Divine Help Through Others

You know, I've always tended to have trouble with Sunday School.  I know, I know.  If I'm bored then it's my problem for not having prepared myself as I should.  That rarely means with having read things ahead of time and mostly means having a good attitude.  (Disclaimer: I love our SS teachers!  They are both very well prepared and bring a wonderful spirit to the meeting.  It's NOT them, it's me.)  However, there have been little tender mercies peppered throughout Sunday School lately.  Interesting that the Lord chooses that class to send down a little jolt of understanding/comfort rather than in Relief Society (though I have had them happen there too.)  Surely there is some significance to that that I have yet to discover.

Back in the beginning of August there was a scripture read that was perfect and just what I needed to hear.

"Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. ...Be still and know that I am God."

D&C 58:3, 101:16

Today it wasn't even something that the teacher said but out of the blue the Lord handed me something I prayed for a few days ago.  I have a new friend who's blog seems tailer-made just for me.  She has a way of putting things that is amazing and very comforting.  She has been praying for understanding in some of the trials going on in their lives.  Honestly, I remember thinking that it was nice the Lord gave her some understanding but I don't think He's going to just tell me "why" if I ask.  But, I asked Him anyway.

The new friend's latest post is about accepting grace and I've been pondering it the last few days.  One thing that really struck me was her question to herself.  "How can I ever accept the grace of Jesus Christ if I cannot accept the "grace" of those around me that are very willing to save me?"

Now, to back up a little here, I've had lots of "grace" given to me over my whole life, but LOTS over the last couple of years.  Some things are easier for me to accept than others.  There are a couple of instances where people are continuing to give me opportunities I would never be able to have otherwise and, as nice as that is, it's been very hard to truly accept.  I've known people throughout my life that, even with a full knowledge of their actions, say things in such a way, hoping that people will do just that.  Give them a handout.  Talk about taking advantage of people!  I never, ever, ever want to EVER do that to anyone and so when something so kind is offered my brain automatically tries to figure out what I did/said that made them offer this thing.  I must have subconsciously been trying to take advantage of them.  No matter how many times I'm told that it's fine, that they want to do this, that it isn't a problem...I still seem to think I must have done something and even if they don't now, they will someday be offended and wish they'd never offered.  Silly?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Back to Sunday School.  The teacher asked if we'd ever given service and NOT had it accepted.  Yeah.  You think you're doing something nice and someone is offended you offered to help them.  Sure makes you not want to ever offer again, doesn't it?  Then it hit me.  By not truly, way down, accepting someone's offer of help, am I not doing that very thing?  I know when I'm on the giving end I get as much pleasure, if not more, from helping as they get from what I'd offered.  Am I then taking away that blessing from someone else if I don't take what's offered?

Lastly, the Lord gave me one more little tidbit.  Sometimes we pray and pray for His help but fail to remember that most of the time our prayers are answered through other people.  The Lord must get so sad when He tries to help us and we turn around and refuse the help of others, the very means He is using to answer our prayers.  Then we tend to think that He doesn't even care about us because He didn't answer our prayers when in reality He did and we didn't recognize it.

I still think I have a ways to go.  I'm not quite sure where that fine line is between taking advantage of people and humbling accepting help.  I'm working on it though.

Ray Park

Three years ago, when life was being lived in Disney World, I got to go to a very cool martial arts show in Hollywood Studios.  Being Star Wars Weekends, they had Ray Park there.  In case you don't know, he played Darth Maul in Episode 1.  Honestly, I really don't like the first three movies.  They don't even feel like Star Wars.  The originals (4, 5 and 6) are MUCH better.  However, this show was AMAZING.  It was probably about 45 min to an hour long and very, very cool.  Ray Park is such a nice guy.  Not that I really know him or anything, but he was so cute with the kids up on the stage.  Gotta love the accent too. *sigh* ;)  So worth the line we waited in.

A couple of weeks ago my brother came to tell me he'd just bought tickets to Salt Lake's Comic Con.  I had no idea we even had one and was kinda bummed that I couldn't go.  As a consolation prize though, he told me he was willing to take something to get signed if I wanted.  As soon as he told me Ray Park was there, that was it.  That was what I wanted.

We rummaged around the house as I tried to think of something I could have him take.  I don't like the movie, and therefore don't own it, so it's not like I could give him that to have him sign.  Kyle has this cool Star Wars Weekends messenger bag he could have used, but that's his bag and not mine.  Still no go.  I thought maybe my sparring gear helmet!  But, this had to be something that he could carry around with him the whole day so that didn't work either.  I don't have any weapons for him to sign, but that finally reminded me that Little One has a pair of padded chucks.  Sweet!  I gave Kyle those and told Little One I'd replace her chucks.

Kyle was pretty excited to tell me about getting them signed.  Apparently, Ray Park was very impressed.  He told Kyle that no one had ever brought him something so cool to sign.  He even got up and played with them.  Kyle has a little video of it, but he hasn't sent it to me yet.  I guess he was also very impressed that we'd seen him in Disney World and now Little One and I are taking karate too.  I hope he comes again next year and I'll be sure and go meet him myself.  I still won't be to black belt yet, but a year close than I am now. :)  I'm not sure what he wrote after his signature, or what the marks on the other chuck mean, but very cool still.

Homeschool Has Begun Again!

This year for science we are doing chemistry.  Mom's favorite. :)  Specifically, we are learning about atoms and molecules.  Little One is really enjoying it too.  Here are a couple of the experiments we've done so far.

First we learned what atoms and molecules are and then we made some with colored marshmallows.

Here we learned that molecules move faster than cold ones.

Is there space between molecules?  Why yes, there is!

We are also very lucky to be able to get together with a group of homeschooled kids every week.  We've had a get together day and then our first official day of classes so far.  We will be studying a different subject every month.  September is the human body.  The fun thing is that she does karate with a couple of these kids too.

The kids tie dyed shirts.

Little One and Hunter playing with soap bubbles made from dry ice.

Dry ice filled bubbles!

Of course, we had to do the classic "coke and mentos" fountains.

Zip line fun!

Muscles and how they work.

The digestion process.

Seeing how much grass a cow stomach can hold.

The 5 senses.

Here are the kids (minus one who wasn't there) with their tie dyed shirts!

I wish I'd looked at my camera settings first so I'd known they weren't quite right.  Cute kids anyway though. :)

Karate Summer Party and Visit From Laurie Ann

This summer in karate was AWESOME.  We did so many fun things.  We had a "karate in the park" week, a weapons week (!), a "spar wars" week, and all kinds of fun stuff.  At the end we had our annual end of summer party.  It was really fun, but since I was wet a lot of the time I didn't take many pictures.

Little One and I had fun racing on this.  She did it with a lot of the other kids too.

Over Labor Day weekend, my very good friend, Laurie Ann, came up for a visit.  We had a blast together!  It was a great mixture of relaxation and fun.

After church on Sunday we drove around town.  We had to stop by the temple, of course.

We went on a bike ride.

And then finished up with a couple of hours at Cherry Hill.  So fun!

I'm so glad she came!

Art Work

Here are a couple of things the girls have done.  Ira did her self-portrait from a picture I took of her.  It was an assignment for her art class last year.

Here is a watercolor Little One did this year for art.

After church one day I saw this outside.

Here Ira was trying to teach Little One to draw a tree.

Best Day and a Half EVER

Last week Monday my sweet friend, Katie, came into town for a day and a half.  It was WAY too short, but I'm still grateful for every second we had together.  She and I were in the same neighborhood in Michigan and best friends from the time I was 12 until...well...we've never stopped being best friends.  Things changed quite a bit when I moved to Utah at almost 16, but we've still always kept in touch.  That's saying something since it was back-in-the-day.  Before internet.  Before email.  Before (gasp) Facebook.  Of course, we each have other best friends too but that doesn't in any way diminish what we have together.

Katie now lives in Pittsburgh and has another friend in Denver.  She flew into Denver to spend a week or so with that friend but rented a car to drive here for a little bit.  She was enjoying the scenery a little too much and missed a turn, adding an hour or so on to her drive, but she got here nonetheless.  It was so fun.  She called me in the morning and asked if she could come play.  LOL  Just like the good 'ole days.

It's amazing that with certain people, you can not see each other for years and yet pick up like you've never been apart.  Kindred spirits, as Anne Shirley would say.  In our case, the last time I saw Katie in person was when Little One was only 18 months.  7 years ago.

Monday night we visited and had a super yummy dinner (homemade chicken nuggets!)  Then we let Katie pick out a movie to watch on the wall.  She picked Monster's Inc.  Very good choice.  We went to bed and then were up pretty early to set out blankets for the Pioneer Day fireworks.  We took Little One (and Ira) to her swimming lessons where their dad picked them up.  He took them to 7 Peaks for the day.  We needed to hit Costco before taking off for the day and Mom came with us.  It was fun to end up chatting with a lady there who was trying to decide which furniture to buy for her lake house that she rents.

After that we took off for the day with FAR more things to see and do than we had time for.  First off, I wanted to show her some things that are uniquely "Utah."  She got to see the Great Salt Lake from the deck and I wanted to show her Temple Square.  We parked in the Gateway parking lot and I tried to show her the fountain show.  We waited 10 minutes and had the announcement to get out of the water, but then there was no music/show.  Very strange.  She'll have to catch that the next time.

This picture is so very Katie.  I love it!

Next we headed over to Temple Square using Trax.  It was so much fun seeing "my town" through tourist eyes.

She did a panorama while we waited for the train, catching my lovely forehead. 

Forever Friends

Next we headed over to the Lion House for lunch.  I don't often get to go there so it was a treat. :)

Famous rolls....

Since we were right there we went on a tour of the Beehive House, Brigham Young's home.

After that we took a tour of Temple Square itself.  We had three adorable sister missionaries all to ourselves.  Two from Hawaii and one from Australia.  Katie got to learn a bunch about what we believe in our church.

We have pictures of us each taking pictures. LOL

After another yummy dinner of homemade pizza we got to go see the fireworks.  Mom and Dad ended up having to miss and just drop us off but the girls and I met up with Patrice and Ben.  It was so fun to introduce Katie to my "sister."  They seemed to hit it off really well, as I figured they would.

Wednesday morning Katie had decided that instead of seeing some more of the sights she wanted to play a game together.  She and I spent hours and hours and even more hours playing many a board game.  Since she said she loves Catan I showed her my Catan card game.  We even figure we can play it together over Skype so we're going to try that. :)  I wanted to also show her some of Park City so we took separate cars and drove up there.  Mom came with us, which made it even better.  We ended up just driving around and then catching some lunch at Subway (not exactly very "Utah") before she went one way on I-80 and we went the other.

Before we did that though, we had to get some updated versions of the pictures the night before I moved to Utah.  I was about a month away from being 16 and Katie was 13.  We took many silly versions but this one has been on my dresser since we moved here.  I'm thinking I'll have to get one of those frames with two slots in it (maybe three) because I hate to just replace the old one.  We tried to sit in the same way we'd done originally.  Katie is now taller than I am though so it was a little off.  I love it though!

Here is the original.

The updated one.

And the expanded version

Having Katie here was one of the best things ever.  We will have to make sure we find a way to have it not be another 7 years before we see each other.  She is such an amazing person and she makes me want to be better.  Just like a true friend should. :)