Gentle breezes

As we weather the storms of this life, sometimes feeling worn out and blown to and fro, we notice that the vast majority of our days are actually filled with gentle warm breezes, and not gale force winds. How grateful I am for the soft tin tunes of the chimes on my front porch, as they sway in the wind today and remind me of the joy that surrounds me on this earth.

Last weekend as I spent some time at our son and daughter in laws home near Salt Lake City, Utah, I was able to reflect on much of the goodness this life has to offer. There were healing hugs exchanged, and soft spoken words to add to the loveliness. We became reacquainted with Tomas, a friend of ours from Denmark. He and his wife and beautiful little ones are visiting up north, and how grateful I was to be able to finally meet them all, plus my online friend RoMay and her good family. It was just a delightful time.

We attended a fireside talk that Tomas gave on Sunday night and it was so uplifting and inspiring... really made me sit back and evaluate where I am in life. He recommended a book by Tad Callister called 'The Infinite Atonement' which I would love to read to deepen my understanding.

Monday, well, what a treat Monday morning was! I got to work at the LDS Humanitarian center in Salt Lake City! It was a dream come true for me, and those 3 hours passed far too quickly. I could have spent the whole day there helping sort material into various bins for use but the center.

Some of the bins were for places like Nauvoo where they accept long strips of material for making rugs; fleece to make mittens for children; furry and felt material to make puppets; large pieces or small pieces of cotton to make into quilts and quilt squares; and you can see some of those bins in this photo I took. Those are my friends BevF and ChrisH there working with another good lady who really helped us a lot, and I am sorry, I have forgotten her name right now.

This photo was one I took of a 'mural' type photo hanging in my friend Christy's office in the center. I was told it is of a schoolroom. They have no books, no pencils, notebooks, chalkboard etc. They write on the walls for the children to learn.

I am not certain where this photo was taken but it is a touching photo, and reminds me of how blessed we are in the country to have even the outdated books our schools have. Our children all have pencils, or at least access to them, paper, books of their own and so many other resources that we expect and take for granted!

This one speaks for itself- this is another photo of a wall hanging in the center:

I love the face of the little child receiving a warm quilt - you just can't beat that! How much one warm item can brighten the life of one person.

Yesterday at Crafting Angels, we spent the whole morning tying crib quilts, and making special hats for the Humanitarian Center, which I mailed back to them today! We made about 25, maybe 30 quilts for humanitarian, and made up over 20o of these special hats for the newborn kits.

If you are wondering, the materials to make those hats can only be found right now in the Salt Lake City Humanitarian Center, although I talked to them to see if there is any way we can get them in the St. George center too. Christy was hoping the Church will do that. Let's see if I can find some more photos to share.

Here we are at Crafting Angels meeting yesterday which we opened to the whole Logandale NV Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

We had such a good turn out, about 30 or so women coming and going, maybe more! Half the gym was filled with quilts and frames and cheering as we finished a quilt and removed it!

Here are a group of us working on the special little hats SLC center needs:


Notice how I am doing all the talking- with my hands mostly! It was so much fun! I was wishing I had brought home like 7 or 8 boxes instead of just 5 to make for the center. Well, hopefully they will get those kits in St George before too long. We had about 200 hats done in 3 hours with all the cutters, and tyers (is that a word!?) and folders.


One more of the humanitarian center to share too. This one shows groups of people packing boxes with kits and such it looks like; tying blankets and I am not certain what:

HUG THE ONES YOU LOVE! And enjoy life. 'Men' are that they might have joy!
Bev