The Week in Review: December 1 - 6, 2008

Field Trips Schools and Numbers:

1. Noah Webster Academy
2. Morningside Elementary
3. Mountainville Academy
4. Manila Elementary
5. Entheos Academy

Total Field Trip Attendance: 306 students

Overnight Camp

• Sego Lily Elementary School 5th Grade

Total Overnight Camp Attendance: 44 students

Private Missions

• 31 missions.

Total Mission Attendance: 256 students

Total Weekly Attendance: 606 students.

The Next Voyager Club Meeting for Students.

The next Voyager Club meetings will be held on December 11th. Alpha Group will meet 4:30 - 6:00 and Beta Group will meet 7:00 - 8:30.

The topic of our next meetings will be: "How Star Trek Changed the World." We will be watching a History Channel documentary about the evolution of modern technology and how Star Trek and science fiction influenced the engineers of the past, present and future! We will also be having a group discussion/debate on the subject.

What is the Voyager Club and how can you be apart of this new group?

The Voyager Club is open to students who love attending Space Center camps – classes and want to earn higher Space Center Rank. Club meetings, activities and educational programs will focus on space science, aviation, communication, team building, leadership and science fiction. Other details about the Voyager Club listed below:

1. There is no charge for attending
2. Class hours are awarded at the end of each meeting for attendance. Extra class hours are awarded at the end of each term to members that have no grades lower than a C.
3. The Club meets once each month. Meeting dates and times are announced two weeks in advance on this blog and through the Frequent Flyer email list.
4. You are allowed to attend ONCE a month. Lesson topics and objectives will change each month.
5. Lesson topics and objectives may or may not be announced ahead of time.
6. You must wear your Space Center T-Shirt to attend. If you don't have a shirt you may purchase one at the Center for $10.00 (Shirts available on Dec. 9)
   
7. You must register for each meeting ahead of time. This is done only by email. If your name is not on the register you may be asked to leave. The lesson is taught in the Space Center's Discovery Room, which can only handle occupancy of 30 max. That is why you must pre-register to attend.
8. The instructors are Center employees. There may be occasional special speakers.
9. These meetings are not merit badge classes.
10. Simulators may be used in class sessions, but not promised and not on a regular basis.
    

Your best behavior is expected. Students will be asked to leave and not return if their behavior becomes a distraction to the instructor and / or other students around them.
Once again, we are looking for students with an interest in learning and increasing your rank at the Space Center.

If you'd like to attend a meeting in December please send an email to the Space Center through the web site's "Contact Us" section. An email 'Ticket' will be emailed back to you.

We look forward to having you in attendance!

A Time for Gratitude

Hello Troops,

Thanksgiving 2008 has passed. Tomorrow we return to work.
We all have much to be thankful for. We live in the world's most powerful and free nation. Compared to the rest of the world we all live in various stages of luxury. We have access to the
world's best medicine and educational systems. We have good friends and loving families.

Today I sat in church looking at my extended family all gathered for the holiday. Many of us are reaching that point in life where the dust won't brush off any longer. It gathers in our hair, shading the dark hair of youth with white strands of time. In some, the rich forests are thinning
- a thought that passed through my mind as I ran my hand through my own hair. I smiled, remembering how thick it was thirty years ago. Back then the BYU barber needed to take the thinning shears to it. Now I ask the barber if I can get a discount; after all, it takes less time to trim what's left. It causes a chuckle - the courtesy laugh you get from someone that has heard that one a number of times.

During one of the talks I studied the face of my older sister. She is eleven months older in actual age but years older in life's experiences. Her face shows the brushstrokes of time. How quickly it paints its masterpieces. Was it yesterday we shared a bedroom as children? Was it yesterday we walked to school together - or the day before? We were children, and in the time it takes for a
season to change, I see her surrounded in her children and grandchildren's love. When did it happen?

Her face is a work of art in the making. Each year lines are added where there were none. Each
line - a story beautiful in the telling and others painful in the living. Each line a reminder that time has its way with us. When you are young you don't understand, but you soon learn. Time will paint with oils based in laughter and tears. My sister's face has the marks of a young mother sitting by the bedside of her oldest child in a hospital. He is clinging to life after being struck by a car. He lived but damaged. The tear red color left her eyes years ago but the experience is forever
recorded for all to see.
I glanced over at my mother's hands holding a hymn book. Time has been at work. Her hands bring memories of my grandmother's hands passed from mother to daughter. Those are the hands that raised eight children. Those are the hands that ran a household on a budget so lean we all feared a long dark winter. Those are the hands that prepared her own mother for burial.
Hands that someday I won't be able to hold any longer.
I look at my own hands and see my father's. They are looking old. Time is at work. I look around at the young faces around me. So many young couples and so many children. What will time paint on their faces? What lessons will they learn? When will they sit in church one day and realize what the seasons have brought?

I'm thankful this week for each line on my face and the wrinkled hands. Each, like grooves on a record, play the notes of happy and sad tunes. Each a part of me. We are all unfinished works of Time. It will continue painting until it is done with us and the completed masterpiece is
carried into the last good night.

Spend this holiday season thanking the people that have played a role in your life. Enjoy family and friends. Enjoy the meals and the football. Enjoy making new memories. At the end of the day touch your face and hands and remember - all is recorded there. A badge for all to see of courage and life!

Mr. Williamson