There and Back Again: Week 22

There is something to said about being "Silly". I think that, within reason, being silly is a great way to lighten ones life and what better time to do that than your birthday! Elder Cullen turned 71 this week. YAH...I just never imagined my husband being in his 70s...it just seemed so far away and now...BAM. Here we are. At our FM Devotional one of the missionaries made him a balloon hat that was twisted to look like a candle. There was another elder who also had a birthday last week. Elder Cullen planned out with the balloon making sister missionary that he would pop it, so she gave him three.

Happy Birthday to YOU! POP! Happy Birthday to YOU! POP!Happy Birthday dear ELDERS! Happy Birthday to YOU! POP! It was hilarious and made everyone laugh. A silly/fun way to start the day. Elder Cullen also insisted on having a food adventure for his birthday. It started out normal...homemade yogurt with unsweetened applesauce, nuts, and cinnamon. Then lunch was homemade gormet hamburgers and homemade fries. Delicious. Then DINNER was SILLY. Can you guess what it was?

FROG LEGS!!! I looked up a french recipe. We bought the legs from a "regular" grocery store that had an exotic meat section which included alligator, tuna steaks, bison, frog legs, etc. Guess what? They tasted like stringy chicken. lol It grossed me out and brightened my week because they LOOKED so silly I was giggling off and on all week about how silly they looked. It made the week more fun. So there's a time to be silly and a time to be respectul and clear minded. My oldest, Autumn, and her husband just found out that they are being moved to Knoxville, TN. Far away from family on either side. SO disappointing for us, but God has an adventure for them and now we get to visit a state we have never been to before. We drove up to their Iowa City house on Sunday just to spend a few hours with them and process the news.

This week I had a few opportunities for some crucial conferontations and conversations. If you have an expectation of someone and it is not met, met, or exceeded and you don't acknowlege it, it can damage your relationship with that person. For example: I was expecting you to finish fixing such and such by Tues. so I could blah blah blah. That did not happen and you did not contact me to let me know what happened. What can we do to make sure blah blah get's done on time? OR I love that you promised to call about so and so and you did it! THANK YOU. OR...I was expecting such and such to be done and you did it a day early and it's perfect! WOW! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I love it when that happens. I was on both sides of hard and contentious confrontations throughout this week. As I saw where I was headed, or being taken, I immediately started praying in my head for Heavenly Father to keep satan away from us so we could work this out well without his contentious and lying spirit around making things worse. I also prayed for guidence on how to speak and what words to speak and tone to use so the issues could be resolved and the relationship preserved. And I prayed for my enemies to have their hearts softened so we could be friends. Thank heavens for the silly parts of my week because this week could have been very very rough. I believe angels guarded everyone involved. All potentially relationship damaging situations resolved and I believe we were left stronger and more trusting and trusted. The greatest miracles in life are the miracles of a changed heart. If you want to learn more about crucial confrontations or crucial conversations...you can buy those books with that title, or go to youtube and watch the crucial learning videos, or the B.S. Guys (Behavioral Science Guys). TOOLS for Work, Home, and Play that help you to be more Christlike. Also I found a GREAT QUoTE about angels.

LAST but not LEAST...today we hunted geodes and that was VERY VERY peaceful and fun to be in nature, hear the birds, the babbling creek dancing and tripping over rocks and whooshing over waterfalls with the warm sun overhead and just me and Reg being best friends together. Thank you Heavenly Father for a great week.

Cant wait for Conference NEXT week! Come listen to a real prophet and apostles teach messages from Jesus Christ.....https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng