Mourn with Those that Mourn; Comfort Those that Stand in Need of Comfort

"And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

Yea, and are 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, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts." Mosiah 18:8-11

This scripture has been running through my mind since I learned of the passing of Kenna three days ago.

At church on Sunday a plan had been put into place for the youth, and the entire ward, really, to show up at Kenna's house to do yard work to help her family.  She was very sick with her cancer, and we were also signing up to take lunch into her, though she couldn't eat much, and signing up to go in during the day to help administer medicines for her.

Come Monday morning we learned that Kenna no longer needed that assistance, however Mosiah chapter 18 began playing through my mind as I thought of Ed and the kids.

And the plan that didn't change for Wednesday evening.

It seems a simple thing, really, to gather and take care of the spring yard work for them, but when I turned onto their street with a car full of Young Women and saw the curbs already lined with cars, and the yard overflowing with people, my neighbors, my friends... it was our way to mourn with them.  Our way to comfort them.

A couple of weeks ago I taught a lesson in Young Women's about why we needed the restoration of the church.  As in, why do we need the organized church, and why do we need to physically attend?

One of the answers from that lesson (taken from Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk, "Why the Church"), among many, many things, was simply that we can do more good collectively than we can do individually.

I witnessed that last night in the setting sunlight of a neighbor's yard.

Emails that Don't Warrant Response, Tayler Turns 14, Rest in Peace My Dear Friend

We are commencing catching up on years of neglect on this blog.  The picture storage on my phone just can't take anymore, and I need to have these memories saved somewhere.  The posts will be a little jumbled as I keep up with where we are currently, but also catch up with all that has not yet been blogged about.

Because I love writing about my life and my family, and I love reading back about the fun things that we've done.

Also, I miss writing in fragmented sentences.

Blogging has it's own style.

Here we go.

I love my job.  Working with the Mayor has completely blown my mind and changed my world.

It has changed who am I.  Not only in regards as to how I view politics and community (because it's absolutely so much more less politics and so much more about community.

At least in Ben's office).

West says it's changed me, and I know it has as well.

That being said, a lot of days I deal with this level of communication (personal info of the other people has been blocked out of the picture):

So there's that.

Making the community a better place one email at a time.

Actually, I didn't respond to that.  I'm hoping she'll figure it out on her own.

Tayler turned 14 on Friday.  She has more ambition than I have in my little finger, and as I catch posts up, we're going to be talking a lot about all that girl is involved with. This year alone, she's on the Jr. National Honor's Society (and serving as the secretary for her school's chapter), AVID (where she won the district film festival award with her short film in her age division (here)), she sits on her school's Senate, has been playing on a comp soccer team this year (post to come), and of course, is very active with her close group of friends.

Every year the girl asks for blue velvet cake, and every year this turns out to be more than my culinary expertise, or lack there of, can provide.  She ends up with black velvet cake.

Six months ago I saw a box mix for blue velvet cake and snatched it up and stored it in the freezer.

Finally, finally, she got her blue velvet cake. 

Also, I might add, my mistake was the base cake.  Red velvet is based off of chocolate cake so I was trying to base the blue velvet off a chocolate cake as well.  Turns out blue velvet is a vanilla base, so, you know, that helps drastically with the color.

Tayler and her friends have a tradition of decorating each other's rooms on their birthdays, which meant I needed some time with Tayler outside of the house.

Sonic.  Of course.

It didn't taker her long to ask, "Mom, are you stalling?"
To which I simply answered, "yes," because let's face it, she knows the drill with her crew, plus also, her friend Casadee really didn't keep it much of a secret.

We decided it would be more fun to go home and catch her friends in the act.

Cali, Casadee, Ellie, Tayler, Abbie

Happy birthday, T-bug.

As another catch up:

Mondays are hard.

And lastly for today, my dear friend and neighbor, Kenna, lost a year long battle with cancer on Monday.  It breaks my heart.  She was always so kind and happy, even when in the thick of her illness.  She's left behind her husband, who was also her high school sweetheart, a son in college, a son in high school, and her daughter who will be joining us in Young Women's in a few months.

My heart goes out to them.

It makes me think of several things.  One, being how glad I am that those kids have such a great father to continue to care for them.

Another thought being how grateful I am for a gospel that teaches about eternal families and that this life is not all that there is for us.

And my heart goes out to her husband, because heaven knows I would not want to face this world without The Man by my side.

Take time for your loved ones today.

Random. And Twerking.

I'm interested in having guest posts written on other people's experiences in life.

In other words, I want your stories.  And life lessons that came from them.

I'm so fascinated by other people's stories.

And I think it's nice that we can relate to each other's stories.

If you have one you'd like to share, please email me at swithers6 at gmail dot com.  You don't have to be blogger.  And I'm willing to post them anonymously.

As it is, yesterday was kind of a draining day.

I feel constantly exhausted right now and I thought, this semester is only two weeks in, if I'm already this exhausted from it how am I ever going to survive it?

But then I remembered that last semester started out the same way, with utter exhaustion, but by the end of the semester I was just fine.  I think it's more of a matter of I just need to get used to it again, rather than it's already kicking my butt.

On top of that I went to a funeral yesterday.  My cousin lost her 4 month old baby to SIDS.  The hard part about that is you listen to the words that are said about being a parent and you begin to relate, and then it hits you how hard it must be to lose a child.  For someone like me who's never experienced it, that is.  And it began to feel emotionally heavy.

My heart goes out to my cousin right now.

And then I donated blood.  Which kind of sealed the deal on my exhaustion and I went down for a nap at 7:00 and never really recovered.

Except I've been getting a lot of extremely intense and painful cramps in my foot and that situation kept getting me up last night.  I have to get up and try to walk them off, which sometimes takes a  long time.  And the pain... holy Moses.  I think I have a high pain tolerance but those cramps send me through the roof.

Maybe I need to look into a potassium supplement.

I blame them on Casidee because they started when I was pregnant with her and I've been getting them ever since.  Though lately they've just been so frequently.

Hallelujah weekend.

My weekends plan include, but are not limited to:
Painting a bunkbed.  Still.
Date night.  Maybe we'll shake it up a bit and go swimming in the crater.  Maybe we won't and we'll just hit dinner and a movie.  Either way I'm perfectly content just being with The Man.
Math homework.
Naps.

And maybe if the man's lucky I'll even get around to taking the Christmas lights down.

But I'm not holding my breath on that one.

And also this weekend I'm going to write a blog post on the story of Samson from the Old Testament.

It's been requested of me that I start going over scripture stories on my blog the way I do in church and at Girl's Camp, so I'm going to start doing that.

If that interests you.

Not that I'm a scriptorian or anything, I just like to try and make them come alive so you can really get the feeling of them into your head.  And your heart.

So Samson will be coming at you "live" on Sunday.

Oh, and one more random thing. Filmed right here in Salt Lake no less.  Watch to the end.  I laughed so hard.  But maybe that's just my inner geek.  Also, can you tell they're not all men in those suits?  I wonder if any of them are.

in loving memory

I never knew her, I came into West's family a little too late to know the real spitfire that was "Jammy".  My heart is with my husband's family as they celebrate her life today. 
I think I would have loved her.  She sounds like quite the firecracker who always knew how to play in the sarcastic comment. 
I hear she could cook a mean Italian meal.
And her gardening was amazing.  My favorite story was to hear about how a tomato plant started growing through a crack in the driveway.  Jammy put a tomato cage around it and made everyone park on the street.
She did all she could to keep her family close, and it shows.  The Man's family is very family oriented.  I love that I get the chance to be a part of them, they're amazing people.
I can't wait to meet this incredible lady on the other side.

Casey's still singing...

To one of the most amazing people I will ever cross in my life... the world has been left a brighter place because of you. Remembering always...
Find Casey's obit here