Trisha Grant

 

Trisha was born in Bellevue Washington and spent her growing up years in the suburbs of Seattle including Woodinville and mostly in Snohomish. She had 5 sisters. Both her parents were converts to the church. She is related to Naomi Randall who wrote the song I am a Child of God. She knows this because whenever  her grandmother would attend church with her, her grandma would tell Trisha about it. Trisha's dad joined the church when he was a teenager and her mother joined the church after meeting him. First they were married civily which meant later they were able to take their kids to the Provo temple for the beautiful experience of being sealed together as an eternal family. 

 

While growing up, Trisha loved all things horses. She rode both English and Western style but mostly western style (Western style is the more rodeo type and English is the more horse jumping type). She did all kinds of riding including patterns, showmanship and trail riding. As a teenager she even won state for trail riding. A lot of this riding however happened on Sunday so as a teenager Trisha was inactive. 

 

As Trisha graduated from High School, her father told her if she wanted to go away to school he would pay for it if she would attend Ricks College (at the time it was a 2 year college but now is BYU Idaho). One night after moving to Idaho, Trisha was feeling really sick. Her neighbor happened to be in the nursing program at the college so she came over to help Trisha. This neighbor happened to know a lot about the gospel and started teaching Trisha things about the church. As they talked, Trisha came up with more and more questions and her questions became deeper and deeper. She was so fascinated by the gospel and the things her neighbor was telling her. She thought it sounded fabulous!

 

She was so enthralled with the new things she was learning about the gospel that she wrote to her dad telling him to send the missionaries over to her best friend still in Washington. Well, one of the missionaries who went to visit her friend started writing Trisha. So between the things this missionary was telling her about missionary work and the stuff she was learning at church and from her neighbor, Trisha decided she wanted to serve a mission. By the time she came home the next summer she had submitted her mission papers and received a call to serve a mission in the Philippines. 

 

She loved her mission. She said , for her a lot of the reason she felt like she served a mission was so that she could learn the gospel. After having been inactive for a while, it felt so good and was such a great experience to learn what the gospel was all about. She loved her mission so much she extended twice and almost ended up serving a 24 month mission. Her parents wondered if she was ever coming home. 
 

After completing her mission she went back to Ricks College for a semester. While at home, between summer and fall semester she started attending an institute class and as part of being in institute was set up in a family home evening group for singles. There she met 3 great friends one who was named Nelson Grant. Every week after the Family Home Evening group Trisha, Nelson and another guy and girl would hang out and play games until about midnight. They had so much fun. She became best friends with Nelson but made it very clear they were just friends. Little did she know, it was too late, he was already in love with her. Finally, after her dating several other guys her girlfriend set Nelson up on a date with someone else. This really angered Trisha. She became very jealous. From that experience she realized maybe she should try and date Nelson and see if their relationship could become more than just friends. Sure enough 4 months later they were engaged.

 

Unfortunately, life deals us many hard blows and after 5 years of blissful marriage and 3 beautiful daughters (including a set of twins who were 9 months) tragedy struck. One morning while Nelson was driving his UPS route, he was in a car accident and was killed. That left Trisha alone with her children. The accident received an enormous amount of media coverage and was so tragic for the community that everyone knew who she was and her situation.
 

After two years of living in Snohomish with her girls, Trisha decided she needed to move on. She wanted to live somewhere where she wasn't constantly reminded of the tragedy. So she packed up her and her three little girls and moved to Pleasant Grove Utah. She said this was one of the happiest times of her life. Her and her little girls did all kinds of fun things together. They went out to dinner all the time, went on outings and would pick up and do family trips whenever they felt like it. They were having a blast just being together. Trisha also attended esthetician school, very part time and got her master esthetician's license.
 

As part of being single Trisha started dating, but she was very protective of her little girls. She wasn't interested in bringing men around them. So she joined ldssingles.com. Here she met many friends and mostly they would just chat on-line. Online dating was a new frontier and Trisha even went onto a radio talk show explaining to people how to participate and how to maintain your safety. With one of the friends she met online (his name was Vaughn) she started a site devoted to lds singles who were widowed/widowered. A new widower named Dave Call came onto the site and her friend Vaughn told her she really needed to meet him. He mentioned that he also had 3 boys and a set of twins nearly the same age as hers.
 

So one night they hooked up on the phone, because he lived in California and she lived in Utah. Trisha had been praying for years, very specifically about what she wanted in a husband. The first time they talked, they talked from 9 at night until about 8 in the morning. While they were talking the Brady Bunch was playing on TV in the background and Trisha felt like she had been hit over the head with a hammer. She knew this was the person she was supposed to marry. He had every one of the qualities she had been praying for in a spouse. After dating about 9 months, they were married and just like the Brady Bunch, Trisha brought her 3 little girls into the marriage and Dave brought his 3 little boys.
 

Trisha still works as an esthetician. She loves it. She has a salon in her basement and is able to be home and available for all of their children. She still has horses and loves all animals. She feels like animals are apart of her being and it would be very hard for her not to have them as part of her life.

Now that she is facing her children leaving home in the next 3 years, she is looking to the future. She's still working out what she wants to do with it, but she feels strongly that she would like to be there to help people as they face death. She said that when her 1^st husband died it was tragic that people didn't know how to talk to her. So many people just wouldn't talk to her or would just act like everything was business as usual. Her experiences really openned her up to realize that people need someone to show empathy and kindness to them without showing  feeling that they have to have something to say that's going to make everything all better or giving pitty. She hopes she can be there and help others in that situation.

Mayleen Lund

Mayleen was born and raised in Syracuse Utah. In fact she lived in the same house from the time she was born until she left home. When she was growing up in Syracuse it was a very different from how it is now. It was before all the farmland was sold off. The whole city was one stake and their ward was very small with a large land boundary. She doesn't consider herself raised on a farm but her dad kept a 1 acre garden. He had a tractor and the whole shbang. However that was a very good thing because Mayleen was the only girl and the youngest of 7. Her dad had to keep those boys busy.

Mayleen attended Syracuse Elementary, Syracuse Jr. High and Clearfield high. After having lived in one house her whole life she was anxious to get out on her own and live somewhere else. So she attended her first year of college at Snow College in Ephraim Utah. She had a lot of fun. But after the first year of College she decided she wanted to become a dental hygeniest. There weren't very many school who offered that program so she ended up coming back up North and attending Weber.

Because not many schools offered the program, getting in was very, very difficult. In fact getting into the program was harder than getting into medical school. She knew she had to bump up her chances so she took a job in a dental office.

It just so happened that 3 of the men and one of the women working in the office were related. They had a nephew on a mission. After meeting and working with Mayleen they decided she needed to marry this nephew so they could keep her in the family. One time when the nephew's mother came to the office, the Aunt said to Mayleen, « Come and meet your future mother-in-law. » Mayleen was terribly embarrassed.

Even though Mayleen's grades were good, she still didn't get into the dental hygenist program. This left her questioning what she wanted to do with her life. She didn't want to keep pouring money into school if she wasn't going to be doing a job she loved. She was almost missionary age, but she didn't feel like that was what she should do, so she took a year off and went up to Boise. Up in Boise she worked as a vet tech with her sister-in-law.

During that time she sorted out her options and decided she did want to finish school after all. She looked at her credits and decided pursuing a degree in health administration would be her best bet. She wanted to go somewhere new though, so for her 3^rd year of University she attended Utah State University.

During her third year, that missionary nephew came home from his mission. Immediately, the family set up a date for Mayleen. Well, little did Mayleen realize that when she was supposedly introduced to her future mother-in-law, she really was. The nephew was her husband, Chris. They hit it off and got engaged.

Chris, however, lived in Layton and so with the marriage a commute to USU was not an option. So for Mayleen's fourth and final year of College she came back to Weber and finished her degree in Health Administration at Weber State University. She knew to go on a get a job she would need more education, so immediately after her graduation she started working on her MBA through the University of Phoenix.

While going to school she continued to work in medical clinics. First in the the Ogden Clinic, next as a Clinic manager at the UofU. Currently, she works for Health Port as the district manager. She does all the hiring and firing and training in the Clinic. How fortunate for Mayleen that she didn't get into the Dental Hygienst program. Health Administration has served her well. She enjoys her career and work.

Because of schooling and work, Mayleen and Chris waited 4 years to begin their family. This created a great deal of harrassment from Mayleen's father who was desperate for grandbabies who lived close by.;) But now they have 3 beautiful children. Lauren who is 10, Drake,7 and Zachary who is 5.

When Mayleen isn't working and taking care of her beautiful children she loves to spend time doing yard work (I wonder where she acquired that hobby). She also is an avid reader. Her favorite books include TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THE HELP, and Leadership books.

Mayleen also really enjoys vacationing. Her favorite vacations she has been on are DisneyLand and Hawaii. Both of these places she has taken her children. Locally they love to go to Lake Powell and hang out on Chris's parent's houseboat. They also love going to Bear Lake where they stay in Chris's grandparent's cabin.

We are so fortunate to have Mayleen in our ward!

Amanda Louder's Organization Class

Here is a link to the notes from Amanda's class
Organization Class Ideas.pdf

Recipes from the Stake Women's Conference Luncheon

Chocolate Chip Cookies

8 ½ ounces cake flour

8 ½ ounces bread flour

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 ¼ cups (10 ounces) butter, at room temperature

1¼ cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

16-20 ounces chocolate chips.  Mix different kinds of chocolate (bittersweet, semi sweet, milk, butterscotch, white) according to preference

Directions:

 1.  Sift together cake flour and bread flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and set aside.

 2. Cream together the butter and sugars until very light, about 5 minutes.  Add the eggs mixing until fluffy then add the vanilla.  Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Fold in the chocolate chips.

 3.  Press plastic wrap against the dough and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, up to 72 hours. I know this is a little unusual but allowing the dough to rest will soften the gluten and make a very tender and wonderful cookie.

 4.  When ready to bake reheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

 5.  Scoop1/4 cup of dough, roll into a ball and place on baking sheet (you should get 6 on a sheet depending on the size of the cookie sheet).  Bake until golden brown but still a little soft in the center, 12 minutes, depending on your oven.  Allow cookies to cool several minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe makes 25 jumbo cookies.  Adjust baking time for smaller sized dough balls.

Sandwiches from the 2015 Women’s Conference

Bread: Focaccia

Spread:  Sun dried tomato mayonnaise and store bought pesto

Filling:  Turkey, ham and spring mix

Sun Dried Tomato Mayonnaise

2 cups mayonnaise

1-2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, rehydrated or oil packed and well drained

In a blender, food processor or by hand finely chop the sun dried tomatoes and garlic.  Add to the mayonnaise and stir/process until combined.  Can be used right away but is best if it sits for a few hours.  *I usually add a 3-4 Tablespoons of finely grated fresh parmesan cheese and about 1/2 tsp of dried basil.

Focaccia Bread

The bakery in Harmon’s and Granato’s in SLC have an excellent focaccia bread you can purchase already made. To save time and money for the Women’s Conference luncheon we came up with something we are calling “Pho-caccia” made with pizza dough purchased from the Sam’s Club food court.  They are sold in boxes of 20 for about $16.  Heres how we made it.

2 pizza dough balls, thawed in refrigerator overnight (we actually used 2 and 1/3 to make the thickness we desired)

1/4 c olive oil

2 tsp course salt

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 tsp dried or 1-1/2 T chopped fresh Italian herbs (rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley)

Prepare a 12 x 16 bun pan with 1 T of the oil and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp of the salt. Roll cold dough into a rectangle and place into the pan.  When dough comes to room temperature spread on 2 T oil, the garlic, and 1 tsp of the salt.  Using your finger tips push the dough to fit the pan.  As you are doing so, spread your fingers out and make a lot of holes all the way through he dough allowing the oil into the holes.  This will help to flavor the otherwise flavorless dough and create the characteristic craggy look of focaccia.  Let the dough rise until nice and light, about double in size.  Before baking, drizzle with the reminding oil, 1/2 tsp salt, and the herbs.  Bake on the bottom rack of the oven at 425 degrees until done, about 15 minutes.  Let cool 20-30 minutes before removing from the pan or you can leave in the pan until serving.

Marci Preece

Marci grew up in Hooper Utah.  She has two sisters and she is the oldest. Growing up she was very sportsy.  She played basketball, softball, soccer, and ran track.  She also sang in the choir for Fremont High, where she went to school.

After high school she attended Utah State University, and finally settled on a degree in Elementary Education after switching majors a few times.  After she graduated she taught 5th grade at Park Elementary in Logan for a year before moving to Salt Lake for Landon's Medical school.

She met Landon at the end of her freshman year of college at a ward FHE.  She thought he was super cute but he didn't talk much so she assumed he was stuck up. 2 years later, they both were hanging out with some mutual friends and they started dating.  6 months later they were engaged.  They were married in 2007.

After finishing school in Logan, they lived in Salt Lake until Landon finished medical school and then moved to Springville for his residency.  Then they moved to Layton while their home was being built.  Landon practices Family Medicine at the Kaysville Clinic.

Marci and Landon have three children with one on the way! Aria, is 7 and loves learning, singing and dancing.  Corbin, who is 5, is in preschool and is all boy!  He loves bikes, legos, and dirt!  Max is 2 and loves trains, and playing with his brother and sister.  Baby girl Nora is due at the end of May.

Marci loves to read, go on bike rides and play outside with her family. She also plays the piano and the guitar.  She loves to go to her Grandparents cabin in Christmas Meadows with her family.  When they are there they hike and go 4 wheeling.

When Marci was a teenager she loved reading Seventeen magazine, but as an adult realized there was nothing out there for young women to read that followed the standards of the church.  So a year ago she and her sisters started Stand and Shine Magazine, an online magazine which is targeted to young women.  They publish an issue every 3 months, and write on a variety of topics such as ideas for young women's, beauty, and fashion!  They have over 1,000 readers!

Marci is a very talented and kind!  We are so glad to have her and her cute family in our neighborhood!

Janina Lindsay

Janina was born and raised in Hooper Utah.  She grew up with 3 brothers and 1 sister.  They had a lot of land around them so she said she doesn't remember playing with toys much.  They just explored and played outside.  Growing up she played in ditches and with sticks, rocks, bugs, and animals.

She graduated from Roy High and then attended Weber State where she met her husband Sean.  She was taking a racquetball class and Sean, who was also attending Weber State, was killing some time playing racquetball as well.  They graduated from Weber State on the same day, Janina with her Health Administration and Health Promotions degree and Sean with a degree in Technical Sales.

They dated for 4 years before they got married in 2001.  She said she never wanted to get married or have kids.  When she had her first baby she said it was life altering.  She changed and it was like she became a different person.  She says she has been blessed with such amazing and great kids that she feels like that is her purpose on Earth is to be their mom, which she is amazing at!!

Janina has 4 children.  Jackson who is 10, loves baseball, soccer, star wars, and is awesome at math. Jacob is 8 and loves baseball, soccer, and skiing.  Brynlee is 5 and is definitely the princess of the house!  She is all girl and loves clothes, make-up, shoes, and dancing! Ty just turned 3 and loves cars, airplanes, and playing with his brothers.

Janina loves to read and travel.  She worked for Delta in college.  Later Sean worked for Skywest so before they had children they used to travel a lot. They have been all over the country. They would hop on a plane and spend the day somewhere, sometimes even sleeping in airports and then come home.

She was able to travel to Europe for her Senior trip and lived with a host family for 2 1/2 weeks.  In college she also took a class where she learned about Costa Rica and then went and lived there for a month.  While there, she and a classmate lived with a family and went to school. She lived close to one of the most active volcano's in the world.  She said it was constantly erupting but usually was covered by clouds.  She said it always sounded like thunder.  Once the clouds cleared so she got to see it erupt while she was there.  She also got to spend a night in the rain forest in a research hut, where they collected all sorts of huge rainforest bugs to study. She has also traveled to the Bahamas and Hawaii.

They have lived in Bountiful, Layton, and now Kaysville.  Janina said her hobbies were raising kids. As a family they love to watch their children play sports, hike, and go on bike rides.

She works part time for Molina Health Care, where she is in charge of developing and implementing health plans.  She works 1 day in the office and the rest from home.  She really loves her boss and the flexibility of the job,

We are so lucky to have Janina in our neighborhood!!

Amanda Louder

 

 

 

Amanda Louder is an amazingly talented woman. We are so lucky to have her in our ward. She is a woman who can run the world and I'm fortunate to be able to tell you about her. 

Amanda grew up in Woods Cross Utah where she lived until her 9th grade year. Her father's job moved them to Maryland where they lived until her senior year in high school. She says living in Maryland was so different and such a culture shock to them all. It was different in every way. It was very liberal, but that her experiences living in the culture cemented her testimony and she completely learned who she was and what she believed in.

One of her highlights of living in Maryland was attending early morning seminary. She loved it. She said it isn't the same as regular released time. The kids who were there loved being there and they contributed to the class. She said the spirit was so strong and there was no better way to begin her day.

For her Senior year of high school, Amanda's family moved back to Bountiful and she attended Bountiful High. From there she went to BYU majoring in Business with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship. She met her first husband and they were married after her Freshman year. She completed one more year but by then she was having a baby and they were moving to Texas for her husband's job.

Amanda and her husband ended up living in Texas for 11 years. First they lived in Dallas Ft. Worth for 3 years, then they moved to Austin for her husband’s graduate school. They spent a summer in San Francisco for an internship and then came back to Austin. When schooling was done, they took a job back in Dallas. The place they lived in was named McKinney and has been voted the #1 place to raise a family.

One of her favorite things about living outside of Utah was the close knit friendships she made. She still talks to some of these ladies weekly and even daily on the phone. She says outside of Utah, where people don't have family all around you, your friends become your family. She misses that.

While living in Texas, Amanda also sucessfully ran 2 very profitable businesses. First she hit the market at the perfect time, starting a digital scrapbooking company. It grew and became the largest digital scrapbooking company in the world. She eventually sold it. But then she gored bored so she started she a photography business where she worked as much as she wanted, but she didn't like the long hours away from her family on the weekends, so she mostly did newborn photography during the day while the kids were at school.  

After 13 years of marriage, her first marriage came to an end. She felt strongly she was doing what the Lord wanted her to do. Through her difficult marriage she had come to understand the love the Lord had for her. She also learned of the plan he had for her all through the power of the atonement.

Little did she realize the happiest part of her life was just about to begin.

In order to have family support, she took her beautiful three children and moved to Kaysville with her parents. Her parents told her to just live there, take care of the kids and finish her schooling on-line. They told her they would take care of the kids one night a week so she could have a chance to go out with her friends and socialize with other adults.

With that one night a week, she started taking a mid-singles institute class. She had been attending the class for about 1 1/2 months when one night in November, her current husband, Kevin walked in. She had told the Lord she wasn't looking to marry again, but if he wanted her to, she needed to have a clear sign. When Kevin walked into the class for Amanda it was like a spotlight was on him and angels were singing.

He sat with her and her friends that night and afterwards they went to IHOP and then to a friend's house to play pool. They talked and talked and laughed and laughed. He asked for her phone number and called her as soon as they left each other. They then proceeded to talk until 6:30 in the morning when Kevin had to get ready for work. That night while driving home from work, Kevin had a very spiritual experience listening to the song, «God Bless This Broken Road . » When he got home he knelt down and prayed and the Lord told him that Amanda was his eternal companion. When he told Amanda how he was feeling, instead of being scared, she told him she was also feeling the same way. So within 24 hours of meeting each other, they both had received a confirmation that they were supposed to be together. The next week in the temple Amanda had a firm confirmation. They officially started dating in Jan and eloped (just the two of them) to the court house in July. The following year, after all the paperwork had gone through, they were sealed in the temple.

Amanda feels that with being married to Kevin she is free to be the person Heavenly Father wants to her to be. Kevin loves her and wants her to be the best she can be and she is rediscovering and learning new talents she has been blessed with because of the freedom he gives her to be herself.

I asked her what she likes to do now that she is free to do whatever she wants. She said, first of all she has 5 kids to take care of, three from her first marriage and 2 from Kevin's. She says she has learned she loves to build things, even helping Kevin build chicken coops and rabbit hutches. She said she likes to refurnish furniture and enjoys crafting and sewing.

Her true passion however, is organizing things. She said she has always loved that and in fact when she was younger and would babysit for people, after the kids went to bed, she would organize their pantries for them. (Some loved it, some didn't) She now writes a blog called, An Organized Family (AnOrganizedFamily.com) which is about the things she does everyday around their home and with their family. She says the trick to organizing is making the system easy to follow and teaching the others in the family habits so they will help keep the system running.

She is so grateful for her life now and that she is able to be happy and show her talents which she felt she had to hide for so long. How wonderful to be able to see her talents and learn from this inspiring woman! Her sister once told her that while growing up Amanda was so amazing and then she just seemed to shrivel up. Now she says she can see the old Amanda again.