Blessings of the 4th Visiting Teaching Gifts

I hope everyone is having a fun 4th of July! My parents were able to stop here to visit on their way home from treatment in Reno, so we have had a fun few days spending time with them. Dad looks good, but tires easily.

Big changes in our visiting teaching route this month! One of our ladies moved, and we were given two new ladies to visit. One of them was just recently baptized and I hope that we can make her first experience with visiting teaching a good one.

These are the gifts we will be delivering. I found these punched tin buckets at Target a couple months ago and they reminded me of luminaries that we lined the driveway with when Tony came home from Iraq in 2006. So I bought a yummy smelling white candle, wrapped it with cellophane and tied on this quote with blue gingham ribbon:

"When we view the blessings with which our country has been favored, those which we now enjoy, and the means which we possess of handing them down unimpaired to our latest posterity, our attention is irresistibly drawn to the source from whence they flow. Let us then, unite in offering our most grateful acknowledgements for these blessings to the Divine Author of All Good."

--James Monroe, the 5th United States President made this statement in his second annual message to Congress, November 16, 1818.

I love this quote. And I wonder what would happen if a sitting president were to make this statement to Congress today...Hmm...

And just FYI, both Target and Michaels have school and apple themed goodies in their $1 sections. I picked up some really cute things for the kids teachers next year.