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.