Regional Dance Festival

Yesterday the youth ages 14 - 18 in our Region participated in a Dance Festival.  For 3 months most of our Wednesday night activities have been spent learning the dances.  Our church is divided into Wards, Stakes and Regions.  Each encompasses a geographical area.  A ward has around 450 members, a Stake somewhere around 5000, and a Region is composed of 6 or 7 Stakes.  Our stake had several hundred youth dancing so there must have been more than a thousand young people out on the floor of the Boise State basketball arena dressed in bright costumes enthusiastically rocking out to "Can't Stop the Beat" from Hairspray.    Our stake did a Tango...other stakes did everything from the Swing to Cha cha to Salsa.  What fun!

I was so impressed with the girls from our Ward who stuck with it, learned the dances and were the pictures of virtuous young women.  The youth were assigned their dance partners and I know that many of the assigned partners were not who the kids would have 'chosen' if left to their own devices!   My girls were so gracious and so cheerful and just so like you'd hope they'd be!  They made it fun for everyone. I love them all so much and I'm so proud to have this time to be their leader.  In so many ways they lead me! 

The theme of the night was, "Be thou an example of the Believers and Dance to a Different Beat."  Before the closing prayer they sang a beautiful song called, "Holding Hands Around the World."  One phrase just stuck out to me and described the scene of those more than a thousand youth standing and singing together, "We are children glowing with the gospel light.  Standing tall, walking strong, choosing right."

Why blog?

This quote was on the cover of our ward bulletin today:

"Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family."

Thomas S. Monson - President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints.

Doesn't that explain exactly why people blog? In order to keep up with a blog you have to find things to relish in your everyday life.  As you do that you find joy in the journey.  Then you get to share your joy with friends and family!  

Mothers

My mother has had this piece of 'pottery' for more than 40 years.  For most of that time it has been relegated to a back bedroom high on a shelf.  When I went to visit her this last time it was prominently displayed in her kitchen window for all the world to see.  I was surprised and asked her about its new position of honor.  She replied that she had always liked it because it was unique and bright and cheery!  Now I have never, ever liked this piece.  In fact I hated it and I'm the one who created it in a junior high art class. I remember that I thought that it was so ugly and that everyone else has done something so much better than mine....that I had no talent...that I was the worst one in the entire class...... 

My mother saw something different.  She saw her daughter that she loved and wanted to encourage.  I still don't like the piece but I love what it means to me now.   I think that is the hardest thing about loosing your mother.  Suddenly you don't have that one person on the earth who loves you no matter what.   Someone who would save an unattractive piece of pottery for 40 years and display it in her front kitchen window!  I hope I have been & will continue to be that kind of cheerleader for my own children! I wonder how many of the other kids from my class have mothers who are still displaying their pottery?  I miss my mother!

Tombstone humor

Before I arrived in Arkansas to visit my mother she had told me about the tombstone she and a friend had recently discovered in the cemetery in Lonoke.  She wanted to show it to me & thought I should post about it on my blog.  After she died I roamed around until I found it.  I have heard of this phrase being on a tombstone but I thought it was a joke. Some people really have a sense of humor!  I like the golfing picture and the wording.  It makes me feel like I would like to get to know Eugene Buford Lamb!  I imagine he was fun to be around.

Happy St. Jordi's Day!

April 23rd is a wonderful day in Barcelona.  It is St. Jordi's day, sort of the Catalan version of St. Valentine's Day and of course, the Saint's day of the Patron Saint of Catalunya, St. Jordi.  On this day men give their sweetheart roses and women give their sweethearts a book.  At HP this tradition sparked trouble one year when the women complained that it was a sexist holiday.  So they gave the women books instead of roses! This special day also marks International Book Day which was inspired by the deaths of writers Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare.  Everywhere in the city you see book markets set up on the sidewalks interwoven with street vendors selling roses at painful prices.  I remember reading that million of roses are sold in Barcelona on April 23rd!

Our school had a big festival each year on St. Jordi's day.  Students acted out the story of St. Jordi (or St. George if you aren't in Catalunya).  A handsome knight killed the dragon and saved the princess.  Each of the grade school classes learned a version of the traditional Catalan dance, the Sardana.  One year Scott's class danced on roller skates.  Another year when John was in High School and dancing was optional, I paid him an exorbitant amount of money so that he would dance because George's Dad was going to be visiting us.  He was the only boy in his class to dance that year!  At the end of the performances everyone is invited out on the floor to learn the sardana.  I finally learned it and loved participating in this little bit of Catalan culture!  The teachers barbecued butiffara (Catalan sausage) and most of the adults enjoyed the Catalan improved version (so I'm told) of champagne called Cava.   Can you tell that this is a Catalan holiday that inspires a lot of national pride?  Oh the memories......

Are you sick of the turkey plate picture?

I went to Arkansas to visit my mother on the 19th of March, planning to stay for 10 days.  The first two days I was there we had a great time!  She did water aerobics while I ran.  We went out to eat at our favorite places with friends and family.  We shopped from one end of the mall to the other for a new swimming suit for her.  On Sunday morning I heard her get up about 7:00 but I didn't get up until about 8:00.  I thought she was just asleep in her chair so I got the paper that she had finished reading, made my breakfast, and sat down at the table to eat.  Suddenly she started making a really weird snoring noise so I went to check on her and found that I couldn't wake her up.  I called 911 and they took her to the hospital where a CAT scan revealed a massive bleed on her brain.  She died the next day...the 23rd.

My mother was 88 but lived alone, drove, raked & mowed her own yard, went to church every Sunday and was active in everything in her little town.  This was a big shock to us all.  The only good thing is that she didn't suffer or have to be in a nursing home or anything like that.  It was just a miracle or a "tender mercy" that I was there when this happened.  I stayed to clean things out and get her house ready to sell.  I'm home now and trying to get back into my normal routine.  It has been a very strange month and still doesn't feel quite real to me!