It's been almost a year since I recorded my thoughts on this blog. A lot has happened in that year but instead of going over all that I wanted to write down about something pretty good that happened to me over this last week. A little background fact is needed though. The number of active members on my side of the family is dwindling and getting smaller. I don't know all the specifics or reasons of why someone decides to distance themselves from the gospel but my hope is that my family members will find their way back. Anyway, I have a brother who's birthday was this last weekend and we as his siblings all wanted to do something really special to celebrate him. His birthday was Saturday and we threw a surprise party for him on Sunday (yesterday). Leading up to this day I was struggling with wanting to keep the day holy but I also did not want to come across as self righteous. I had an internal battle going on throughout the week because I knew that my siblings were wanting to order food or have it delivered during the party. I didn't feel good about chipping in money and yet I knew that my husband and I would both be hungry since we would be coming straight from church and this was going to be where we would have our dinner. A solution I came up with that I thought would be a good idea would be to suggest pizza from Papa Murphy's. I could pick it up the day before and we could still enjoy it without feeling like we broke the Sabbath. The problem was that it would be just under $40.00 and we didn't have it at the moment and my siblings weren't getting back to me about pitching in. They weren't sure if they wanted pizza and were thinking of ordering food from a different restaurant. During the same week we went to Grandma Colleen's house for a visit and as we were leaving she pulled into her purse and gave me two twenty dollar bills. Just to be nice. She's incredibly generous and didn't know that I was needing $40.00 for this surprise party. I told my siblings that they didn't need to pitch in if we went with pizza and with that everyone was on board. I know this story doesn't seem a big deal to many but to me it was. I'm glad that I was still able to enjoy the time with my family without compromising my own beliefs.
