The nest is empty...again

We are empty nesters again.  Eric and Haley are starting their final (potentially) semester next week. The high councilman at church today spoke about a parrot his uncle got while serving in Vietnam.
The parrot had been around soldiers and had learned some salty language (the uncle was not an active member of the church). At some point, the uncle was transferred and asked his parents (the high councilman's grandparents) to take care of the parrot.

#@%&^

When the grandparents got it, it would repeat this salty language.  The grandparents kept working with it and after a few years, the salt language was replaced by "one, two, buckle my shoe" and the the grandmother answering the phone and calling her husband for dinner.  The grandparents have since passed away and the parrot is back with the uncle.  The parrot still speaks the way it was taught by the grandparents.

Felicia and I pray that our children will always remember what they were taught when they are out on their own.

Elder Bruce McConkie said this at General Conference in 1984:

The Church is like a great caravan—organized, prepared, following an appointed course, with its captains of tens and captains of hundreds all in place.

What does it matter if a few barking dogs snap at the heels of the weary travelers? Or that predators claim those few who fall by the way? The caravan moves on.

Is there a ravine to cross, a miry mud hole to pull through, a steep grade to climb? So be it. The oxen are strong and the teamsters wise. The caravan moves on.

Are there storms that rage along the way, floods that wash away the bridges, deserts to cross, and rivers to ford? Such is life in this fallen sphere. The caravan moves on.

Ahead is the celestial city, the eternal Zion of our God, where all who maintain their position in the caravan shall find food and drink and rest. Thank God that the caravan moves on!