Summer's Ending and Service

Well, swimming lessons are over for the summer. Jonathan and Matthew learned a lot. Hannah will now put her whole body under the water and likes doing it too. Rachel seemed to have regressed during the last session. I think she needs a little more one on one time with this stuff. I think I could have taught Hannah, Rachel ad Matthew what they learned if we had a pool. It would have cost as much or even less to buy one of those "cheap" above ground pools and swim every day this summer in our own back yard. Something to think about for the future I guess.

The summer is almost over, but the heat isn't. The past two weeks have been in the high 90s to 100s, plus humidity. It sure is a nice thing that we have air conditioning, though we still keep it a bit warm in the house, but it feels a lot better than outside. Plus, the humidity is lessened greatly because of the A/C. So that helps a lot.

The garden is doing great! I was out there earlier today and I saw flowers on my bean plants, green tomatoes, little tiny peppers, a baby yellow squash and a couple of baby zucchinis. I am really excited about it. I now need to try and get a hold of some canning jars so I will be ready to can when I need to. Our winter squash plants are thriving as well. And, we have onions and carrots too. I hope to have enough carrots to can a few this year. My kids love cooked carrots, so do I.

Last week I took the kids to meet Dave at the house of a couple in our ward. They have this really big garden and were not able to do all of the harvesting, so we helped with some other members of the ward. We picked okra, black eyed peas, green beans and tomatoes. There may have been more, but I can't think of them right now. Matthew and Jonathan loved picking the okra. Dave was up to his neck in the tomato plants (he loves the smell of them) and I was being reminded of growing up and picking beans. I picked black eyed peas for a long time, then got to the green beans when most of the people thought the gardening was done. I spotted them and decided that they should be picked as well. This lovely sister was telling me that she was so happy to have the help because that is what they live off of all year. If everyone who was there hadn't helped, it would have gone to waste. I was so glad that I was able to help and let my kids have the experience of serving others. I think it is an important thing for my kids to learn, so when I see an oportunity like that, I try to take advantage of it.

The Savior's live was all service. If we are to try and be like Him, we should try to serve each other as often as we possibly can, if not always. I think it is easy to get into the mode of self-service, or making sure we are happy or satisfied, that we often forget to think about others. When this happens, we tend to be unhappy or unsatisfied. It is easy to feel alone, unloved and unwanted. When we change our priorities and put service to others a bit higher on the list of things to do, we will be happier and those sad feelings will go away. Doing service for others, whether it is a family member, a member of the ward, a friend, or a stranger, will only bring you happiness and joy.