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A few weeks ago I was trying to come up with a good Family Home Evening. Our ward had organized a night when all of the youth would learn about how to be a missionary and were coming over to our house to give my family the first lesson. We were to feed them dinner and then listen to their lesson and help them feel like a true missionary. I decided to use some of the foods that I had to eat while I was on my mission. I served an LDS mission to both Cali Colombia and to Quito Ecuador. So, I went to our local Latino grocery store and found some items that would give them a taste of what I ate while serving in South America. I fried up some platain bananas. I made a bunch of rice. I bought some Guayava candy and made some agua de panela.

Before these young men and young women came over to our house, I thought I would try out all of these things on my own kids. Of course, they all turned up their noses and didn’t taste all of the items with curiosity. They knew the tastes would be different so they only tried a little tiny bit.

In any case, I decided to pull out my mission treasure box and show them some cool stuff from Colombia and Ecuador. While rummaging through my box of stuff, I came across this little poem. I don’t remember when I found this on my mission but it was perfect for how I felt while serving for 2 years. I thought I would share this little poem with the world on my LDS Family website.

——–

A mission is a strange experience
It is a trial and a test
A mission throws you at the worst
Yet teaches you the best

I’ve never been so happy
I’ve never been so depressed
I’ve never felt so forsaken
I’ve never felt so blessed

I’ve never been so confused
Things have never been so clear
I’ve never felt my Heavenly Father so distant
He’s never been so near.

I’ve never been so discouraged
I’ve never been so full of hope
I feel I could go forever
I think I’ve come to the end of my rope

I’ve never had it quite so easy
I’ve never had it quite so tough
Things have never been so smooth
Things have never been so rough

I’ve never traveled through more valleys
I’ve never ascended so many peaks
I’ve never met so many nice people
I’ve never met so many freaks

I’ve never had so many ups
I’ve never had so many downs
I’ve never worn so many smiles
I’ve never worn so many frown

I’ve never been so lonely
I’ve never had so many friends
Boy, I hope this is over soon
Gosh, I hope it never ends

———–

I follow a blog called Mormon Cartoonist. This guy creates creative cartoons that he submits to the Friend, The Ensign, The New Era, and other LDS magazines. Many of his works make it to print. Anyway, as I as reading through some of his cartoons I started thinking about what would make a good cartoon. I can’t draw worth a darn so being able to create one on my own would be a disaster, but, I could come up with an original idea for a cartoon. So, I started looking around in my life for something that might be cool illustrated in cartoon. One evening while talking to my sons, I came up with an idea for a cartoon. So, I went to Mormon Cartoonist and suggested a funny premise. A few days later I received a response that he would take my idea and make a comic that would come out in February. Well, February is finally here and below is his cartoon based from my idea.

Click on the link below to go to his website and see his comments about this cartoon.

http://www.mormoncartoonist.com/2012/02/eight-bit-love.html

My Dad has had a charity organization for many years called Charity Anywhere Foundation. Every year he schedules a service project to Mexico during the Christmas break. Each year I look at my schedule and my vacation days to see if I can make the trip and take my kids down. Each year it seems that it just doesn’t work out. However, this year was different. The stars aligned, the planets were in sync so it was time to go to Mexico. I was able to get off work, I had the vacation days, my kids were old enough and I had some cheap tickets for flights into San Diego. So, I loaded up 3 of my kids and we went to Tijuana Mexico over Christmas Break. Below is a video of what we did, both working and playing. We had a great time, we worked hard, we played hard, and we learned a little about what it means to live in the United States of America.

I’ll probably blog about some more stuff that I learned while serving in Mexico over the next few days so stay tuned.