 8 vs 8. The first two plays of the game were all me. The ball was thrown to me both times and I got a total of 50 yards. Couple of turnovers later, I get and interception and ran for 25 yards until I was accidentally tripped (I'm kind of doubting that) and I really hit hard.

After a few bumps and bruises I get ready to go to my Aunt Jenny's house. The food was ok but the potatoes were nasty (fake of course). After dinner I decided to get away from the family and play pool with my dad down stairs. I got my butt kicked by the way. The the family meeting woohoo! Lol I'll let my mom or dad tell this story.

After this we went to Grandpa Hooper's and watched Hancock with lots of sound/picture problems.

Nothing to post

Facebook is way better than blogger lol.
Uhh... Well Thanksgivving is this week of course so I am going to my the Standage's fiest :(. I am most excited for Kirk to come down and go fly airplanes with him and my dad.

My Saturday

Ok so I wake up at 7:00 to get ready to leave to go clean te church (I think I woke up at like 7:45 cuz my mom was getting frustrated cuz i wouldn't wake up). We are at the church by 8 and there are like 5 families helping already and pretty much everything was cleaned. So we stayed for like 15min to see if anyone needed help thn we left.

After all this I called up my grandpa Hooper to see if he had any work needed to be done so I can make 40 bucks :). He did as always which to yesterday was cleaning around the pool. I didnt think this would be to hard. I look at the pool and there are leaves all over. It took me 2 hours to clean it all up with about 6 loads of the vacuum (the really heavy duty outside vacuum for dirt and leaves). After that grandpa had me mow the backyard which is really easy cuz its so small.
40 bucks is now in my pocket.

Me and my dad go to the mall to shop for me. I bought 2 shirts from Aeropostale then from Hollister. My total was $70. It was actually a lot of fun. We were there for like an hour then we went to Serrano's. We split the Special Quesadilla thing. It was really good and really cheap.

Following that we went to target for some dividers for binders for the Teacher's quorum presidency and I really wanted a new game for xbox and I bought Gears of War 2.

My Saturday was pretty fun.
Im so excited for 24 and the football game; NY Giants @ AZ Cardinals 2:15pm Sunday

Football Banquet

So last night was my football banquet. We started out in the cafeteria at Shepherd and had hawaiin food. It was much but the meatballs were really good. After eating the crowd headed down to the library to give out wards and also to watch the game film. I was about the 8th kid who was talked about and given a certificate and shirt. Coach didnt say much about me, im sure he really didnt care about me anyway since I didnt go to summer camp but whatever. Now he is giving long speeches on his favorite players and that went an hour and a half late. When it was time to watch game film at 8:30 (the party was supposed to be over this time) my mom and I left becuase we needed to leave. We went home and watched he game film. I was actually surprised to see some of my sacks and great plays on it too. (If you ever wanna see me in it let me know and Ill show you :])

I gotta go to school cya!

I promised this

Well I have gotten in to facebook and found out I kind of like it. I find out that most of you guys had facebooks so I decided to make one. It definitely a lot of fun especially the games lol :).

Man im struggling to stay awake, good night

Posting more regularly

Ok well I haven't been posting hardly anything if you haven't noticed, probably cuz I have been forgetting about my blog. So I promise I will post probably every other day maybe even everyday. So after school today I will add something.

My mom is always saying I need to post something new so... I will....eventually.

Tuesday Trip

Well there isn't really much to post about except for my quad riding trip near four peaks witht eh Standage families. I left with my Aunt JoAan and her family to go quad riding. Todd, my grandma standage, and JoAan's friend came. It was a lot of fun. I rode my Grandma's quad. I really only wanted to ride her's because I am very comfortable with it. We drove down a trail for about 45min with everyone on a quad. Then we decided to have let slow pokes get in the back and the people who really wanted to ride could zoom on back to our camp. Me and my cousin Trevor were going pretty fast. At one point we were going 55mph (according to Trevors quad's speedometer) and we also caught some air. I am looking forward to our next quading trip. It was a blast!

Well I would wright moer but I have to hurry off to the bus. Cya!

Pictures of Heber and Halloween

Well there you have it! That was pretty much my Halloween weekend. Srry it too me so long to post pics.

This week I have figured out what I want to do for my eagle project (with the help of my mom and dad) . I want to help out in the Pediactrics department in any hospital that needs help in that area. I have been having trouble figuring out how who to contact.

Well Im tired. Have a Good week!!

Friday - Sunday

So on Friday I wore my grandpa's michael jackson jacket to school. I have never had so much attention before lol. Everyone thought it was so cool and they were all unzipping the zippers on my back too lol. It was pretty crazy. After school we got ready for the Halloween party at my house. Our next door neighbors, grandpa/grandma standage, Todd's family, and my 2 friends Kimberly and Lexie. We had scones, which were very delicious, then went trick our treating.

I went with Kimberly and Lexie. It was a lot of fun. We got tons of full size candy bars too. I don't think I have ever gotten so much candy. I am also afraid to eat it cuz I don't wanna get chunky lol. At 8:30 we left for Lexie's house for her Fear Factor party. We did lots of crazy things. It too was a ton of fun. (Lexie's blog has all the cool pictures of that. Btw, I'm a wimp.)

Saturday morning we got packed for Heber. We left around 10:45 and arrived about 2ish. First thing I dad was hop on my grandma standages automatic quad. I love her quad! I am very comfortable with it and no what I can and can't do on it. I was going really fast down the gravel road to her land; it's a blast. Started getting darker and colder so we needed a fire so we could stay warm. We go searching for wood and we had tons of wood to carry back, it would take forever to carry it. I come up with an idea to strap the wood down on the quads with bungie cords and haul it down to the fire.

This worked really well. my dad and I took both quads and gathered a lot of thick pieces of wood to burn. This as well was a ton of fun! We got Our fire going and I basically drove the quad all night long with the lights on with my Connor and Alex aboard.

We had steak for dinner and then my grandparents left. We all climbed into the trailer and went to bed except for me my mom and dad. We played Phase 10 for about an hour. It is a lot fun. There are ten different phases you have to complete to move on to the next round. The first phase is like you have to have 2 sets of 3 cards. The rest of the phases get a lot harder.

We woke up in the morning and had breakfast then went on a short hike. The hike was kind of boring but the little ones liked it. My dad did his normal nature pictures which I am sure he'll post on his blog when he has the time.

We left around 2 and got home at about 5. It was a lot of fun and am excited to go back later in the winter when it snows since we have our sledding hill all planned out.

Have a great week!!