pinch me!

Our service on Sunday's almost seems too good to be true sometimes. It is hard, really hard but comes with such great experiences and rewards.
I missed most of sacrament meeting cleaning the nursery and primary room. For some reason every week it looks like a tornado hit before we get there. My local ward has been collecting toys for the nursery which needs a whole new makeover. So it was fun to bring in the new toys and clean out the old. A few women got together to buy a nice wooden kitchen set, which Jeff will have the YM set up during the week. The kids will be so excited!
One of the highlights in our ward is having the visitors stand and introduce themselves. On man was visiting from Trinidad and asked if he could perform a musical number because he was so touched by our meeting. His song even included actions.

For primary today we took the entire primary (12 kids) to Walter Reed Army Hospital to visit a member of our ward who is a patient there. His story is INCREDIBLE. His wife is young and so AMAZING! The kids sang our primary theme song for the year and we all had tears in our eyes. I took a photo of his wife as we were singing and the look on her face was beautiful. He has been a patient for 9 months. He shared his feelings about Jesus Christ and keeping the commandments. His words were wonderful. Jeff brought a boy from the young men and gave him the sacrament. The children were silent (miracle).
Each child shook his hand as we left and told them their names. We all said that we would love to do this once a month. It is a blessing we are only miles from the hospital and that we only have a small amount of kids. Some days this seems like an obstacle but today it was a blessing. I seriously felt like I needed to be pinched , like I was dreaming, to have this blessing of being able to serve has changed my family.
I just have to put in a little plug for Chanel's efforts to get flag quilt for the soldiers. Thank you to all of you who have sent them to my friend, it has been so meaningful to her and they will be passed out on Veteran's day. You still have time to make one for Christmas.

photo taken last summer.

We were again so very blessed on our way home. Today started our journey of taking two cars downtown as Jeff needs to be there 2 hours early now. So on my way home with the girls, I went home through Potomac to try to catch my friend and marathon motivator, Emily who was home for a day and flying home back to Massachutes. I raced as fast as I could to just see her for a minute. We ended up seeing each other on the road as she was on her way to the airport. I flipped my car around and she ran out of her car and on the side of the road I squeezed the guts out of her while I cried! I owe her so much for motivating me to run this marathon and her believing in me. I saw her for only 30 seconds but it was a highlight of my day. She said she had a gift for me so I ended up going to her parents house to pick it up. There I ran into her entire family who ended up sending me home with an entire Sunday meal - the works. I didn't have any dinner prepared upon our return and it was such a blessing.

I feel that just when I seem like I can't do much more of this service downtown, an awesome Sunday like today refuels me.