Start of a New Era with a New Building

When I was a about a year my parents bought a house and moved in. One of the reasons of why they chose that location was that a brand new meetinghouse was being built down the street. They liked the idea of living close enough to a meetinghouse to walk to church. I grew up going to services in this building and running in its halls. I didn't realize how attached I was to a building until November 19, 2007. At 2am we were awaken by neighbors telling us that the church was on fire. It was arson. I don't know anything about the current investigation or if anyone has even been arrested- but for some reason I don't think anyone has been.

The church in flames was a sight to see. It was almost nothing in such a short amount of time. Thank goodness no one was inside at the time, and no one was hurt. We all stood on the street watching the building burn while in our pajamas.

In the morning there was little left, but a shell and a standing steeple. There were so many worries that The Church wasn't going to rebuild. My parent's ward was sent to a building about 10 minutes away, and all the other wards in the building were sent to other buildings to hold their services. For months there was no answer to what was going to be done. In fact, it was almost a year before it was announced that the building was going to be rebuilt. Anytime I drove by the empty lot, I felt a hole in me. One of the factors that influenced the choice to rebuild in this spot was the outcry from the neighbors (not members of the Church) who express concerns and that they miss having the building there. That was special because so often in a ward you hear about how the ward around the building begrudges that fact that they have to do with the building, with the view blocked, with the traffic (more then just one day a week too), with all the little perky members. But to hear that they missed it and wanted it rebuilt was comforting.

The new building went up so quickly. It was dedicated a few weeks ago now. I attended church with my family while visiting them this last weekend, and it still smells strongly of paint and new things. Its a beautiful building, its not the same. I am grateful they rebuilt. I'm grateful that my parents could again walk to church. One thing that is comforting, is that building or no building, it doesn't change that the Church is True!

MeMere

My husband's grandmother, or MeMere, passed away September 30th. It's part of the reason that I haven't made many posts lately. I was trying to put some of my thoughts together and I also was hoping to get some pictures from my mother-in-law from the family gatherings. MeMere had lived a full life. She was from Massachusetts, and although she had lived in Arizona since 1969, her accent was still noticeable. I met my husband's family for the first time, while we were dating, when I went with my husband to his cousin's wedding. It was Christmas time. The whole family was very welcoming of me but MeMere took the cake and inviting me to the family Christmas gathering in a week's time. And she would not take a no or a maybe as an answer. My attendance was a must. Over the last two years I had become to know her better. She was always smiling. It was the essential to her personal fashion statement. She was also very devote in her faith. Raised a Catholic and raised all her children to be active Catholics, she was a regular attendee at mass. I admired this in her. I also wanted so much to share with her the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. The night after her passing during family prayer my husband prayed for his MeMere who was in the spirit world to hear and accept the fullness of the Gospel. I was very touched by this. It had never occurred to me to pray for them. I pray for friends and family members all the time that the day will come that they will want to learn and be prepared to learned about why my religion is more then just a social organization for me. I don't know why it had never occurred to me that praying they will will accept the Truth is something that I could do to help them.

Last year my Grandpa passed away. It was a different experience for my husband to attend a LDS viewing and funeral, since he was raised Catholic. Being raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) I had only ever know LDS funerals and going to a catholic funeral was very different. Both the viewing and the funeral for a member of the LDS church is an time to celebrate and remember the passed on loved one's life, and to be reminded of the beauty of the Plan of Salvation, and that families are forever. In contrast, the viewing was much the same, but the funeral was not much of her life. It was just a mass, that the scriptures were a bit more appropriate for a funeral. For me, this is not offer closure. MeMere met Pepere while they were both serving in the Navy during WWII. Because of her years of service (which I totally think is awesome), there was a gun solute and she was buried in the National Memorial Cemetery. The few moments at the cemetery offered some closure. But all in all I think that the reason I didn't feel that closure was the lack of being spiritually fed that I am use to at funerals. All of my in laws are wonderful, righteous people, who are a sure faith in Jesus Christ. Sometimes I have to remind myself that they are not already members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know their faith is a big part of who they are, but I desire so much to share with them that there is more. That the fullness of the blessings and truth of Christ's gospel were lost over the ages, and that they were restored through Joseph Smith. That the Book of Mormon does not replace the Bible and its truths, instead it is a companion to the Bible reinforcing the truths therein and clarifying doctrines that have been misunderstood due to lost information. My faith in Jesus Christ and His plan for us, is the most important thing to me in my life. It is what makes me love my family more. I love my in-laws, as I said before they are such wonderful people. I love them so much that I want them to be with me for eternity just as I will be with my family. I pray for the day that I can share these truths with them and hopefully they will recognize the truths. MeMere was a true example of charity in her life. I hope that when I pass away the same can be said of me. I too pray that she will be given the opportunity to hear and understand also.

Activtivity: Board Game

I started making and working on the idea for this board game prior to having the baby, with the idea of having it be a sub activity, I might still use it for a sub, but I made it a little more complicated and am not sure if a sub would want to deal with it.

the Board Game:
I wanted to make it so I could reuse it over and over and have it laminated. Since finishing it I've thought of lots of different ways I could have done it. You need construction paper, glue, something to use as a game piece, and a dice (standard one from a game or make one yourself so it's larger than normal-either way)

• (how I did it) I made the board to be used over and over by glueing each piece on the board and writting what the space tells you to do. I have the yellow spaces are a "you choose" and the pink and red spaces are a "question card" space. What is a "question card"? Its a card that I've put questions on for the children to answer. There are three types of questions 1-a line from one of the songs we've been learning 2-Guess that prophet: clue to who the prophet is some are modern and some from the scriptures 3- What would you do? Overall the idea is I can always make new cards. All the rest of the squares are pick a song from the song jar (all the songs we've been working on this year and in the song jar, plus a few other fun ones-I would recommend always having a song jar for a back up, and not useing glass, find a good plastic jar).


• (thought of after the fact) make the board and laminate it, cut out the squares and laminate them. Then use a marker to write the songs on the back of the squares (or the front is find since the children aren't picking the squares you land on), then tape, velco, or just hold on with the magnets when you set it up. Washable markers should come off fine, overhead markers would work great too, you could use a permant marker and then use rubbing alcohol to remove it afterwards. This way you don't make any question cards and each square has a song to sing.


• Make it up like in the first example, but instead of labeling each square, write down your own color code, you could just assign each color a song (sing it more than once if you land on that color alot or use all different colors), you number each square and assign a song to each number.
  

I have some other board game ideas that involve finding some old children's board games like "shuts and ladders". I got the idea from for the board game I made from a board game I made on my mission. That game was made to teach the 4th D (at the time was the Plan of Salvation Lesson). The plan of salvation game worked by choosing a card, each card had a life experince, either a good one or bad. If good you moved forward, if bad you moved backwards. Eventually you reach the end of the spaces (life) then each of the principles were taught as you move from each of the after-life pictures. Back to the game I just made... I made the start Earth because that is where we currently are and the end a sun to represent living with God in heaven. That way we are moving towards returning to Heavenly Father. You could make start and finish whatever you want. Good luck.

Lisonbee Reunion and LDS Funerals

We went up to Mesa this weekend in order to attend my Grandpa Lisonbee’s funeral. Cory was given a day for bereavement, so we left to head up to Mesa Friday morning. It was disappointing that the temple was closed, all this extra time in Mesa with nothing to do… or did we really have nothing to do. We filled the time with 1- going to thrift stores to see if we could find a suit vest for Cory that would go with his khaki trousers. Just like I love vintage clothing, my husband likes classy cloths. Yes we are a good match. This trip we didn’t find any vests, maybe another time. 2- We used the last AMC gift card we have to go see Wall-E (there is no AMC in Sierra Vista). It was such a cute movie, we really enjoyed it. So cute, so funny. Even with doing all that we still had plenty of time to visit with my family.

Friday night was a family only viewing. Grandpa requested not to have a public viewing. He did not want his dead body to be “on display”. I guess I can relate to his wishes. After all no one looks good dead, you don’t want people’s last memory of you laying in a coffin. But even being family only there was a ton of people there. Grandpa had 8 children with his first wife, my Grandma Margaret Lisonbee (passed away while I was on my mission in 2002), after they divorced he married my Grandma Dorothy. She had 4 children from her first marriage. All the children were there, along with most of their children. It is sad that it takes a death in the family to get us all together. A lot of family got together for my wedding but it was nowhere near this much family. What we need is a huge long termed planed family reunion that no one could pass up. The viewing was so nice to talk and see all the family. So many relatives that I had not seen in years, like since before my mission and some even longer than that. I think that many people would have been surprised to see our viewing happening. There was much joy, laughter, talking, smiling. It would be hard to even believe that we had gather because of a death in the family. Cory, being a convert to the church had not been to a LDS viewing. Having a Irish Catholic background he has been to a few Wakes. Before we went we discussed the differences. Afterwards there was some family discussions that the only differences between Our viewing and a wake was the body was there, and there was no alcohol.

Saturday morning we were to be at the church at 8:30, and the funeral was at 9:30. I am always frustrated with how much pressure they put on family to be there so early before the funeral is to start. All you do is end up sitting around, talking, and what else till it is time. And all that time would have been so nice when sleeping, eating, and getting ready is needed. Grandpa had requested that his funeral didn’t last longer than an hour. He didn’t enjoy attending long funeral. There was an attempt at keeping his wishes. But with all the stories and life accomplishments being spoken of, we went 1.5 hours. So not too over. Grandpa had made almost all of his arrangements a few years ago. He pre-paid for his gravesite and other arrangements. He had already made the request of who was to do what. So there wasn’t a lot of planning on Dorothy’s part and of the children. I think they appreciated it, but at the same time felt a little frustration trying to give themselves closure they way they wanted to and still follow his wishes. I hope he was happy with the outcome.

To use the rest of the afternoon Cory and I went to do some errands. We had some gift cards to use and some items we needed. We also found out that there was a family swim party at my aunt Kathy’s house. We had not brought our swimsuits. So we went to Target and found Cory a new pair of board shorts (good thing because his old swimsuit was really old and super faded). We found me a new suit at Marshalls. I had bought a new suit before we got married, but I really regret the purchase. I hate the suit, it looks sick on me. I am really grateful for the suit we bought. It looked ugly on the hanger, but being a good priced one piece, I tried it on and it actually looked decent. There were two suits I felt comfortable with how they looked and I took the back out for Cory’s advice (he only saw them on the hanger) there was a tankini turquoise and this olive one piece with a gathered polka-dot bust. Cory picked the olive because he said he thought the color would look better on me- I have a husband with good taste. It has been a really long time since I felt this happy with a bathing suit.

Sunday- Cory stayed home from church because his uvula was super swollen and red. It was so big that it was touching his tongue and kept choking him. I felt so sorry for him. He gargled with warm salt water, spayed Chloraseptic, and drank throat coat. He is feeling much better today, but yesterday he was so miserable.

We are back home now. Next weekend we have plans to return to Mesa but then onward to go camping up on the rim. Have a great week everyone.

Death is Not the End

Last night at 3:50 am my mother's father, my grandpa, Lorenzo, passed away. He was old, after he was in his 90's. He had lived a full life, if we will all be so lucky. Not that its luck. He as a good man, with good genetics, and a large family. His death due to a combination of old age and complications due to a fall that occurred sometime on Sunday. He had been living in an assisted care center for a couple months now. But he had been doing well, most of his pain was due to arthritis.
I am sorry if I sound insensitive to my own grandfather's death. Everyone deals with death differently. Most of the time I deal with death by being matter of fact about the situation. The second set for me is usually to be reflective. At some point I will start having regrets, and eventually I will cry. The tears are almost always because I know I will miss them and it will be a long time till I will be able to see them again. But my tears are never because I don't know if I will see them again. I KNOW that I will. I know that death is only the end of this test of life. After this we return to our Father who made us, who loves us (Alma 40:11). In the next life there is not going to be all this "stuff", everything will be better. Death can be scary, the idea of dying before being able to live life fully, but I have come to realize that death is a blessing. It is a blessing to the one who is found ready to return home. Have you ever been home sick? Well I get homesick, not just for being back in Mesa with my family, but to be back home with my Heavenly Father and family. There has been times in my life were I was ready to go Home. Although there were still a million things on Earth that I wanted to do, they didn't matter, I could have moved on without them, if it had been my time. However, I would have a hard time now. Unlike my grandfather who has lived a very full life, I have not. I only got married 2 1/2 months ago, there is still so much I need to do.
Death is hard on those who are still alive. I started this book, "Anybody Out There" by the Marion Keyes. I was almost half way through the book when we realize that the husband didn't just leave his wife and she is trying to get him back, instead he died in this car accident. He died and she lived. They had only been married a few months. I can't get myself to finish the book. It hits too close to home. I don't know how I would pick up the pieces of my life if that happened to me. I waited 27 years to find the guy I could marry and be happy with. There is the comforting thought that we have been sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. He would still be stuck with me. But to not have children, or if we did have children to raise them alone... death is always hardest on those who didn't die. But its a blessing to those who do.
I regret that I didn't get to see my grandpa one last time. The last time we went up to Mesa I took the Phlebotomy class and my family went to go see him, I didn't have time to go. I wish I had found a way to make time. I know my grandpa was proud of me. He loved science and was so happy to finally have a grandchild take interest in biology. He did a lot with his life. I know he still had his regrets. I hope that although I know I will have regrets, I hope that I can live a full life to, make the best of the time I do have and I pray I can pass the test.