How to forget yourself

Is my life hard? Sometimes. Am I frustrated by things in my life? Often. Do I like to have a pity party for myself? Every once in a while. But the cure for ALL of that is service. I've been told that before and it is very true. The last few weeks have been so amazing. I've been doing what I can and joining with my friends in trying to raise money for our friend Courtney who is battling leukemia, while her sweet husband is taking care of their crew at home (with some family and friends helping of course). Things have really come together so nicely and in the last week alone, there was a blood drive, garage sale, bake sale, booth at the town's annual celebration selling t-shirts, cookbooks, and tons of other stuff, and the general collection of donations through canisters in businesses throughout the community. The outpouring of love and support for our dear friend is just amazing. I ordered 50 cookbooks to be printed and they are all gone! I'm going to order more tomorrow to be sold at the garage sale coming up on this Saturday. A leader of our church said recently that a ward (our local congregation) should be like a family. "What happens to one, happens to all." I think our ward has truly embodied that statement. I've also decided that life is too short to NOT let your friends know how much you care for them and how grateful you are for them BEFORE they are enduring a scary disease and you have no opportunity to talk to them for over a month! So all of you who are reading this and are my friends, I APPRECIATE YOUR FRIENDSHIP! :)

If anyone out there in blogland would like to help out a truly awesome lady, we are still selling the t-shirts for $15 or the cookbooks for $10. My mom volunteered her time to make the cookbook (type it, format it, etc.) and a local printer gave us a nice discount to show their support for Courtney too. They turned out SO great and there are a lot of great recipes in there! Quick and easy, which I love! Just post a comment or e-mail me if you would like one. They make great Christmas gifts too! :)

As I was helping sell the cookbooks at the booth yesterday, a man came walking by with his family and my friend Amy and I started talking to him and telling him why we were there. He was sympathetic but wasn't interested in buying our things. He offered some money and said he'd just like to donate. That was so nice. But as he was walking away, Courtney's husband, Todd, and her 4 little ones walked up to the booth and I told the man, "Oh, this is actually Courtney's family right here." He walked over to Todd and started talking to him and about 15 minutes later the man came back over to me and with tears in his eyes, he slid me an even larger bill than before and walked away quickly before I could see him cry. I think it hit a little too close to home when he realized this could be his wife and children going through this. There were a lot of extremely generous people that didn't know her and others whose children go to school with Courtney's and they just weren't sure what else to do to help. The PTA also held their own bake sale for her. She has affected a lot of lives.

So anyway, I am grateful for great friends and I am grateful for service!