AFRICA: Akhwari--Greatest Last Place Finish Ever

Have you ever heard of John Stephen Akhwari? If not, you should find out who he is, and you should share his story with your children. Let me help you.

John Stephen Akhwari is a marathon runner from Tanzania. He was the African champion runner and he competed in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Even though Akhwari had previously beaten the man who would win the gold medal in the men's marathon that year, Akhwari is mostly known for having the worst marathon finishing time in the history of the Olympics. But really, the time isn't the important part--the finishing is. 

Here is the quote he is most famous for:

"My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 5,000 miles to finish it."

Akhwari's Olympic marathon finish is nothing short of heroic given all the circumstances and given his tenacious grit. He is an amazing example! I like everything about the following video except that at the end it categorizes Akhwari's finish as one of the "strangest." I disagree. I think it's one of the best and most inspiring.

Years later, Akhwari was called upon to be honored and participate in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, carrying the torch. Here is a good follow up article on Akhwari's life since his famous finish. 

Whether you're studying Africa, the Olympics, focusing on biographies, working on character development, or need a story for a Family Home Evening lesson on enduring to the end, John Stephen Akhwari from Mbulu, Tanzania, Africa is someone to talk about.

Keep Calm and Climb

The "Keep Calm and...   " craze is a little overdone these days, in my opinion, but I saw this and of course LOVED it. I thought about it all week as it was crunch time for wedding preparations and so many things went wrong. All the accidents and mishaps and mistakes and disasters actually became comical. I didn't feel stressed because as each one came along I'd take a deep breath, laugh a little incredulously, look at it as a little mountain to climb and I'd just keep calm and climb it. 

2017 Word Clouds and Positive Thinking

Need a visual reminder of your positive thoughts or goals for the new year?  Create and print your own word cloud! 

The picture above is the word cloud I made for myself for this year. I used Tagul. I'm going to have my kids create their own personalized word clouds this week. There are many different online word cloud generators you can use, some more user friendly than others, and each with different shape possibilities.

Think positive! Even in the middle of SNOWPOCALYPSE 2017 (as my sister is calling it) my word cloud is helping out. In just the past few days we've had a flood in my laundry room, a garage door fall on top of our car as we were backing out, my husband's back go out just as we had to shovel two feet of snow, and burst pipes and subsequent flooding in my family room that forced us to shut off all our water and our heat until our plumber can find a plug for a route of pipes. Tomorrow we have to start cutting out sections of wall. All this just days before my son's wedding...while his fiancee is stuck three states away and cannot get here!

Go to Washington with Mr. Smith

You can't do better than passionate, idealistic, honest and good Jimmie Stewart! Do not study United States Government without watching Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington!"

This film just couldn't be any more perfect for showing, in an interesting, entertaining, inspiring, and CLEAN way, how things work in the Senate, how money can corrupt politicians, how one man CAN make a difference, and so much more. In fact, I read my kids' freewrites from this morning where the question was, "What did you learn from 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," and their musings covered a wide array of topics including honesty, perseverance, power of the press, corruption and greed, filibusters, imperfect government, and more.

I have become a real Frank Capra fan in the past couple of years. I've always loved "It's a Wonderful Life," but my appreciation has grown even more as we've watched this film, and also "You Can't Take it With You" and "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" as part of our economics studies. LOVE these films!

"The Miracle"

I have been greatly blessed the past few months to be the new Primary chorister at church. The previous chorister introduced a song that, in my opinion, is one of the most wonderful ever written so, I picked up where she left off to finish teaching it to the children. The song is Shawna Belt Edwards's "The Miracle."

I really cannot fully express how much this song has blessed me personally, as well as every child and adult in Primary. The children love this song so much and sing it with such faith that the Spirit tangibly permeates the room. We are all super excited to share it with the rest of the congregation this Easter season. 

I hope you'll listen and let the Spirit testify to you that truly nothing is impossible to Jesus Christ.

You can download sheet music or recordings here.

Happy Easter!

Press Forward

I love, love, loved using the new video for the 2016 Mutual Theme, "Press Forward," in one of our New Year devotionals, along with some of the articles from the January New Era.

My favorite images are the youth walking the Salt Flats; the ending scenes are powerful!

Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present

Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present is a cute story that packs a lot of good examples in a creative way and tied into our Christmas Presence theme nicely.

The story begins on Christmas Eve as Santa is tucking his reindeer, one of whom is sick, into bed. Exhausted from his year's work and night's travels, Santa wearily climbs into bed himself, only to discover that there is still one present left in his bag. The present belongs to Harvey Slumfenburger, a very poor and very good little boy who lives on a mountain far, far away. Santa knows that he cannot let Harvey down, but he also cannot take his sick reindeer out again. He gets out of bed and the rest of the story is a journey of mishaps as Santa tries one mode of transportation after another, each by asking the next person he can find along the way to help him, only to have every plane, motorbike, ski, etc. break in crazy accidents.

Santa does finally reach Harvey's humble hut at the top of the mountain, just before morning. The book has an open ending wherein Harvey awakes, sees his present at the end of the bed, opens it... and smiles... leaving the reader to wonder what the present was.

The first lessons in this book that I love are that Santa demonstrates compassion, responsibility, determination, perseverance, and patience. He understands Harvey's situation and feels a desire to bring him joy. He's tired and feels completely spent, but he's Santa and it's his job to deliver that gift, so he just does it, even though he has his own reasons not to (sick reindeer, etc.) and to make excuses. He overcomes almost insurmountable odds and just keeps going. Many people would give up after the first, second, or third accident, but Santa keeps on going. And he never gets upset.

The second group of lessons in this story are basic generosity and helpfulness. Each person Santa asks for help--on Christmas Eve and in the middle of the night no less--are perfectly willing to use their time and resources to help Santa on his way. When disaster strikes, they are sorry they can't be of further help and offer suggestions for Santa's next journey leg.

Now, this picture book has cute illustrations and is probably supposed to be a simply charming tale of mishaps. I realize that all these lessons could very well be my own projections. Nonetheless, they are there, by example, and I see them. After reading the book aloud, I asked some leading questions to help my children see them also. Then we went to the scriptures.

There is a word that has been on my mind for months:  entreat. It was in a scripture I read that has also been on my mind for months. We went to the entry for entreat in the Topical Guide of our scriptures and focused on this:  "gentle, and easy to be entreated:  James 3:17 (Alma 7:23, Helaman 7:7)."

According to Merriam-Webster, entreat means to ask (someone) in a serious and emotional way; to make an earnest request; to plead. Synonyms include appeal, beseech, beg, implore, petition, solicit. With this in mind, we read the following scriptures and discussed how they applied to the people in the story of Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present, what it all has to do with "being present" and/or giving the gift of presence, and what it all means for us.

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." (James 3:17)

"Oh, that I could have had my days in the days when my father Nephi first came out of the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joyed with him in the promised land; then were his people easy to be entreated, firm to keep the commandments of God, and slow to be led to do iniquity; and they were quick to hearken unto the words of the Lord--" (Helaman 7:7)

"And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle, easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive." (Alma 7:23)

After all of this was a creative writing assignment. What was in the box that Santa left for Harvey? What was Harvey's Christmas present? Everyone was supposed to begin their story where the book left off, reveal what the gift was and why Harvey needed/wanted it and/or how it blessed his life.  My kids' reveals ranged from a hat and mittens to keep him warm, to a Book of Mormon to bless his whole family, to a toolkit so Harvey could work and earn money to help his family, to a slingshot that managed to shoot a rock through Santa's window far, far away. I loved this book and discussion and the writing!

Sorry Charlie Day

April 6 is National Sorry Charlie Day. Have you heard or used that phrase before? Have your children? Do you know where it comes from?

"Sorry Charlie" is an American catchphrase that sprang into vernacular from a commercial.

I remember seeing the later commercials as a child and I have used the phrase numerous times in conversation, but I don't think I ever associated the every day use of the phrase with a commercial from my childhood. 

Sorry Charlie Day sparked a couple of points worth discussion.  First, and the purpose for Sorry Charlie Day, is to note that everyone faces rejection of some kind in the course of their lives. On SCD we can reflect on how we've survived past rejections and how maybe we are even better for it. Charlie Tuna was rejected by StarKist over and over in every commercial for decades and he never let it get him down or keep him from trying again. 

The other points of discussion are the power of advertising and media, and where words and phrases come from and how they are assimilated into everyday use.