Four Days Past Wednesday

Or so I hear. ;-)

Okay, let's see... Thursday was a grand and glorious day because it is the day we discovered that Blue Bell ice cream can now be purchased HERE, right where we are!!! Well, when we go to town anyway, so that's close enough to make me very, very happy. We immediately made plans to stop by the store to pick up a few cartons while they were 40% off. So that night we came home with French Vanilla (they were out of Homemade Vanilla), Banana Split (which, sad to say, we aren't real crazy about--but the kids will eat it), and Rocky Road which is sooooooooo good. I was really hoping for some White Chocolate Almond, but I suppose I'll have to give them some time to get more flavors out this far west. :-)

Friday I made chicken and noodles for lunch and it was so good. It's just such a good, old-fashioned, homey sort of thing to eat. It always tastes so good. Comfort food, maybe. :-) Then James made some tamales for dinner and they were really, really good. In fact, I'm tempted to go heat one up right now... :-)

The kids spent most of the day outside on Friday, running all over the yard and playing in the tent that I pitched for them out on the deck. It's really the first day that's been warm enough to enjoy some normal ourdoor play time. There are still patches of snow around the yard, but the rest of the yard isn't muddy anymore so the kids had a great time in the great outdoors. Aside from school and meals, they were out there ALL DAY LONG. It was a great day for all of us! I got a good deal of the ironing done that night, but fizzled out before finishing.

Yesterday was a lo-o-o-o-o-ong day. We all got up and left at about 8:30 to drive into town to go to the big flea market. It was fun and we picked up a few things. Socks for the boys (that are way too small--oops!) and some honey from a local bee keeper. The boys each bought a pocket knife (Sam promptly cut himself and Joe promptly misplaced his new purchase) and Katie bought a little clock/calendar/calculator/a-whole-bunch-of-other-stuff sort of thing.

We stopped by Hobby Lobby in hopes of finding some supplies for my Sunday School class, but struck out. That's okay because it forced us to go to Party City which is a FANTASTIC store and sooooo fun to look through. :-) And they had everything I needed and saved me a trip to a dreadful Wal-Mart somewhere. We stopped by Long John Silvers for lunch and paid too much money for shrimp that were not too good and made me feel rather sick the rest of the day. (~Bleagh~) Then we spent the rest of the day visiting two pet stores and three animal shelters!!! I'm having a hard time grasping this myself, but I guess we're kind of/sort of in search of a dog. That's really not completely accurate. We're more... in search of whether it's a possibility for us to have a dog again. I've been missing Hershey a whole lot again lately (it comes and goes in waves) and I'm guessing that James must be too (though he'd never admit it) because HE is the one who has brought up the "dog" thing and wanted to go check out all the shelters. Can you imagine?! I don't know what in the world has gotten into him--it's soooooooooooooo... not JAMES-ish! It's all very strange. He's the one who's really sort of encouraging the idea of getting another dog and I'm the one who's more hesitant. I desperately miss having a dog (there's a hole in a family with no dog, you know--just something missing) and I would LOVE to have another one... but for a family like ours it is no small decision. There's so much involved and I just want to make sure that it's okay with God (I know, sounds weird--but He knows our lifestyle and as much as I WANT a dog, I don't want anything in our lives that might be a hindrance to the ministry... in this case, traveling) and I guess I'm just wanting to make sure that if we get a dog it's the RIGHT dog at the RIGHT time under the RIGHT circumstances. ~sigh~ God knows best. It was fun--and heartbreaking--to go to the shelters. But I feel like we have a better grasp of what kind of dogs might be a possibility for us if we're able to get one sometime. I guess time will tell.

We stopped by the library on our way back home and picked up the books that had come in--all three kids had put things on hold last week. Came home and got the smelly kids lined up for their baths, finished getting Sunday School all together, then listened to Brother Forbes preach about the Holy Ghost (from this past Assembly) while FINALLY finishing up on the ironing.

Today was a GREAT Sunday. I still can't believe I didn't think to take any pictures of our Sunday School class. We talked about the 12 spies going into Canaan and how the 10 spies were scared of the giants, but the other 2 were looking at the GOOD things in the land and had faith that God would help them overcome the difficult things. Then we applied that to lots of "kid" situations--be scared to trust God, or step out in faith and do what He asks us to. We talked about what kind of "spy" each of us want to be, so each of the kids got some "spy sunglasses" (though they weren't very discreet--ha!) and put some fruit stickers on them to remind them to always look at the promises of God, not the reasons to doubt. We also made little parachute spy guys out of clothes pins, string, and squares of plastic bags. The coolest thing though was the giant grapevine! I had found the perfect stick (it had that sort of wispy, stringy bark--to look more like a vine) and we blew up a bunch of big purple balloons and attached them with green pipe cleaners to make a cluster of giant grapes. Of course, we clarified that the Bible said it was a giant cluster of grapes rather than a cluster of giant grapes. ;-) Either way, it was great fun and the boys carried it out to the sanctuary on their shoulders with their spy glasses on for the tell-what-you-learned-today bit.

Seems like I say this a lot, but we had such good messages today! Brother Chris is preaching through the 29 Teachings and today was the day for Divine Healing. It was soooooo good. Brother Chris is so good at encouraging and exhorting--the messages just make you WANT to do things God's way, or find His very best, or whatever. He talked today about the scriptural connection in the price Jesus paid for the salvation of our souls and the healing of our bodies. He shared about how Jesus not only bore our sins in His body on the cross, but also bore our sicknesses in His body--He had said that all of these things would be accomplished IN HIM, not through Him or by Him. Brother Chris passed around pictures of what leprosy looks like and talked about the symptoms of palsy and several of the different dreadful diseases Jesus healed and cleansed people from, all the while knowing that very soon He would be suffering and bearing those very things and paying the price in His body. God convicted me about failing to get prayer for the little things. I'm one of those people who generally doesn't request prayer (or even pray for myself) unless there's something seriously wrong or I'm in great pain--or about to give birth to a child. (Ha!) If I have a cold, I figure it will go away. If I have an ache or a pain, I figure it's not too bad--I can live with it. The message this morning made me realize as I never have before the awful price that Jesus paid FOR MY HEALING. How insulting must it be for Him to have gone through so much to purchase my healing only for me to say, "Oh, it's not that bad--I'll just live with this"!!!!! I've had some pain in right hand for probably a couple of months now--arthritis, I think. It's not major, though there have been a few times I've been unable to open a bottle top or some such thing because of the pain. I've thought about having it prayed for, but it just seems like such a little thing since the pain comes and goes and most of the time it's quite manageable. But I had mentioned it to Brother Chris (he noticed me wincing one time when he shook my hand) and before I had a chance to ask for prayer for it this morning, he came and prayed for me. I felt the Lord so strongly and had no pain whatsoever afterward. I testified to how the Lord has dealt with me--and touched me--at church this evening. After testifying, I noticed that there was still no pain in my hand... but I was suddenly feeling some in my wrist! Ha! Only two possible causes, right? (1) The devil fighting what God is doing in my heart and in my body, or (2) God allowing the pain to test and see what I will do now. Either way, the response is the same--get prayed for again! So I asked James and Brother Chris to pray for me again before we left tonight--and felt the Lord strongly again. He is soooooo good and I'm sooooooo blessed to be able to know Him and place my trust in Him. And I'm so thankful to have been made more aware today of what He has done so that I can be healed. I don't want His suffering to be in vain--I want to receive exactly what He has provided for me: salvation for my soul AND healing for my body! He paid too great a price for me to not avail myself of what His suffering has made available to me. Brother Chris brought out how silly it is to get saved and trust God with our ETERNAL SOULS... but then fail to trust Him with these temporal bodies! One other thing (I'll stop soon, really!)... Tonight he talked about trusting God rather than putting confidence in man and trusing in "the shadow of Egypt" and worldly counsel. He had Naomi come up front and fall backwards, knowing he would catch her. He's done this with her lots and she has full confidence in him because he's her Dad, she knows he loves her and would never let her fall, AND she's done this over and over again. He called Joe up and asked him to do the same thing. Joe tried, but turned to look while he was falling--just to make sure Brother Chris wouldn't drop him. Tried again, but his eyes bug out and his arms start to reach for safety... because he hasn't had the same relationship and experience with Brother Chris that Naomi has. That's how it is with God. When we are daily trusting Him for everything in our lives, falling into His arms over and over again, trusting--even when it's scary and we can't see what's going to happen--that He will never fail us, it gets easier over time because of the relationship and the experiences we've had. That's how I want to be when it comes to divine healing! I want my whole life to be one exercise after another of fully trusting God so that when something big or hairy or scary comes along, I'll already be so full of faith and confidence in God that I won't panic, but fall completely into His arms in perfect trust and dependency. ~sigh~ I feel so blessed, so encouraged and so... refocused! And my hand and wrist feel terrific. PRAISE GOD!!!

What a wonderful day. I've been trying to remember to really pray for our church services ahead of time lately and I've definitely seen the results. I don't know if the services are better because of my prayers or if I'm just better in tune and receptive to receive from the Lord there or a little of both, but I can tell a great difference and it makes me want to pray all the more. God is doing great things in His Church and I'm so excited and I want to be a part of all of it!

Our wonderful Sunday also included a trip to Pizza Hut this afternoon to use the kids' BookIt! coupons for the month. Each kid got a free Personal Pan (though they only had two of the little crusts, so the third pizza was that BIG Personal Pan they offer now) and we bought a large pizza... but they forgot to put the chicken on half as ordered and gave us a discount. So we ended up with a large pizza, three little ones, and a 2-liter bottle of Root Beer for $10. :-) Lots of left-overs, too.

Then we came home and I got into a sweatshirt and had a nice, long, cozy Sunday afternoon nap. ~Aaaaaahhh~ How could a Sunday be any better??? I'll tell you how. We had visitors at church tonight (the Coyazo's daughter Maria who lives here, and Maria's son Eli) and they were truly touched. We hope to see them continue coming and letting God work in their lives and family.

The other thing that made for a truly terrific Sunday was the fellowship. :-) We went to Taco Bell with the Clarkson clan after church tonight. ~sigh~ Does it get any better??? Had a great time, laughed a lot, and left feeling so happy and so very, very blessed.

Now I'm home, caught up on the laundry and ironing (except for what we all wore today, I guess) so that will ease the work load tomorrow. And now I'm caught up on my blog, too. :-)

Before I go, here are the only pictures I've taken this week.

I was trying to explain to the kids the other day how to stand on your head. I used to do it all the time--used to watch TV like that sometimes when I was a kid! I'm not sure my kids will ever catch on. They can't even balance in the tripod position to get into place! So they insist on "helping" each other. It's soooooooooooo hilarious!!!



Ah, yes. Katie finally got her birthday present from Grandma Vicki yesterday and she is soooooooo excited!!! Matching outfits for her and Esther, and a great new denim skirt as well. Unfortunately, you can't really SEE all of their matching outfits in this picture... But you can see the happy little girl, so that's what matters. :-)