Hi all! I'm here to share another lo that I kreated with the fabulous Kreatorville Kraft Kit. They also have a sketch of the month for ALL on their blog, so go check it out. This lo is based on that July sketch. This lo has GREAT meaning for me personally. As many of you know, I have a daughter and a son who are serving as missionaries for our church. They are such a fabulous example to me and I am so proud of them. I only have phone contact with them on Mother's Day and Christmas, but I do get weekly emails. I can't even begin to tell you how inspiring these letters are to me. When I write to them I try to give them an inspirational quote with each email or letter. A LONG time ago our family made up a FAMILY song and a FAMILY cheer. This lo reflects those two things and how much they have meant to our family over the years. I felt impressed one week to write as my inspirational quote the family cheer and another week to write the family song. I wanted them to remember that our WHOLE FAMILY is cheering them on and praying for them, to remember who they were and what they had been taught, to rememer there is strength in being a member of our FAMILY. Now for those of you who might be wondering how Amanda and Ty are doing I am going to include just a sentence or two from each of their letters home:
(from Amanda in Paraguay): So we've still been working with this family and wow my heart just keeps expanding expaNDING and EXPANDING! We went to their house to do a service this week with the help of Divina and Emilio and we spent about 2 1/2 hours washing clothes...ha yeah lets just say I am SO GREATFUL for washers and dryers in the states. Ha funny that I used to hate doing laundry... it's so easy and convenient. Here they hand wash EVERYTHING and it takes days and you use all these buckets of waters and soap and WOW.. it's intense. I got these sweet lil sores on my knuckles from scrubbing the clothes. ANd you know what the sad thing is? We couldn't really get the dirt out of the clothes because it is just STAINED on the clothing and ya know how in the states if our clothes have a lil tiny hole we just automatically throw them out? Yeah it doesn't even faze them here, in fact I don't think they have clothing without holes. I know this is like a really sad picture I'm painting but it's the truth. And then a couple days later a lady in the ward gave us some clothes to bring to the kids, and it was a sure lot better than what they had but it was really sad because there wasn't anything that would fit the oldest girl, Ruth (15) and I felt so bad. Because bueno, she is like practically the mom of all these kids and does everything and there wasn't anything. So the next day I just brought her like half my clothes and gave each of the older girls skirts they could wear to church. But I just told them, the biggest gift I could ever give you is the message of the gospel. ANd man it just coming back to me over and over, the gospel is the ONLY thing that can change their lives. It is the greatest treasure anyone could ever have. Money doesn't mean anything to me anymore, I know it's not important. WHat's important is LOVE...pure, kind, love. CHARITY
(from Ty in Wenatchee, WA *now he's in Chelan but he was in Wenatchee when he wrote):
Alright well this was an awesome week. As apparently yall already know I had somewhat of an accident haha but it's all good. It was this last past p day *(a day when they get to laundry and shopping and sometimes recreation) and originally we had started of playing dodgeball (companion style) which was way fun and which my companion and i had won 3 out of the last 4 games. But then Elder Lively decides that we should switch to basketball for some reason. probably cause he is a baller. But anyways i am guarding an Elder named Elder Andersen ( Ironic) and as you could guess is not all that good at basketball. haha just kidding nick. But anyways he has the ball and tries to some spin around move, not quite sure what he was thinking but he spins right in to me with his elbow swinging right at my open mouth, and bam! One tooth is on the ground and the other one got caught by my giant lip. And i am standing there thinking well that is not good. haha and apparently the first thing i said was, " Do these things grow back?" i think i was in a state of shock though lol but to make a long story short we ran over to the dentist and they gave me two root canals, some vicodin and some antibotics and glued my teeth back on or something. And my lip had swolen from a giant lip to a giant balloon on my face and so i didn't look so appealing to say the least. But this work is not about how good i look or even about me at all. This is God's work and His glory so we went got me an arby's shake to eat and went and preached the Gospel. And we had an awesome week.
*(It was his two front teeth)
So yes, I am as proud as proud as can be because we are the Nelson Family. Have a great 4th of July weekend for those of you in the States and I hope everyone is just having a great time with their FAMILY!
Hugs,
Cheryl
