Let every heart prepare him room

We just got back from an afternoon at Pres. & Sister Roney's house, and we walked along a cobblestone ivy-ed neighborhoods and the leaves are changing and the air is cool and we're coming upon the end of a transfer and I have that familiar ache inside me of autumnal nostalgia that threatens that maybe things are going to change. The nostalgia of not wanting to leave something you love and yet have not learned to love well enough. The weeks are too long and the minutes are too short. I wish I could bottle this life up so it wasn't quite so terminal. Then maybe I could enjoy it. But it has an expiration date and there are many friends to know and things to learn and all the while I wonder if I make even one atomal dent in this cosmos and we keep marching on. I need an afternoon to wander the streets and be in France and soak. Maybe more than that though I need a year and a half of not having time to soak, so I learn how to be happy and full along the way, instead of pushing off happiness for when I can get a break. It's tricky, this living thing. There's an art to learning to enjoy things in the right season, when they're ripe and ready to be enjoyed. 

I will say, however, that Christmas music can be enjoyed in any season. (My companion's not a super huge fan of me wanting to decorate the apartment and me singing Christmas music all the time and talking about how much I love Christmas. Heh heh.) :)

My favorite scriptures for this week are Luke 1: 68-75: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, ...that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life." That we might serve him without fear. We can go forward and be happy and love and teach and give and not need to be constantly borne back by our mistakes and our fears and our hesitancies. 

Photos:

A huge pile of ice cream I was forced to eat. After eating a similarly sized plate of chicken and plate of potatoes.

Found an accordeon a few weeks back on Pday. Best moment ever. (But really.)

What we look like most of the time. Like when trying to do weekly planning. Oh la.