Monday, December 17, 2007

Looking for Love

I really need to post pictures from our 3rd birthday Diego party extravaganza, but maybe tomorrow.

Instead, a funny story and two great videos.

Scallywag Plankwalker has, for some odd reason, been interested in finding a wife (he sometimes calls her "mother") lately. The Poopy Pirate was given a puzzle-map of the United States for his birthday and Scallywag is fascinated by it. He is constantly asking to put it together and wants me to tell him the names of the states. The other night he was running his finger around the map and said to Plantboy, "Yep, somewhere around here I'm going to travel to find my little lady."

"Little lady, huh?"

"Yep, a little lady to get married to."

Today, as he looked at the map (as well as a world map we found on-line) he said, "I'm going to go to Brazil to find my little lady. Then, we will move back to Oregon. After our first baby we'll go to Texas. Then, after our second baby we'll got to West Virginia. After our third baby then we'll move to Canada. After all that, we'll get on a boat and go to Hawaii."

"To live?"

"No. For our first vacation." After all that, he's going to need one.

A nomad in training.

Here are the videos. I subbed RS in church on Friday. I pretty much had to fight the ugly cry during the entire lesson. The topic was on missionary work and it just happens to be ten years ago this week that I came home from the Great South Land. Besides feeling really old, teaching this lesson just reminded me for the umpteenth time how much I loved those people and how much serving a mission blessed my life. I showed the link in the lesson because President Kimball said that righteous members were "the best advertisement for the Church."

This link is to the story explaining the origin of the ad campaign. I've also linked the summary of the comencement given by Elder Ballard at BYU-Hawaii last week is reported on; his remarks go along so beautifully with his conference talk.

As I watch these commercials and it is like the Church has grown up. I'm not sure if can really explain that? It is like the Church is getting ready for another great round of converts or something. I hope I can do my part; I pray daily that I'll raise my sons to do theirs.

7 comments:

Kimberly Bluestocking said...

I often wonder how non-LDS people perceive these ads. Watching them as a member is kind of like watching a movie when you've already read the book - you know basically what's going to happen, so it's hard to see it with fresh eyes.

I like the Don one.

Ashlee said...

Ha! That is such a cute story about your son!

Science Teacher Mommy said...

KimBlue--interesting comment about already knowing the end. My experience was totally different. I actually felt such an intense reaction when I first saw these that I felt I was hearing the gospel for the first time! This happened very occasionally on my mission too: we'd be sharing the verses from Moroni and I'd be overcome by the truth of what we were sharing though I'd read those verses (literally) hundreds of times.

I'm not sure what a non-LDS person would think? I know that when we talked about getting media referrals in the MTC, we were told that the commercials were designed to help people feel the spirit and the idea was that they would call while they were on that spiritual high, even if they didn't entirely understand the message.

And Ashlee--welcome!

Doreen said...

Your kids crack me up, seriously. Marriage is the last thing on my kids' minds, hehe. In fact, I think Tyler is beginning to grow into that "girls have kooties" phase. :p

Science Teacher Mommy said...

Scallywag was like that until he went to kindy and his best friend is a girl.

Christy said...

That Scallywag story is AWESOME! The other day Joe stared asking him about different job and whether or not they pay enough to buy a house and have a wife. I tried to tell him that it was most important to do a job that he enjoys and that any good woman wouldn't be in it for the money but he still settled on engineer - which he will be good at anyway so thats okay.

Last night I read this story to Oli at bed time called "Mommy Do I Have To Go On A Mission?" It was one of the saddest books ever. I couldn't even finish reading it because we were both crying.

Science Teacher Mommy said...

I need to get that. It is a tricky thing to have boys. You don't want to cross the line between encouraging and pressure. Although, the culture of our Church, and yes, words from the pulpit, do imply a certain amount of pressure. President Kimball had some excellent things to say about encouraging young men to go in this week's lesson. No doubt, otr, this is especially tricky for you because of your family situation.