Lions, Witches, & Wardrobes

The Lion - During sacrament meeting on Easter Sunday I flipped to John 20 and started to read the account of the resurrected Lord appearing to His disciples. "Doubting" Thomas did not believe that the Savior had appeared to the others while he was gone. Only upon seeing Christ himself does he believe that He had risen. Vs. 29-"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Growing up in the church it seems like it was always mentioned that it would have been harder to have faith in Christ before His birth when there were only prophets and writings testifying that He would come than it would be to believe in Him today. Some probably feel that this verse applies to those in biblical times, but I think it applies all the more to us today. We have writings and prophets that testify of Christ, but we have not seen Him and have just as little physical evidence of His ministry on the earth as those who lived before He came did. However, while they believed that Christ would come and die for the sins of the world, we believe that He came along with an added belief that He will return again.

The Witch - So much lately I have been seeing people slowly make small mistakes or slip a little in their integrity or just be "naughty" like my dad says (most often when referring to "that Heidi girl" from The Hills). It's little things...wearing super short shorts and spaghetti strap shirts, drinking, people I know as "good Mormon girls" cussing, betraying someone's trust, or being rude to a friend. It's as if for attention people will forfeit integrity...saddening. Anyway, the White Witch in the chronicles is like this. She is a lot like Lucifer with her power, cunning, and alluring outward appearance (at least before she became the White Witch). She lures people in as they can't help but notice her breathtaking beauty, and then she gradually steals away hearts. It makes me sad for these people and reminds me of the scripture, "...it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from [it]." They are lured by a need for attention or by the enticings of the world, and as a dog returns to his vomit so also do fools return to their folly. No man can serve two masters...

The Wardrobe - I'm not usually one to get into fads, so rather than start reading the Twilight series (which I'm sure I would end up liking) I decided to read the entire Chronicles of Narnia.  This is a feat that I might not be able to accomplish until after we have moved back home, but we'll see. In elementary school I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (click for a treat), but that's where the chronicles and I ended our relationship. Growing up my dad always tried to connect books/movies to gospel principles. This was a stretch for movies like "Star Wars" (the only parallel was using the force required faith). For stories from Christian writers like Tolkien and Lewis however, there were actually many clear biblical symbolisms and parallels. In the prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you get to see how the Lion (the Christ figure) creates Narnia. This creation is almost exactly like the account of the Earth's creation in the Bible. You also get to see how the White Witch came into Narnia...I'll come back to that later.

PSAs

If you have never watched the special features of the Zoolander DVD take a moment to watch the public service announcements. You won't regret it. This comes from "Zoolander On Literacy"

Do you know that a lot of people are embarrassed to pick up a fashion magazine thinking it'll be full of words that look like spooky animals to them? Don't be scared...

And then of course there is this amazing quote that comes from the DVD menu...

Hi, I'm male supermodel Derek Zoolander. I'm here to welcome you to the wonderful world of deev-eh-duh...First, there's "Play." This button starts the movie. I know what you're thinking..."It's a movie, not a play. Why not call it 'Movie' button?" Well, a lot of these buttons were written in the olden days when plays were movies.

Jerm and Abbs, then and now...

...well more recently anyway. I love them!

Grandpa's Comic

This is the true story about our grandpa that was made into a comic and printed in the newspaper. Click on it to see it larger and read it...very cool.

The hearts of the children turned to their fathers...

So I am super excited to go home. Jeremy and I need this mid-semester break pretty badly. I think that it will get us even more excited for moving back home in May (but I'm not really sure if it's possible to be more excited about it than we already are). Grandpa's funeral is going to be Monday, his 93rd birthday...very cool. Even cooler is that he is so highly decorated (3 purple hearts and many more decorations from his service in WWII) that he is going to have a 21 gun salute at his funeral. This is pretty intense because there is no "Army" in California, so the army members performing the salute have to come from Arizona. He was a wonderful man, and I am so grateful I was able to have him be a part of my life for so long. He truly blessed the lives of so many. Here is a little story about his WWII service (later published in the newspaper as a "True Comic").

Grandpa served in the Army as a medic in WWII. He was in the January 1944 Anzio campaign. In one conflict Grandpa was with a small company in a town in Italy that the Allieds had temporarily taken but had to flee from as a large Nazi armored division came rolling back in. He didn't have time to get out of town and hid in an abandoned bakery. Grandpa hid in a large oven as Nazi officers set up temporary shop in the bakery. He had to stay hiding in the oven for almost 24 hours. He suffered severe burns on his leg and more down the whole left side of his body while in the oven next to the one being used. During this whole time he had to remain in silent agony, for being discovered would mean his end at the hands of the officers. When the officers finally left Grandpa snuck out, but not before grabbing maps left on the table that had German battle strategies on them.

I am truly excited to be able to help in the temple work for Grandma this weekend also. It is going to be amazing, and I can't wait until we get to see them again and they have had the chance to accept the gospel! One year from now will be something our whole family has waited so long for as we will be able to then do Granpa's work and seal him and Grandma together. I love it!