Ward Trunk or Treat

My new calling at church is RS Activities Co-Chair. And I'm in love. First activity: The ward Trunk or Treat. 

Lydia was a Beanie Baby. Easiest costume ever. A pair of winter pajamas and a little tag. She was pretty cute. 

I was a cat. There was an eight-year-old little girl who was also a cat. I tried to meow my hello, and she gave me a scratchy claw, and hissed at me. It was too funny. 

This is Lydia's little friend. She'll come stand and look at Lydia for  LONG time at church. He mom and I usually get together once a week and do something.

 The YW were in charge of decorations, and they put TONS of these spiders all over the cultural hall. Such great decorations, and easy. They could easily do it for a Wednesday night activity. 

My co-organizer, with their awesome trunk! (Her husband was a decomposer. In real life he's the Choral Director for Loyola university, and all night he carried around music, erasing notes. So funny.)

Our pumpkin patch trunk. Big thanks to Andrew for getting our trunk together. It wasn't something that was on my radar for getting done.

Maryland Day of Service

Last weekend our Stake participated in the Maryland Day of Service. The stake sponsored a 5k run or 3K walk with proceeds that benefited various food banks. Oh, and there was a dessert auction. We loved that if exercise wasn't really your thing, you could just buy dessert.

And after the run, there were hotdogs. Another amazing decision by the organizers. :)

Released

Yesterday I handed off all my Young Women binders and information. It's a huge relief, but a little bittersweet at the same time.

I was released in every ward but my own on Sunday, so in some ways it doesn't feel final. But having the 32-section binder out of my care helps. :)

Lydia Goes to Church

Andrew and his Buddy

Jeanette has started bringing her very energetic two-year old great-grandson to church with us! He's a church novice, and a typical two-year old, so he's not so great at sitting and being reverent. Andrew has been nominated as the one to help him learn a little more about how to be reverent. Last week they left Sacrament meeting about midway through, and went out in the hall. They were going to practice sitting quietly, so as not to reinforce that if you're loud, you just get to go run the halls. Both of them, however, just ended up having nap-time on the couch, all cuddled up together. :) Too cute.

YW Leadership Training

I know you were all worried. How'd it go? Did the soup turn out? How was the bread? What about the actual training?

Given that I almost died when I taught YW a few weeks ago, you'd think I might die planning a stake dinner/training event. Where I have to do the training.

Oh contrar.

It all went off without a hitch.

Tiffany (My first counselor, AKA right hand lady) as always was a creative genius and did amazing things with flowers from the flower farm she works at, and did other amazing things I can't even begin to imagine with super simple scraps of fabric all sewn together and little flags she made with her six year old.

My second counselor and secretary, also incredible. It's so nice to know that I can delegate things out, and when we all show up together, it's going to great. Everyone does their part, and we all have really different strengths, but we all compliment each other.

So nice.

My biggest contribution (beyond the training) was mastering hard crusted bread. And I did. And since that was the only thing I needed to physically contribute, that is the only thing I actually took a picture of. But isn't it pretty?! I made six of those puppies.

Now only to survive speaking in stake conference on Sunday.

Youth Conference Part Two

Tiffany continues to chronicle her creativity here.

Seriously, creative genius.

Youth Conference!

I could reblog, it, but my first counselor has blogged her version of our Youth Conference here. She is our creative director at all times. SERIOUSLY. She is Incredible!

Our theme this year was "Disconnect to Reconnect," encouraging the youth to disconnect from so many of their technilogical distractions, and figure out how they can reconnect with their families, friends, the Lord, and with themselves.

Probably, I'll leave the blogging to Tiff. (Thanks, Tiff!) I didn't take a single picture. I was in charge of the megaphone. She was in charge of the camera.

No Insurance Hits Home

First, I want to say I've been an advocate of the healthcare bill since day one. It's not perfect. But I see first hand the effects of no insurance everyday. And SOMETHING has to be done. And the bill is a start. That being said:

I went to find a sister on my visiting teaching list today.

I'd never met her, but I'd made some fresh cupcakes for Valentines Day and figured it was a pretty good excuse to share some love.

I grabbed ALL the cupcakes for some reason as I walked out the door, instead of my planned small plate.

I drove to West-Baltimore and found her house. Walked to the front door and thought, "I bet she's moved. What if this isn't even her house?"

But it was, and when she answered the door she looked sad. I introduced myself and told her I brought her some cupcakes, as I showed her a plate with only a few on it. Asked how she was.

Not well, came the response.

Her daughter had died yesterday. She didn't know the cause of death. She had been sick, but they didn't have any insurance, so she couldn't take her to the doctor. They came home yesterday and she was dead.

Suddenly the cupcakes seemed inaduquate, and three little heads popped around her waist. We talked. I went to my car and got more cupcakes for each of the five little mouths this woman was now left to feed, with plenty of cakes to leave for later.

I'll bring dinner and another visit over on Tuesday. And some more love.  So grateful for a church that has a program  that helps us take care of one another.

But I wish I could bring some understanding for the heartbreaking death of her daughter.

Meetings

I go to a lot of meetings these days. Not activities; Meetings.

I've spent three of the last six nights in meetings. That are very long.

Heaven Bound

Ways to get to Heaven:

1. Be in charge of a Youth Regional Dance.
2. If someone projectile vomits in the bathroom, you clean it up.

One is pretty sure fire, but if you're worried, just lock it in with number two.

Shocking

I shouldn't be surprised, but I always am.

I never understand anything at the Spanish Branch. It surprises every time. You'd think I'd remember by now: they speak a different language. That's whey they're here.

Not an expert.

I was sustained as the Stake Young Women's President yesterday.

Talk about in over my head. I felt overwhelmed when I was asked to do this in June. But yesterday when it actually happened, I felt REALLY overwhelmed.

Today I was asked to talk to a group of Young Women this coming Wednesday night about "how to be a good wife."

I'm the wrong person to talk about this. Being a wife is hard. I don't think it is for everyone, but it's really hard for me. And before I got married, no one talked about how hard "wifing" is. Someone really should talk about it. Is that my job tomorrow? To talk about how hard it is?

I'm in WAY over my head. Doesn't it seem like someone with a little more "wife" experience should cover this topic?

Missionaries.

Sometimes I blog just to have memories, not because I think anyone out there cares. That's what this post is.

Andrew was the Ward Mission Leader in the singles ward, and we just loved the missionaries there. The missionaries cover the singles ward, and the spanish branch....not two demographics that feed the elders very often.

We have loved continuing to have them over for dinner once a week. While we're gone over the summer, Elder Wooley will go home and Elder Hammer will likely be transfered, but we've loved getting to know them. We had them over tonight for one last hurrah.

And here is a picture of one of the investigators from when Andrew was WML. Larry just got baptized a few weeks ago, and asked that Andrew baptize him.

And here we are with Elder Wooley and Elder Hilstead. Hilstead went home in May, but we still have the missionaries number programmed in our phone as "Elder Hilstead" because we loved him that much.

Lovely Sunday

We had a lovely day today. It was our last day in the Nursery, and the kids were so cute and good. There is an adorable family that generally sits behind us at church. There are four little boys all wear matching suits and the little girl has gorgeous curly brown hair. Their dad/grandpa is Elder Anderson of the 12. There are five little (adorable!) kids all under the age of 9, and their dad (who can't be older than 30) is often gone on high council assignments.

They invited us over for dinner today, and of course we couldn't pass it up! I'm not sure how people raise kids. It's a mystery to me. But I'd like mine to be like theirs. They all sat and waited until everyone had their food (including dressing on salads) before beginning to eat. No one ate dessert until mom was seated. And when it was over, their second grader looked at her mom, thanked her for dinner, told her it was delicious, and asked to be excused. It was such a nice way to spend two hours today.

After dinner we went for a short walk to the tulip park by Hopkins. SO GORGEOUS! And now off to bed before 10. All in all a successful Sunday. :)

Dating Pool

So I was going over some quarterly numbers for the ward tonight.

The Elders Quorum had an average attendance in January of 5. It skyrocketed to 12 in April.

This is my dating pool, folks. Jealous?

The Hampden Hotties Strike Again

The girls of Hampden at the ward ice-skating activity Saturday night. If you weren't excited to be my friend before, I bet you are now.

Visiting Teaching

Going to church here in Thailand has been such an interesting experience. The language barrier is huge, but so many Thai people are so eager to talk to me that we've really talked quite a bit. There is a lot of small talk, Thai's practicing their English and I've attempted to use what little Thai I know. Some of them know English quite well, and have really enjoyed having another English tongue to talk with.

One in particular is King. He is about 20, I would guess. He is a counselor in the district young men's presidency, which extends up into Laos. There are no proselytizing missionaries in Laos, and from what I could gather it's fairly dangerous for members to be very public about their religion.

In our second conversation he asked me what my calling was at home, and I told him. He immediately wanted to talk about visiting and home teaching. He asked what our numbers are like, and we talked about how in both of our circumstances, in both Thailand and America, the programs are often not executed as well as they should be. He talked about how he often has to sheepishly look away when asked if he has done his visits.

He then looked at me and explained that in Laos, where they aren't allowed to even where suits to go home teach because they will be caught and get in trouble, their unit is consistently 100 percent. He told me about how the trials of these faithful members have truly helped them to remember the Lord. He then asked a question that has really made me think. He asked why that in a place where it is practically forbidden, the saints are able to complete such simple tasks, while he and I cannot when given absolute freedom?

And then I walked back to the bus. And all I could picture where these beautiful Laotian saints, walking to the neighbors to home teach, in their everyday clothes, so as not to be caught.

And realized I need to do better.

Church

I made it to church all by myself today.
On public transportation.
Without a translator or a map.
This is big news.

Two Firsts

We spent most of Saturday morning at a local orphanage for girls. The minute we pulled up, all the girls ran and immediately adopted one of us. I was adopted by Mam, and she spent the day with me, playing games, getting piggy back rides, teaching me Thai and introducing me to all of her friends.

I took about an hour break from Mam, and went to play with some of the babies. They were initially scared to death of us, but eventually warmed up and allowed us to play with them and feed them.

It's amazing to watch Thai people in general, but especially these girls at the orphanage. They have so little, and yet are so incredibly happy and willing to give. There are a lot of lessons to be learned here, and I'm excited to have some time with these incredible people.

First number two. I made it to church today! Thanks Dad, for finding the mission office number! That was the key to finding someone who could speak English to tell me where and when I should go to church. It took a little bit of orchestrating, and a lot of talking in Thai and English with a lot of translators, but I finally made it there and back. The missionaries translated all of church for me, and we wrapped up the meeting with a ward potluck. The branch members were all eager to practice their English, and I was eager to eat their food. Altogether, it was a win-win situation.

About the comments, THANK YOU! I still can't see what I've posted, and I can't see your comments on the blog. However, I've set the comments so I moderate them and I get an email when comments are made. That way, the email lets me know the post went up. Sorry that it's a little delayed and you all can't see them for a day or so.