Spring 2011 Utah Trip Part I

My brother graduated this weekend. Which means the Texas Kelms are in Utah! Here is part 1 of the trip....

1st set of grandparents. Wolfgang, Orlando, Aline, Tamara- good looking group!

My other grandma Vera, my mom Tonia, and me again.


Good looking group with the handsome graduate! Love Mt. Timp in the background.

Check out the guns on that gorgeous girl!


Just missing Michael. But he will be home soon!


Graduation lunch at Tucanos. Love me some suco de abacaxi! (pineappele juice)



Showing off the guns again with Cosmo the Cougar at a BYU baseball game. Gooooo cougars!

Sunday morning "Music and the Spoken Word", broadcast featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Symphony. What a great way to spend Easter Sunday morning. And, President Monson was in the crowd.

Garden at Temple Square. Gorgeous! We took an hour tour. Now I appreciate it so much more. They have over 80,000 tulips!

Não Tenho Lágrimas

Irony of ironies... last night I practiced learning this song with my dad. I love the song, so much passion and emotion in it. Then I went on and had a much needed, but heart wrenching conversation. I drove home waiting for the tears to come...and this song popped into my head, and actually made me smile. Oh how I love Brasil, Portuguese, singing with my dad, and finding comfort because of the richness that is my life. Don't worry, my heart may be a bit bruised, but really don't feel quite as dramatic as this song portrays!



Quero chorar, não tenho lágrimas
Que me rolem na face
Pra me socorrer
(I want to cry, but I don't have tears to run down my face to save me)

Se eu chorasse talvez desabafasse
O que sinto no peito
E não posso dizer
(If I cried, maybe I could let all the emotions that I feel and can't say out of my chest)

Só porque não sei chorar
Eu vivo triste a sofrer
(But because I can't cry, I life to suffer. )

Estou certo que o riso não tem nenhum valor
A lágrima sentida é o retrato de uma dor
O destino assim quis
De mim te separar
(It's true that a smile isn't worth the same, a tear felt is a portrait of pain. Destiny wanted to seperate me from you)

Quero chorar não posso
Vivo a implorar
(I want to cry, but I can't, I live begging)

It has EVERYTHING to do with me!

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we have a conference twice a year. These conferences are a world wide gathering (the WHOLE world) that is broadcast for all to see and consists of talks given by apostle, prophets, seers, and revelators. It consists of 5 two-hour sessions. The Saturday night session is just for the men, priesthood holders, to attend. Of course the talks are avalible later for anybody to hear.

I love conference. I love the personal revelation that comes. I love the call to be better, work harder, and serve more deeply.

In the past few years I have tried harder to read the priesthood session talks. I had a conversation last night that almost got me fired up. A woman said to me in reference to the priesthood session- it doesn't have anything to do with me anyways. I immediately said- "It has EVERYTHING to do with you!" She then said that the men don't read the Relief Society talks from RS meetings. I said- "they should!" I do not have the power of the priesthood. I do not have to attend the meeting. The priesthood meeting is focused on the men and how they can better act in the name of God with the power which they hold. However, it still has EVERYTHING to do with me. If I am to sustain the priesthood leaders, then I should know what they have been commanded to do. The power of the priesthood has daily effect on my life, or at least it should. And what I learn in Relief Society, the organization for woman patterned after the priesthood, has EVERYTHING to do with the lives of the men, because one day those men will marry women who will be their equal, and they need to know how to support them.

I am grateful for my testimony of these things. I know that God has set up ways for men and women to grow and progress so that we can be together in families forever.