What If Everyone Forgets?

I remember so clearly the morning of September 11, 2001. I was at work and the news started trickling in “a plane just crashed into the twin towers!” I remember thinking, “How could someone have made a mistake like that?” as the news continued to come in, it became very clear that what was happening was not an accident! I was shocked, angry, sad, and frightened in a way that I had never felt before. “How could this happen?” I am sure I am not the only one who asked themselves this question. In fact, I remember my nephew asking me that very question. The reality was I couldn’t tell him how or why it happened, but I could help him see the humbling and unifying effect it was having on our country. In our family, the question quickly changed from “how and why” to “what can we learn” and “what good can we do.”

For a very short time we had a less partisan government, people began praying, there were no flags to be found on store shelves because EVERYONE wanted to show their loyalty to their country by flying a flag. People lined up at blood banks and made monetary donations; I think being able to help in some small way helped us feel a little less helpless. I hated what happened on 9/11, but I will admit, I liked the more prayerful and patriotic unified America. One of my favorite memories of that time was at a baseball game. Does anyone else remember that for a short time Major League Baseball changed the 7th inning stretch song from Take Me Out to the Ballgame to God Bless America? So in the 7th inning the entire crowd stood up and sang God Bless America and you know what? I think they meant it. It was like there were thousands of people in the middle of a baseball game all unifying their voices in prayer. Literally, they were petitioning the Lord for blessings on this country. It gave me chills!

So we talked, in our family, about sometimes God let’s bad things happen so that we can be more humble and willing to let him in our lives and how if we let Him help us, even the worst tragedy can be turned for our good. That really seemed to help my nephew feel better. Then one day, and not too much later, we were driving down the road and he noticed there weren’t as many flags waving in front of buildings. He pointed that out to me and said, “Aunt Lisa, I am afraid people are starting to forget. What if everyone forgets” It made me think, there was no more talk of God on television, the politicians were arguing again and, he was right, there weren’t as many flags flying. Then he said something that I will never forget, “If everyone forgets and it all goes back to the way it was, then it was all for nothing” it was just something really bad that happened for no reason at all.”

Turning 12, Girls Camp, and Talking!!

That is some serious chocolate cake!!

Talia turned 12 this month! Which means that at church she finally gets to quit going to Sharing time and start going to Young Women. In June, because her birthday was before the start of the school, year she also got to go to girls camp. Oh she was so excited to go to camp! After all, Carmen went to camp last year and came home sharing all the excitement so she has been primed for a whole year. The girls both had an amazing experience and I am SO GRATEFUL for all the leaders in our ward in stake who made sure they did. You are all amazing women and I love you for taking such wonderful care of my girls and helping them have a great time and most importantly build their testimonies of the Savior.

About 2 weeks after her birthday the bishop asked her to speak in church, I was sure she would be a little panicked, then when she told me that her assigned subject was "How Being in Young Women has blessed my life" I was really concerned, the child has only been in there for two weeks, what could she possibly say?" Well, I knew she had been working on her talk during the week and I meant to spend some time helping her, but I completely forgot until Saturday evening when she came to me and asked me if we could go over her talk. Panic once again ensued, how could I have forgotten about this. So I asked her to come in and read me what she has already. She brought her paper to me and this is an unedited copy of what she read :

How YW has blessed my life

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Talia Thurber. I became an official member of this ward last month, and an official member of young women’s this month. Bishop Oaks asked me to talk about how being in Young Women’s has blessed my life, so I have limited experience to draw from, but I went to camp and who needs more experience than that?.)

There is no doubt that being in young women’s has strengthened my testimony and understanding of the gospel. Especially at Girls camp, which was as fun and silly as it could get while teaching us gospel principles. I have never felt so clean and so dirty at the same time.

One thing that stood out in my mind while preparing this talk was the tug-a-war battle between us and another ward. We were completely outnumbered. It looked as though our opponents never ended.

We were easily beaten over and over. Then the leaders had a turn. We cheered as they pulled their other wards leaders over the line that separated them. (We have such great young women leader in this ward.)

Sometimes the hardships we face are similar. It seems as though our problems go on forever and ever and we stand no chance. When we feel like this, we should talk to our parents, bishop, leaders, or even a close friend. They will always be happy to lift our burdens and show us how it’s done.

The most important person to talk to is Heavenly Father. He will always want to help us reach our goal, even if the rest of the world seems against us.

This was proven yet again when rain threatened to ruin Sister Welchmans’ evening program. In the opening prayer, a plea for this not to happen was included. It was already sprinkling, but we were still confident.(Some of the girls even did a “sun dance)

A few activities later, the rain still hadn’t come down! Even the sprinkling had stopped and the program was obviously saved.

I think we all silently thanked God at one point or another, and I know my testimony was strengthened.

Brothers and Sisters, it is a fact that our Heavenly Father loves us more than anyone on earth could ever know. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Needless to say I was stunned, proud and relieved. I said "it's perfect, don't change anything." She got up in church the next morning and stood up in front of the congregation and looked people in the eye and shared her thoughts, her dad and I were amazed and happy.

New Project!

It has been a while since I have done any blogging and there is so much to catch up on! Rather than wait 'til I have time to share everything I am going to put something current today and worry about the rest later. This weekend I installed a system that is (hopefully) going to cut my towel washing in half and all but eliminate the "whose towel is that in the middle of the floor?" frustration. I have not yet figured out how 4-6 kids (sometimes we have 2 extras) who don't even want to take a shower can create 4 loads of towels in a weekend and at least one parental meltdown trying to get people to pick their wet towels up from the floor.

Here is a picture of my kids bathroom on a typical Saturday night after everyone has showered, actually that is a good night because the towels are actually on the bathroom floor and not on the bedroom carpet.

BEFORE:

I bought six solid colored towels and six individual hooks. I painted the hooks to match the towels and assigned everyone a color. Everyone is allowed to use ONLY the color they are assigned and if they are caught using someone else's towel, they have to do his or her assigned chore that day. Now after showers are done I can go into the bathroom and see if there are any towels on the floor, if there are I know exactly who put it there. If there are any empty hooks I know whose towel is missing and no longer have to check all the corners in each room. This is what it looked like this Saturday after showers.

AFTER:



BEAUTIFUL!!  Here's to lowering my stress level.  

Finally!

My friend Nancy and I have been talking about starting a blog together for a while now - a long while. We share really strong feelings that being grateful for what we have and expressing it can change a person's life. We have found that without changing any of the circumstances in our life, gratitude can change everything. We both know this is true. We want people to get a little taste of that and hope to get lots of participation in this project. If not, it will be a lot of stuff from Nancy and I. I hope you will go check it out AND participate.

lifesjustgood.blogspot.com

Baptizing the boy

Last week was Tobias' birthday, and his baptism was scheduled for his birthday.  That was a week we had to go to QC, so we had a full weekend scheduled 'till the Bishop called and told us that the Stake baptism had been postponed for a week.  So I got to baptize him yesterday.

We woke up early, got breakfast and headed for the barber shop.  I sat Tobias in the barber chair and found another one myself.  (Lisa says that it wasn't me she was worried about, but why bother spending the time at the barber shop without making full use of it?)  We got home and jumped in the shower to make ourselves good smelling and to get rid of the last vestiges of loose hair.

The baptism was at 11:00am, so we had a leave the house goal of 10:00am.  That would get us to the church at 10:30 and we would have time to find baptism clothes for Tobias.  I made sure we packed extra underwear, towels and clothes since this was a getting wet occassion.  They didn't call him John the Sprinkler.  He performed baptism, which is a greek word for full immersion in water.   The girls got into their pretty dresses and we were on our way.

Tobias and Me Before changing into our white clothes

When we got to the church we were worried that we had he wrong place, because the place was empty.  Eric drove up a few minutes later in his fancy Mazda Miata.  We took some pictures of everyone in their nice clothes and set off to make some calls when the ward mission leader showed up.  He let us in and I ran inside to find something to baptize the boy in.  After rummaging through the entire closet I came out with a jumpsuit that looked too small.  It was smaller than it looked and Tobias couldn't even get it on his body.  

We found some pants which were only a little too small.  I gave Eric some money to go buy Tobias a white shirt, careful to tell him short sleeves, and what the neck size should be.  He came back with a white T-shirt!  By that time it was too late to change anything and the Bishop chimed in to say that was fine, as long as it was white.  Another boy named Seth was getting baptized the same day.  He had found a bigger jumpsuit the week before while we were in QC.  I guess it was the last one.

Tobias and Me in our white clothes AND before Eric showed up with the T-shirt.

Uncle Mike gave a nice talk on baptism.  He used a demonstration of putting food coloring in water to represent our misdeeds, and then miraculously cleaning it out with bleach, making it clear and beautiful again.

Lisa got everyone's attention with pots and pans.  She let the children pound on them to represent the noise that prevents us from hearing the still small voice of the Holy Ghost.  Let's just say the children got it.  She certainly never short on good ideas.

The Bishop sent Tobias and me into the water first.  By this time Tobias was about to jump out of his skin.  I know you're going to read this and think "no way!" but he was more excited about being baptized than about letting him steer the car, go to Disneyland or play a video game.  The water was just a bit cold, but Tobias didn't notice.  I said the ordinance and dunked him under.  He asked me if he could swim back to the steps, but I said no.  He floated a bit and scrambled up the steps.  

I tried to hustle him in to get changed, but Seth and his father were already walking into the water and he wanted to watch.  He was asking me excitedly whether or not he was all clean now.  I smiled and told him yes, and then Seth got baptized and he was all clean too.  Holding Tobias down was like bouncing a basketball at this point.  He was asking if he could get baptized everyday, or at least once a week.  I told him that was like taking the sacrament, but he asked if he could just get baptized instead of taking the sacrament.  I had to content him with telling him I would explain it later.

Tobias got baptized first so Seth got confirmed first.  (The first shall be last and the last shall be first?)  I feel a little guilty to confess that I don't remember anything about Seth's confirmation.  I'm sure it was beautiful, but I get the shakes thinking about performing a Priesthood ordinance, and I spent every available brain cycle to calm my nerves.  We invited Grandpa Boughan up and Martha's brothers and we all stood around.  My mind went blank.  I asked the bishop if I should call him by name.  He said yes, call him by his full name.  As soon as I said the name the rest of it flowed.  I felt comfortable and sure giving Tobias the gift of the Holy Ghost, and giving him a blessing afterwards.  I feel that God will honor my blessing, and I feel that Tobias will live up to it.

We got home and had a birthday party with the Sullivans, Grandma and Grandpa Boughan and Uncle Walter's family, making 24 people in all.  Lisa barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs.  we sang and fed everyone cake and ice cream.  We gave Tobias scriptures and a mission bank.  Aunt Laura embroidered his name on his canvas scripture case.  I remembered feeling like Tobias when I got baptized.  I didn't ever want to sin again.  Oh well.  You see how that worked out.  We'll just have to hope for better for Tobias!

Maybe Tobias wished to never sin again.

A new record!!!

Last night our family washed, rinsed, dried and put away the dishes in 4 mins 37 seconds. That, my friends, is a new family record. When we can get them completely done in that amount of time, it makes using the dishwasher completely inefficient - and not as much fun. We use a stop watch so we can get and accurate time.

Last nights predictions:

Serena - 5:01 (oooh, pretty close)
Dad - 6:37 (man, he thinks we're slow)
Tobias - 6:02 (better than dad!)
Mom - 4:30 (We have a winner!)
Talia - 3:57 (She wanted to break 4:00, we'll do it someday)
Carmen - 5:52 (a reasonable guess, if we weren't trying to set a record)

REAL FORGIVENESS

Once upon a time, not very long ago and right here in this town I was trying to do Kerry a favor and drive his children to school. I say “his” children because we weren’t married yet, in fact, I don’t even think we were engaged. It was a cold morning and the windows were covered with frost. Having limited visibility, because I started backing up way before the windows were clear enough to do so safely, I backed his van into a big rock and scraped the side below the sliding door up pretty badly. I felt awful, and a little nervous. This was new ground for Kerry and I and I was not sure how big this was going to be to him. When he finally got home that evening, I took him by the hand and walked outside and showed him what I had done - HE LAUGHED! Then he said, “Is this what has been bothering you all day? I am so relieved; I thought you were mad at ME!” Then he said, “that can be fixed” and walked inside and never mentioned it again AND never had it fixed. So all of this time when I walk by and see that scratch on the door, I think “I bet every time he sees that scratch he remembers that I was careless with his things.” Which is dumb, I know because he didn’t even feel that way when I first did it.

Well, early Friday morning I took the van and all the children and drove the three hours to our other house so they could be there for the hot part of the day and the children could swim. Kerry worked part of the day and then drove my car up to meet us that evening. He walked in and said, “Sweetheart, I have really bad news, I was in a hurry to get going and I scratched your car when I backed out.” I said, oh well, if it’s that bad we will pay the deductible and get it fixed. Then he started telling me how wonderful and forgiving I was. So I said, "geez Kerry, I put a nasty scratch in your van and you never even let it bother you and you expected me to be mad at a little scuff on the bumper of mine?" (By that time the children had gone out to check the car and came in saying they couldn’t find the scratch). Here’s the amazing part! Kerry’s response? “You scratched my van?” He really had forgotten! I reminded him about the entire event and he said “Oh ya, I remember that.”

Is that amazing or what? He had forgiven me so completely that he had actually forgotten what I had done. He walks by that scratch in the van every time he opens my door for me and completely forgot that I put it there! Kerry is amazing!

So of course that got me thinking, I had apologized and been told I was forgiven. Still, I spent the last year and a half walking by that scratch and feeling bad about what I had done. Kerry? He had truly completely forgotten about it. I was beating myself up (and even assuming he was doing the same thing) for something he had long forgotten. I think that is what happens sometimes when we repent. We take the proper steps to repent, the Lord forgives us, and even though the Lord has completely forgotten, “I the Lord will remember them no more,” we still think of ourselves as less worthy. Spiritually speaking, we walk by the scratch and knock ourselves down a little bit. Worse, we assume the Lord does too.

I am SO GRATEFUL for a forgiving husband who is such an example of Christ like love and forgiveness. And, of course for a Savior who is anxious to forgive the mistakes I make every day!