One of many things I love about our Church is that it invites us to not only worship on Sundays or once a year, but teaches us that faith is an every day issue. One thing latter day saints are encouraged to do during the week, for example, is to have family home evening. This is held for most members on Monday night. The whole idea is to have one night a week where each family member has no other plans than those of being together as a family. We believe that family unity is a core essential for happiness, not only within the walls of all our homes, but also within all the borders of society. So to have this opportunity, in a world that is so stressed it never lets us have time for each other, is a wonderful, not to say inspired idea.
This week we had a special guest for family home evening. It was Lena Bomgren, our Ward’s Primary president (the leader of the children’s program in our congregation). We usually see her every week at Church, but meeting her on Sunday, she said that she felt like she wanted to do something more for our family. She and the other’s in our Ward had done so much good for us already, we thought, but we graciously accepted her offer. We sensed her good will and desire to spread love to our children, and perhaps help Johannes to have some fun, thus taking his mind off the pain in his leg – if only for a while.
She knew our kids loved to paint and do crafts (in Swedish: pyssla), so she brought several bags of Easter-fun. After starting our home evening with song and prayer, and a spiritual thought from the father (which my children reminded me had to be very short this time… ha, ha), then we moved on to the activity, as seen below.
Lena is wearing the red sweater. (How about that suspicious look from Clara?)
Our Easter chickens are done. I can’t help but laugh at Isak’s work of art. He made two of these chickens, one of which is “dad”. Guess who? Yep, the tall one. Every time he depicts me somewhere I am always twice as big as the rest. Funny, cause I’m not that big… although I am involuntarily working on it!
Before Lena left we had mom’s delicious brownies with ice cream. Our children spoke casually with Lena, and my wife and I rejoiced that Johannes, especially, had had a few moments to forgot about his medical condition, and just have a good time instead. That meant a lot to us. Sure, for Lena this might not have been the greatest sacrifice (cause I know she also enjoyed it), but for us it was the greatest blessing of this week. And we know that she did it to make us and our children happy, without any conditions, nor payment from Church funds. Just love – shown in pure service.
So we name her “Angel of the week”, our Easter Angel.