lds open house

several months ago when Aaron was just out of surgery and I was still puking my guts out with morning sickness, our family was assigned to clean our church on an early Saturday morning.  I reluctantly pulled my kids out of bed and we went.  There were only a few other people there and I knew we would be there for a while.  I was totally annoyed when we started out... I assigned my kids jobs and took over vacuuming the entire church.  As I watched my kids happily work, and as little Miss Ro held up the vacuum chord for me, I was literally flooded with warm emotions about what this church as done for me (and my family) over the years.  I thought about the amazing leaders and examples I had in the adults who shaped my childhood, the friends and memories that I made at girls camp and youth conferences and service projects.  How much I grew through well prepared, spiritually uplifting lessons by my teachers who sacrificed so much to serve me.  In a very short time, I went from being grumpy and annoyed to being SO extremely grateful and overwhelmed with emotion.  The kids and I stayed until every last window was washed.  We were all skipping by the end and I am still so grateful that we chose to "sacrifice" on that early morning.

This past weekend, we had an OPEN HOUSE for our new church building.  I was involved in some of the planning meetings of this event and I was a little annoyed at how much work was being put into this event.  The leaders wanted every auxiliary and every classroom to be functioning how it would on a typical Sunday to give visitors an idea of what really goes on in our church buildings.  This meant the Primary kids would be singing, teachers giving lessons in each classroom, service projects going on, not to mention displays and scout projects and refreshments and the whole shebang.  It was a ton of work... and frankly, part of me wanted to pretend it wasn't happening.  To spend an entire Saturday morning (okay, we were only there for 2.5 hours) dressed up and pretending to go to church just to do it all over again on Sunday...  did not sound fun at all.  But let me tell you, my entire family had a blast.  We all went to our classrooms and got to mingle with some of our favorite people, celebrating not only a beautiful new building, but the relationships we share and the amazing church that we belong to.  I was literally overwhelmed with gratitude and warmth while I sat in that RS room with other women of my faith.  I sat at the "craft table" working on a cross-stitch from the 1970's (I had to pay a decent penny for it online and I'm super excited about it!)  Others were knitting and crocheting and we laughed about it would be appropriate if we put on pioneer caps and pretended like we sat around at home all day sewing and mending.  But really, while the mini-lessons were being taught, I thought about the first RS meetings ever held, and I became SO GRATEFUL for this organization that I belong to.  My life has been so enriched because of this church I belong to.  

These are just a few pictures that were snapped during the open house. I love my family and I am so appreciative for the others in these pictures.  We truly LOVE our ward, neighborhood and friends here in Vegas... more than we can say. 

we came home this Saturday afternoon, changed our clothes, cleaned the garage until it got dark and then went to the park with several other families in our neighborhood to play "night games" with glowsticks. (wish I had pictures of it, especially of Roma in her hot pink sweat suit.)  It was really the perfect Saturday.