200 Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches!

This is for Ellis, Lizzie, Lillian, Cameron, Andre, Xander and KJ, to remember what they did.

In February, we decided to do a service project. Our goal was to earn enough money to make 100 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to give to Martha's Table.

From their website:

MAKE TRAIL MIX OR SANDWICHES

Every night, our mobile food truck, McKenna’s Wagon, rolls out to serve hundreds of homeless and hungry neighbors a hot meal, fresh fruit, trail mix, and sandwiches.

We ask that sandwiches are either peanut butter and jelly, or meat and cheese, and are made with whole wheat bread. Please individually wrap sandwiches in bags so that they can easily be distributed, and refrain from applying condiments to extend shelf life. When possible, we ask that sandwich bags are labeled to indicate sandwich type, or are stored in boxes labeled either “Peanut Butter & Jelly” or “Meat & Cheese” for ease of distribution, and so that we can determine which sandwiches require refrigeration!

Looking for inspiring ways to organize a sandwich making get together? Click here for our fun sandwich-making kit! 

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We went with the PG&J because  it's cheaper, easier for kids, and we don't have to refrigerate. We figured that if each kid earned $5 and donated it, we'd have $35, enough for 100 sandwiches!

So everyone went home and worked. Cameron earned money cleaning the church. Xander took care of his neighbor's dog. Ellis and Lillian made sugar cookies, posted a picture on Facebook, and some kind neighbors bought their cookies and even donated extra! Everyone else told me what they did, but I can't remember them all right now. But they were all wonderful. Here's what we ended up with at the end:

Ellis, Lizzie, Lillian, Cameron, Andre, Xander and KJ's $5 donations	$35
Coupon at grocery store	$5
Donation from Ms. Ross, Ellis and Lillian's neighbor	$20
TOTAL	$60

And, when I went to the grocery store, the food was cheaper than I expected - the food for 100 sandwiches only cost me $26. So you know what I did? I went and bought enough for 200 sandwiches!! It filled my shopping cart up. I got some boxes, too, so I could carry 20 loaves of bread. It turns out they weren't enough boxes, though!

Now I was a little worried. 200 sandwiches is a lot of sandwiches to make in 1 hour! I hoped that we could get the work all done in time.

On Wednesday night, we all showed up at the Kendrick's house. They have a perfect dining room table for making lots of sandwiches. We had the boys on one side and the girls on the other, each making sandwiches as fast as they could. Sister Spanbauer packed the sandwiches in the boxes.

 Soon the jelly started to run out. The jelly spreaders really made it stretch until the bread was gone, too. The boxes ran out and Sister Kendrick was sent to search for something to put the rest of the sandwiches in. When we were all done, we had 5 sandwich bags left. We'd made 195 sandwiches!

My favorite thing about these pictures is the picture of Jesus Christ behind us. That wasn't done on purpose, but whenever I look at the pictures I remember why we did this project. 

Ellis and Lillian weren't content with *almost* 200 sandwiches, so they went home and made 5 more sandwiches. Now we have 200!

The next morning, everyone had to go to school, so Sister Merrill (that's me!) took Sam, Martha and Jane to help her drop off the sandwiches. We drove to the address and couldn't find anywhere to park, so we drove down the alley and found the back entrance. Lucky us, that was where the donations go!

We had to take a picture of Martha at Martha's Table because, "Hey, it's MY table!" We gave them the extra unopened jar of peanut butter from our soiree the night before. And $10 that we hadn't spent on groceries. They can use that to buy extra sandwich bags they need, when they get food donations.

We took all the boxes (Sam was a great helper!) over to the loading dock and asked a guy working on carrying stuff around where to put it. "You can just stack it right here. Thanks! Do you need a receipt?" Since none of you pay taxes, I told him you didn't need a tax receipt (you can ask your parents to explain that if you want.) So that was it. I asked him if he'd take a picture of us to prove that we'd been there to all of you. 

Everyone there (we saw 3 or 4 people in the 5 minutes we spent there) were really busy. They were working hard to get all the food they give people in the right places at the right time. They were really glad we'd contributed, but didn't really have time to stand around and tell us how amazing we were. I thought of what Jesus taught:

"Verily, verily, I say that I would that ye should do alms unto the poor; but take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father who is in heaven." (3 Nephi 13:1)

I was glad they hadn't made a big deal about our donation. I would rather do something quietly and have Heavenly Father happy with me than having a bunch of people I don't even know patting me on the back for making sandwiches. Heavenly Father knows why we did it.

This is what it looked like when we drove away. Not very different than when we arrived, but with 3 boxes and a bag of sandwiches they didn't have before. 

Good job, kids. 200 people are going to have a sandwich tonight that wouldn't have.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Matthew 25 34-40

First Phrases

One of the Primary girls brought a friend with her to church. She didn’t know ASL, but that wasn’t a problem most of the time. In class, her friend interpreted for her. In Sharing Time, the teacher spoke and signed (“simcom” if you want a little vocabulary word. It’s for “simultaneous communication”) In Singing Time, I do a lot of talking anyway, because, hey, we’re learning songs in English and ASL. You sorta have to talk to teach an English song. So she just went with the flow.

I did throw her into the deep end in Singing time. It was our second week working on a song, so we’d gone over all the signs the week before, and we were just trying to memorize it this week. She followed along pretty well, and didn’t seem to be scowling when I had a chance to look at her. (Which, admittedly, isn’t very much, because she wasn’t prone to wandering around the room. Go figure, she was 10.)

So, she came to church, hung out with her friend, and learned some sign language, in the form of a song. And now she can tell everyone, “I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” in ASL. Yup, that's the song we were learning :)

Becoming as a little child

I admit, I was a little glum the other day. I was just feeling a little lonely. My whole life, my social life has revolved around church. Well now, I spend all of church just trying to keep 6 kids together, and by the time we get done, the kids are REALLY done. If I grab a few minutes to talk to someone, it's accompanied by all the awkwardness of language learning. Add to that, my husband is gone a lot, and there are a lot of things he can't talk to me about. I'm not complaining, I think it's normal and maybe even good for you to have some solitary (if taking care of 6 kids can ever be called solitary...) and even lonely times in your life. But things that are good for you aren't always easy, right?

Have I already written about this before? Sorry. The rest of the story will be different this time, I promise :)

I was listening to Martha speak. It was pretty cute and funny, but it takes a long time to figure out what she's talking about some times. She just doesn't have the vocabulary to describe things! And there, in my glum mood of the day, I ruefully thought, "This is exactly how I am when I use sign language. Signing with me is just like talking to a 3-yr old."

One of the things I love about the Holy Ghost is the little encouraging messages he sends when you're starting to slip down the slope of negative thoughts. The thought came immediately and forcefully into my head, "You're exactly right!"

"What? That's not very encouraging! What kind of comfort is that?"

"And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3-4)

"Oh..."

So, I hereby embrace my identity as the woman who signs like a 3-yr old. I have great faith that it is leading me toward salvation.

Just don't pat me on the head and tell me I'm cute. I'm not THAT much like a little child yet :)

Just the two of us...

Most of the time, a Primary will have a Primary presidency (3-4 people), a singing teacher, maybe 6-8 teachers, a pianist, and 2-3 nursery teachers. What does that add up to? 15-20 people or so. Wow. I had not appreciated what a huge number that was until just now! In our branch, we are a bit smaller, so we have 3 people in the Primary presidency, 2 nursery teachers and (hopefully) 1-2 class teachers. Seven would be a great number of people to run the Primary.

But today, lots of people were sick, and we only had 2 adults in Primary. Of course, 11 out of our 12 kids were there. Which does go contrary to how most people think germs work, but I guess the germs like old people this season. We actually had a plan for this type of situation

Person 1	Person 2
Teach the CTR class	Teach Sharing time to the Valiant class
Teach the Valiant class	Teach Sharing time to the CTR class
Help with singing time	Teach singing time
Collapse	Look around urgently for sugar

The Nursery kids are both 3 years old, and we let them come in to Primary with the CTR class. And that is how you do Primary with 2 adults!

It went pretty well except two things: I should have passed Jane off to her dad, because if you stop to take care of your baby, you've lost the 3-yr olds, and you might never get them back. And, you can't keep 3-yr olds through 11-yr olds really engaged all together. There's no such thing as striking a balance of being interesting to both ages simultaneously. In my case, I'm just way better with older kids, and by the end, everyone under 5 was pretty much just wandering around the Primary room. Hey, it was 1:45, they hadn't had lunch or nap, and they really didn't care if they belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (that's the song we were learning) anymore.

For Sharing time, we learned how to tell the Joseph Smith story in ASL. The Valiant class did great, the CTR class didn't seem really interested. Ok, I totally lost half the class by the end. But later that evening, during dinner, Sam said he wanted to tell us a story. He proceeded to sign the Joseph Smith story in ASL, just like we'd learned it in Sharing time! Note that Sam was one of the lost half of the class! I realized that sometimes they don't look like they're listening, but they are. 

So, high fives to me and my partner in crime, er, teaching! And hopefully it gets easier from here!

Martha's favorite restaurant

I don't even know where she got the sign from, but somehow, Martha (3) had the sign for "restaurant" in her head one day. She signed it to herself thoughtfully, then looked up at me and signed, "Mom, I like restaurants. Do you like restaurants?"

"Yes, I like restaurants. Which restaurant do you like?"

The sign for "which" is sorta like two thumbs up, alternating raising and lowering them a bit.

From my favorite website, Lifeprint.com,

So I asked her which restaurant she liked, and she then put up her thumbs. She pointed to the first one and said, "I like this one." Then the other thumb. "I like this one, too."

Hooray. She doesn't have very expensive tastes.

Visiting the Philadelphia Temple!

In a previous life time, we lived in Indiana, had 3 kids, and went as a family every month to Chicago to go to the temple. We had it down to an art. Each of us would do 2 endowment sessions, with a quick trade in the middle so we didn't have to wait a whole hour for the next session :) We'd get pizza from Little Ceasars, about a mile away. (I remember the time I sent Lige in with a note and a credit card...he was probably 4...the babies were asleep in the car...) While one person was in the temple, we'd visit the library, mall, children's farm, playground, IKEA, Lake Michigan, Wal-Mart, you name it. We knew everything useful in the area.

So when the DC temple closed last month, leaving Philadelphia as our nearest temple 3 hours away, we weren't too phased by it. We just fell into our old routines. A lot of things are different, but a lot are the same.

One of the trickiest things is that Philadelphia has sessions every 90 minutes, which means that we have to wait an hour after one person comes out before the next session. Because we have some bigger kids, we decided to let them hang out in the car (in the temple parking garage) and watch a movie for 45 minutes while Mom and Dad both were in the temple for a little bit. It worked really well for us, everyone had fun and behaved. Woohoo!

So what did we do while we were waiting for people in the temple? First, Marriner went to the 8:30 session. Since nothing was really open yet, the rest of us did some exploring of the local area. We discovered the "arrival center" which is a small building next to the temple with bathrooms, drinking fountains, a waiting area with chairs and coffee tables and a roof-top terrace with park benches. The entire building was clearly appropriate for family use, though obviously it needs to be gentle. That was great news. Alas, no wi-fi, which means no streaming video in the event of a rainy day. We'll probably survive.

Behind the temple and across the street is Logan square. Which looks a lot like a traffic circle. Ha ha! There is a little park there with a children's garden, which has some areas to rock scramble, and a small fountain to play in. (NOT the gigantic fountain in the middle of the traffic circle!) Since it was 40*F, we skipped the fountain this trip :) Swim diapers are required for babies to play.

After that, we had to head back to the temple for Mom's turn to go in. The kids watched a movie, then when Dad came out they went to the Free Library of Philadelphia, across the street from the little park. They spent 2 hours in there happily. They have legos, magnets, and other such diversions for non-readers, plus a great book selection. "Mom. They had a display with Alcatraz and the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place side-by-side." These guys clearly like the same books we do. But you can only use the wi-fi if you have a library card, just FYI.

Then they came back and Marriner went in with Lige to do baptisms for the dead. This time I followed the advice of the assistant temple recorder, who I'd met earlier, and walked down to the Rodin museum a block past the library. They have a free outdoor sculpture garden with actual original famous sculptures. Like, "The Thinker." Pretty awesome. Alas, I'm somewhat deficient in my art education, and had forgotten that Rodin was one of those people who thinks that clothing is optional, so we had a somewhat awkward conversation about it. I laughed that the situation was brought to us by the assistant temple recorder :) But the art and garden were very nice other than that. We walked back on a different road and saw a Target on the way - that will be nice for those days when we need to do some shopping! It was a very small one, though. We also saw a frozen yogurt shop called "Whirled Peace". Marriner is well known for saying, "I want world peace" - and someday, we'll get it for him :)

There was a lot to do in easy walking distance. Sooo much better than Chicago, where there was nothing close by!

I made a map for our family of things to do in the area. You're welcome to use it. And if you find other things I should add, pass them on:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1XL5c0JZPl8BL0C3WBgl0ar48I65V4SN2&usp=sharing

Happy Traveling! We'll see you up there some day!

If your husband is the Branch President...

If your husband is the Branch President, then you know he'll be too busy to take pictures on Easter when your kids are all dressed up in their Easter dresses.

(Actually, it's the week after Easter, since we had General Conference on Easter, so we didn't have regular church...)

(If your husband is the Branch President, you'll have time to sew your girls Easter dresses while your husband is off saving the world at night, too...)

If your husband is too busy to take pictures on Sunday, you'll have a great idea to convince everyone to dress up on a Thursday night for pictures. You'll bribe them with pizza, tell them to get all dressed, and when Dad gets home, he can fling on some church clothes, jump in the picture, and poof! Easy-cheesy. You'll be set for your Christmas cards this year.

Then your husband will call you and tell you he's running 20 minutes late. So you'll put on a movie to keep everyone from doing anything to get their dresses dirty.

Twenty minutes later, your husband will call and tell you his bike has a flat tire. You'll put the baby (and the toddler who didn't want to get left behind) in the car. You'll notice the car seats aren't buckled down because you told your kids to clean out the car earlier in the day, so you'll jump in the other car. Then you'll remember that your husband will have his bike, and it doesn't fit in the other car, so you'll go back to the first car, fix the car seats and finally take off.

Then you'll get stuck in heavy traffic.

When you get to your husband, he'll apologize profusely, and you won't want to make him feel bad about being so late, but he'll notice that you're in your Easter clothes, so the whole story will come spilling out. You'll decide to just go ahead and give the picture a shot, dinner and bedtime regardless.

You'll go into your back yard and find the sun to be at a bad angle for pictures, but if everyone stands in a line in the shade of a tree trunk, everyone looks good. You'll take exactly 3 pictures and pray for the best!

And, you'll be pretty lucky - your hungry, tired kids took pretty good pictures.

I did have a tough dilema, though - should I choose the picture where the kids are all really cute (above) but I look funny, or the one where I look much better, but the kids are all just a little bit worse (below).

Vanity is a tough thing. But I think Sam and Martha are so adorable in the top one, I'll ignore my ear-of-fire. Ok, really, the clincher is Jane looking at the camera for the top one. Gotta love it.

(Argh. I told Ellis and Lillian to undo their top button. Those sneaky girls. They think they look better with the top button done up.)

My favorite thing about these pics is how amazingly linear our heights are right now! You'd think we'd lined up on purpose to accentuate it, not because we were standing in the shade of a tree trunk :)

So, they're not perfect, but do a little cropping, and they'll be fine pictures to remember our Easter by!

My favorite picture from the night was the one I took of just the kids to test the camera out:

Dang, they're cute.

If the Savior stood beside me

This is the song we learned last month. It's a good translation, and it's tough. I'm putting it here so I can watch it really easily and make sure I'm doing it right! And you can enjoy the general chaos that is our Primary :) Jamila Hubbard is our amazing ASL interpreter. She has a degree in ASL linguistics (right, Jamila?) from Gallaudet, and is waiting for a mission call. Thanks so much to her for her Primary help!

`

Randomness

Just some random things that I've made notes of over the last few weeks as they've popped into my mind :)

1. Blessings of service come in many unexpected ways. An unexpected one for us was when Marriner drove a long way to visit a branch member who  lives waaaayyyy out there. His dad works for...um...some company related to Tostitos, because they gave him some Tostitos Chipotle Salsa to take home, and it is now our favorite food. It was gone in one day. We cringe to think of what would have happened if Marriner hadn't gone!
2. People frequently ask me how I taught my kids ASL. In the beginning, we watched some videos done by a woman with a deaf daughter who wanted to teach her nieces and nephews to sign so her daughter wouldn't be isolated. It turned into a big business, and they teach children really well. They're called "Signing Time" and they are quintessential kids movies - super cheesy. And my kids loved them. I would check them out from the library until last year, when I borrowed my sister's collection. And I still make my younger kids watch them, because little kids learn and forget so fast. So the other day, the kids were watching a movie while I was paying my bills, and I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of how lucky Marriner is that he's not listening to "Signing time with Alex and Leah, come and play..." every day while he works. Let nobody say that I'm not sacrificing for the cause! :)
3. I taught Martha the sign for "Oh, I see" one day, and a few days later, the kids learned the sign for "owe." For the next couple of weeks, Martha would sign, "Owe, I see...." It was maybe the cutest and funniest thing I've seen.
4. One of the funniest (ASL related) parts of General Conference was when they were sustaining all the new people who were called as Area 70's. It was a long list, and the interpreter was flying along spelling alllllll those names. We weren't even trying to follow along. Then we noticed that his fingers were still flying along, but his face changed to a "wha??" face. We started looking at what he was spelling, and it was different than what the speaker was saying. After a couple of names, he got back in sync and stayed there the rest of the list. A few minutes later, President Oaks announced that he'd missed 2 names. Aha! I laughed at the picture of all 93 interpreters simultaneously saying, "wha?!?" at the same time. But only one language actually saw it on his face :)
5. I was standing in line for lunch during our stake Relief Society meeting a few weeks ago and struck up a conversation with the girl in front of me. She asked which ward I was in, and I said the ASL branch. Without any awkwardness or hesitation, she asked, "Oh, are you deaf?" I just didn't know whether to laugh, because I was clearly talking to her like a hearing person...or whether to just be impressed that she was refraining from assumptions so thoroughly. 

Well, that's enough of that. 

Study ASL, get smart

There is one thing that drives me crazy about ASL. It's this strange situation we have where parents of hearing babies are all flocking to teach their children ASL because of all the benefits to communication - but the parents of deaf babies are often told to NOT teach their children ASL because they need to learn English to survive in the hearing world. 

No hearing parent has ever taught their hearing child sign language thinking it would be their only language. But speaking is difficult for small children, and learning to sign can bridge some times when desire for expression is greater than verbal ability.

I just don't see any reason why these exact same things wouldn't apply for a deaf child. More language can only make you smarter and better off. Yes, teach your child to speak and read English. Teach them ASL, too. In fact, teach them ASL first. 

This evening, Sam said the family prayer. He's much more interesting when he prays in ASL. In English, he tends to just say the same things over and over, often mimicking phrases he's heard others repeat over and over. In ASL, he signs what he's actually thinking of. One that has all of us laughing in our house is last week, when he got paid to do a chore. This started a love of cleaning in his heart. I'm noticing that he really likes order and routine, and cleaning makes both of those areas of the brain light up. (I'm not saying he loves cleaning enough to put down a toy...I mean, he is only 5!) So he got paid to do this chore, then he cleaned his room all by himself, and he really liked the way it felt. For the next week or so, he'd pray, "Thank thee that we can clean the house, and please bless us to all clean the house more together." Seriously.

Oh yeah, that wasn't the story I was going to share. I was talking about how ASL makes you smarter...Oh yes, Sam saying the prayer this evening. He signed, "Thank thee for Family Home..." and then he couldn't remember how to sign Evening. (Family Home Evening is a family togetherness thing we do every week.) Without pausing, he just finger spelled, " E-V-E-N-I-N-G", and went on with his prayer. After the prayer, Marriner exclaimed, "This kid is going to have to skip Kindergarten AND first grade, he can already spell "evening". I hadn't thought much about it, but he's right, that is pretty advanced spelling for someone who hasn't been to school yet.

Martha's pretty close to brilliant, too. The other night at the table, she spelled, "R-Y-T-A" and said, "That's milk.

Ok, maybe she's not quite there yet. But she thinks she is, and that's got to count for something, right? :)

So, teach your kid ASL. It's great.  

General Conference and Easter!

Wow, what a big weekend! General Conference was epic. I kept thinking of things I wanted to write about, and now I've forgotten most of them. But a few things are still in my brain.

When I was a kid, I hated General Conference on Easter. All they talked about was Jesus and the Atonement and Resurrection, over and over again! It's funny how 30 years can change your perspective. I love Easter. I remember so vividly the Easter after I was married. I walked to church alone because Marriner had a meeting before church. (Hmmm...there's something that hasn't changed...) The cemetery was between our apartment and the church, and as I walked through it, I saw people visiting and laying flowers, and I suddenly knew that Jesus's resurrection was for reals, and that all these people were going to see their loved ones again. Easter is the whole point of religion - it's the reason to believe. It's the hope that life has meaning. And now that Easter has meaning to me, it's wonderful to gather with all the Saints and celebrate it together.

We watched Conference in ASL, obviously. I realized that it was half a year ago that we were reeling under the shock of our new calling, watching all of Conference in ASL for the first time, urgently trying to learn as much as we could before Marriner was sustained 3 weeks later. It was, I admit, a little discouraging. My comprehension was...low :) What a miracle to see the progress we've all made in the last 6 months. It was a testimony to me of the Lord's hand in our efforts.

Sam gets the cute award for the day. You know, when you're watching in ASL, there's not very much difference between congregational hymns and choir numbers. Each time, a choir sings and someone signs on the screen...but for some reason, we sign along with some of them and not others :) Sam didn't see any reason to not sign along with all of them, though. He just listened and signed, completely focused. I tried to get a picture, but I really stink at action shots. Oh well.

Sa lahat ng mga kaibigan sa Cagayan de Oro, Philippines - wahoo!!! Noong naging missionary ako, sabi ko magkakaroon ng temple sa Cagayan de Oro. Napakaraming kilala kong talagang matapat at malakas sa pananampalataya galing doon. At ngayon, matutunay iyan. Masaya ako talaga para sa inyo.

I'm so excited about the changes announced to Home and Visiting teaching! I have always LOVED visiting teaching, and I'm excited to improve. And I'm excited to get to minister with my daughter in a few years!

On Saturday night, I was cleaning up while Marriner and Lige were off at Priesthood session when I got a text from Marriner suggesting that I might want to turn on the broadcast. What a great husband I have. My sister and I both listened to the announcement about the changes to priesthood quorum structuring and chatted back and forth about what it would mean to our husbands. It was a really fun evening! I have to say, our branch is SOOOO ahead of the crowd on the changes to Priesthood quorums. We already only have 1 quorum, since there are only a very few high priests in the branch. No point in splitting up. So woohoo for us, we're trendsetters :)

Well, Marriner says if I quit writing, I can go to bed. I'll take it! Happy Easter, friends.