Graditude

For a moment I would like to give my utmost respect to those who have served and helped my family through our tough times in life. Many of you have helped watch kids, make food, given words of encouragement, shown love, forgiven when it's hard to forgive, loving phones calls, helped improve our home, shared your muscles when moving, given quite unknown service, hugged when needed, sweet helpful prayers that were heard, etc. Many of you know who you are and many of you don't. Just a smile here or a welcome feeling when in a new situation have deep meaning for me. I am even grateful for others who have sometimes made my life sad at moments because of the lessons I have learned of forgiveness, being able to look for the good in others and learning a little humility. This mortal experience would not be the same without ALL of you. True joy would not be desirable without the good AND the bad.

One day long ago, I was feeling quite sad about living in a new strange land (Utah) and missing the friendly nature of our old place of worship in the beautiful Evergreen State. One morning I felt the desire to attend the temple after praying for comfort and peace that we were living where the Lord wanted us to live. I have a profound respect of the people of Polynesia and have only wonderful accepting experiences with them. To my delight, as I entered the temples chapel, there were several of these beautiful people sitting on the front row. As I approached the seating I saw a woman with a flower in her hair sitting on the end and she seemed to be in prayer, so I naturally headed for the row behind her as to not to disturb her. Before I knew it she said to me "sister, why are you going back there when you can come and sit by me?" With a large smile on my face and the welling up of tears I took the seat next to her where she proceeded to hug me and tell me that she was so happy to see me in the temple that day. The whole temple session this beautiful woman smiled at me and told me wonderful things. The Lord knew I needed to feel that acceptance at that time and He sent me and angel to remind me how much I needed to be here. My largest amount of gratitude is to my Father in Heaven for loving me through my toughest times. For the tender mercies of love and angels He sends us. It's our job to look for it and recognize it.

Home for Sale

Anyone interested in buying a townhome in South Salt Lake County? Do you know if someone is interested? If so Check this out!!

This is our beautiful townhome that has 4 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms. It's only 30 minutes to ski resorts and walking distance to local shopping. The community has a very well maintained pool and work out facilities. The home is wired for surround sound in the main living room and has plug in Internet access in every room. It is equipped with a central vacuum cleaner with garage attachments to clean your car. It also has hard wood, tile and carpet flooring throughout. The back yard has grape vines, raspberries and an apple tree.

Email me if you are interested.

Robyn's Cute Doll

As some of you know, Robyn has a passion for doll making. She loves to check out books from the library about doll making and try making one. This is her latest attempt (a very skilled one) at making another kind of doll. Her grandma Kibbie was in town while she was working on this one and helped her out with the face. I love how the face turned out with the embroidery. The whole doll was done so well. My good friend Joanne Dittmer took this adorable picture with Gwen in the back ground. If you live in Minnesota, she has a photography business. Check out her site:
www.joannedittmerphotography.com

Laugh

Majorie Pay Hinkley is truly someone I wish I had known. I loved her ability to make people laugh in such a fun way. I hope to be able to laugh more and find more joy when things get hard. One of the hardest lessons for me in my life is to find joy in trail. I love the song from "The King of Egypt" called "You Know Better Than I", which says that in your trail, you may not know why you are going through what you are going through, but God knows. We need to let go of what we think is best and put our trust in His will. Sounds so easy, doesn't it? Life does become easier when we trust in His plan. When we trust in His plan, then it's easier to find joy and laughter.

His plan is the Great Plan of Happiness. When life is hard, doesn't it make the good times even better? I find that through all the times I've been ill that it is such an amazing joy to be able to use my body to hike or play or be able to hug my kids. It's very hard to find joy when depression hits or when you feel alone. That is the time to see through the cloud of despair and to remember to look to Christ. To let Him in, knock and find Him. Then you can feel His loving arms surround you with His love. Will life still be difficult at times. Yes, it will, but your foundation will be sure, your purpose will have meaning. You will understand that these difficult times are to help you learn and you will have a new profound ability to be grateful for hard times. Your thoughts will turn from "Why me?!" to "That is so wonderful that I just got to learn that!!" That is what joy is in trail.