Wednesday, August 20, 2008

A heartwarming story...

A 5 year olds first job...

Here's a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little 5-year-old girl and some construction workers that will make you believe that we all can make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time.

A young family moved into a house, next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew began to build a house on the empty lot. The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in the goings-on and spent much of each day observing the workers.

Eventually the construction crew, all of them 'gems-in-the-rough', more or less adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her during coffee and lunch breaks and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.

At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars. The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars 'pay' she'd received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.

When the girl and her mom got to the bank , the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own paycheck at such a young age. The little girl proudly replied, "I worked last week with a real construction crew building the new house next door to us".

"Oh my goodness gracious" said the teller, "and will you be working on the house again this week, too?"

The little girl replied, "I will, if those assholes at Home Depot ever deliver the damn sheet rock.

Kind of brings a tear to the eye - doesn't it?

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Young Mens Camp 2008

I arrived home on Saturday after a long and difficult Young Mens Camp. Our ward has 15 young men and last year no leaders from our ward went to help out. I decided that this year our ward needed to chip in so I took a week off work and spent 5 grueling nights in a tent. Another leader and I were assigned 8 boys to lead as our group. Once the group is formed you do everything as a group including cooking, eating, games and hikes. On Tuesday morning, we packed our backpacks and set out for an overnight hike. We hiked a total of 25 km that day which is about 16 miles. My pack was probably about 25 lbs and I have not done a hike like this since I was a teenager so it was difficult but as a leader, I had to do it with a smile on my face. I completed it and actually after the first 10 km, it got easier and easier. The next day we has a short 5 km hike to a beautiful lake that had a nice sandy beach. We spent most of the day there which was nice. On Friday we went to a rock climbing company. I had never done this and I hurt my shoulder during a game on Monday so I did not know how well I would do. I found that I am a climbing maniac. I may have a big belly, but I can literally pull my own weight. I was able to climb to the top with ease and I can proudly state that I made it in much less time than most of the teenage boys.

Overall, I would say it was a good experience. I did have a great difficulty with the language barrier. Though all the boys speak and understand English, respect was harder to earn because I could not shout out "orders" in their native language. Physically is was a great challenge but I met that challenge. In the end, however, I was able to get to know all boys in the stake a little and some a lot as well as them getting to know me. I have already seen a greater bond with some of the young men in my ward, especially the younger ones, that will help us become a stronger quorum.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

My 29th Birthday...right?

Yesterday, I woke up and could smell something cooking, but knowing that Chris and Hannah were still at camp I thought it was coming from outside. All of the sudden, Isaac comes tromping up the stairs with a big plate of scrambled eggs and a gigantic grin on his face. Turns out that he had gotten up before anyone else and had decided to make my favorite breakfast for my birthday. He told me that he paid extra attention on how to cook them when I made them the day before and decided to give it a go. He did a great job and it is always nice to get breakfast in bed! He is such a thoughtful little guy (not so little anymore, I guess) and is turning into quite the chef.

The rest of the day was nice too. Went to a ward BBQ and somehow...thank you Hannah, they found out it was my B-day and so they had to sing a crazy Dutch song that involved a lot of chanting and cheering and supposedly throwing of the birthday person in the air as many years as they have been alive, but being American, they thought they would start small and leave out the throwing in the air part which I was very happy about. After all of that, we came home and had our own little party with the cake and ice cream and disco balls and all of the usual stuff. Most importantly, I got to spend time with my wonderful family...awwwwwww, how sweet!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

When the cat is away...

Chris and Hannah are away at camp this week hopefully having a lot of fun and I am tired of looking at our last post, so I decided to add my own two cents even though there hasn't actually been anything going on here. When Chris is out of town I usually do some heavy duty cleaning so I sent the kids upstairs to start on their room. I can hear some nasty arguing upstairs and it sure makes motherhood worth it doesn't it? Am I the only one who has to deal with this???

As some of you know I have started an official Dutch class and am really enjoying it. Finally, starting to feel like I am learning something new. The class is interesting because there are several languages that are spoken and there are only about 4 or 5 of us that speak English. There are also Arabic, Indonessian, Chinese, Polish, Romanian, French and Serbian (I am sure that I am not saying or spelling these right) natives and a few of them only speak their native language and what little Dutch they know. It makes things very difficult because things have to be explained in several languages and it takes a lot of time, but I am not complaining though since this is the first class I could find in 7 months that wasn't super expensive.

As I was getting ready to leave for class this morning, it started to get really overcast. By the time I walked out the door to catch the metro, it was really pouring. Now, I am not talking a rainy day in UT pouring, I am talking the rain is coming down so hard that it doesn't help to blink your eyes or squint for that matter because you have a river of water running through them (if you have never experienced this kind of rain before try holding your head under a kitchen sink faucet with it on all the way). By the time I got to the metro, which is really just a block away, I was soaked and just getting wetter, if that is possible. I had decided earlier that I was just going to wear flip-flops and capris with a sweatshirt and take an umbrella along too because even though it is really wet here is is still really warm and humid and I didn't want to be sitting in a steamy classroom overdressed. I tend to do that a lot and it is really miserable. I still have not figured out how to dress here. Anyway, as I am getting on the metro in my sponge like shoes (or thongs as us older folk know them by) I make this really big step off the platform and do a not so graceful almost split. Luckily, not full splits because that would have been somewhat uncomfortable, but maybe more graceful looking I am thinking. It was very embarrassing and I am sure really funny looking. I really was glad that I was wearing thongs :) after wading through puddles up to almost mid-clalf but I still ended up at class soaked to mid thigh (even with a very large umbrella) and a scuffed up knee. I was almost dry by the time I left for home 3 hours later.

Can I just say that I miss dill pickles. I can only find sweet-sour (that is the direct translation and it makes no sense) pickles. It is really sad. Picture me standing in a puddle up to my knees, soaking wet eating a disgusting semi-sweet pickle. It is a sad picture indeed.