President Dieter F. Uchtdorf has advised families: “Whatever problems your family is facing, whatever you must do to solve them, the beginning and the end of the solution is charity, the pure love of Christ. Without this love, even seemingly perfect families struggle. With it, even families with great challenges succeed” (“In Praise of Those Who Save,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2016).

Our son Mark and his family visited us in Abilene. We had a good time with them. We waited for 45 minutes at a dining place to get the best barbecue in town. We played games, talked, laughed, distracted, had contests, and anything else our imaginations could drum up to keep the kids happy. When we were almost at the front of the line, an older lady tapped Shaunel on the shoulder (my daughter-in-law) and said, "We've enjoyed watching your family so much. You have entertained us all." While sitting at the picnic table waiting for the food, we played Up Jenkins, the game where you pass a quarter under the table and the other side of the table has to guess who has the quarter. We hope we gave more pleasure to the others rather than annoyance in our efforts to keep children happy.

Some of the things we did with Mark's family were the zoo, checked out the "story book" sculptures, had Pres. Luke tell us about the B-1 bomber and other airplanes at Dyess Airforce Base, and the kids came to our Institute class and played foosball and listened to their grandparents teach Institute.