Cropping.. and thinking..

so I went to a crop today (yesterday I guess). This was a crop to work on someone else's scrapbooks. This woman passed away in December and left behind her husband and 4 kids. She had thousands of pictures on her computer and printed out that needed to be put into albums. She was a scrapbooker and had a bunch of supplies, just hadnt gotten them done yet.
I can relate to that.
So, they have organized these crops so that people can come in and work on her pages so the family will have completed albums to remember her by.

I didnt know the woman. She was LDS, but in a different ward than me. It didnt really matter to me though if she was LDS or not.. I was there to help as a mom and a scrapbooker.

It made me think..
Ihave thousands of pics too.. on my computer, in boxes.. all in no particular order. I wondered to myself if people would do that for me... I really dont know.. And yet, I also kept thinking.. I really need to get my act together and do it myself so no one would need to do it for me. I cant even begin to tell you how many pics I have.. or how many albums they would fill. The whole task scares me.

When we moved here, we had 79 (yes that is seventy nine!) rolls of undeveloped film (pre digital). We took them all in to the printing place at the BX and dropped them off all at once.. much to the store workers shock! We used part of our tax return to get them all developed. I did put them into order, but havent done anything with them yet. That was 3 years ago. How sad is that? and then on top of that I had added thousands of digital pics to my computer that now need to be printed.

so anyways..
I had all sorts of thoughts today while doing this..
I felt so sad for those poor children. I felt a weird sort of connection of sorts to the mom. I was reminded of when I helped Tina in New Mexico 3 years ago scrap pics of little 2 yr old Talin when he died, so that we could have albums of his short life on display for the funeral. I was reminded of my own daughters early birth/death and how I have made an album about that. There wasnt really any rhyme or reason to my thoughts.. they just sort of came.

In the process, though I also realized once again how glad I am to have my beliefs. Because of them, I know that I will be with Autumn again, and that Tina will be with Talin again and these children and father/husband will be with their mom/wife again. and they will get to be together as a family for eternity! How cool is that??

We dont believe in 'till death do us part'.. we arent parted once we die.. we get to rejoin our families in the end!

I think that helps me to be able to deal with death and situations like this. It doesnt make it any less sad or painful, but it helps.

I also gave Susan a Book of Mormon today. She had one before. Im sure she has read it before- parts if not all of it- but she had told me she was ready to possibly look at one again now. so, I forgot to take one to the crop with me, and guess what??? today the missionaries from the area had their big meeting at the chapel! The crop was at the chapel! I saw 2 of them walking down the hall and I ran out to meet them and ask if they had a book with them that I could give away.
They did, and I took it!
coincidence again? I dont know. theres a lot of them lately when it comes to things like this with me and Susan....

so, since Susan reads this.. I wanted to tell her something.. that I might not ever say in person, because I am NOT pushing her to do anything. and I wont push...not too hard anyways ;-)

but Susan,
I am certain that there is a reason for us to have met when and how we did. And that reason, along with all of the other things going on with facebook and things, might not be to get you back to the church.. though it could be... but whatever the reason is, Im so very glad to have met you and gotten to know you better.. and I just want you to know that no matter what, I am so very happy to have you as my friend! I am sure we must have known each other before we came to earth.. and Im so glad that we have found each other again :)

corny? maybe.. but True nonetheless.