A Painting Of Christ

In October Conference, Sister Kristin Yee shared her experience of painting Christ.  She started her Conference talk this way:  

"About 10 years ago I felt impressed to paint a portrait of the Savior. Though I am an artist, this felt a bit overwhelming. How was I to paint a portrait of Jesus Christ that captured His Spirit? Where was I to begin? And where would I find the time?

Even with my questions, I decided to move forward and trust that the Lord would help me. But I had to keep moving and leave the possibilities to Him. I prayed, pondered, researched, and sketched and was blessed to find help and resources. And what was a white canvas started to become something more.

The process wasn’t easy. Sometimes it didn’t look as I had hoped. Sometimes there were moments of inspired strokes and ideas. And many times, I just had to try again and again and again...."   (The Joy of Our Redemption.)

Here is her painting.  She titled it "And I Partook".

She talks about the whole process and talked about our Redemption because of Jesus Christ.  It is a beautiful and powerful talk and I suggest you google it and read or reread it again.

The whole point of all of that background is that since hearing that talk, I have thought of how I would "paint" the Savior.  Sister Yee is an artist of great talent.  She could do it.  I am not an artist but I can imagine a piece of art and so over the past six weeks, I have pondered that idea--what would my painting of Christ look like.  I haven't gotten it completely done in my head and aspects change from time to time but these are some of the words that explain the art work in my imagination.

First, the background of my painting would be filled with light--yellows and whites beyond description. (No reflection at all on Sister Yee's painting, just my ideas.) To me, Christ is filled with light so much that it bounces and fills the space all around Him. He would be standing in front the tree of life--green with life.  This is a symbol that I cherish--the tree of life where God's love is represented in its abundance. The white fruit would glisten and reflect the light of Christ. He is there waiting--for us to seek for Him, to lean on His strength, and to take advantage of His great Atonement for us. He stands with arms outstretched and leaning towards us--but not demanding or pulling us to Him--but us coming to Him is His greatest desire. He is reaching our reachings.

That's my painting.  How would you paint the Savior?

Hello Kitty

So we own a small row of storage units.  Gary manages it all and in general it is fairly straight forward.  However, we currently have a renter that we had to evict because of non-payment for over a year.  Although she told us that she removed her stuff, there is still lots of stuff in the unit. One find was two big boxes filled with Hello Kitty stuff.  Why??? Who knows...the DI or Toys for Tot will be excited.  I guess Hello Kitty is a popular thing at the moment.  My kids will do their own "shopping" and then off it goes.  Jessica says that even with the young adults she works with, Hello Kitty things are very popular.  Who knew and why does this old woman have this stuff in her storage unit.

Gary is having "fun" checking out all of the boxes and file cabinets that were left behind.
 

Saturday Snowfall

November 16th--and winter has arrived. Not a fan!

 

Taylorsville Temple

We had to go to Salt Lake to meet with our financial planner so we decided to combine it with a visit to the Taylorsville Temple, another one of the new temples which we have not visited yet.

It seems almost "dropped" right next to the I-215 freeway in Taylorsville,  It is so close to the roads there.

And I am not a fan of the more squared look of the outside.  However, I had heard that it was amazing inside--a place that John Taylor (the third prophet of the Church) would have felt right at home.

It was stunning inside.  With dark woods and more period style furnishing make it unique and so fun to experience.

And up close, I loved the outside details as well.

Not my personal style, but I can still love it when I see it.  It is fun to share these adventures with Gary and Jena.

No pictures of our financial meeting or our visit with Karla since we were in town, then we rushed back to Syracuse so I could go to dinner with Debbie Woodrow and Amy O'Dell Daily,  (Kristy who usually joins us was sick.)