Baptism

This is the talk I gave in church this morning.  I typically wouldn't post it here, but I typically don't write my talks out word for word either, and they're typically not finished two weeks in advance, and it's way too long to copy into my journal, so you don't have to read it, mostly I'm just posting it so I have someplace to find it later if I need to remember it...

What a great privilege to get to prepare a talk on baptism.  It has been so nice this month to hear the principles of this amazing ordinance and to re-solidify the commitments made when I was baptized so many years ago.  

We moved here 57 days ago from Allen, TX.

I only know that because I used to have a countdown app on my phone with a picture of our house on it that would count the number of days until we got to Birmingham.  I noticed the other day that the app keeps counting even after the event, so now instead of saying however many days UNTIL Birmingham, it says, however many days SINCE Birmingham.   Which is an interesting perspective to keep in mind.  I get frustrated sometimes that things are not moving along as quickly as I would like them to.  Rooms aren't completed, plants aren't growing, relationships aren't thriving the way I think they should be after what seems like a sufficient amount of time.  BUT if I remember that 57 days isn't even two months, 57 days is barely a summer, it's barely any time at all, and if I count the things I CAN do and HAVE finished, it makes me calm down a little.  Craig and I already have callings.  After today, I will have already spoken in Sacament, which I think will take me off the Bishop's radar for several years.  I've already gotten to know the YW and so many great people in this ward.  We've already established such a great relationship with the sister missionaries and LOVE having them in our home.  I can finally remember all the landmarks so I can get TO and FROM this building via Black Jack Rd without getting lost, even in the DARK!  That's a BIG deal.  

If I had had a BAPTISM countdown app in 1993, it would now say...8,534 days SINCE your Baptism, which is 23 years, 4 months, and 11 days.  If I've been on the earth for 16,958 days, then it happens to work out that the very day we moved to Alabama is the exact point when my time as a member of the church exceeded my time as a nonmember. That's kind of a cool coincidence, I think.  And since I don't believe in coincidences, then I guess it means I need to do something with that little piece of information. What an amazing perspective to have not just when you think about baptism and the covenants made, but about what has been done with the half a lifetime I've spent as covenanted members of this church.  

Do I still feel the same way about the Church as I did on the day I was baptized?  In March 1993,  I was excited.  I was hopeful for the changes that this step would bring in my new life. I have to say that part of that hope included a cute redhead I had had my heart set on for the better part of 7 years or so, but even without a guarantee that he would have been included in the package, I would have jumped into the waters of baptism gladly and happily.  I loved the Church.  I loved everything about it.  I loved the gospel and I loved the Prophet.  I loved the programs, and the Book of Mormon.  But what I was converted to and what I was missing in my own life was the state of relationships that I saw in the people around me.  Sometimes what you see on Sunday isn't exactly reality, but I made it mine.  I absolutely LOVED the close, happy families that I saw both in Craig's family and in all of the families in that first ward that embraced me when I was a newly investigating teenager.  I have come to know those families that loved and nurtured me in those early years, and other families that have nurtured and been an example to me in the years since, and I know now that what I was drawn to then was REAL and SINCERE.  Those families had what I longed for and what I have desired and attained in my own family in the years since my baptism. 

That's not exactly the best reason to become a member of the Church and I can tell you I absolutely did not understand at the time I put on that white jumpsuit what it meant to "take upon me the name of Jesus Christ."  But I do now.  

I did not, at 23 years old, have the ability to know how that one decision to step into the waters of baptism would change my life or how much joy it would bring to me and to my future family.  But I do now.  

Is this Church and your membership in it still wonderful to you?   This week I read a talk by that same title, by Bishop Gerald Causse, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric.  Is It Still Wonderful To You?  If it sometimes doesn't feel wonderful, then let me suggest three things that Elder Causse outlines to help us make it wonderful to us again...

1. Never tire of discovering or rediscovering the truths of the gospel.
"Do you remember the first time you read a verse of scripture and felt as if the Lord was speaking to you personally?"  
"Can you recall the first time you felt the sweet influence of the HG come over you, perhaps before you even realized it was the HG?" 
It is possible to have ongoing, sacred, spiritual moments like this.  Look for them.  Make them a priority in your life.  

"And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?" (Alma 5:26) 

2.  Anchor your faith in the plain and simple truths of the gospel.  
Go to all the meetings at church.  Listen to the GD lesson that has been planned and prayed over on your behalf.  Invite the missionaries into your home and have them practice their lessons with your family.  Read the Conference talks.  Have daily scripture study.  

"Brothers and sisters, without reservation, I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of Mormon, regardless of how many times you previously have read it, there will come into your hearts an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord.  There will come a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to his commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God."  - Gordon B. Hinckley

3. Seek for and cherish the companionship of the HG.  
"When we have the Spirit with us, our spiritual senses are sharpened and our memory is kindled so we cannot forget the miracles and signs we have witnessed."

I testify that the work in which we are engaged is a marvelous work and a wonder.  As we follow Jesus Christ, God bears witness to us "with signs and divers miracles, and gifts of the HG, according to his own will."  I bear witness that the wonders and marvels of the gospel are anchored in the greatest of all of God's gifts - the Savior's atonement.  This is the perfect gift of love that the Father and the Son, united in purpose, have offered to each one of us."

I testify that there is much work to do, and that by securing our own testimonies and seeking each day for the miraculous and wonderful things of the gospel that we have already seen in our own lives, we will have the ability to not only secure our own testimonies more fully, but also to enrich our enthusiasm and love of the gospel and then be more willing and able to go out and rescue those among us who are seeking those same wondrous and miraculous things in their own lives.  

Do not be complacent about this work or this magnificent gift we have been given.  Treasure it.  Seek to magnify it daily in your life.  And then let us find ways to share it with those around us so that they too may more fully enjoy the peace and comfort that only the gospel of Jesus Christ can provide. 

I did not fully understand the covenants I was making at the time even though my complete and utter joy when I stepped out of that font was sincere and heartfelt.  But I do now.  

I did not know then that baptism was only the first step in a long, challenging and continuous  process of growing and trusting the Lord.  But I do now.  

I did not know then what it would mean to be willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, But I have since gained greater experience and a greater testimony of those things.  

I can tell you that this gospel and that decision are still wonderful to me.  And as my perspective grows broader with age and experience, they become more wonderful to me.  More now even than they were on that day in March 1993.  I testify that it is possible to have our testimonies grow stronger within us.  It is possible to have those baptismal covenants written on our hearts.  It is possible to have a blazing love of the gospel that continues to burn brightly every day.  It is possible to take upon us the name of Christ and have that forever seared upon our hearts, and therefore be changed into new creatures.  I testify that that is the hope and the opportunity that the atonement offers.  I testify that that is the joy we find not just on the day of our baptism, but every week after when we renew our covenants as we take the Sacrament.  I testify that that is the desire of our Father in Heaven, for us to find absolute and complete JOY in the covenants we make and keep when we are baptized into His church.  I testify that this Church is true.  That the Savior is at the head of it.  And that there is no greater peace or joy that we can find in this life except by making and keeping those sacred covenants.

Weekly Update

Um...I have nothing complete to report on.  It's been a truly frustrating week of running a lot of errands and accomplishing next to nothing...at least that's what I thought for the other five days of this week while I complained and cried about how long everything takes to finish and sounded a whole lot like a 5-year-old.  


But this morning, as I walked around this house, that will in a few hours be filled with my family, I thought about how amazing it is that we are as settled as we already are considering that we really haven't been here very long.  I'm pretty sure it took a heck of a lot longer to get settled into the other houses we've moved into in the past.  

So, fortunately for you, you missed all the complaining and crying because I deleted all those posts, and I'm just going to skip to the part where I stop being a spoiled brat and start being grateful for what I have and for what we've done this week.  

1.  The kids are registered for school!  


They don't have schedules yet.  That will be yet another step we'll have to complete next week, but they are officially registered in both the high school and the middle school.  Hallelujah...it's been a long and tedious process and I'm so grateful the hard part is over.

2.  This enormous project has been started...  

Here's where we got the inspiration...

That's the three story Tower of Faces in the Holocaust Museum.  It is incredibly solemn and reverent.  I don't think ours will have quite that feeling, but we are planning to fill the entire wall from floor to ceiling.  Currently, we're at the part where the tall ladder is too tall and the short ladder is too short, so we'll have to solve that tiny problem before we can continue.  But we've made progress, and that's a good thing.  


3.  We have a front door that is more inviting than it was last week.  

I have a friend in Allen who had a massive initialed doormat on her front porch and I loved it, so she sent me the link to the website so I could buy my own for this house.  Because this porch is oversized and therefore needed an oversized doormat, they were super expensive!  I really didn't want to pay $124 for something people were just going to wipe their feet on.  So I kept looking.  Birmingham happens to have a boatload of bargain/thrift stores and I happened to find one that gets the overstocked doormats from that very company I was going to order from.  If you're willing to dig through a bunch of W's and Z's, you can save a ton of money!  
wreath...Kohls clearance $12
doormat...Southeastern Salvage $22

4.  More thrift store treasures.
Half the reason this furnishing and finishing process is taking so long is because I want what I want, but I don't want to pay full price for it.  The thought of buying furniture from an actual furniture store makes me cringe a little bit inside.  It definitely takes a lot more hunting, a lot more patience, and a little more creativity to be a bargain hunter.  But then when those treasures appear, holy cow! is it the most fulfilling thing ever.  I found a cute thrift store near the church the other day and bought this perfect little table for the basement guest room for $14.  

5.  Things are growing.
I planted these three little herb jars and put them on my windowsill because I saw it on Pinterest.  And guess what!  This morning, I saw baby basil sprouting up in there!  

So, while each room may not look exactly the way I've envisioned them in my head and while there may still be lots of projects to complete, there's also a lot of progress happening.  And where we are is complete enough to have the cute sister missionaries over once a week, and a few out of town visitors drop in every now and then, and my family come from Scottsboro to have dinner with us.

And I'm pretty sure this perfect little baby cousin of mine didn't care one bit that the gallery wall isn't finished or that only 33% of my little plants are showing signs of life.  

Hola! from Germany

Holy poop! so much has happened this week I can't even think!  

First things first, it's not winter anymore!!  It's spring!  It has rained almost every single day this week.  So crazy!  

So to start the week out, Tuesday we had district meeting and then we traveled to Munich for tausch!  I came back to Augsburg with Sister Pugh, who is such an awesome ball full of energy!  We went to a family's house for dinner, and they're from England, so yay we got to speak English!!  It was super fun, and for some reason we got onto the topic of my Hawaiian heritage, and then I told them all of the random stories that I knew, and they thought it was so cool!  On our way back home, Sister Pugh and I found some half wild reindeer, and I guess she's an animal whisperer or something because she had them eating out of her hand in like five seconds! 

Wednesday we had a super awkward service project at a less-active's house, and then we had an appointment with a cute old lady in our ward :)  She taught us how to French braid the "real French" way.  Still don't know what that means.  Then we went back to Munich to switch back, and Sister Abram and I were reunited!  I think I've gotten super attached to her, because I missed her SO much!  That night we had an appointment with Familie Kern, we ate dinner, played soccer, played with some cute fluffy bunnies, almost had a water fight (that has been rescheduled for tonight) and then we had a dessert competition!  Their family made a dessert, and we made one, and I literally felt like I was in an iron chef competition! So intense!  They made pineapple-caramel ice cream, and we made Frozen Christmas mixed with berries (it was weird but we were just working with what we had) and luckily we tied! Super fun :)

Thursday we did a lot of area book work!  This is seriously taking forever.  We have to type everything from the papers in our apartment into our iPads, and because of the European privacy laws we have to be extremely vague and change almost everything, and because it's just a test run for European missions right now, there are so many bugs and problems with the app!  But at least I don't have to wear a skirt when we are just sitting at home typing stuff :)

After our area book stuff we went to a really depressing appointment with an older lady, and then we went dooring for a little bit!  BEST DAY DOORING EVER. SOME RANDOM GIRL GAVE US CUCUMBERS!  

We knocked on her door, she said she was interested, took a Book of Mormon, said she would try to come to church sometime soon, also gave us a referral (her mom) who would also be interested, and then she ran into her kitchen and came back with two cucumbers for us because we are "schöne mädchen"  (beautiful girls) #yes.  We popped our cucumbers into our backpacks, doored a little more, and then went to yet another old lady's house for another appointment!  There are a lot of old ladies we visit here haha.  Frau Mügel is 97, and technically our investigator, but we are just preparing her for the next life because she probably won't be able to get baptized in this life. She is so lovely, and still very lively!  We watched some Jesus videos with her, and then she started showering Sister Abram and I with gifts (this is a usual thing here in Augsburg.) We got watches, bracelets, necklaces, and she gave both of us like engagement rings!  I was scared she was just giving away her heritage there because they were ECHT fancy rings!! But no matter how much we protested she made us keep them! 

Friday was full of studying and planning, and then we had a dinner appointment with a lady in our ward who has literally travelled everywhere! She showed us all her photo albums of all her trips to Greece, and Thailand, etc. and holy cow my travel bug has turned into a travel parasite!!  I just want to travel the world!! So yeah, had to pray really hard that night to get over my trunkiness. 

Saturday was our ward Sommerfest! We went to Kuhsee (Cow Lake) and had a BBQ and played with all the kids and talked to a lot of members and non members :) it was great! Then we came home for the rest of the day to do studies and area book work.  

SUNDAY WAS AWESOME. We had our investigator, Herr Mach, come to church for the first time and he loved it!!  And a he brought a friend, who is now our new investigator :)  We are visiting with him this coming Friday and he's making us fufu, so I'm a little scared!!  After church we went to Markus and Alexa's, just the greatest members here in Augsburg, and they literally live in a haunted mansion. Cold, dark, weird smelling, cobwebs and all!  After we ate and visited a little, they took us church hopping, and we got to see some pretty cool churches :)  Europe has such old, and beautiful history!  It's awesome!  Today for pday we were planning on renting bikes and doing some more church hopping, but that didn't work out so we spontaneously decided to go to the zoo!  Best. Decision. Ever.  I loooove the zooooo! All the cute little animals! It was a fun day :)

Many of you have heard about the scary things that happened in Munich this weekend. Luckily we live about 45 minutes away from Munich, and all the missionaries in the city are safe, but it was still a super scary weekend!  I would ask you to please keep the families of those who were killed in your prayers, because it's just such a tragedy.  On Friday night, while I was having a little panic attack, I asked myself why things like this are happening! And more and more frequently!  Europe is a scary place right now, and so is the rest of the world!  Well, the thought came to me of the joy that the Nephites had when Christ visited them in the Americas.  And then I thought of the horror and terror they had to face before that could happen.  And then I thought of the joy we will all feel when Christ comes to the earth again, and all the things that have to happen first before that prophecy can be fulfilled! Wars, rumors of wars, bloodshed, tears, nations against nations, destruction upon the whole face of the earth. These are troubling times, but ITS BECAUSE WE ARE GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE SECOND COMING. HOW EXCITING IS THAT!  Bad things have to happen first, but we can have the peace and confidence in the fact that we have the gospel :)  We know who we are, why we are here, where we are going, and that's more than a lot of people. The next step is to share it with others so they can feel the same!! Which brings me to my next point... MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK. I cannot stress this enough, people. I am not just part of a throng of missionaries in some random place in the world, and you are not just someone who is allowed to sit and read (or skim, or not read) my emails, and think about those random missionaries and go to their farewells and homecomings, and be happy for them. That stuff is good.  BUT MISSIONARY WORK IS BETTER. You don't have to have a name tag to do it. Share what you believe online, tell people what you did over the weekend (*cough *cough um CHURCH???), be an example of a disciple of Christ, just do the small and simple things!  One sign of true conversion is wanting to share the gospel, so start converting yourself and start sharing the gospel!  Make a goal, set a date, give a Book of Mormon away, make new friends, talk about the gospel, invite people to church. There is so much you can and should do. It makes our job out here so much easier, you don't even know!!  Missionary work isn't just tracting :) it's just being a normal friendly Mormon, that's all :)

I love you all, and wish you the best week ever!

Liebe Grüße,

Sister Thunell

Girls Camp...and JOY!

Yes, it is JOYous to have half of my family back home with me after an entire week without them.  But the JOY part of that title up there is actually a totally different kind of JOY...the kind that lives in Allen and that we've all missed in our lives since we left her there two months ago.  

Joy texted me shortly after we moved here with a plan to surprise the girls by catching a ride to Alabama with some friends during the week of July 18th.  I was so sad to have to tell her that Megan and Emma wouldn't even be available to see her because they would be at Girls' Camp.  But somehow everything worked out and I was able to pick Joy up yesterday from her friends' house in Arley, AL about 2 hours from here.  Yep, it's been a week of a HECK of a lot of driving and unfortunately not very much free time to take any pictures...but at least I now know where I want to drive BACK to in the future.

I'm not the best at surprises, especially when there's planning involved, and holy cow! this one was hard to keep a secret from my girls who ask a TON of questions and want to know the details of everything before it happens.  Where in the world do they get that from?  I had to make sure I had enough room in the van to bring Joy back from Camp along with all the other girls I had already committed to drive.  I had to work out plans with my mom who was actually supposed to come HERE for the week.  And on Monday night, we will have to get Joy back to Arley, which will mean another 4 hours of driving to look forward to.

But...this morning, seeing this when we walked into Camp, made all the marathon driving, hoop-jumping and secret-keeping totally worth it...

 

They were completely surprised and SO happy!

Joy and I spent a little more time at Camp today than we intended to.  We were both so excited to get there that we left the house this morning at 6:30 and got to Camp Hulaco in time to finish breakfast with the girls around 8:15.  Then we helped them clean their cabins and load the van.  Our ward was also in charge of cleaning the showers in both bathrooms...there are FOUR of them...we did not help with that.  And finally at 11:00 everyone met in the pavilion for the awards ceremony and final thoughts from the leaders.  By the time everything was over and girls were loaded in vans, it was after 12:00 and people were hungry again.  With a 90 minute drive home, we definitely needed to stop and feed them, which put us at the church to reunite girls and stuff with their parents at about 2:45.  It's normally a 20-minute drive to our house from the church when you take the back way and you don't get lost.   We got home at 3:30.  And then showers and laundry (which isn't even close to finished)...and now it's 10:30 and I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.

During all that in-between time this morning, though, I did manage to get some great pictures of the girls in our ward...and when I found out that a photography release was included on all the forms the girls' parents had signed before camp, I took a bazillion pictures of the whole stake.  Which I will be submitting to the church.  Hallelujah, cuz that calling has definitely NOT been magnified this week...

...that whole picture part of my day almost made me wish I had been at camp for the entire week...no nevermind, it didn't at all make me wish that.  I'm pretty happy with the week I had.  :)

and best of all...baby birds!!  

I am so grateful today for the many, many hands (which have not yet had to be mine) who spend countless hours in every place we've ever lived, making Girls' Camp a wonderful experience for ALL the girls.  This was a long, HOT week for everyone, but they were all still smiling and happy and singing songs at the end of it, and that is sign of some great leaders. 

Megan and Emma are so happy to finally be back home, and they're even happier about the unexpected JOY-filled weekend they're going to have.  What a great end to a really great week.  

Reassurance

There are tender mercies and then there are blessings that fall out of the sky just when you need them.  I don't think the two things are the same.  

This morning I drove about two hours to pick up the JOY-ous surprise I have for the girls when they get back from camp tomorrow (no, it's not a puppy...) and on my way home, my sister in law, Meg, texted me about the shooting in Munich and asked if I had heard anything from Savannah.

All the way home, I tried not to think about the details I didn't have, and I tried not to worry.

"Of course she's fine..."

"It's Friday, surely there would be no reason for her to be in Munich and certainly not in a mall at 6:00 on a Friday night..."

When I got home, I took care of the JOY-ful priorities but kept an eye on my phone, waiting for an email from Savannah's Mission President saying that everything was fine.  

I was a tiny wreck for a couple of hours, but with a house guest and no information, there wasn't much I could do but try to just keep it together.  

I snuck in the bathroom for a minute and said a prayer that ALL of the missionaries were safe including President Kohler and his family.  The mission home is in Munich.  And according to the news I kept reading, the shooter/s had not yet been captured.  
Note to self: Stop reading the news!  

The prayer worked and I instantly knew that Savannah was fine.  But I still wanted to KNOW...you know?  I just wanted something certain before I let myself go about the rest of my day.  

When I checked the Missionary Moms FB page, I found this...

Is it weird to say that I could totally feel the power of that collective prayer at 12:40?  I have no idea how many of the moms even saw that FB post or were participating at that time, but I know at least two of us were, and I felt the strength and comfort of those united efforts.  And then 20 minutes later, at 2:00 Birmingham time, 1:00 Utah time, and 8:00 Munich time, this email came from President Kohler...  

I honestly can't even express how much love I have for that Mission President and for all of those missionaries.  My sister in law said in her text, "I can't remember if Savannah is in Munich or not...hopefully not."  But really, even if she wasn't, I would have worried about ALL of the missionaries anyway.  I have no idea how it's possible to love people so much and feel so connected to people I've never even met before.  But I do and I am...to the missionaries, their moms, and to the people in the areas where Savannah has served for the past 9 months.  My heart breaks for the people who were in that mall today and for their families.  And I know the missionaries there will be heartbroken, too.  I hope the Spirit is able to comfort their hearts tonight and in the coming days.  

How grateful I am for the power of prayer, for the collective efforts of missionary moms, and for the awesome missionaries serving in the Alpine German-speaking mission and around the world.  I have an absolute testimony that Heavenly Father is aware of not just those of us who happened to be praying today, but of every single person affected by the crazy terrorist acts that seem to be happening so much more frequently around the world lately; every worried, lonely, or breaking heart.  He has the ability to calm and sustain all of us.  And He has this all under control.  

Not Waiting

When the people you love are all off doing things without you for the entire week, you can choose to sit at home and watch movies and mope around...or you can get the heck out of the house and do something else.  

Craig and McKay are having the most amazing week fishing in Idaho and Montana with Grandpa and the uncles and a couple of cousins.  

The girls are at the most perfect Girls Camp I have ever seen with the nicest YW President I have ever met.  I had the chance to drive one of the van loads of girls up on Monday morning and when we stopped for lunch, instead of checking and checking and checking for emails from my missionary, I decided to put the phone down and do what my missionary would do and just CONNECT with the person sitting right in front of me.  And oh, was it worth it!  She was delightful.  She was refreshingly forthcoming about the details of her life and I laughed hysterically and cried all in the same 20 minute conversation.  That's a sure sign of a riveting new friendship.  I am so looking forward to working with her in this new calling.  

And so while everyone else is doing super fun things, I decided to go to Scottsboro, AL to visit my family.  I have an aunt and uncle who live there and four cousins.  My mom happens to fly in to visit them a couple of times a year from Hawaii, and guess what...she's here this month!  

The great thing about NOT WAITING is that the days still go by, only it feels like they go a little faster and a little more enjoyably because I haven't been sitting around counting them.  It's still been the same number of days since I dropped people off at the airport and at Girls' Camp, and I still have the same number of days until they all come home.  But this time I have tons of stuff to TELL them when they get back, instead of just doing that thing where I listen to all their adventures and marvel at how awesome their lives are.  

My life has been pretty awesome this week, too.

I drove on a BRIDGE this week...over water!  TWICE!  Once by accident and once by choice!  Who knew there was SO much water in Alabama?  I drove 6 hours all over Alabama and I have 4 more hours of driving left to do before this week is over.  I took long ways and back roads and played extended versions of stuff and sang really, really loud.  I hung out a TON with my mom!  I also hung out with my cousins and met their cute families and held a super fat, super adorable baby.  I had lunch with the Chief of Police (who happens to be my uncle) and his amazing wife.  I bought furniture for my house and hauled it inside all by myself...very creatively.  I learned how to make Hawaiian food that I never bothered to learn how to make when I lived at home and ate it every day of my life.  I survived living with two giant dogs and five cats for three whole days (unfortunately Zyrtec can only do so much, though, and after 72 hours it was time to go back home and breathe my animal free air...)  

I took a few pictures...but some things I just saw and they were breathtakingly beautiful and I didn't bother to capture them.  I just had to enjoy this beautiful part of the world all by myself because there wasn't a place to pull over and shoot it or a spare minute to blog about it or post it anywhere on social media.  

So instead of doing what I usually do, and sitting here writing and reflecting on my life, I just decided to LIVE IT this week.  And that was a good thing...much, much better than sitting and waiting for people to get home.