Learning

I am just so grateful for all the experiences that going back to school has provided for me already. I have learned so much more than what is being taught in my class! I have thoroughly enjoyed learning what is taught in the classroom though! I have been able to invite a fellow student to church, have talks with people about politics, happiness, and religion. Today however I am most grateful for what I have learned in my ASL class. I have been assigned to Visit Teach a Deaf woman in our ward, and I have been able to communicate with her because of my schooling. We just had her and her husband (both Deaf) over for dinner and it was so much fun! Even Ben and the kids were involved and trying to learn to speak to them. They were so patient with us, and so willing to teach us and try to understand what we were saying to them. They are interesting, funny and so kind. I really feel that I would have missed out on knowing them had I not gained the courage in my class to approach them. I wonder how many things in life we miss out on because we don't have the courage to try. Or that we limit ourselves just because. I had a talk with one of the cute 11 year old girls in my class today, telling her that she is just as capable of Enos of having an amazing experience with prayer, and in fact she already has. She was asking why all the people in the scriptures are able to do amazing things, and we just aren't now. I assured her that amazing things are happening every day. And it is true. We have had several baptisms in our ward in the last couple of months, one of which was a whole family! Another family is investigating the church now, and I know that their 11 year old girl (in my Primary class) wants to be baptized. If that is not just as amazing as some of the things in the scriptures, I don't know what is. All these amazing things that are happening around us I think are the result of courage. Whether it is that a member finally has the courage to talk to their friend about the church, or whether a stay at home mom finally gets up the courage to go back to school, or whether the school aged kid has the courage to stand up and choose the right. There are exciting things happening all around us, and all it takes is just a little courage.

Well apparently I have been in some sort of weird time warp! Here we are, on the other side of February and I haven't said a WORD this year! As much as I detest "catch up" posts, hang on tight because you've got one coming your way! -January 5th-8th I ran the Ragnar Relay. one of the best experiences of my life. I learned a lot about myself that weekend. Ben learned a lot too, like how much he REALLY doesn't want me to leave him for that long alone with the kids again! -January 9th I started school again! I am going to FINALLY finish up my degree from Dixie College from about 100 years ago (okay, 1996/1997....but still....). I am taking Political Science, 20th Century Humanities, and American Sign Language. I have had so much fun so far, and am looking forward to getting my a.s. in December and move over to the University of Central Florida in January! -January 16th we moved to a new house! Good bye mean ole lady, and awkward landlord! This new place feels like double the size of the old one, has tons of kids in the neighborhood that are welcome to play outside, and we've got an amazing view of the fireworks at WDW! If you get on Google Earth, you can draw a line from our neighborhood to the Dumbo ride at WDW without running in to any other houses! So nothing MAJOR has happened since that crazy first couple weeks of January. We have mostly just been trying to recover from the initial madness! JT and SM had their well child checkups and were both found to be healthy and growing like crazy. JT is in the 95th percentile for height and SM is in the 75th. The doc told me I would probably be the shortest one in our family. DB has been working hard in school and basketball. He loves going to scouts and does whatever he can to earn iPad or computer time. He is currently saving up to buy himself an iTouch. We have been doing really well lately as things have recovered from January. We teamed up with a family in our ward to do a babysitting swap once a month, so we went on a date in February already (GASP!!) and are already looking forward to our date in March (Dave Ramsey event). Whew! Well, that wasn't so bad, was it? Not much detail, but we are all caught up now.