All our bags are packed

We're ready to go.

This time tomorrow we'll be in Idaho.

Off for a big adventure,

we've never flown together before.

And he's never flown blind. 

Travel plans are set, 

we're all prepared.

I hope it goes smoothly, 

we have to take syringes on the plane!?

(we got a doctor's note to cover that a month ago)

We'll see our Idaho Family tomorrow.

See you in a week.

Love,

J&S

Didn't your mother ever teach you?

Not to judge?

Mine did.

We are in our mid-twenties. 

We use handicap parking...legally.

Not many people can say that, not that we are proud of it.

But it's the truth.

We had an interesting experience a while back.

We are always being judged when we park. 

We know it doesn't look good for a young couple to park in the handicap spots.

We had just finished parking next to an elderly gentleman in his big red pickup,

pulled out of his parking spot and blocked us in, 

rolled down his window, 

and showed us a look that told us he was going to yell at us.

Then Joseph and his white cane exited the car,

and his face changed,

that man's face changed from anger, to shock. 

He drove away.

I thought it was funny, he judged us too quickly. 

He was wrong.

We went in the store did our shopping and came back out to our car. 

Next to our car was another man helping his mother into one of those electric shopping carts,

we were blocked in, we loaded our car.

He watched. 

He had a look of kindness towards us.

Without saying a word, he came up to me took and returned my shopping cart for me.

That man judged us too. But he was kind.

Not everyone is willing to pull us aside and tell us exactly what they think of us. (We've had a lot of those experiences too) But all of these types of experiences have made us more aware of  the fact that we are always being watched, by those that know us and love us, and by total strangers. It puts the pressure on to be good examples, not that we think of it too often, but it does cross our minds. 

All this goes back to the golden rule: 

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

*J&S*

Be thou Humble...

Ether 12:27-28," And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness."

Words like:

Blindness Surgery Disability Medication

Physical Therapy Charity Fund Unemployment

Social Security Adaptive Technology

Rehabilitation Infertility Medicaid

..Are Humbling.

• It's humbling to apply for social security, to be told that Joseph would be denied in the interview. Well he wasn't, which is also humbling.
• It's humbling to teach and be taught by children.
• It's humbling to apply for and file weekly unemployment claims.
• It's humbling to fill out forms for a hospital charity fund and to be approved.
• It's humbling to sit in a dirty government building to be interviewed for Medicaid, and to be denied 3 times.
• It's humbling to recieve and learn how to use adaptive technology for Joseph & to cry when I heard him read for the 1st time in months.
• It's humbling to apply for & use handicap parking.
• It's humbling to carry babies, it's even more humbling to lose those babies.
• It's humbling to listen to a doctor's diagnosis.
• It's humbling to accept help, you didn't ask for.
• It's humbling to have your life picked apart, examined, and spelled out for adoption paperwork.
• It's humbling to wait to be approved to be prospective adoptive parents.
• It's humbling to set adoption aside for the time being.
• It's humbling to watch your siblings make your parents grandparents, when you were expecting first.
• It's humbling when employment is lost.
• It's humbling to have church callings that challenge and intimidate us.
• It's humbling to learn Braille.
• It's humbling to do things you don't want to, but need to do.

While all these things humble us they are teaching us patience. In the April Conference Pres. Dieter F. Utchdorf said

" Patience- is the ability to put our desires on hold for a time- is a precious and rare virtue.

We want what we want, and we want it now.

Therefore, the very idea patience may seem unpleasant and, at times, bitter. [...]

"Patience is not passive resignation, nor it is failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all we can- working, hoping and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring, it is enduring well!

"Everyone of us is called to wait in our own way. We wait for answers to prayers.

We wait for things which at the time may appear so right and

so good to us that we can't possible imagine why Heavenly Father would delay the answer. [...]

"We must learn that in the Lord's plan, our understanding comes

'line upon line, precept upon precept' in short,

knowledge and understanding come at the price of patience.

"Patience is a godly attribute that can heal souls, unlock treasures of knowledge

and understanding, and transform ordinary men and women into saints and angels.

" Patience means accepting that which we cannot change and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being willing to 'submit to all things that the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father'. Ultimately, patience means being 'firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord' every hour of everyday, even when it is hard to do so".

That is what we are doing, or at least trying to do.

Doctrine and Covenants 104:82

"And inasmuch as ye are humble and faithful and call upon my name, behold, I will give you the victory."