My Life.....According to My Kids

We were driving in the car and I apologized for not being able to find a song to listen to.  I was just flipping thru the channels.  Every station I came to had an overplayed song.  Trashy lyrics.  Not my style.  Not in the mood.  It was all yuck.  This is when I usually plug the phone in and put on my playlist of piano/string instrument/church music.  Well, I hadn't done that, but Jared says "what kind of music do you even listen to......other than church stuff?"  It's like the kid forgot about every other time we were in the car with me belting out tunes - non-church or instrumental related.  BTW, this coming from a kid that listens to classical music all the time.  

The day before this incident occurred we were having brownies for FHE.  The kids were trying to figure out how to get the hot brownies out of the pan with a butter knife.  I stopped them and said "you need the right tool for the job."  I guess warning bells started going off in Jared's head because he immediately said:

 "No. Don't do it."  

"What, tell you that it's like....."  

I was having a hard time coming up with an analogy when he sent out the warning again, but now I for sure had to come up with something just to torture him.  When in doubt, pull out the trusty analogy.

"It's like the liahona!"

hahaha,  It totally didn't work, but you can make anything work if you try hard enough.  

Jared rolled his eyes and said:

"I knew it!  You turn everything into something spiritual.  It's like the parents that always make something into a life lesson - you turn everything into something spiritual."

So, we've established that I only listen to church music and I turn everything into something spiritual.  Does it stop there?  Nope.  I can't remember the setting, but the kids started teasing me about my spirituality again.  This time.  What I read.  The statement this time was "you don't read anything that isn't political or spiritual."  The evidence presented was all the books I've been ordering lately and handing off to Jared.  He got the other kids to join him in the teasing of me.  They started listing off all these books and decided that I only liked books written by people who's last name started with a b.  Bednar, Beck, Bytheway.  haha pretty funny except that I just finished 3 books by Maxwell.  That starts with an M and before that it was Holland with an H.  Ha!  What am I reading currently?  Well, I'm not sure I want to say now.  Ok, fine! It's the conference talks.  BUT.  For fun, because I do like to have fun,  I started reading the little delight below.  Aw.  I love it and it makes me smile.

 Because I don't want to screw up my children's perception of their mother, I decided to give them a little more fodder for their teasing.  Below is my very sad attempt at carving the SL temple.  A little advice.  Steer clear of long straight lines when carving a pumpkin.  The light also wasn't bright enough to pick up all of the carving, but it's all there.  Every sad little cut -there's even a Moroni at the top.  

 My 2 girls are the only other ones that decided to carve a pumpkin this year.  I super love Emma's.  Would an over the top spiritual person's favorite show involve dead people who walk?  I don't think so.  Truth be told.  If Emma hadn't chosen that design, I would have.  

 Ok, so these pictures don't have anything to do with my children's perception of me, but we were traveling down the halloween road so I decided to go with it.  Emma loves doing make-up.  She even came up with Jared's costume so he would go instead of staying at home.  Poor Jordy had basketball practice that she had to go to instead of the trunk-or-treat.  She is killing me with cuteness with how much she is loving basketball -mostly looking like a sporty girl.  

The kids have been cracking me up lately with their perceptions of me and their own childhood.  They keep talking about how Jared spent so much of his childhood with soap in his mouth because he got it washed out so many times.  I usually just let them go with their stories of childhood, but I finally had to ask "so how many times do you think this happened?"  The reality of the situation is that it probably only happened twice in his life, but according to him it was practically everyday.  It is funny how we build the stories of our lives.  It's not that they aren't true, it's how we perceive those events.  How much they effected our lives.  It will be interesting to see what the kids remember most about me when they leave the house and start living lives of their own.  Will they still think of me as some super spiritual person.  The kind of person they say "would run away with Elder Bednar if you had the chance."  I had to explain to the kids that number 1.  Ew, that's gross.  Just because you admire someone and want to be like them doesn't mean you want your lips to touch theirs.  Second.  If he decided to run off with me, everything that made him who he is would no longer be -thus making me not like or admire him anymore.  Emma added "yeah, it's probably a good thing, I've seen his wife and I think she could take you."  This is the nonsense my family discusses for fun.  

The world is very confused about love and mistake lust for it all the time.  I'm personally excited to be freed from our bodies after this life so that we can finally express love to each other in a non sexual/ creepy way because lust is no longer a part of the equation.   We've stopped touching each other because everything is now considered creepy or having a sexual motivation.  Well, I've decided that we need to start connecting with each other on a deeper level if we're going to survive the changes that are occurring in the world.  That means lots more hugs from me.  If that makes me creepy, so be it.  I still probably won't be going around hugging a bunch of guys because unless he's twice as old or twice as young as me, people will get the wrong idea.  Oops, I forgot.  Twice as young doesn't really work either thanks to all the creepers out there in the world -it's so prevalent that we have to put windows on all the classroom doors at church -no one and nowhere is safe from creepers.  But seriously, how sad is that?  We have to start seeing each other as humans again -not ideas and issues and I believe it's going to take some hugs (one of my favorite "B" people agrees with me-or I agree with him, whichever came first)

A little more fodder for the fun poking.  I voted today!  Sadly no one gave me a cute little brag sticker that says, "I voted" so I had to settle for snapping a pic of the sign on my way home.  I have to do what I can.  Because.  The world depresses me.  Legislating sin and corruption depresses me.  Voting for bad instead of worse depresses me.  Voting didn't help the depression, but you've got to start somewhere and work with what you've got.  It's your civic duty.  It becomes more and more apparent every day that the gospel of Jesus Christ is our only hope. 

If I'm going to have a reputation for anything in this world, I'll take super spiritual.  Now, I just have to live up to it.  

Mercy

I'm going to start things off with a bit of backstory.   

Sometime around the new year I began to be restless.  I needed something to do.  I needed to be of value.  I knew my main priority was raising my family, but there had to be something else.  I had a calling in my church, but I was feeling uninspired and underutilized.  I began to pray.  If church and family wasn't were I was going to be fulfilled (in this specific need), I needed another avenue.  

It wasn't long after this (we are talking a couple of weeks) that I received a call from a friend asking me to be a part of a charity.  To specifically sign up to be the volunteer chair.  Chair?  Don't you need qualifications for that?  When people ask me how I got the gig I tell them it was simply that I had a pulse and said yes :0)  At the first meeting I kept waiting to be told that they didn't want me for the job after all.....and every subsequent meeting thereafter.   I had absolutely no idea what I had gotten myself into.  

Even after seeing the material that I was supposed to be using to recruit volunteers, I still had no idea.  I really didn't do much in the planning stages.  I pounded the pavement and made a few phone calls, but I really didn't do much else -other than attend meetings.  I had never been to an event like this before so everything was abstract to me.  Here is another brutally honest moment- I wasn't completely sold on the need for this in the community.  I wasn't sure how others would be feeling about it either with all the healthcare stuff and illegals and the entitlement society we are feeding right now.  It was hard for me to get into the project.  

My minimal contribution was getting bids from pin companies and designing and ordering the souvenir pins for the volunteers.  It's my only "claim to fame."  I wasn't even claiming it, but I kept getting credit for designing it.  At one of the meetings we talked about the new pin and I asked what they were looking for.  I threw out some ideas and one of the dentists did a rough drawing of what she thought would work.  I took our notes to the company designing them and had them come up with the below pin.  I did make 2 or 3 revisions after the approval because even though everyone else liked the pin, I thought it could look better - so they had to keep approving my changes.  I say it was a team effort, I just made it happen.  (I'm still not entirely happy with the middle of the pin, but I'm never happy with anything artsy I do)

The time for the event finally arrived. I still didn't understand what it was that I had gotten myself into.  I didn't ask a lot of questions because I was just the peon.  Boy was I in for an awakening.  

Thursday started at 7 am.  I was responsible for a team of volunteers and our responsibility was to check-in every single person who volunteered, give them a bade, a bag, and a t-shirt.  They had to have a waiver signed before they could receive their badge and entry into the venue.  We also had to register people who decided to just show up without having pre-registered -which was over 200 people (over the course of the event).   Luckily I only live about 10 min from the event center because I didn't get home until 8 pm that night.  

It was a super fun day though.  A bunch of missionaries from our area came and donated their service hours to the event and they really helped out.  It was great to have them there and to hear people talking about them.  It was really funny at my station because none of them had preregistered so we had to do it on-site.  The woman I had making badges for them all was so confused by the "sister" "elder" thing and wondering why they didn't have first names.  It was cute.  The missionaries represented the church very well and I was proud of them.  

It is quite a production to turn an event center into a super sized dental office complete with plumbing and electric and everything in-between.  It was quite amazing to see it come together.  

That first day we were on the first floor because the only thing happening was set up.  When arrived we got busy setting up our area and getting everyone signed in.  A couple of my team members had gotten there before me so it was a bit tricky establishing myself as the lead without it turning into some kind of turf war.  It definitely was not something I wanted to do, but I managed it pretty well - I hope.  

It got super crazy when all the team leads had their volunteers show up for orientation.  It was a sea of people and quite the madhouse.  I realized that I was everyones point of contact and had no information to give anyone.  Luckily I am pretty good at making things up and sounding like I know what I'm talking about.  I'm also not afraid to track people down and tell them what I need from them  because there was mass confusion everywhere because no one knew where to meet their group.  

Here's a picture of where we were on Thursday and the set-up before the craziness hit. 

Here's where I qualify what I'm about to say.  

There is a song out right now that says "I don't care if the world knows what my secrets are - so what?"  Hopefully what I'm about to confess to is taken in the spirit it is intended.  My journey of growth documented for the world to know.  Why?  Because human nature is fascinating.  The fact that we can change our very natures is fascinating.  What we are capable of that we might not have thought possible - is fascinating.  It's my journey and I'm sharing it.  

I've spent a lot of my life learning how to be a follower and thinking that I was one.  I've always said that I like being "in the trenches."  I've been scared of leadership, but not afraid to jump in and do what needs to be done.  Most of the time I would say that I was a reluctant leader who would much rather enact someone else's vision.  Never really wanting the title of leader, but taking it because it had to be done.  If I had to list a couple of talents I would say that I'm detail oriented and organized and I have vision and can communicate it fairly well to others.  I love following great leaders.  I love learning from the best.  Where I've run into trouble is following the not so great ones -there isn't a shortage of them either.  It is frustrating and I've learned a lot of lessons along the way.

This was my moment to see who I was.  The week I spent with my dad felt like a great preparatory stage of learning to follow with love and patience and have a great attitude in the process.  It was someone I knew I could be but was never quite able to achieve up to that point.  

This is where I skip the boring story of my constant daily pain and headaches that make being a nice person difficult.  Blah, blah, blah.  But, I will tell you that when I was younger I dreamt of being an important person.  As I was on a walk this morning I contemplated why I might have had such dreams.  The vision I had of myself involved a briefcase and a conference table and I was the boss.  I think it had a great deal to do with the complete lack of control over my circumstances as a child and teen.  I lived in a time (the 80's) of some of the greatest teen movies of all time that helped me get thru being a nothing.  All I wanted to do was grow up and prove people wrong by being more amazing and successful than they were (probably why I love all the period dramas delving into the injustices of not being able to break free from social classes).  

What did I grow up to be?  Well, the jury is still out on that, but I would say that I have far surpassed anything I dreamt up while lying in my bedroom alone wishing for a better life.  Am I carrying around a briefcase and sitting at conference tables?  Haha.  Nope.  I did spend a few years struggling with "just being a mom."  I had a change of tune, but this experience with M.O.M was a little dose of testing out my potential.  Hmmm, I'm not going to get all sidetracked by noticing my comment about just being a mom and the acronym of the organization I was working for.  

What was all that backstory rambling about?  I discovered how much a love being a leader and how I think I'm pretty good at it.  Without trying to sound cheesy - I know I was given strength and power beyond my own.  Like I eluded to, my body isn't cut out for 17 hour days without any real breaks to speak of.  My personality really isn't cut out for that either.  I am an introvert.  People suck energy from me instead of giving it.  I didn't want to let anyone down and I also wanted to embark on an experiment that I could take back to my seminary students.  So, I took it to the Lord and prayed for strength and laid out exactly who I wanted to be.  Do I want to brag.  Yes!  About myself?  No!  I want to brag about what is possible thru the Lord.  It makes me think of the Carrie Underwood song "something in the water."  There were lots of conference talks a couple of weeks ago about the sacrament -the water.  We don't partake of the sacrament only to be made clean, but to be given power beyond our own to face our trials. 

Ok, heres comes the bragging.  I received so many compliments that I was the perfect person for the job.  1360 Volunteers passed thru me and my team.  One that spoke to my heart the most because it was expressing everything I was trying to be was from another team lead.  There were 6 people trying to talk to me at once and I was calm and cool with a smile on my face.  I addressed everyones needs and moved onto the next line of people.  She came up to me and told me that I was perfect for the job because I was calm and happy with so many people trying to talk to me at once in the midst of chaos and I knew what to do.  I have a tendency to get overstimulated -especially when I'm tired.  In the past I've had a lack of patience for pushy people all demanding my attention and answers at the same time.  It should have sent me over the edge, but it didn't.  It may seem silly and small, but I loved accomplishing a goal.  A goal that I was able to keep up with for 3 solid 17 hour days in a row with very little sleep between.  I had a couple of volunteers thank me for being such a good leader.  That I was organized and was clear about what needed to be done and who I needed to do it.  My skills that go unnoticed and unrecognized while in the role of boring 'ole mom were shining and it felt AMAZING!  Do I want to run out and get some kind of full time job?  Heck no.  

What am I doing?  Trying to live each day being a little better than the last.  Preparing myself for whatever the Lord needs me to do while I'm here.

I was trying so very hard to be the example that we talk about in seminary nearly every morning.  Living out what it means to keep my baptismal covenants.  To take upon me the name of Jesus Christ.  To represent Him in a way that doesn't tarnish Him.  I think of when I talked about "kind eyes."  It sounds silly, but I really try to be aware of my face at all times.  To make sure that I am always conveying love and kindness -especially when I have a tendency to have mean expressions on my face.  It really helped my attitude to follow suit.  

OK, enough of all that.  Here is my ever so spiffy vest that I was made to wear.  The card below was on the front of that vest.  As much as I didn't want to wear it, it was super helpful in trying to locate all the team leads -there were 35 - patient escort lead, hospitality, patient check-in, infection control, hygiene, root canal, translation....etc

For Friday and Saturday we had to move everything upstairs to the other entrance.  My day also started with waking up at 3:30am to be there by 4:15am and stay until 7-8pm.  To say the days were long is an understatement.  Actually, the mornings were the most brutal because by about 9 am you felt like the day should be just about over and it was only 9am!  

The new location was a much smaller space so we had to get a new plan for how things were going to work, and we did.  Thank goodness for a couple of volunteers that had been to a MOM event before so they knew the value of working multiple shifts so that when I had transitions it was easy to train the newbies.  

  Anytime my area slowed down I sent my volunteers to go and help out with patient escorting- which made me jealous.  Every single patient received an escort to guide them thru the process.  My favorite part of the event was when patients would find their way to our entry.  They were supposed to line up in the lower parking lot and enter thru those doors.  I believed in representing our mission well and in rolling out the red carpet so I would personally walk them down and around the outside of the building to where they were supposed to be.  It was my only opportunity to interact with the people we were helping.  I loved asking where they were from, how many of them were hoping to receive treatment, what they were hoping to have done etc.  My favorite experience was with a lady who needed to use me for a cane because she wasn't prepared to walk such a distance.  She was so sweet and lovely and needed some teeth pulled.  I have to give props to the southern baptist disaster relief folks.  They were amazing.  They were out talking to people in line and giving them blankets, food and water.....and a chair for the lady I walked over to the line that used me for a cane.  

I met so many good and wonderful people which resorted my faith in humanity.  Did I run into or hear about a couple of bad apples? Yes.  But, mostly people were grateful - one man even came back on Sunday to help take down the event because he was so grateful to have received treatment.   Those are the kind of stories that make it all worth it.  There were also so many wonderful professional people in the community that donated their time or their goods to us that touched me deeply.  2 such examples were the people from chick-fil-a who donated over 900 meals to volunteers and even walked them around and handed them out to those who couldn't take a break, but they also handed out meals to the patients who waited in line overnight.  The other stand out was the McDonalds manager who sent a kind man over all 4 days 4-5 times each day with fresh hot coffee and food for our volunteers.  That's not even mentioning all the dentists, hygienist and dental assistants that took time off work and spent their weekend doing service and all the other "regular" people like myself who volunteered.  

What did the event accomplish?  1055 smiles.  1.3 million in dental treatment all with 1360 volunteers.  

"Are we not all beggars?" ~ Jeffery R Holland

Building

I have my dad here with me to help me with some projects.  It's been several years since he's been out to visit.  We are getting pretty exhausted and I told him to go sit down and take a break.  He asked if I got my monies worth for brining him out.  If I liked what we built.  I knew I was going to write this post so I decided to get cheesy with him and say, "we were building more than a shade structure."  He looked at me questioning and so I clarified, "we were building relationships."  Staying true to who I know my dad to be he said, "you may have needed to build something, but I didn't.  I will always love you the same."  

So, what did we build?  Not to contradict my father, but he did build relationships with my children and me wether he thought it was necessary or not.  My kids got to know their grandfather and learn from him.  They got to help get lumber, fix some railings in the house, and build some little boats and cars from kits.  They had a great time being helpful while learning more about who their grandfather is.  I'm a sap especially when it comes to unity -building zion - so my heart was swelling with love and gratitude for this special opportunity.  Not to mention I got to be called my favorite name for just over a week -Sis.  

Not to brag or anything, but I have some pretty mad sawing skills.  Now, pay no attention to the "training wheels" my dad put on that board so that I could cut it lengthwise - like. a. boss!

Jordy was home from school on Wed because she got hit in the face with a basketball (pic later).  She was so impressed with my sawing skills that she wanted to take a picture of how I cut so beautifully on the line (pic below).  My dad was here to help me build a shade structure over our pool equipment to hopefully help reduce the number of times it breaks down by eliminating sun exposure.  I love building things.  When I was little and my dad built houses I loved to go and hang out and try to be helpful.  I spent a lot of hours of my childhood around construction.  One thing I never really got over was my fear of heights -bummer.  

When I posted the picture with the green ladder on my fb, my brother wondered what was holding it up.  I told him magic.  My dad can put a ladder anywhere and climb up it.  I was so scared we were going to end up in the emergency room because of his magic ways.  Me and my non magic ways?  I almost fell off the ladder a couple times - I was the one to worry about.  

I got to play the role of helper while my dad did all the heavy lifting required.  My dad was really good about making sure I did all the work that I was able to do.  I did most of the cutting, gluing, and drilling, and nail screwing.  My dad did all the measuring and planning and lifting and climbing,  when there was muscle needed he did the job.  There is an immediate gratification that occurs when you build something with your own hands.  A feeling of the good kind of pride.  A sense of accomplishment and worth.  When you are building with another person you get to act in unity.  Working together to accomplish the same goal.  

We just learned about Peter Whitmer in the Doctrine and Covenants.  He was called to be a companion to Oliver Cowdry.  His specific mission was to help ease the burdens of Oliver and to heed his council and to not give council.  I thought about that as I worked with my dad.  Often times when I'm working on something with my husband we argue over who has the idea that is right.  This time I had complete faith and trust in my father and let him lead and I followed.  He took notice of how effective it was at helping us to accomplish our goal.  It felt good to be living that principle so perfectly for a moment in time and made me want to do a better job at being in that role more often. When you're not fighting over who is leading and who is following you can accomplish mighty things.  

We also worked on building a knowledge of our forefathers while my dad was here.  I had my techno wizard of a son hook me up to the tv with his laptop so that I could show my dad how much family history work I had done on his line.  We went through his line, got in a couple of arguments (with Jared) over the validity of some of the information we were finding, and in the end deleted one of the relatives off my tree.  It was a sad moment.  It kinda felt like I was killing someone, but the evidence just wasn't there to support him being one of my great great grandfathers sons.  I also got to hear some great stories about my ancestors that I didn't know and I also got to know a little more about my dad.  

For example.  My dad asked me why I was worried about deadly diseases and the second coming if I had faith.  Why did I need to be storing food etc.  I told him that the Lord helps those who help themselves.  We got into a discussion about this and how he believes that all you have to do is ask and he will take care of you.  Then something interesting happened when I said that I wanted to be a person with a rescue boat and not a person sitting helplessly on my roof with a "please help" sign.  This triggered a dream he had many many years ago.  

He was in a boat out at sea.  Storms came and the waters got rough and he somehow found himself in the water in danger of drowning.  As he was fighting against the storm and sea he managed to look to shore.  On the shore he saw Jesus standing there.  My dad got mad and started yelling at him, "why don't you save me, you could save me."  Jesus's reply was something to the effect of my dad being capable of swimming to shore and that he just needed to start swimming.  

Here is the interesting part.  I think so many people find themselves in this exact situation.  The following principle is so fundamental that it is our main focus as teachers of the gospel in the church I am in.  Connecting doctrines and principles and being able to apply them.  They have to mean something.  They have to be applied or they are dead.  As I talked to my father about his dream and asked him how that was any different than me having food and supplies stored so that I could weather any storm.  So that I could help myself.  I could swim to shore.  How my faith was strengthened and not lessened by being prepared.  "Oh."  There is so much common ground we share if we only understood each others language.   The most important language of all to learn is the language of God. 

Here's another thing we have all got to figure out while we are here.  It is this.  Why am I here? (where did I come from and where am I going are equally important) My dad suffers from PTSD because of his service in the Vietnam war.  He watched friends die - friends who's lives he was responsible for.  He wondered why him.  He had another dream while in service that was him running while bullets were flying all around him.  They were flying in slow motion and none of them hit him.   They were flying by right next to his face.  He had the feeling of being invincible.  He wondered about the other guys getting shot and not him in the dream.  Shortly after this dream he was wounded and thought that maybe the dream meant he was the other guy.  He spent a lot of his life wondering what purpose he had and why he was spared and other men weren't.  He's still not sure he can answer the question except to say that his children wouldn't be here without him.  I have my own theories, but I didn't share them with my dad because it's something he has to discover himself.  For me, I have a sure knowledge of 1 of his missions and that was creating me, but for me that statement is far more loaded than that.  All that that encompasses and implies.  I have attached the eternities onto that and the work I feel I was created for.  The cool thing is that even if he can't ever feel satisfied with the "why" here on this earth, he will know with assurity one day what his purpose was and if he fulfilled it. 

There were many mini adventures while he was here.  As I mentioned, Jordy took a basketball to the face the day before she had her first ever basketball practice.  She was practicing at school so she looked like she knew what she was doing instead of looking like she had never played before.  Poor sweetie.  She didn't let it get her down.    

Ethan auditioned for show choir.  The warm up before the auditions started was the only thing I got a picture of because I had to take Jordy to her practice.  As soon as I got her over to the other school I got a txt from Emma that E was up and going.  Rats!  I thought I could get back over in time.  My little champ had technical difficulties and his music wouldn't play so he had to sing a cappella.  I did get to see a recording and he had my dad, Emma, and Jared there for moral support. I could hardly watch the video though because Emma's hand was shaking so bad.  His siblings were more nervous for him than he was - how cute is that?   

One of the nights we opened the front door to take something out and a bird flew in.  The door was literally open for like 2 seconds when it flew in.  We tried to coax it back out by turning off all the lights except for the one by the door- to no avail.  My dad decided to get a ladder and climb up to the ledge it was perched on.  I was so worried that the bird would fly at him and he would loose his balance and fall off the ladder.  He climbed all the way up and the bird took off and made it past me and then luckily he flew into the laundry room.  I shut the door and then my dad went in to capture it.  I sent him in with a pillow case -which he refused to take.  Apparently my dad is some kind of bird whisperer.  He was only in there for a few minutes and he started joking about the bird pecking his eyes out.  Out he came with the bird in his hand.  The kids got a good look at him/her and we set him free outside.  

The flowers.  I'm not going to go into great detail because there's just no good way to tell the story without someone looking bad.  All I will say is someone got mad at me because I chastised them.  This person wanted to meet to talk things thru and I told them that it wasn't a good week because my dad was here and scheduled something for the following week.  Well, the next thing I know this person is in my driveway.  When I realized that like it or not,  it was going down and saw her getting out of the car my thought was "she's coming in hot."  I have never, ever in my life been handed hate flowers.  Like seriously I think she wished she could run them over with the car first and then hand them to me or she would have liked it better if they were for my grave or better yet they were really a sword with which to cut me.  Crazy town!  Lucky for her my dad went in the back to work on the shade structure so I hope that he missed all of that (to save her from embarrassment) and I wasn't about to ask him.  Note to self and anyone else.  Handing someone flowers to smooth over a situation - good.  Doing it while still so mad you can't see straight - not good.  It doesn't leave the impression you think it did.  It doesn't smooth anything over and it's down right comical -or sad - or all of the above.  I'm not worried though, we'll get thru this and laugh about it together later.  Until then, I'm enjoying the hate flowers because I know what she was trying to do.

One day when I'm super talented, I will develop this little building analogy into a great talk with lots and lots of awesome quotes and scriptures.  Until then.  I can accomplish anything with some camo, a circular saw (dude - I seriously love that thing), and my dad.  Rock on!  My mission?  To emulate the master carpenter -the Savior Jesus Christ by building people and relationships......even with those who give you hate flowers ;)  We have to if we are going to build Zion.  We are all imperfect beings on this same journey.  We just need to have a little love, patience, and kindness for each other and we'll get there.  

Udderly Mandatory

My kids are really good at guilt trips.  My oldest daughter especially.  She just starts going on about "good Moms would do this" or "it's your responsibility..."  Well, I got guilt tripped into going to a mass ascension this morning.  I'm pretty obsessed about the balloons.  I'm just not into crowd surfing.  I'm not into getting up at 4am.  I'm not into bad weather.  I'm not into my husband being gone hunting and taking the kids by myself.  This guilt trip I got hit with "grandpa came her to see balloons."  OK, fine.  I'll take you to the stupid fiesta!

This is what I looked like at 4:30 am this morning when my alarm went off!

This is how grumpy about the entire situation I was.  I told the kids that if they thought I was getting up even earlier so that I could go around and wake them all up and then find appropriate clothing for them, they had better think again.  I was getting my sorry behind out of bed, heading for the car and leaving.  If you weren't in the car, you weren't going.  Was what I was threatening....until I realized that Jared would be perfectly happy with that outcome and choose not to come. 

The kids got up - actually Emma went around and woke everyone up.  I had to wake up grandpa though because he is very skittish in his sleep- a side effect of war.   On the silent early morning drive I decided to give out one more vital piece of information.  "You better decided right now what you want for breakfast because if you think I'm standing in 6 different lines this morning you better think again."  This is when Emma informed me that next year she would take the kids herself and leave me at home because I was too grumpy.  

Not one of my finer "holy woman" moments.  Every time I get super grumpy I think that about how I'm supposed to be the one setting the tone and creating magical moments for my children.....then I think birds are supposed to start signing or something.  I have weaknesses and grumpiness is most certainly one of my biggest ones.  Then of course you add in jealousy of the cheery moms and there's another weakness.  

We soldiered on and managed to get everyone breakfast from one tent.  Hallelujah!  After I had my breakfast burrito I was happy and Emma was the grump.  I gave her a hard time and Jared said "yeah, you know Mom is grumpy until she gets food and then she's fine.  Just a little Heathsmash when she's hungry."  I have a bit of a reputation ;)

Below is a picture of us leaving.....because Jared was grumpy about cold not mixing with nerve pain and how he was going to die if we didn't take him home instantly.   Just look at how many people you have to swim thru.  That was why I didn't want to go.  Ick!  Adding a wheelchair for Jared into the mix is double ick!

We managed to have a good time, despite all the grumpiness.  I found out something about myself today though.  Jordyn refused to take any pictures with me.  It finally came out that she would take a pic with me if I would take off my hat.  Apparently I was not looking fashionable and I was all together embarrassing.  I'm not sure I have ever embarrassed her before.  We've reached a new level.  Emma comforted me by saying "well, at least you know she will never lie to you about how you look."  Thanks, MJ.  Comforting, very comforting.  Guess what?  I didn't have a stitch of make-up on either and *whispering* I didn't brush my hair either -thus the hat!  Dude! Aint nobody want to do that at 4:30 in the morning to tromp around on a field.  

I'm sure some of these balloons have made it to the blog before, but oh well.  I saw them again this year, so you get to too.  

Ethan wanted to make sure we got a picture of the balloon that we stood around waiting for forever to be inflated and finally gave up and left because Jared was ready to die.  So, here's the balloon:

Here's what I looked like while waiting for said balloon and enduring all the commentary on cold nerves.  hahaha

We also were waiting for the balloon right next to the princess stagecoach to inflate - the Jordan balloon.  That one took forever as well.  Sometimes there begins to be too much balloon traffic so the balloons on the ground can't fully inflate because the other balloons are flying in their air space.  As we were driving away MJ managed to snap a photo of it - btw she took most of the photos.  She needed some for the school newspaper that she puts together.  

When I snapped the below picture of Annabelle the dairy cow, I knew the name of this post.

How do I prefer to enjoy this yearly event?

From the comfort of home.  We don't get the balloons over our house every year, but this year 2 of the days they flew right over us.  The above picture was taken on Thursday or Friday.  Sad how I can't remember.  My days all just blur into one.  

Watching the balloons from my house is pretty darn spectacular.  We got to extend our field fun because the balloons followed us home today.  

This was the view 2 minutes from our house.  15 balloons landed at the bottom of our street this morning.  

I wrote about a funny pajama item that we found in a Christmas catalog last year.  It was called the pajoncho.  The pajama poncho.  We were wishing we had one today so we could go from fiesta (balloon fiesta -waka waka)  to siesta.  Just like their little catch phrase said we should.  I received that catalog in the mail last week and was sad to see that there was not a need for such a thing anymore - probably because they realized that every poncho is a blanket!

Invite

The gospel of Jesus Christ is all about invitation.  The Lord gives us the ultimate invitation to "come follow me."  All of this mortal experience is choice.  Who do we choose to follow.  What do we choose to do with our time.  The scriptures are full of "if/then" statements.  If you do these things (by invitation) then I will do these things by the laws which have been established.

The very first day of seminary we had the students come up with some goals.  One of the goals they picked was to invite someone to seminary.  We just picked a random date and proceeded.  As the date approached my companion and I went over the lesson plans.  We discovered that we were to have a lesson on the Armor of God 1 day after our invite day, so we swapped the lessons out.  We counseled together about why that would be a more appropriate lesson for friends.  As a side note I think it is really awesome that the students wanted to have a "normal" seminary day so that their friends could see what it was like everyday and not some game or party time.  These kids rock!  Anyway.  We could focus on the similarities and differences between the account in Ephesians 6:12-18 and the Doctrine and Covenants 27:15-18 version from the Lord himself.    That way we were in the bible and on neutral ground and then we could add further light.

As we were thinking about how to present this to the class I remembered an article I read in the New Era with some modern day armor.

I immediately contacted the most artistic and talented person I know and begged him to make me some armor.  He thought I was crazy for asking but was excited for the challenge of how to make something useful out of cheap lightweight materials and not have it look like junk.  I think I owe him my life or something for it.  Next we needed the FBI gear and we have an "in" connection for that as well.

When my friend called to drop of the armor he made,  he warned me not to get my hopes up because it wasn't that great.  I reassured him that anything he did would far surpass my attempts and that I was extremely grateful for a scrawling on a piece of paper if that's what he showed up with.

Are you kidding me?  This is your "not that great" effort!  Dude, he is freaking amazing!  It was a little too big for my model Ethan, but Jared couldn't stand on 1 foot anymore for me to get a picture.  In case you are wondering.  He decided to use craft foam (at the suggestion of his equally talented and amazing wife).

Shall I tie this back into invite?  Sure why not.  I invited my friend to a monumental challenge.  He accepted.  He is now a rockstar.  Thanks to him, I'm pretty sure this is one of the lessons the students will remember and talk about well into their adult years.

We were pretty worried that we wouldn't get any friends on our invite day.  My dining room is at capacity when we are using the tables, so we had to take my table out of my dining room to accommodate any extra people (we have 14 regularly attending).

As we were tearing apart my dining room and my children were casting doubt on my mind, I just kept thinking "if you build it, they will come."  I had to have the seats so I could be prepared for extra people.  There is nothing worse than not having seats for everyone!  We had 3 friends come.  One of them was a student's grandpa, but he never got to attend seminary and we love when he comes to visit.  The 2 friends that came is not a reflection on how many of them actually invited people.  Almost all did and some invited several.  The point was not in the getting the friends there (which was a bonus) but it was in the extending of the invitation.  They had to have gospel conversations with their friends in order to invite them to seminary.  Let's face it, it is at 6 am.  Not many people are willing to start their day that early.....but 2 did :0)

OK, I decided to tell a story about 1 of the kids.  I won't use his name and I'm pretty sure he won't mind.  Anyway, he had been praying to know who to invite.  He had already invited several others with a bargain - he would attend their youth group if they would attend seminary.  He held up his end of the bargain (they didn't come today).  Still he was continuing to pray.  He got the impression that he should ask one of his friends (that's a girl).  He got to class and hadn't decided if or how he would invite her.  She starts the conversation by saying "I had a dream about you last night."  He got a little worried and asked about it.  "I had a dream that you invited me to your church."  I still get choked up when I remember him telling the story.  He was then able to tell her that he had been praying for someone to ask to seminary.  She came with him to class today.  Revelation is alive and well and here on the earth today!

Back to class.  We dressed up our 2 volunteers side by side in the type of armor mentioned in the bible and the modern armor we have today.  We even got to add a couple of things like, night vision goggles, radar, gps, and a walkie-talkie (that article I mentioned talks about those devices).  The other thing we got to talk about with the flak jacket is that there are different layers of protection -adding more layers line upon line.  At the end of class they all got the Ephesians version printed out on full size candy bars.  The only problem we have now is that because that lesson was so fun, the boring days of seminary will seem much more boring!

If we put on the Armor of God, then we will be protected against the evil day.  By the way the conference talks went, we need us some serious armor and we need it now!  I invite you to take seriously the council to suit up!

Cleaving

I have just had one of the most uplifting, edifying, joyful weekend ever.  It's no secret that I love general conference.  In fact.  I love it so much that I'm more excited for it than Christmas.  My husband is also getting me addicted to seeing it live and in person.  Some might say that he is enabling my addiction.  Encouraging it, even.  

Before I start with my weekend full of cleaving to my covenants and rejoicing, there has been a little incident occurring in my home.  Each and every morning.  What is this little disturbance?  We have the 9 basic doctrines taped to my wall.  The first day or 2 lots of them refused to stay on the wall and fell down.  I doubled up the tape and slapped them on there good and told them to behave themselves and stay put.  Well, there's gotta be a punk in every bunch.  Priesthood & Priesthood Keys refuses to stay on the wall.  It has become the joke of my companion and I.  I don't care how many times it falls off the wall, I will always put it back up.  Opposition in all things never takes a day off, so I won't either :0)

OK, now onto my weekend.  For 20 years I have dreamed of doing a session in the Salt Lake Temple.  I lived in Utah for 4 months before I married Nate, so I wasn't endowed.  When we lived there again after we married and could go thru the temple, we just never made it happen.  We went to the Provo temple several times and even made it to the Manti temple, but never Salt Lake.  A crime, really - if you ask me.  Oh there were plenty of other opportunities on the many visits we made, but for whatever reason, it didn't happen (we did go thru the Timpanogas one a few times) .  So, the lesson here is:  it doesn't matter how long it takes you to accomplish your goal, it only matters that you did. 

What made it even better was getting to experience a live session.  I did a live session at Manti, but it was when I was still new to the temple experience and I can't really remember it.  I was looking forward to seeing if it would be a bunch of old people who could barely walk and recite their lines or if it would be young people.  All I can say is that it was completely perfect.  I loved it.  It made me think of things that I haven't thought of before when watching a video.  They did such a good job.  Not only did I get the experience of being there, but hello!  That temple is beautiful.  It is so ornate.  The hours put into beautifying that temple.  It oozes love for Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.  We even got picked to do something extra special.  I was feeling seriously loved by the Lord that morning.  

Here's a little sad commentary on our days.  This special assignment required Nate and I to be married.  Naturally, the worker asked if we were married.  "Yes." Then he felt the need to qualify that with a "to each other?"  If there are people showing up to the temple on some hot date with someone other than their spouse, that's just a whole level of messed up to which there are no words!

Next stop on the awesome train was the church history museum.  I got super lucky, yet again, because it was still open thru the weekend.  It is closing for a year.  I really wanted to go because we are learning the Doctrine and Covenants this year - which is church history.  I can't wait to talk to the students about the stuff I looked at - it isn't my day to teach until wed. 

First thing you see is the manuscript for the Book of Mormon.  For me, I need look no further for evidence of it's authenticity and divinity.  It is just simply inconceivable that an uneducated man - even surrounded by more educated men - could have written a 500 page document - in long hand- without a word processor - without tons of scratch outs and rewrites - knowing geography (without access to a library or years of research) - keeping track of lineage - knowing the character of Christ so perfectly - keeping track of the line of events etc.....without it being exactly what he claimed it to be.  Do you know how many times I erase the things I type on here?  Do you know how many times I look back over something and say, you ding dong, you wrote that down wrong.  Now let's put the biggest caveat on it.  It took only 2 months!  Now add all my other witnesses and that's a rock solid testimony to which cannot easily be shaken.  But, that is something that I know for myself and everyone must take that journey alone.  

The next thing I loved was being able to see Emma's hymn book.  I love and admire her greatly.  I know she fell at the end, but I can't blame her.  It only testifies to me more the importance of enduring to the end and the ripple effect our choices have on others - not just ourselves (there was a talk about that in conference by Elder Katcher -sp?)  

When I made my way to the end of the displays there on the wall was the last scripture mastery verse we worked on in class.  It was cool to be able to ponder the ways the saints cleaved unto their covenants and the way that I can and do - and the joy that comes into my life from doing it.  

We always get excited when we see our beloved ancestor that has the greatest story of redemption ever.  He's related by way of Nate's Mom's Dad.  The real example to all those talks given in conference about coming back, staying in the boat and reaching out to those who are lost.  There is  his actual writing desk sitting on that chair.  

After seeing all the church history, we needed to go and look at how we can find our own history.  We walked next door to the Family Search Library.  That place is massive.  I didn't bring my bucket of genealogy with me, but we wandered around and found some books with Nate's family's history.  

Later Friday night we met Nate's brother at The Roof (totally didn't get a pic of them).  We had a lovely time just staring at the temple and the wedding photography happening while we were waiting for them.  Utah can be seriously beautiful.  

After our lovely dinner we met up with 2 sister missionaries that used to serve in our ward.  One of them is married now with a little boy (who is adorable) and the other is engaged to be married soon.  So much fun getting to catch up with them and their husband and fiancé, and getting to know them in their after mission lives.  I wish I would have gotten a picture.  Sometimes my brain just isn't thinking about documenting things.....I know.  Hard to believe! haha

Saturday was conference and we watched the first session in our hotel room.  It started off with power and the power just kept increasing.  When we got to the "which way do you face" talk, I said "boom baby!"  That was freaking awesome!  Can you use a sudo curse word when describing conference?  Welp, I just did.  This isn't a conference re-cap, but wholy moly was it a good session!

We had tickets to attend Saturday afternoon.  We made our way thru the sea of people.  Let me just tell you that it is pretty impressive to get the thousands of people that were in the 1st session out and the thousands in for the 2nd one.  It was crazy.  Not so crazy that while walking along S Temple street I come face to face with Caitlin.  What a small world and small chances that we would find each other in a sea of people.  Divine providence.  She was one of my yw years ago in a ward that I'm no longer in.  She just got back from serving a mission in Spain and she is living back in NM now.  Have I run into her at home?  No, I run into her in Ut - in a sea of people!

While walking into the conference center, what should my wandering eyes see?  Another family from home......and another one!  I guess that's what happens when your stake hands out tickets.  You all end up in the same section of conference.  I'm jealous of my friend in the bottom picture that was there for her mission reunion.  She served in France with Neil L Anderson for a mission president.  Lucky, lucky girl!  

Second session of saturday conference was equally super duper fantastic.  At one point I turned to my husband and said "This is such plain speech.  The second coming is for sure on the way."  I had my fingers crossed for a couple of apostles that I wanted to see.  I got to see 2 of them.  Elder Oaks and Holland.  Seriously every single talk was fantastic and spot on and perfect in every way.  

It still blows my mind how many saints can fit into one place at one time.  It's what makes being there so awesome.  We were actually pretty close this time too, which was fun.  

I'm the luckiest girl!

Look at all those people spilling out on the streets!  Walking past all the protestors is super fun too.  I just wanted to give some of them a hug.  Especially a lady that was yelling about how she wasted 30 years of her life.  I wanted to ask her what part was wasted.  The 30 years without drinking, a tattoo, premarital sex.  Or was she put out by all the years she prayed, read scriptures, received guidance etc...I just fail to see the injustice of wasted time in trying to live a righteous life.  Call me out of touch and judgmental.  I just don't get it.  Trying to fight light with darkness never ends well.  But, I'm happy to give out hugs to those who have "stepped off the boat" and offer an outstretched hand.  

Sunday we spent with Nate's parents and my adorably perfect niece.  You know what she said?  "I think the second coming is coming really soon by the sound of the talks."  That's a teenager ya'll.  Sunday was really good as well, but I gotta say, saturday was my favorite.  Though I did love President Eyring's talk and president Monson's.  That's the hardest time president Eyring has had keeping it together and it totally made me cry- which I have never done during conference.  The message was something that touched me deeply, not just his tears.  

Here's another affirmation of testimony I received during the Sunday session.  I can't remember who was talking, but it was about the quorum of the 12 and how there is unity in every decision and that we could take comfort in that.  That right there reminded me of the divinity of this church.  How could there not have been some coup for power by now.  Some serious infighting?  Pandering to the masses for more membership - which brings tithing dollars?  That right there is a testimony that this is the Lord's church here on earth.  

I had to hop in the car and head to the airport, so I had to listen to the last 2 talks in the car.  Wouldn't you know that they saved the best for last.  They were trying to give me a heart attack that I would miss the talk entirely.  Is it just me or is Elder Bednar getting funnier?  I think he is finding his grove and I love it.  

Even though I wasn't home to pester the kids into watching conference, they did it all on their own.  Emma even printed off activity sheets for the littles.  My kids are awesome and just really good kids.  Like really good.  I love them!

My weekend was amazing.  Not only did I get to cleave unto people in my life whom I love dearly, I came away with a renewed resolve to cleave unto my covenants and help those around me as well - because I know that is where real joy is found.