You've GOT To Be Kidding Me!!

January 31, 2012

Well, I finally finished the torture treatments for my back, at least the ones that I drive for 30 minutes each way and pay $60 for.  Now I just have to keep up the free ones at home, and try to endure the bad days

AND

This morning I woke up and on my lower right gum is a hugh white very swollen bump....a very painful bump.  Now my jaw has been hurting me for several days, but when I went to the dentist the last time for something like it, he told me it was because I was grinding my teeth because of stress in my sleep....ok, well, you would have to sleep in order to have stress in your sleep at least in my feeble mind!  At any rate, that side of my mouth quit hurting after a few days....then a couple of weeks later TWO crowns came off in my sleep!  I went back into the dentist office...a place which I HATE....and got them re-glued.  Now THIS week....I have this pus pocket in my jaw!  Well, I touched it with a q-tip and everything went everywhere, so I just kept pushing on it until it appears to be drained, and yes, you guessed it....back to the dentist!  AND, I am supposed to go on Thursday to get my teeth cleaned.  I mean talk about anxiety!  However, since I drained it my jaw is starting to feel better, but I obviously need an antibiotic.....

Our other health issues seem to be starting to sort themselves out with much influence on Dad's part....and many temple prayer rolls praying.  Which reminds me, it's time to add the names on again....for those who put them on, please do it again.  There is still many, many bad days for mom and dad as we just have to wait to see what happens now....a tremendously hard thing to do.

Cymbre has only had TWO headaches in all the month of January....I think the magnesium is the key for her.  And her eye has just faded out once that I can remember, so it is getting much more stable now too.  She still can't be jostled around, but at least she can see most days now.  A miraculous blessing in our eyes!

I have been rhinestoning costume after costume for competition this week.  There is just one more to finish sewing, and then handsew the leaves and feathers on it.  She is a forest creature, and yes, I should have done that one first.  However, it will be beautiful when I finally finish it.

My Sunday School lesson was a hit again this week.  We went out into the wilderness with Lehi and Nephi and their families.  While camping in our tents (blankets on the grass) we discovered we didn't know how to get to the land of promise, so Nephi decided we should pray (the opening prayer for the class), and low and behold we found a beautiful liahona in a stand outside our tent!  Then we discovered that miracle of miracles, it had pointers that if we had faith and were being obedient pointed in the direction we should travel.  Later we discovered that Nephi had been told to build a ship!  Great, we had no tools....again we prayed....and discovered in Sister Flanagan's basket there was a package of permanent markers.  Not quite ore to make tools, but it is the modern day, and we only have 20 minutes to build the ship before setting sail to the promised land.  So Nephi organizes all the other family members, and they start to work on the 60" x 15' piece of brown paper taped to the side of the church.  The ship starts to look like a ship, but then I start reminding them of things they also need to take with us for the journey...you know...family members, food, water, our animals....   Well, so they draw an Ozarka water bottle and then write x 1,000,000,000...a cannon (to be used to shoot everyone ashore when we finally get where we are going, some trees with beehives hanging from them, a mermaid at the front of the ship like a viking ship, and two people acting out that scene from theTitanic movie where they are standing on the railing trying to feel like they are flying.  They forgot the children, the anchor, and the most important thing....the liahona.  However, Sister Flanagan saved the day, and we remembered those things in the end.  Nephi found himself tied up to the mast, and the liahona not working.  At the very height of the storm, Laman and Lemuel decide that if they don't want everyone to drown, maybe they better untie Nephi...a good decision from a teacher's point of view!  So Nephi was freed, the liahona began to work again, and the storm was calmed.  They named our ship the USS Betsy...give me a break!

Then I talked to them about how this trip to the promised land for Nephi and his family is quite like our trip back to our Heavenly Father for each of us.  We each need to be keeping the commandments, talking to our Heavenly Father on a regular basis, and using our faith....the kids just stood there looking at me while realization dawned on them.  At the end of my talking, I asked Nephi what the first thing they did when they got off the boat was....someone said go to the bathroom....I told them what was the important thing they did.  Nephi came through and said that they had said a prayer....so on that note, we knelt and had the closing prayer for the class.  Then I was mobbed when I told them that I had personal liahonas for each of them to take home and hang up in their rooms to help them to always remember that they needed to keep their faith in working order....and that they needed to write in their golden plates (little journals I made for them) how they would have felt to be Nephi in the situations we talked about today.  Would they have been angry with their family members, would they have told the Savior he was crazy to think that Nephi could build a boat?  Would they have been able to keep the liahona working with their constant faith and obedience? 

Well, standing at the back of the lawn was the Bishop's counselor that is in charge of Sunday School, and he came forward at the end to ask the kids if they enjoyed the class...I think the vote was unanimous!  He even wanted his own liahona, and he told me that the kids in the lower ages classes were beginning to beg to come into my class.....and it turns out that the seminary teacher wants to ditch Gospel Doctrine and come to my class too.  We had a lobby full of looky-loos who should have been in the Gospel Doctrine class, and I just told the kids that they were the unrighteous people we couldn't take on the ship with us.

All in all, I think it will be a little while before my class forgets that lesson.  They were posing for photos by the ship before we took it down, and they wanted to take it into the Bishop for his office...we didn't do that however.

It's amazing to me that 16 teenagers all participated, and actually were excited to be there yesterday.  Now the problem is what will I do next week?

Well, just back from the dentist....a root canal, antibiotics, and pain medicine is my fate this week.  You know, I really like that dentist, but I really HATE that r-word he tends to talk to me about occassionally!

Who knows what the dance costumes will turn out like now.....thank goodness we are not competiting this first time....since all the dances were on Sunday.

On that note, because of the stress we are dealing with on all sides, I am going to go buy a happy meal and find a homeless person to give it too....it will probably be a welcome thing since it's such a rainy day outside.

Remember that Dad and I love you all very much...remember to call your temples and put the family members on the prayer roll that you did a couple of weeks ago....please do it today.

Mom