Another Day

Good morning to you! Temperature is good, humidity is probably awful, sky is full of clouds, goat is milked.

Yesterday was a unique day. I was actually looking forward to Relief Society because it was going to be taught by our bishop and stake president. I didn’t actually read the suggested reading but I am familiar with part of it and read part of it. I had intended to read some of it during the Sunday School lesson. However, although Sacrament Meeting went pretty much as usual with a couple of digressions, things really took another path beginning at the beginning of Sunday School.

Seth.

Harry Shadduck wanted to talk to me about how my calling in Family History is going. It’s going well. He has to report to the Stake how Marlain and I are doing and he likes to be able to give them fact rather than anything else. Can’t say I blame him there. He does like to talk but he is one of those people I like to listen to because he’s had a very full life and he has been around for a while. I don’t want to call him old, because old is relative. He has seen a lot of years and I’m guessing he’s in his 60’s or early 70’s. He told me yesterday about his dad. He and his wife were Catholic for years and years. They joined the church 11 years ago and much of their family gave them a hard time. His mom died after what sounds to be a long illness and his dad was ready to go two or three years later. He said that his dad had decided to join the church and that they’d arranged for an ambulance to be at the church ready for whatever might happen and had arranged for the children to not be right around the font and for his grandson and himself to lower his dad into the font. It seems that he had emphysema and was on oxygen and in a wheelchair so these things were all necessary. However, he died the day before the baptism was scheduled.

Paul and Seth.

Anyway, we talked for most of Sunday School and when we were done, it was almost over. I saw Sariah in the hall and she said that Ellie was with Laura in the Primary room because Laura had been set apart as a missionary and had to have a companion. So, I went and waited for singing/sharing time to be over and then went to Laura’s class with her. That was interesting. She was pretty good with them and they are cute. One of the boys was visiting with his dad who appears to have some stake calling. The other two are regulars; one is a livewire, smart and vivacious and, according to Laura a bit spoiled (a youngest child), the other is a good kid, very solid and well behaved. So, I missed Relief Society and was reminded how I do not like Primary.

Strategy planning.

At some point in time, Jeremy West told me that he and Emily have kind of decided that they like doing reenactment stuff and they’ve been looking at costumes and have discovered that the prices are exorbitant. That’s true; I’ve looked at some in doing research for the story I’m working on and some of them are outrageously priced. He said that he knows I am a busy person and that my time is valuable but would I consider making costumes for them. Would I!? I would love to! The last time I did any sewing for others was years ago and I charged $10 an hour. He said they’d be willing to pay more than that. So they’re going to look at costumes and send them my way so I can look at them and determine how much I think I would charge. So exciting!

Cedric. Love the action on this one.

We had Chinese sausage, pesto and pasta, and tomato salad after church. That was all good. I was planning on sliced tomatoes and cucumbers out of the garden but Paul wanted to make a tomato salad which is basically tomatoes and cucumbers with celery, onion, and whatever else. He said cheese but I can’t imagine cheese with that much tomato. Unless it was a really hard cheese, it would have turned to slime. He also said that the reason I didn’t want it in there was because I’ve never had a good tomato salad. That’s true. In fact, I think I’d never had a tomato salad. I like simple food, I guess.

Joseph. I like this one because Joseph really did slide down the slide, he just jumped up running right at the moment of the picture. Awesome.

We went to the park in the afternoon and the boys had a lot of fun running around. Cedric and Joseph got all sweaty and Seth was worn out. When we came home we had family prayer and read scriptures and then Paul and the boys watched a DVD that brought up some very interesting questions for Joseph.

I was washing the dishes and he came in the kitchen and said, “So, when Jesus was alive, black people were bad and white people were good.”

Whoa, I thought. This is something we need to correct. If you believe the Bible, which I do, then the Biblical account tells us, and this is what I told Joseph, that Adam and Eve had many children (the bible only specifically mentions three: Cain, Able and Seth but if from them sprang all of humanity, they would have had to have had many more than three boys). One of them, Able, was good and did what Heavenly Father wanted of him. Another of them, Cain, was jealous of the things that Able had and when Satan suggested to him that he kill his brother, he did. Then, because Cain was afraid that people would be angry for what he had done and would kill him, he was ‘cursed’ with a dark skin. So, in a manner of speaking, the curse was also a protection. If you believe in evolution, it makes no difference. Some people have different colored skin. Skin color does not determine goodness or badness.

A while later, Joseph came to me and told me that there was a family on the DVD and the dad was white and the mom and kids were all black. I then explained that when two people of different ethnic backgounds have children, the children are a mix of the parents. Sometimes they look more like one, sometimes more like the other. This was a good opportunity to ask if the children were bad. Joseph readily said, “No, they’re just kids.” So I pointed out that even though Cain made a bad choice in killing his brother, that does not mean that his children were bad even though they would have also had his ‘curse.’

While the boys were watching and then after they’d gone to bed, I was saving pictures from Facebook that I lost when my hard drive fried last year. I wanted all of the pictures that I’ve taken at Moore State Park so that Thursday I can have a slideshow going of all the pictures I have from there. Thirty-three I had printed and will pick up today but that is only a small drop of what I’ve taken. There are 421 altogether. Some aren’t that great, but that’s okay.

Up for today is a fun trip to Boston to drop Laura off. On the way there or more likely the way home, a stop at the Lunenburg Walmart to pick up my 33 pictures. Other than that, just the usual stuff that needs to happen.

Have a wonderful day!