I'm teaching Sunday School today. I'm so grateful that I get to be the Sunday School teacher for the 13/14 year olds. I've never taught the Old Testament before (that's what we're studying this year as a church), and it's made me love the Old Testament more and more. There are so many things we can learn from the ancient Israelites. Sadly, most of it was what NOT to do. In fact, part of me wonders if they're God's chosen people precisely because they needed His help the most. That's the kind of God I believe in.
I mean, I know Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were amazing prophets that believed in and loved the Lord. And I'm sure that's part of why their descendants are the chosen people. But MAN their descendants did NOT take after their forefathers.
This week we're learning about 2 Kings. There are so many great lessons in there.
Elisha working miracles for individuals. He made the head of a borrowed axe float. What a small thing, right? But it meant that the borrower didn't "default" on this loan. It meant that the owner of that iron axe head wasn't out an expensive item that likely meant he could continue to work his trade. God works small miracles when they're a big deal for just ONE person.
Naaman losing his temper with the prophet, but still listening to the things he found trite or downright degrading, and being healed. SO MANY things there to unwrap and apply to my life. He had anger issues. He got mad at the prophet. He was imperfect just like me. And he was healed anyway. He didn't like the prophets counsel. He had to have servants (children perhaps? or a spouse? or friends?) talk him into doing what he was asked to do. BUT HE DID IT. He eventually made the choice to listen, to have faith, and humble himself, even when it didn't make any logical sense. Man, it makes me love Naaman.
God opens the eyes of Elisha's servant to see the chariots of fire ready to fight their battles for them. How many of us have felt alone and fearful? EVERYONE. But God is always with us. Even when we don't have the faith or the knowledge to really see him on our side. He is on our side because he love us perfectly. He will always help us fight our battles. This story makes me tear up every time I hear it. I love it so much. I love thinking about chariots of fire and angels surrounding me when I have to fight battles that seem unwinnable or too much for me to overcome. I love thinking that he's behind my children, even when I can't or don't know to be.
Hezekiah and the kingdom of Judah having faith and trust in the Lord. Hezekiah chose to follow the Lord even though ZERO of the previous Kings had done so (except David and Solomon, of course). And then the Assyrian king decided to attack them. So even people who follow the Lord have trials. Things go wrong. It's not always going to be rainbows and cupcakes just because we're good people. The Assyrian empire was HUGE compared to their small kingdom. The Assyrian king sent messengers to mock the Jews and tell them they were idiots for thinking their God could save them when the gods of every other nation they'd conquered had done nothing to save their people. But Hezekiah prayed and fasted and trusted when Isaiah told him that the Assyrians wouldn't conquer Judah. And they didn't get conquered. The Assyrians were attacked by another country and turned around and went home to lick their wounds.
Josiah was the only other King to choose righteousness. He had the temple repaired and during the repairs found the book of the law (so basically scripture). It had been lost and they hadn't been reading or knowing the covenants and commandments. But they began again. They made covenants. They kept the commandments. And they were blessed. Sometimes we drift away from God's word in our lives for whatever reason. God's voice gets quieter and quieter and harder and harder to remember and listen to. But we can begin again. We can immerse ourselves in the scriptures and let them fill our lives.
I love that I get to teach these principles to budding teenagers. They need these messages!
We've had quite an eventful few weeks, so there's gonna be lots more to talk about.
First off, this is the picture that Emilia drew for Steve for Father's Day. I talked about that last post.
Also, here is a picture of Emilia and Mira dressed up as Queen and Lancer from the game Deltarune.
And me in my church dress. I took the picture to post about colors in my cover design Facebook group.
My parents were here in Utah until July 1. We saw them a couple more times before they left. But I didn't take pictures.
Megan invited me to play games online on a site called Board Game Arena with her a few Sundays ago. It's a great site and we had fun playing games together while talking on the phone. Emilia joined me for a while.
I take Mira to gymnastics every Tuesday evening and there's a bunch of farmland on the way. I will always always feel like farmland is beautiful because it's home to me. I thought these cows with the backdrop of the clouds and mountains would make a good photo, so I hopped out of the car to take a picture, but I'm not impressed with how it turned out.
However, there were thistles just outside the fence and the bees were loving them. I got this cool photo with a bumblebee on the bottom flower, and a regular honeybee on the top flower (at the bottom of the flower).
The tractor and the sun filtering through the clouds made me stop and take this one, too.
This kid is so photogenic.
So, we decided to get our house up on the market. I thought it would be a good idea to list the house on a Wednesday and have an open house on a Saturday. I also thought, for some unknown reason, that the day to have the open house was July 2. (I bought these flowers to have on the table for the open house).
So the week and a half leading up to the open house, me and the kids worked our tails off. Emilia called it the most stressful week of her life. So, you know. Not fun.
We scrubbed doors and walls. We painted dings and marks and stains on doors. We straightened the storage room. We decluttered all the kids' bedrooms and cleaned off all the dressers and bookshelves and made them look pretty. We packed up extra decorations, swept and sprayed down the sidewalks, threw away tons of stuff, took two loads of stuff to DI, and listed stuff in the classifieds. We scrubbed all the floors, cleaned all the bathrooms, and got the carpets professionally cleaned. We mowed the lawn. We trimmed all the trees in the front yard, and cut one of them down.
And then Jules got a stomach bug. And threw up all over the place.
That was Wednesday the 29th. Three days before our open house. Here's how the next three days went (as told in my Facebook group on Saturday). I don't want to have to rewrite it all):
Harrison was still throwing up in random places all over the house twenty minutes before the open house was supposed to start. So we canceled it.
The next day, Sunday, Steve, Mira, and I all came down with the bug. I was the only one who didn't throw up, but I also had it the longest. I didn't eat three full meals until the following Friday.
Here's Emilia and Harrison both not feeling well. They SO look like each other.
Monday was the 4th of July. Steve had the entire week off from Adobe because they're nice like that. We were supposed to hang out with Alison and James, but we canceled so we didn't share the fun bug. Cecily came down with it that day. I was still feeling super yucky and everyone else was still out of energy. So we mostly sat on the couch and watched TV that day. Around 7, we all played a game together. And then Steve and Emilia went to Thanksgiving Point to watch the fireworks display. Me and Mira and Ces sat out on the porch and watched the neighborhood ones for a while and then we all went to bed.
Oh, I did Mira's nails as we were watching fireworks. It made her feel festive.
She and Cecily also wore festive clothes that day.
This is from Steve's phone. Not sure what was happening, but they're cute. :)
Tuesday, the older girls and Steve were feeling well enough for an outing and we managed to secure last-minute tickets to Timpanogos Cave. It's a major hike to get there, but none of the girls had ever been. And since we're moving soon, we wanted to let them experience that.
Thursday, we secured tickets to Thanksgiving Point from Adobe. So we went to the biosphere, farm country (for like 20 minutes because it was HOT), and the dinosaur museum).
When we got to farm country, they were milking the cow. I got to take a turn. And Harrison is fascinated with all kinds of animals, so he was content to watch and pet the cow for a good 15 minutes. He also rode a horse without crying. He didn't want to get back on, but all of my other kids cried their first time doing the pony ride. He thought feeding the goats was great fun, too.
Friday, we decided to visit the Coombs in Panguitch. We'd talked about going earlier in the week, but we once again didn't want to share being sick with them, so we held off until Friday to go down.
They currently have Samoyed puppies. All the kids were decently good with them, but none of them were in love. Jules was surprisingly brave around them. I didn't take any pictures of my kids with them though. Just this one of one of the puppies sleeping hung over the partition. Haha.
Harrison and Uncle Joe bonded over doing the dishes.
We played some games. Cecily and Mira rode their horse a couple times. We visited Haley at work and Emilia stayed and went to the new Thor movie. We went down to Panguitch creek and I sat on a blanket trying to get Jules to not freak out over the wind (she thinks it's going to kill her for a reason she can't explain). Everyone else got on innertubes and rode down the creek about 150 feet and then ran back and did it again. Jules did eat a sandwich for the first time because Cindy made it exciting for her. Thanks, Cindy! :)
Harrison liked cousin Sebastian's toy guys and cars. This is what I did when he was done playing with them.
We came home Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, I drove Mira to Pocatello, Idaho, to meet Tristan and Kate Nelson. They were headed to his sister's house to have an adventure for Kate's birthday. Mira had a blast hanging out with them all week. She got to swim twice including paddleboarding (that they nicknamed "cattleboarding") and jumping off a high dive and swinging on a rope swing, learned to ride a horse, including posting, built all sorts of fun stuff in minecraft, got a lesson in crocheting, got to visit a museum, and ate tons of amazing food. I was jealous of all of it, but maybe the food the most. ;)
While she was gone, I got another book in the mail that I'd made the cover for. That's pretty fun.
Harrison is climbing. He's learned to move chairs around and get onto counters and the table.
Since putting our house on the market, not only have we ruined the carpet, but we've scrubbed almost every door in the house and the windows, and Harrison. Because Jules has gone on a marker rampage. She started with her washable markers and when she wouldn't stop, I took them away. So she climbed and got a dry erase. And when I took that away, she found the sharpies I'd bought to mark boxes we're packing. That's what got Harrison. And the window. And the curtains in his room. *sigh*
I went to take pictures of the marker on Harrison and got this one of his feet instead. It's too adorable to not include.
His beautiful hair is currently died green.
She writes on herself almost every day. Now all the markers are hidden. The next day, she took all her pots of watercolor paint and submerged them in cups in the bathroom. So I guess she doesn't get those anymore either. If for no other reason than it's all gone now.
This week has been a lot slower and less traumatic. We've mostly hung out and done little things to get ourselves ready to move when the time comes. We've had our house on the market for 18 days though and haven't had a single person come look at it. The market flipped in the last three months from a sellers market (houses were selling within 24 hours with multiple above-asking-price offers) to a buyers market (8500 listings and almost no one buying). We have to sell this house before we can close on the new house, so we'll take prayers that a buyer will find us in time.
We decided that maybe we need better pictures of our house to make it more appealing, so we scheduled that for Saturday. Friday, I wanted the babies to NOT MESS UP THE HOUSE. So we were going to go on an outing to Cascade Springs. However, we got a late start. And before we were even two miles from our house, Jules started freaking out because she could see the wind. (Did I mention how ridiculous this fear is getting? She won't even sit in a room with a view of the outside of the house because it's too scary, let alone go outside for any amount of time.) I changed directions with our plans and stopped at Smith's to get donuts for everyone and then took everyone to a nearby park. Jules managed to leave the car without losing her mind for more than 10 minutes because there was literally NO wind. It was 85 outside and muggy. Wind should have been welcome. But it was kind enough to stay away for half an hour. We got to eat donuts and feed the ducks and collect feathers. And then we went home and put Harrison down for his nap and let Jules watch TV. House still clean. Phew!
Saturday morning, we all pitched in to get the house picture perfect. Steve mowed the lawn and took babies on an outing. Me and the girls straightened, vacuumed, spot mopped, set the table nicely, made beds, and did dishes.
We all left while the photographer was here. And then Emilia had her birthday party. She had 8 friends come over. They ate pizza, went to the park, ate brownies, played video games and opened presents. She was pretty worn out by the time everyone went home, but it was exactly what she wanted.
And now it's Sunday. And I've now taught my Sunday School class. It went okay I guess. It was a lot of info to cover in 45 minutes. So maybe the lesson was more for me and that's okay, too. Megan drove into town today and I'm excited to spend time with her this week.
Oh! I almost forgot. Remember how I was saying that we didn't know how we're going to afford living in Washington, but the Lord keeps telling us it's the right thing to do? Well, Steve had to get a letter from his job for the loan company stating that he will continue to be employed when we move. He talked to his boss about it and she signed off, but said she had to put it through HR. Then HR had to get it signed by the VP. Well, the VP finally signed it and we got it on Friday. The letter stated that since we were moving to a state that was more expensive to live in, he was getting a new compensation package. They increased his pay by 13%. We hadn't asked for that. We certainly didn't expect them to pay us more because we decided on what would look like a whim to change where we live. But here we are. More able to pay for this new house than we ever would have expected. The Lord is good. It reminds me of the scripture in 1 Nephi 3:7.
I found that printable here if you're interested.
