Smiles and Pies

Grandpa Hopkins' hand with Livi

This week has been a really difficult week. It was a roller coaster of many emotions, learning new information about the car accident and heart ache of permanent impacts on my health that impact my future forever.

On Thursday I met with Platoon A of the South Salt Lake Fire Department with the paramedics and the firefighters that rescued me from my car. I will blog about this later. I am waiting for pictures to come. The impact that this luncheon had on me was inspiring. Those men and woman in uniform work under extremely dangerous circumstances and they are truly heroes and need a huge pay raise - in my opinion.

Thursday was my Dad's birthday. He has had a father's impact on my life and heart and I decided to bake him a chocolate pecan pie. This was a huge accomplishment for me. It included cool whip and raspberry puree. My Dad has always been the silent quiet type. He has been a huge example of service in heart stretching ways. Military service - he is a veteran and helped everyone with the cars, planes and cleaning chicken coops name a few. Well the pie was a hit. Happy Birthday Dad - thanks for being there for me through this heart wrenching 5 months.

Small impact huge impression in my heart. Today I went to my parent's ward due to my Marathon brother in law R - receiving the priesthood. Damon and I both received a huge heart warming welcome and I know that they really supported my parents and family during this last 5 months. The most heart touching for me was to see the Primary Kids that I worked with last year. All of them came up and gave us hugs and told us about Thanksgiving Plans and what was going on with school. It was a neat experience to think that not only did we teach them but they taught me about how strong their spirits are and how much we can learn from the children and what a great example they are to me and after a long week, I gathered strength from their smiles.



May we recognize the father's and father figures in our lives, may we remember that an impact sometimes isn't seen until later and that smiles can bring strength.