Heavenly Father created for me...

This morning we got everyone up and got all our swim meet gear packed and headed out for what we knew would be a long hot day of swimming. The last meet of the year is notoriously long and slow. As we pulled in to the lot we were amazed to see no one there. To make this story short, the swim meet was yesterday. They changed the date but failed to let us know!

Since we were in Wendell we decided to go over to Niagara Springs. We are so thankful that we did. We were the only people in sight. The water was completely clear and the grass was green and everything was quiet. No cars or people talking. This is why we love Idaho. The birds were singing and we could hear the water fall. It was the most peaceful and soul refreshing experience I think I've had this summer.

It made me remember what we were instructed to say in the tours of the first ordinance room of the temple (Rustin and I are tour guides). The room is painted with a stunning mural of the magic valley--"this mural is meant to remind us of the creations of our Heavenly Father in our behalf and of His love for us as His children". This is just the sort of thing I would want to do for my children if I were sending them to a far off world. To provide them with a serene and beautiful environment that I would hope would remind them of home.

This leads me to think of my own home. It's not the most important thing to have the biggest fanciest home on the block but our home should be a place where our children feel and experience peace every day. Our homes should be more loving, forgiving and uplifting than the world that they will go into. That way they will seek after things that remind them of home.

In all I'm glad we got the swim meet times wrong. One of those tender mercies.