In honor of our country...

For Family Home Evening on Monday we went to a place called Memorial Grove. A Vietnam memorial on top of a hill with fabulous views of our city. Jeremy explained to the kids the meaning of the flag. The colors-red is for heartiness and valor, white-purity and innocence and blue-vigilance, perseverance and justice, stripes- thirteen colonies, and a star for each state. It was fun.

Jeremy also explained that we are living in the promised land. Her referenced the following scriptures: 1 Nephi 2:20, Ether 2:7-8. We are extremely blessed to live in a country where so many brave young men and women serve and are willing to give their lives to protect our freedoms and safety.

After our walk down the hill, thank goodness no one fell!, we went to ice cream. You know if we are celebrating an all American holiday we need to celebrate with an All-American food! It was a great evening. I especially enjoyed being up on the hill hearing the scriptures as the wind whirled around us. You can't be closer to Heavenly Father than when you are surrounded by His beauty, with the worldly stuff left at home.

Not that this is the reason for what happened, but there was a young man who rode his bike to the top. He was on a bench not to far from us writing or drawing in what looked like a journal. As Jeremy started talking he got up and moved behind the memorial rock which was right behind where we were sitting. When we were done and moved on to the flag pole, he got up and went back to his bench. I couldn't help but wonder if he was curious about us and wanted to hear what we were talking about. I know for some, you need to have several contacts with the gospel before you are willing to really hear it, so maybe listening to us was a little seed that was planted, or maybe a little water to help the seed that had already been planted. We will never know, and I can only hope.