Family Home Evening

1. I finished Assassin's Creed II last night. 
2. I pack my wife's breakfast everyday (which usually consists of milk so she can make oatmeal), and she remembered to take the lid off of the leftover milk.  She usually remembers, but the few times she hasn't makes me thankful for every time she remembers.
3. It's still spring break, and I don't really have to do much.  Apart from breath and stuff. :)

In my church, there's a program that has kind of been instituted, but isn't mandatory for salvation.  It's strongly encouraged, but no one will ever show up on your doorstep asking if you've done it that week (no one will even call you.  The only time you're really accountable is in the occasional lesson about it when the teacher asks whoever does it to raise their hand, and if you have the honesty in you, you keep your hand firmly on your lap).  Those of you who are LDS already know what I'm talking about.  It's called Family Home Evening.  It's really very cool, and I'm sure that all of you non-LDS folks will automatically appreciate the greatness of it.  The idea is for a family to stop what they are doing for one night a week (Monday night is the night set aside for it by the church, but again, you don't even get a phone call, so if you do it, let's say, Wednesday... hypothetically... then no one would be the wiser... unless you blog about it).  During this get together, you can do whatever you want, but the general pattern is: Song, Prayer, Lesson About Some Gospel Principle, Prayer, Treat and Game.  Of course, any of these can be interchanged with other stuff, or mixed around for the family's purposes.  It's really a great institution, but I can honestly say that it's hard to remember to do it and to find the time.  And I know, it works if you do it every week and that's why setting aside Monday night works so well.  I really haven't been good at it, but I'm trying.

So, my parents have been awesome, and since both of their kids are recently married and have no children, they've given their home to be the FHE house for all of us (this way we can break up the responsibilities).  Last night, it was our turn to give the lesson.  We chose an article written by Elder Uchtdorf (it's the same guy I talked about during Christmas time.... I promise we have other people who speak).  Anyway, the article was about being optimistic and finding the good in people.  He wrote about how we can always find a character flaw in everyone, but if we look hard enough, we can often find the good, and if we take the time to try and find the good, we'll often be happier.

As I prepared (read it an hour or so before FHE began), I thought of my Great Grandpa Paul.  I've also written about him.  He might just be the best person I've ever known personally.  I thought about how people could have seen him.  He did chew tobacco.  He did like to drink.  He cussed, and spat, and raised cows, and probably did some other stuff that I'm not aware of.  Granted, he quit all of this (except the cussing, spitting and raising cows) by the end of his life, but I thought about how people might have looked down on him for some of the things he did, but I had never really thought about any of those things until last night.  Even with all that, I still hold that Grandpa Paul is probably the best person I've known personally.  He always took care of his family, he was charitable, he was hardworking, and wonderful to be around.  He seldom said anything bad about anyone (except John Kerry... he hated that man).  He was always smiling and very welcoming.  I only brought a few friends to Fredonia, but I remember Grandpa automatically loving all of them (it actually makes me tear up a little when I think that he never met my wife).

And I imagine that most people are like this.  They are human, which means that they have 'faults,' but we all do.  And because they're human, they will (in most cases) have good points too.  I'm going to try really hard to start looking at the good in people from now on.  The issue is that one of my many faults is being a fault finder... oh well.  Nothing good ever came easy.  You can do whatever you want with this info.

Have a nice day.