Friday, September 30, 2011

getting ready for conference

This might be the last picture for the year of our days in Scofield.
Or maybe not.
This is one of my favorites for a lot of reasons.
We had walked up to the cemetery.  We do that a lot.  It's not because of my fascination with cemeteries as much as the simple fact that in Scofield, the cemetery seems like a great destination for a walk since it is located ALL   THE   WAY   ACROSS   town.  It's just the right distance.  And if you are jogging/running, you can get just enough uphill/downhill variety in the 1 mile loop to make for a nice little workout.  Especially if you do it a few times.
We had walked up to the cemetery to take some pictures.  And it's not like I don't already have pictures of the Scofield Cemetery.  But, this time I was taking pictures for a project that I am helping with...
the Church is accepting photos from regular old people like me to use for various purposes.  Members (who have an LDS account) can log into a page on the lds.org website called The Vineyard.  (you go to MENU, then, Serving in the Church, then, Volunteer and Contribute.  Then scroll all the way to the bottom and you see The Vineyard.  Summer and I have been subject tagging photos for the Church.  The Church has needs for various photos and they have a list.  5 pages long.  And members all over the world can submit photos.  The photos can be used for Church magazines, websites, lessons, videos, and all sorts of other uses.  All of the photos that are approved go into a big data base and then people like me and Summer can volunteer to subject tag the photos.  Each photos is tagged about 20 times.  Volunteers tag a photo by attaching words to photos that one would use to search for a particular photo in a data base.  So, for example, a General Authority might want a photo of a headstone for a talk on Family History.  He could access the Church's data base of photos and search for a picture that fits his talk according to words like, cemetery, grave, headstone, etc.  I have tagged 100's photos with subject words and I have also submitted about 15 photos of which 7 or 8 of them have been accepted.  I am planning on submitting some of the pictures that we took this weekend of the cemetery in Scofield as well since cemetery and gravestone photos are on the list of needed photos.
I learned about all of this fun stuff at Education Week.  Summer and I have kept track of the time we have spent working in the Vineyard and are using that for a 10 hour project for Personal Progress.
And...we have even been interviewed by LDSNews about our participation in the Vineyard.

About the picture.
Sierra walked all of the way down the hill with her eyes closed.
Cole has his gun in his hand.  I'm not sure why he doesn't have a gun in both hands.
Summer is sporting the Scofield fashion look with the side braid and all.
And the scenery in the background is where I want to live.  But, only for 6 months out of the year.  It is seriously the prettiest little cattle ranch ever.  Except that would mean having cows.  So, I'll just admire.
And if the view were a little wider you would see the quakies turning yellow up in the surrounding hills.  So pretty.

And Conference...
We read President Uchtdorf's message on the Church website about General Conference--No Ordinary Blessing.

1.  Members of the Church are entitled to personal revelation as they listen to and study the inspired words spoken at general conference.
2.  Don't discount a message merely because it sounds familiar.
3.  The words spoken at General Conference should be a compass that points the way for us during the coming months.

I have usually just approached conference ready and willing to accept the messages presented.  I haven't always listened to conference with particular questions that I want answers for.  In our family, we have a topic that we have been working on and we hope that we can find answers to that issue as we listen to conference.  I also have a few questions of my own that I will bring to conference.

Elder Holland said this about General Conference..."Some one of us will touch on your circumstance and will send a personal little prophetic epistle just for you."
I hope I am listening.

1 comment:

Amara said...

I'm going to Scofield with Ari for her 5th grade camp next week. I'll tell it hi for you. I'll have to check out the vineyard site. I'm hoping they make images available to everyone to use for talks, lessons, etc. That would be helpful.