You said the trapeze act was wonderful but never meant to last

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S but just a normal day here. I'm leaving in 10 minutes to go play with my boys, then I have group in the afternoon. Tonight Isai is going to help me work on my GOTH--oh yeah!
I made some changes and have been more conscious of my blessings since I heard Elder Bednar's talk about prayer (even though I am still terrified of him). When I start a prayer listing all the things I am grateful for, I feel my appreciation for my Padre Celestial deepen and the rest of what I say is more careful and focused. I feel a stronger connection. I've struggled sometimes because I feel like my prayers have been rushed--"so sorry, so selfish, but please just send help!" but there will always be more blessings than burdens and it is good for us to be conscious of that. It's also hard to be demanding or sorry for yourself after painting a picture of the goodness of your life.

Today I'm grateful for a family who understands and appreciates what I am doing here, parents who have taught me by compassionate example our responsibility to the "wretched of the earth." I'm grateful for my mother's enthusiasm for the gospel and her seemingly endless energy for good works. I'm thankful for my Father who explains his life with Paul Simon songs and passages from A Christmas Carol, for the strengthened friendship I have with him. I'm grateful to have a family I can laugh with and where I am always welcome to be home. I'm thankful for younger sisters who are my best friends, and so wonderfully kind and loving to me even though they are vastly better people. I'm grateful for my brother Toot on a mission and that he had glad tidings for us in his last letter. I'm thankful for that for the most part we have been better friends as we've grown up. I'm grateful I got to see my brother and sister be married in the temple (not um, to each other) and that they both have amazing companeros. I'm grateful for summers in Mexico, for memories of the Old House, for Walmart Tag and nonsense scrabble and a "veritable cornucopia" of inside jokes. I'm grateful my family forgives me for being generally defective and obnoxious in many ways. I'm grateful for being healthy and for the things I have been able to understand about life and people. I'm grateful for diamond minds of friends, professors, leaders and authors who have polished my mind. I'm VERY thankful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and for a Savior who is the captain of the poor and who knows and loves everyone so fully and dearly. I'm grateful for the love and beauty I feel from Him. I'm grateful for the scriptures that bring lights to my path and peace to my frenetic heart, that seem to change with me as I get a little sadder or a little darker or a little stronger. I'm thankful to have served a mission, which was a wish of my heart always, and for having souls to rejoice with in the glorious kingdom. I'm thankful for my fellow-soldiers and my mission President and for being able to speak Spanish. I'm thankful for priesthood blessings and the white light they provide for me when I'm humble enough to ask for them. I'm grateful for the hymns of Zion and for people who have been willing to endure hard and heartbreaking things to build up the kingdom of God. I'm grateful for all my friends who are so loving and patient with me and whose company is so wonderful. I'm thankful for probably a thousand children who I have loved very dearly and whose "walls are continually before me," if that doesn't sound apostate. I'm grateful for Lewis Elementary, Jaycee Park, ABC Daycare, Westridge Academy, Provo School District, the Section II orphanage and the hospital in Iasi Romania, the Center for Women and Children in Crisis, for giving me a chance in spite of my incompetence and letting me get to know those sweet kids. I'm grateful to be living and working hard in Mexico. I'm thankful for Christmas music and the Pace family and the gift of being able to change. I'm grateful for anyone who can put words together beautifully to create emotion or a conjure a memory. There is more but that's enough. Y doy fin a mis palabras.

On another note, I love LOVE love Iron and Wine (hierro y vino?). My blog is named after one of their songs and I'm going to try really hard to ignore the fact that Sam Beam sold out to the Twilight soundtrack and as a result one of the best groups in the world will be ruined by a million revolting teenyboppers claiming fanhood, but it's okay. I have been thinking and listening so much to this song but I can't write about why--so I thought I would just post the lyrics.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Trapeze Swinger--Iron and Wine

Please, remember me, happily,
by the rosebush laughing
with bruises on my chin, the time when
we counted every black car passing
your house beneath the hill, and up until
someone caught us in the kitchen
with maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank
a vision too removed to mention

But please remember me, fondly,
i heard from someone you're still pretty
and then they went on to say that the Pearly Gates
have such eloquent graffiti
like: “we'll meet again” and “f*** the Man”
and “tell my mother not to worry”
and angels with their great handshakes
but always done in such a hurry

and please remember me, at Halloween
making fools of all the neighbors
our faces painted white, by midnight
we'd forgotten one another
and when the morning came I was ashamed
only now it seems so silly
that season left the world and then returned
and now you're lit up by the city

so please remember me, mistakenly
in the window of the tallest tower
call, then pass us by, but much too high
to see the empty road at happy hour
gleam and resonate just like the gates
around the Holy Kingdom
with words like: “lost and found” and “don't look down”
and “someone save temptation”

and please remember me, as in the dream
we had as rug-burned babies
among the fallen trees and fast asleep
beside the lions and the ladies
that called you what you like and even might
give a gift for your behavior:
a fleeting chance to see a trapeze-
swinger high as any savior

but please remember me, my misery
and how it lost me all i wanted
those dogs that love the rain, and chasin' trains
the colored birds above there runnin'
in circles round the well, and where it spells
on the wall behind St. Peter
so bright on cinder gray in spray paint:
“who the hell can see forever?”

and please remember me, seldomly
in the car behind the carnival
my hand between your knees, you turn from me
and said the trapeze act was wonderful
but never meant to last, the clowns that passed
saw me just come up with anger
when it filled with circus dogs, the parking lot
had an element of danger

so please remember me, finally
and all my uphill clawing
my dear, but if i make the Pearly Gates
i’ll do my best to make a drawing
of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl
an angel kissin’ on a sinner
a monkey and a man, a marching band
all around the frightened trapeze-swinger