This past Saturday was a Spaghetti Dinner and ward Talent Show. We sat at a table with a family that was awesome! The husband completed EOD school 6 years prior so his knowledge and experience was nice. It's always encouraging to interact with soldiers that completed the program. His wife, Dana, was so sweet. Her and I chatted the entire activity and I left feeling like there was so much more to discuss. You would be hard pressed to find a kinder and more open individual.
On Tuesday evening I went visiting teaching to a girl named Meg. She's amazing!! She speaks 4 languages, is an officer in the Air Force, has 3 degrees, can sew her own clothes, is training for a marathon, is about to achieve her goal of reading 100 books in a year, has lived in other countries, and she just returned from a 9 month deployment in Afghanistan. The thing I love best about her, though, is that she is someone you can get right down to the nitty gritty with in a conversation. Despite all her talents and world achievements, she is humble and a fantastic listener. She can really read people and understand or at least empathize with people to a degree that I find rare. I think she should be a counselor. I was over there for 3 hours and I only left because it was 10:30 pm and she had to work in the morning; otherwise, I could have easily burned another 3 hours away talking to her. Just a funny point, her and Dana (my new friend from the ward activity) are also good friends. It just made sense to me that those two incredible girls would be friends with one another. Before I left, her and her husband gave me their jogging stroller and a hiking carrier (I think that's what it's called) since their son has outgrown them. Not only was I inspired by her example and entertained with her stories, I got two fantastic items out of the visit. Now I need to find a place to go hiking so I can carry Annie.
On Wednesday evening we had a class mutual activity and I had a blast. My little Beehives are such incredibly enthusiastic and engaged girls. They get excited with everything we present and it makes it so fun. Another thing truly unique about this group of 10-14 girls is that there aren't any cliques. Every single one of them gets along really well and overall they are very inclusive. I don't think I've ever seen unity to this degree in any ward before, let along Young Womens. I've often suspected whether that is because most of them are military and understand what it's like to move around and have to start over. I don't know....I just know it's unique, and it makes being their leader so easy and fun. I was nominated for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge but was considering just not doing it. I mentioned it to the girls and they got so excited to do it for me and wouldn't let me back out of it. In fact, by the time the activity was over they were ready with a pot full of ice water ready to dump on me, and all of them came outside to watch. I just love my girls. I think my maturity drops by about 2 decades when I hang out with them but that's probably why I have so much fun.
Then this morning I was blessed to have my visiting teachers come over and visit me. Both are super awesome girls!! Each are parents of girls of their own so I got a lot of good stories and advice about raising a daughter. Also, one of them is a personal trainer that loves lifting weights like I do so I had fun talking to her. It's just such a huge blessing to have people around me that are so fun, talented, friendly and amazing examples. It buoys me up so much to interact with them when life feels heavy, which is certainly has felt a lot in the past year. I've just been feeling so grateful for these all of these people in my life right now.
PS....I think I've used the words "love", "fun", "blessing", and "feel" a lot in this post but I was just letting the thoughts come out unfiltered. :)
