Consider the Lillies

I'm just having a lazy, contemplative morning this morning. As I was browsing through people's facebooks and blogs, I came across a link to this song. I've always loved Consider the Lillies, but in recent months it has taken on a special meaning.

As I listened to it, I was brought back to a special, sacred Sunday in a hospital room. It had been an intense week filled with tests and lots of unknowns. Isaac was still on his mission, something that was hard for each of us. As we stood around the bed of Isaac's father who was just diagnosed or would soon be diagnosed with a severe malignant brain cancer, we held a special Sunday meeting there for him. The Spirit permeated the room as we all joined together in prayer. My mother and I had prepared this song to sing as part of this special devotional. We hardly got through the first verse before the tears began, but we were able to make it through. The last verse seemed to especially ring true in my heart as I sang, "Consider the sweet tender children, who must suffer on this earth." And then of course the chorus, "...and he will heal those who trust him, and make their hearts as gold."

As I thought back to that moment, I could remember the peace that filled each of us, the peace that comes in knowing beyond any doubt that God is with us. He is mindful of us and always will be. No matter what trials we may find ourselves in, we have to know that God will not leave us. We have to know that "all these things will give us experience and will be for our good." He knows each lily in each field. He knows how they grow and how they wilt, especially when they encounter things completely out of their control.

Today, I realized once again how blessed my life really is. I'm so grateful for the peace that the knowledge of the Gospel can bring. Isaac's father is still with us, stubborn and determined as ever. It's been almost a year since that day, and for the past year we've witnessed so many extensive miracles. So even though, from an outsider looking in it may seem like this trial is unfair, undeserved. I like to think that the miracles we have witnessed and the blessings we have received are the unfair, undeserved part of this all. It has been a humbling, faith testing experience, but God continues to watch over us and bless us. He will never cease doing so as long as we have our faith.

We just have to believe in Him. 

School has begun, and we'll be moving soon.

It's been a while since I've updated. Life has been pretty busy.

Isaac just started school on Thursday and both of us are happy. He's really excited to have more productive things to do, and I'm really excited for him to have more productive things to do. :) It's a win-win. It sounds like this semester will be keeping him pretty busy, and I know he's gonna do really well.

Speaking of school, I finally finished my grad school application and will likely be hearing back from them (or not) this week. If I do hear back, I'll have an all-day on campus interview to complete and then I'll know if I'm in or not. If I don't hear back from them, I guess I won't be going to grad school in the fall! :) Either one I'll actually be pretty content with, so we'll see.

Beyond that, life has been pretty normal. We're already starting to look at new places to live. We've liked our current apartment, but our lease it up at the end of March and we're hoping to find a 2 bedroom apartment closer to campus so that Isaac can ride his bike to school. Right now, Tech is about 15 minutes away and it's costing us a lot in gas money. Isaac nearly curses at the idea of having to move again, but I think he finds solace in the fact that this could likely be our last move for the rest of our time here. As for me, I kinda think moving is fun. I love organizing and setting up a new home with new looks. (But don't tell Isaac I said that...)

It's kinda funny, too. Isaac and I just barely got callings at church. He's teaching 16-17 year old Sunday School, and I'm teaching Sunbeams. Isaac is enjoying all of the punk teens in his class, trying to show them that learning the gospel is "cool." He's doing a good job. And I kind of love the Sunbeams. Originally, I was put in Nursery, but when I told them I worked with 2-year-olds all week, they thought they'd give me a change of scenery... so now I'm with 3-year-olds. haha Luckily, I never tire of children. I just love them a bunch. Also, Sunbeams kinda cracks me up. For instance:

The other Sunday, my co-teacher was teaching. (We switch off every week.) She was teaching a lesson on bodies, and how we came to this Earth to get bodies so we can be like God and Jesus, who also have bodies. She decided to use the story of Joseph Smith seeing God and Jesus as an example of how they have bodies just like ours. She put in an animated, old fashioned movie about Joseph Smith for the kids to watch. She had forgotten, however, that the movie began with Joseph as a young boy, getting his leg operated on. We decided maybe this could teach about how Heavenly Father heals our bodies. Little did we know how traumatic it was going to be for our little 3-year-olds. As they sat there watching Joseph cry and the doctor with the knife, I looked around the room. All I saw were 3-year-olds sitting completely still, some with tears welling up in their eyes, and all of them with a shocked look on their face. Not unlike the picture below.

Some of them even closed their eyes, or put their hands on their face. We were both laughing, feeling bad for giving all of our little Sunbeams PTSD, so we fast-forwarded to the part where Joseph prayed in the grove. Most of the kids rebounded after us explaining over and over that Heavenly Father helped make Joseph healthy again, but one girl was particularly disturbed. She just kept asking the rest of class with a really sad expression, "Why they cut Joseph Smith's leg off?" We kept explaining that they didn't, but by the end of class she still wasn't convinced. This last week, one of the first things she said to us in class was, "They didn't cut off Joseph Smith's leg, huh? They didn't." We were glad she hadn't been permanently damaged.

 I guess that just goes to show that not all of the stories of the Gospel are appropriate for 3-year-olds. I can only imagine if we taught them about Laban's head getting chopped off, or Joseph being killed by the mob. Yeah, maybe we'll save that for when they get older.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll be updating again sometime soon. :D

3 months

Today is Isaac and I's 3 month anniversary, and you know what that means? Actually, it doesn't really mean a whole lot, unless you're a big celebrity because then you'd be making some kind of record being married this long.

Anyway, yesterday Isaac and I looked through all of his pictures on facebook. We were reminiscing about the old times we had together. It's a fun thing for us to do. I'm so glad we have so many fond memories of our pasts together and that there was nothing we ever did that we would regret looking back.

Isaac was making me laugh the whole time. I would look at a picture like this one:
 

And say something like, "Oh yeah, I was mad at you that day for something. I can't remember what, but we were arguing." (Which is easy to tell from my expression.) Several different pictures I'd remember something specific about, like "Man, that day was so crazy, we were so annoyed with each other that day." or something like that. Isaac had no recollection of any of the arguments or conversations we had that were attached to pictures. Then all of the sudden, we came across this picture:

And Isaac said, "Oh yeah, we were playing that one game where you try to bomb each other on my dad's palm pilot!" I just looked at him. We both started laughing. Out of all the things he could remember, he remembered that we were playing a game.

Anyway, so times around the Olive household have been good. Our works are going well and life is just life. I've started on some more of my independent study classes and Isaac is eager to begin at Tech in a week and a half or so. We also found out that we qualified for even more grants than we thought we qualified for. God has not forgotten us, I tell you. Things continue to happen that make everything we need to do possible.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I'm excited for the new year and all that it will bring. Here's a video I found on Isaac's camera that I thought would be fun to share.

Hard to believe that it's only been 3 months since this video was taken. I'm so glad our apartment doesn't look like that anymore.