Day 73 A confession...

A confession of life. I am eight days behind, but plan on catching up within the next two days or so. 
Today is 3 Nephi 10-11, I'm still in Helaman, but the point of this challenge was to use the scriptures to stregthen me, to allow my testimony of The Book of Mormon to grow and to bring a greater level of the spirit into my life and the lives of those I love. It's working.

I've been back in the US for a week now. In this week, I've taught a week of summer school and spent an additional 25 hours at my elementary school getting things ready for the new school year. My contract days start this week, tomorrow I'm testing my kids for seven hours and Tuesday I have a meeting to go to for our new math texts. I taught young women's today coupled with a handmade handout (of course), wrote a recommendation for my friends who are adopting, cleaned the church, sent in my report from my trip to Ecuador, put on makeup and did my hair...i know you're impressed... and found time to go to dinner with my husband. Our friends stopped by and it was great to catch up since we haven't seen each other for months.

My summer has been, dare I say, the most jam packed of my life. I usually have a couple really big projects in the summer but the variety of tasks I've been blessed to perform this year has been ridiculous, as you can probably notice from this blog. Busy. I am so grateful to come home every night to a peaceful home and a faithful husband who shows his love. I know what some of you are thinking, "Just wait Kamden, when you have kids there is no 'going home to peace and quiet,'" so be it. So be it!! No seriously. Someone I was talking to this week said that all they wanted to do is switch lives with their husband for a couple hours and have the full time job while he stayed home with the kids. Yeah, I know about freedom that comes with being childless, but seriously...trials and hardships come no matter where you are at, I don't blame this woman, there were a lot of things I didn't want to do this week too, but you've just gotta. I despise the idea that people look at my life and claim it is care free, due to being child free. Upon being asked 10, 398 times how my mom has time to raise seven kids, she always responds, "It doesn't matter if you have zero kids or seven kids, you will always find a way to fill your time." Busy people are always busy. Bring on the babies.

Among it all, I have been able to keep my center.

Scripture of the Day
Helaman 3:14 
 14 But behold, a ^ahundredth part of the proceedings of this people, yea, the account of the Lamanites and of the Nephites, and their wars, and contentions, and dissensions, and their preaching, and their prophecies, and their shipping and their building of ships, and their building of ^btemples, and of synagogues and their ^csanctuaries, and their righteousness, and their wickedness, and their murders, and their robbings, and their plundering, and all manner of abominations and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work.   

Busy then, busy now. 

So I went to Ecuador.
Was a mom to 18 of the most amazing girls you'll ever meet.

Was accompanied by four awesome parents, and my adorable sister, Brittan.
We worked in an orphanage with mild to severely disabled angel children, I was taught from on high.
We helped build a house.
We met amazing members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 
We jumped off waterfalls. 
We threw up.

We were healed.
We were humbled.
We were blessed.
Forever. 

Here are some photos. 
(I cant post any of the kids in the orphanage because this blog is public, but know how they have changed me forever) 

 

I pray I never become numb to the humility that is seen in South America. There is so much need there and here in the states for kindness and service.  I hope to never be so busy that I loose sight of my purpose here on earth, to never loose sight that my time and effort does matter. The Ecuadorian people taught me how to love more deeply than I ever have. I feel so sorry for those people who go their whole lives thinking that all they have contribute to society are their fancy cars, modernized homes, and name brand clothes. They will be feeling so naked when all those things are gone and all they have is what they've become on the inside. There is nothing wrong with having nice stuff, but is that what you use to define you? Are you your things? Is that what you want people to notice about you when they meet you?

The kids we worked with couldn't walk, get dressed, speak, eat, or control their bodies without the help of others. They relied upon the goodness of other people for their very existence. Many of them do not have parents, were beet up or abandoned as young children, yet they showed such light in their eyes every time we said their name, pushed them in their wheelchairs or sang them a song. $500 worth of basic food lasts a month to feed these 25 kids, allows them to survive, and some of us spend nearly that on a couple pair of jeans. I am not one to use guilt or a bleeding heart to get your attention. Guilt isn't a tacit that is lasting. What I felt with my time in Ecuador is "true doctrine understood", to quote Elder Boyd K. Packer, it has changed my every "attitude and behavior."