Sunday Sharing

I teach Gabby's class in primary at church.  Today's lesson was on The Ten Lepers, so gratitude has been on my mind today.

As the story goes, Jesus healed 10 people of leprosy, but only one returned to thank him (a Samaritan, and because Jesus was Jewish, this would have been socially taboo).  For a lot of reasons, giving thanks could have been overlooked by this individual, but it wasn't.

It's easy to fall into the trap of ingratitude.  We all get caught up in the importance of our own lives, forgetting that God is the source and strength of our lives.  I know I often find myself thinking of thanking someone, or feeling thankful, but getting side tracked with the seemingly important day-to-day things, and either forgetting or assuming people know I'm thankful.  There are times I often forget to give thanks, not just to God, but to others.  

In class today we talked about reasons why the "other nine" didn't return to thank Jesus.  There are a lot of possible reasons, but among the top answers given by the girls in my class was "they were so excited to be healed they forgot."

I'm sure the lepers felt thankful they were healed, but they were rushing off to share the amazing news with family, or rushing off to work, or to tell their friends.  Only one thought to "turn back" as the scriptures said, to give thanks.  The lepers had been told by Jesus to go show themselves to the priests and they would be made whole.  To give thanks would have meant returning to where they had encountered Jesus (or tracking him down again).  It took effort.  The leper who returned to give Jesus thanks had to go out of his way to return to Jesus to thank Him, which is the part that has been on my mind today. 

Giving thanks means I have usually have to leave what I'm doing...something busy, something fun, even things that are amazing and worthwhile, to give thanks.  It means not assuming people will know, or remembering to thank someone next time I'm thinking about it, but finding a way to say "thank you" right then.

I'm going to challenge myself to try harder to remember and take the time to say "thank you," more than I do.  

When I was getting ready for my lesson, I found this great quote that sums it all up.  

“In becoming a whole person, the grateful leper was healed inside as well as on the outside.  That day nine lepers were healed skin deep, but only one had the faith to be made whole” (The Power to Heal from Within,” Ensign, May 1995, 13).

The Party

What an amazingly calm party.

This was the messiest moment...

Her friends made sure she got to wear a bit of her cake.

But other than that, there was just a lot of hanging out.  

There was some of this:

Mafia...in sunggies because it was chilly.

And some of this:

Watching movies

And a lot of this: 

And of course this:  

And they had planned this:

plus this:

(which equals s'mores)

But after all the cake and snacks no one was in the mood for s'mores...

Except Gabby, who had never roasted marshmallows before.

So we roasted marshmallows and she told me all about the stars...everything she had learned on her field trip to the planetarium last week.  Then she said, "Let's sing songs around the fire!"  (And I had to dig deep...all the way back to my campfire days to remember a few, but since she didn't know the songs I knew, we sang Justin Bieber songs instead.)

And because it was more fun to cook burn the marshmallows than it was to eat them (she was just posing above), and because it was fun to watch the marshmallows puff when she cooked them...

She wondered what it would look like to cook a whole bag of marshmallows all at once.

Fun!

(Try it sometime...We triple dog dare ya!)

Feel Good Moment

If this doesn't make you feel good, I don't know what will.  I think I'll hire this kid to be my new Jillian...

June 2nd

For Megan, June 2nd is the annoying day between her birthday and her birthday party (at least this year).

June 2nd is also the birthday of three of my siblings.

Yes, three.

I said Happy Birthday to all three of them on facebook today, and added that, "you have to be from a huge family for that to even be possible."  

The comments that followed were entertaining (and will probably make my parents blush).

"I'm guessing that there is a wedding anniversary sometime around 9 months before those birthdays! Anniversaries help so many people expecting children!"


(I read that and in my mind I was thinking, "Close, but I'm sure it had more to do with harvest being over."  ...Just part of growing up on a farm.)

Then my sister-in-law (married to my brother who runs that same farm now) said,  "...Celebrating harvest being over."


Other comments followed about the flood of June babies in my family.  (There were two others born on June 27th, and the facebook comment for that one was that those must have been a late harvest years.)

Either way, 5 of my 11 siblings were born in June, on two days.

Here's the story of the June 2nd birthdays (minus the harvest celebration).

Twins born in 1970.

Fast forward several years...  These same twins were having birthday sleep-over with friends, which included plans to go swimming the next day.  All the partying (or lack of slumber) sent my mom into labor.  Parents of the party-goers were called to come pick up their daughters and the swimming portion of the party was cancelled...

And my sisters got a brother for their birthday instead.  (I think he was forgiven for being a party crasher.)

Either way, June 2nd is a lot more to us than the day between Megan's birthday and Megan's party...there's a lot of sibling love on that day!

And stay tuned for the Megan party details because her parties are never boring.  One year I had to explain to parents why the girls all ended up in the shower together...  The explanation was they were fully clothed, but even that required an explanation of the shaving cream fight.  Like I said, not boring.

Happy Birthday Megan!

This cute 7 year old turns 13 today!

She's officially a teen....marked by creating her own facebook account this morning.

Let the party week begin! (Actually, it began Monday night with Applebee's dinner because we knew tonight would be crazy...soccer practice, soccer party, choir concert, luau, piano lessons...)

Friend party will be Friday night...

More to come, we promise.

Happy birthday Megan!

(Photo by Tawny Campbell)