Interfaith Dialogues

This past weekend a group of students from Biola University (a private evangelical Christian university) took a trip from southern California to Utah to brave the cold and learn more about Mormons. They toured Temple Square, and they even got to meet with a leader in the Church (a member of the Quorum of the Seventy) and ask him questions. We were so jealous!

While they were here, they participated in several dialogues with members of the LDS church. The goal of the dialogues is to understand the others' doctrines and personal beliefs. Last year Nathan and I participated in other dialogues with evangelical university students from Biola University (California), North Central University (Minnesota!), Wheaton College (Illinois), and others. It's nice to be in a comfortable, relaxed setting where you can just ask about whatever's on your mind.


On Friday night Nathan, Avery, and I went to a local evangelical church to hear a short sermon, listen to some popular Christian songs played by a really good band, and then have some really fun conversations with some evangelicals. We had so much fun! It was good to be with a group of people who were very honest and open, and yet were not critical of our beliefs.

There was also a really yummy potluck beforehand with some delicious chili (you can kinda see it in the background below). My favorite was the white bean and chicken chili. Yummy! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. They even gave us leftovers to take home! Everyone was nice enough to be willing to hold Avery. She basically got passed around from person to person the whole time! They were very accommodating to say the least! Avery seemed to love it! :) She's been drooling buckets lately. She drooled all over Kate (holding her below), but Kate was so patient and didn't seem to mind too much. Thank goodness for bibs!


Below is the Communion, which is an evangelical practice we'd never seen before. During the singing, any believer could take it as a recommitment to follow Christ. Their idea of Communion is very similar to our sacrament. The pic is a little blurry, but it was unleavened bread and grape juice.


After the singing, we broke up into groups and took turns asking each other questions. We sat with two girls and talked about several different topics that we wanted to understand better, like their concept of the Trinity, or our understanding of prophets. We also shared personal experiences of at what point(s) in our lives we developed our own convictions and what difference that has made in our lives.


The two girls that we dialogued with, Vanessa and Sarah were sooo nice! It was probably the best experience I've had dialoguing so far, actually. There wasn't any discomfort; just honest talking and trying to come understand each other, and patience and humor whenever someone had trouble putting into words what they believed. We stayed until about 11:45 pm—for about 4 hours! Above are Nathan and I with Vanessa (middle) and Sarah (far left). They were so kind and I loved hearing their experiences and getting to know them better. They are truly remarkable ladies!

The Biola students come out every year, so we're looking forward to hopefully meeting up with them again!

When Life Gives You a Lemmon, Make an Avery

My maiden name is Lemmon. The other day, we were talking about learning lessons from life, and I said, "When life gives you a Lemmon, make an Avery." We laughed so much we wondered if we ought to post this saying on a cute little plaque in Avery's room, but in the end we decided against it. Instead, we have it as a title to a post. I guess that's almost as good.

You can decide who she looks most like.

I'm on my mom's lap

Here's Avery

Nathan

You, the reader, can decide.

Since I'm on the topic of comparing people, here are a couple more comparisons. Here's me feeding Avery when she was 6 months.

My favorite pastime

I had to pin her arms down with my feet because she would inevitably stick her hands in her face and wipe it EVERYWHERE. Pinning her on the ground meant that not only was gravity on my side when she decided to spit, but that she couldn't wipe her hands everywhere. :) We have since purchased a high chair.


One last comparison. I saw a picture of my niece, and for some strange reason, the first thing I thought of was Tori Amos.

Leah

Tori Amos

I guess I'm ok with Leah looking like Tori Amos, but I hope she doesn't grow up to be like Tori.

Yes, My 31-year-old Husband Wears Heelys in Public

Every time Nathan and I are in a store and he sees kids wearing Heelys (shoes with wheels in the heels), he says, "Oh my gosh, those shoes look so fun!" So, being the observant little wife that I am, I made several mental notes and was able to find $20 Heelys for him for Christmas (usually they run about $60)! (On a side note, I was also surprised to find that the plural of Heelys is not Heelies...)

For our date night last week, we decided to go to the mall so he could practice. This was one of the funnest dates we've had! I was actually so embarrassed that I made him practice in a secluded corner in the food court before we went to the rest of the mall. It's a good thing we did because he almost biffed it several times. :) But by the end, he looked like a pro! We even showed them off to the guy at the Journeys Kidz store where I bought them. He was nice enough to give Nathan a few pointers. These things are a lot more difficult than they look. I now have a deep respect for all those 10-year-old kids riding around in their Heelys.

While he would push the stroller, I'd sneakily stand out of the way and watch people's heads turn as he went by. Here's what they saw:

Too bad I never filmed anyone's head turn. Some of the reactions were pretty funny. I think they were just jealous. It's every woman's dream to have a husband taking the baby out for a stroll.

Some guy said to Nathan, "Hey! I didn't know they made Heely's in adult sizes" Nathan replied, "You're right. They don't." :) In fact, Nathan's feet are only a half-size bigger than mine. That means that we can shoe-swap...which is pretty darn cool if you ask me.

We also came across this really fun store that had way cheap games and toys ranging from $2.50 to $5.00! Nathan found several cool dragon and medeival toys that he wanted badly. It was fun to see "little Nathan" in Nathan come out when he laid his eyes on them. His jaw dropped, his eyes got wide, and he ran over to the dragon/medieval section. He was in heaven:

We totally splurged at that store. We spent a whole $16 on some fun games! We got them for $5-$10 cheaper than anything we could even find on the internet! Here's the loot: Chronology, a " Kidz Cardz" tin that includes four card games in it (Old Maid, Go Fish, Crazy Eights, and Animal Match), Tumble, and a little bug catching/observation kit (Nathan insisted we get this one for him, not for our children).

As we were walking down one of the hallways we met Tuti, an girl from Israel, who wanted to hold Avery. She was hilarious! My favorite is when she says, "She do poop! She toot on me!"

Avery Harmonizes with Nature

Here are a few pics I didn't add under my last post about Christmas, but here's Avery's first time seeing Santa and Mrs. Claus at Costco! She didn't really care about Santa. All she wanted to do was stare at Mrs. Claus!




Before Christmas, I, Nathan, and Bethany (my mission companion from England who stayed with us for 3 weeks) went up American Fork Canyon. It was so beautiful because it had just snowed about 6 inches!


There was a frozen lake that we played on. It took Nathan a good 5 minutes of convincing before I would walk on it. I really thought I was going to fall through the ice. Too many movies, I guess!

We also walked up a nice trail. We didn't want to carry Avery in her car seat because the trail was so steep, but we didn't have anything else to carry her in to keep her warm, so Nathan carried her in his "pouch" -- his nice warm jacket that we zipped up over her. It looked so funny; I was kinda glad we didn't see anyone else on the trail. Avery didn't seem to mind a bit.

While we were walking on the trail, we wanted her to have her first experience eating snow. Here's what happened:

Now Avery has the strength of the beaver and the swiftness of the fox. :)

A Kissing Christmas

I grew up in Minnesota.

Minnesota is cold.

In Minnesota in December, you stay indoors and stare at the Christmas tree day in and day out (mostly) because it's freezing outside.

This is my sister's family in Minnesota playing outside in December.

Contrast that with me and Nathan, also in December, below.

Christmas this year was very different because we went to Nathan's parents' house in California! The weather there was the equivalent of Minnesota's fall weather. We even went to the beach a couple of times (although it was a little too chilly to swim)!

I'm the little black dot. See me smiling?

This year I was even lucky enough to sit at the adults' table for Christmas dinner! Yay! Being an adult sure has its perks! Also at the adult table were Sarah, Josh and Kelly, Jason and Jasmin, and Nathan's parents (Darwin and Nina). It was so fun to see Nathan around his brothers. They all sound the same when they laugh!

For Christmas, Nathan got me a gift certificate to a salon and spa! I'll get a hair cut, massage, and a manicure. I can't wait! This was the look of disbelief on my face when I was reading the brochure.

Avery had lots of fun because she got to eat big peoples' food that had been mashed up. She also got to eat organic baby food all week because there was a buy-one-get-one-free special at the grocery store in California. Her favorite was Blueberries with Roasted Apple. That was actually my favorite too. Here's Avery just after eating it.

Oh, and Nathan's dad also took some family pics of us in a park near their house. It was so pretty!

All of my nieces and nephews found tons of newts! It was my first time seeing a live newt (I saw a dead one in Idaho last summer). They were so slow and squishy! The kids found them all over the place.

I decided to try my luck with one of the newts and look what happened!!!!!

It went from this ...


... to THIS!

HUBBA HUBBA!

It was incredible! I told Nathan's parents to send me a box of newts so I can try my luck with the rest of them. :)

I tried it again at the beach...

but all I got was some nasty sand on my tongue. Oh well. Maybe next year.

Avery's Surprise Tooth

Back in September, there was a period of two weeks when Avery would get so fussy and inconsolable every night that the only thing that would quiet her down was a walk outside. I figured she was teething at the time because she also had a little fever. As time went on, she stopped fussing and we got busy with moving, so I didn't think much about it.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving week. We had Nathan's brother Jason and his family here. While they were here, Ashley, my three year-old niece was playing with Avery and said, "Aunt Jelaire, Avery has a white thing in her mouth." "Ohhh, that's nice," I replied in that classic I'm-not-paying-attention-to-you-but-I'm-tricking-you-into-thinking-I-am voice. I had no clue what she was talking about. To me it was just three-year-old gibberish. Here's Ash doing the dishes at our place.


Later that night, Jasmin, my sister-in-law said, "Hey Jelaire, did you see that Avery has a tooth?" Here's Jaz and Avery!

A tooth? The first thought that crossed my mind was, "But she's still a BABY! She can't have a tooth yet!" I was shocked. I always imagined Avery's first tooth as one of those milestones that would be so obvious, I'd have to be blind to miss it. I went to check, and sure enough, her little tooth was sticking way up out of her little pink gums. My guess is that it had been there since that September fussiness stopped!

It made me kind of sad to realize that I had missed such an important moment. I know it's not a huge deal and she'll have plenty of other teeth, but it definitely made me stop and think about taking time to notice and savor the little things while she's young (we now lovingly call her "Savory Avery"). It was the first time I had felt that Avery was really growing up. Images of her with a full-toothed smile flashed in my head. That feeling I had made me want to try even more to never again let those little moments slip by.

Sometimes I get so caught up in things, when they could wait 5 minutes so we can have some good ol' Momma and Avery time. I was really grateful for this little "aha moment." Since then, I've had to consciously pry myself away (more than once) from the less important stuff to just have some good ol' uninterrupted Mom and Avery time. I love it and it has made me a little less stressed with life.

I now religiously check her mouth every day for more teeth. :) And to my surprise, she cut a new tooth on Wednesday night right next to her first one! Yay!

I included a picture of how she usually sleeps. It's so funny! She sucks her thumb and puts her other hand over her eye. She likes to have a little bit of the blanket in each hand, too!

The Sunday school lesson that went awry

Whether you go to church or not, I think you'll enjoy this story, especially if you've ever tried to explain a piece of literature to adolescents.

Two summers ago, my responsibility on Sundays was to teach a class of about a dozen twelve-year-old boys. On this particular Sunday, the lesson in the manual was on honoring womanhood and treating women with respect. I decided to start with a little symbolism from the Bible, just to get their little craniums chugging. Then I wanted to brainstorm some ways they can show respect for the ladies in their lives.

I had an adult co-teacher (I'll call him Steve), the father of one of the boys in the room. He's a great guy, and I usually appreciated the thoughts he would interject periodically into the discussion. But on this day, for some reason, our brains just weren't clicking in unison.

Adam's prime rib

Since we were talking about honoring women, I thought it would be fun to explain the symbolism of Adam's rib. I had the boys pull out their Bibles and read that passage about the creation of Eve.

²¹The Lord God ... took one of [Adam's] ribs. ... ²²And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
    ²³And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.
    ²⁴Therefore shall a man ... cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:21–24)

Now, whether or not you believe the Eden story literally, it undoubtedly has several allegorical lessons to offer. I wanted these boys to understand the lesson this story teaches about how men should regard women—not as superiors or inferiors, but as equals. Hence the rib—since it is from Adam's side, not above or below him. Getting twelve-year-olds to think figuratively, though, was harder than I thought, especially when they get derailed by the co-teacher. :-)

I said, "So guys, why do you think it says Eve was created from Adam's rib?"

They started thinking about it, and I even think some were about to suggest some symbolic meanings. Then Steve spoke up, "You know, boys, this is why, to this day, men have one fewer ribs than women."

When someone brings folklore like that into a lesson, usually you correct it. But I didn't—partly because on the spot I couldn't immediately think of how to phrase my correction without possibly embarrassing a fellow adult leader. But also, this particular folklore isn't a big deal, and I didn't want to take away time from the point of the lesson. So I just went on: "What could this story be teaching us? Why doesn't it say, 'Eve was created from Adam's foot'?" I wanted to get them focused back on the symbolism.

But the damage was already done—they were completely thinking literally now. I can imagine their thought process: Well, since making her from Adam's rib means he was missing a rib for the rest of his life, I guess making her from Adam's foot means ... One boy hesitantly said, "Because then he would only have one foot?"

Nuts. I tried to get them out of the Rut of Literalness. "Well, no. It's because your foot is from the bottom of your body. That would imply that Adam was above Eve—that he was better than her or more important than her. See how it's symbolic?" Try again. "So why doesn't it say, 'Eve was created from Adam's hair'?"

Another boy offered helpfully, "Because then he would be bald?"

I mentally slapped my forehead. I was no good at teaching this! "Well, no. It's because your hair is from the top of your body. That would imply that Adam was beneath Eve—that he was worse than her or less important than her. You see?"

I think a few boys were able to leave the concrete long enough to understand this way of interpreting the story, but several were still completely in the dark. I gave up my clumsy attempts at explaining symbolism and suddenly appreciated how good my high school English teachers were at doing it.

What women want

I told the boys about a time when I was preparing a lesson a few years ago to give to a class full of single college guys. As part of my preparation, I called four girls (my sister, my cousin Stephanie, and two former girlfriends) and asked them what they looked for in a guy. They had lots of interesting things to say. One interesting fact is that each of them, independently of each other, said something like this: "I look for how he treats girls he's not interested in. Does he only open doors for the cute girls, or does he open them for any girl, regardless of whether he thinks she's attractive?"

"Hey, that's interesting," said Steve. "Are you boys paying attention?"

We discussed why that would be, and the boys understood that we should treat all women with respect, not just because we hope to get something out of it, like favors, social approval, or a date.

Then we started making a list on the chalkboard of "How We Can Show Respect for Women." The boys chimed in with several ideas, and I was really pleased with what they were sharing. One boy said, "We can pick up her books for her if she drops them in the hall at school."

"Right!" I said. And then to reinforce the earlier principle, I asked, "Now, should we only pick up the books for the pretty girls?"

"No!" several said.

"That's right!" said Steve, my adult co-teacher.

"And why should we pick up the books for just any girl who happens to drop them?" I almost closed my eyes, puffed out my chest, and smiled expectantly, waiting for verbal proof that my lesson had been thoroughly understood by these, the noble men of our future.

Before the boys could answer, Steve wagged his fingers at the boys and explained, "Because the pretty girls might be watching."

I wanted to slap my forehead again. I felt like a deflated balloon. I opened my mouth a few times, trying to be diplomatic. Finally I said almost apologetically, "Well, actually, I was going to say, it's because she's a woman, and that's reason enough to treat her with respect."

Steve furrowed his brow thoughtfully and cocked his head. Then he leaned back and said in his slow, deep voice, "Hey guys, that is a way better answer than mine."

I couldn't help but laugh helplessly at what did and didn't come across during my lesson. I suppose as long as they learned something, then that's progress, right? :-)