Family Christmas Eve Breakfast Tradition

Our Schultz service activity this year was our family's Christmas Eve Breakfast we threw for all of our friends and loved ones in honor of Harrison.  We started a family tradition we hope to continue every year on Christmas Eve morning where we have a breakfast to serve those we love in our neighborhood, from church, school, family and friends close by.  As I thought about Harrison, I think of the Art show he threw this year and how much he loves people and has many different friends all around him.  As a family, we wanted to show our love for people by serving them.  We planned this as a family and it wasn't just Katie and I, we made it a point to bring Ruby and Lulu into the planning and service process.  Ruby wanted to make it a pancake eating contest and Lulu wanted to do crafts and they planned their own events.

Ruby designed and passed out the flyer and and Ruby and Lulu went shopping with me to Smart & Final, unloaded the food, put it away and cleaned the house and helped setup and cleanup for two days.  We had 80 people come and everyone made comments on how fun this was and what a good idea it was.  We seved pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, fruit, juice, milk and water.  Neighbors like the Brazos came and helped cook and some came to help clean or loaned us linens or equipment.  We definitely got lost in the service and people couldn't stop talking about looking forward to it for the next year.  We had church friends mingling with neighbors and cousins mingling with school friends as well.  We know people felt our love for them and the Savior and we hope to continue to do it.  And if we continue to more of these Christmas Eve Breakfasts we'll know that the first one was dedicated to Harrison Schultz.

Lending a helping hand for Heather & James.

So I had the Georgianna Family for the service exchange.

As I was thinking of what to do for them, I tried to think of what was going on in their lives and apply that to a service I could do. Heather and James are some of the most unselfish, christlike people I know, so a lot of different charities came to mind.

I knew that having their first child though was probably the biggest event that happened in their lives and I then thought of how I would apply it to baby Poppy.

I was so sad that I wasn't present in Rexburg anymore for when Poppy came into their family. I knew that if i was, I'd want to spend so much time getting to know her and being the brother/ family member closest for them to rely on. Well since I let them down and peaced out of Rexburg early, I thought I owed it to them to lend a hand to other family members/ parents.

I wanted to grow my relationships with my nieces and nephews that were now close to me.
I insisted for Ruth and Katie to hit me up anytime they are in need of a babysitter or need help in a jam. I'm so stoked they both surprisingly took me up on my offer.

Just a few instances where I exercised service to my nieces and nephews was firstly watching Ben and Katie's kids for a couple days for B & K to escape for Ben's birthday.

I also joined the team of volunteers to go to Lulu's classroom and read to her. It was good to be able to relieve Katie and ben of always going, but it was great to have personal time with Lulu. Even though she hates me for actually making her read. haha

Lastly, which was the most recent, was being able to take 3 of Ruth and Scotts kids to see the yo gabba gabba show, all by myself. When Scott and Ruth couldn't go due to sickness, they asked me if I would attempt taking Ollie, Harper, and Davy since I was already going. I jumped on the opportunity. 

I did recruit my friend Cassie though to come with me for extra hands. 

 I only lost Harper once. And i failed on my role of getting Davy up on stage for Biz's beat of the day.   I thought I did a good job though. haha

I would have done these things anyway. But I tried my hardest to do it all with a smile on my face and a good attitude. I wanted to keep Heather and James and poppy in mind. I want to actively be in my nieces and nephews/ family's live as much as i would have been in Poppy's. And in some way positively make a difference in their lives. :)

Thanks for your constant example of charity Heather and James. 

-Harrison

Adopting Randoms, a service for M&D by the Pethels

So, our service is for Mom and Dad.  As you all know, Mom and Dad have adopted a lot of "randoms" over the years, which is what our service is sort of spun from. In a nutshell, we decided on finding people to help. We wanted to see people's needs and be able to lift them up, just like Mom and Dad always do.   Here's how our service goes (and I apologize in advance for how long it is.)

A couple of months ago, our family got together for a special lesson on service, taught by Xanthe from her Personal Progress Value on Good Works.  We talked a lot about what it meant to do service and how we could do something in Mom & Dad's name/honor.  It was very hard to decide on just one thing because Mom & Dad do so much for so many people.  We came up with lots of ideas that reminded us of Grandma and Grandpa, like taking care of our senior missionary couples, going caroling at Christmastime (cuz Mom always loved caroling at christmas and we have lots of single soldiers and seniors here), doing the blood drive ("Bleed and Feed"), bringing food to people, Secret Santa to deployed families, inviting over those who don't have somewhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner, doing missionary breakfast, etc.

But one thing about Mom & Dad that has always been a good example is that they have always been willing to open their home, or donate their time, or give anything that was needed to help other people.  They could always see a need.  They have influenced people in so many ways, brought them back to the church, or simply gave love to those that needed it.  So, we thought it might be fun to each look for someone "in need" and try to help them however we could.  It's not just one big service, but a few little services and then one big at the end.

Before we decided, however, we decided to pray for inspiration on who to help.  And boy, did we get people coming our way.  There were lots of people and we had such a great experience recognizing others' needs and how to give to them

One thing I (Christy) have to preface this with is that the reason some of these were a sacrifice and a learning experience for me is that I already have a hard time as it is finding balance in my own life.  So dropping things when people call on me is a difficult thing to do.  I'm not a good person to drop by and clean someone's house, babysit someone's kids on a whim, or drive around those who have just moved in and don't have a car yet (some examples of our biggest needs here).  But during my "adoptions" I dropped things for people.  Every person that came my way, I thought, "What would my parents do?"  And I'll be honest. It felt good.  I truly felt a piece of myself was growing. And this was the first year I felt like I was really in the Christmas spirit. And it was all because of serving.

Here goes (sorry, again, for so long)...

Christy
1. Heather Schwartz- Her husband is very inactive. Does not come to church at all anymore.  She is the breadwinner, working full-time as the elementary school Art teacher, while her husband stays at home with the kids. Because her husband does not go to church, it makes it hard for her to make the 40 minute drive to our  new building with two teenagers (who don't want to go because their dad bad talks it now) and two young toddlers.  Recently, she's been making an extra effort to make/encourage her kids to do more church stuff.  She has finally started bringing them to seminary, which means she has to leave her two little ones at home even earlier to get her older ones to seminary and start her school day.  She doesn't have a lot of friends at church because she feels like she doesn't fit in. She is such a wonderful person and a few months ago, I started volunteering in her art room one day a week to help her with her classes.  She and I became good friends and during the month of December, she called on me a lot, which I was pretty thankful for.

Here are a few ways we helped her...
***One day she saw me dropping the girls off at seminary and said she felt this inspiration to  message me for help after praying that morning that she felt really overwhelmed with everything going on.  She asked if I had any time (I didn't. at. all.) to come in and help her that day. I was super swamped, but I could tell I really should drop what I was doing to help her.  Here is what I did... (actually it took two days)...

Paper Picnic Blankets (took 4-5 hours) for her Student Council kids' "Scholars Luncheon" to sit on during their luncheon.

Spencer even came to eat lunch with me and helped me glue on a few squares.

"A's" on the tree for all the A's the kids received.

*** Thanksgiving Play Costumes-Making costumes and backdrops for Spencer's Thanksgiving play "No Turkey for Perky"  (give me props for making the costumes up. :) ) She, an art teacher, said I did a better job than she would ever do.  I'm pretty proud of the onions (even though you can't see it very well. I shaded with pastels!).   Oh by the way, the play is all about building a pizza for Thanksgiving dinner and the kids were different ingredients. Bread, onions, pepperoni, cheese.  She has thanked me profusely for all my help with these things. I know how she felt with having so much to do and needing someone who could just take over. I even helped her run a few practices even though I was putting all my other stuff on the back burner it felt really good to help her.

Heather is next to Spencer's teacher in purple.

***Rides to Church-The Sunday before Christmas (while we were driving home from Belgium), Heather called me the night before in a panic because her sister-in-law and 3 kids (going through a divorce so in need of some spiritual uplifting) is in town and they didn't have enough room for them all to go.  Her husband didn't want to help drive her family so she called to see if I could help out.  She could drive some of them all the way to me (30 minutes away) then back home, then the 40 minutes to church. It would have taken her two hours.  I told her that was silly. I would just leave early, take a few of my own kids with me, and come pick some of them up and take them to church.  To put it in perspective, it's like driving from Brea (me), to Arcadia (Heather Schwartz's), then over to Costa Mesa (church building) and then back that same way after church to take them all home.

My whole family helped with this one because a few had to be ready an hour and a half early to go with me and then the others had to get ready, but also make sure dinner was going, and lunch was ready (church starts at 12:30 so we eat beforehand, and everyone's hungry when we get home). If I hadn't have helped her, they wouldn't have gone to church (and this is someone who NEEDS to be encouraged to go).

***Her daughter Tatiana, 17 years old, is one of my Young Women.  She is struggling with the church and friends.  Heather turned to me for help getting Tatiana to go to "Young Women in Excellence". Heather was feeling guilty she didn't do more to encourage her to do Personal Progress and now that her daughter is 17, she has been uninterested in a lot of things.  One day she confided and me that she needed my help... It was the day before Nan's family came into town, but I dropped everything and made Tatiana my focus.  I met Tatiana after school and did my best to come up with things I felt she'd really love and would make her feel comfortable.  I asked her why she didn't want to go and she said because she hadn't done any and she felt awkward there. I told her it's not all about PP, but that its' a time to reflect on the awesome year we had. And that she is a major part of our Young Women and needed to be there.  I told her I needed help with some of the decorations (I didn't. Totally made up) and that I needed her creative brain.  I also asked her if she would help Ashton (another older girl) emcee it. I totally made up the fact that I needed help making a "Hollywood Walk of Fame" and asked if she'd be interested in helping me with it.  Oh and that we all were hoping she would sing the group song with us since she had practiced with us.  She got super excited and jumped on board.  She finally agreed to come (even though many of us had gotten a "no" from her for a few weeks).   Heather even sacrificed some time to help because she knew how important this was to Tatiana. It was amazing seeing her there, and seeing the smile on her face. My girls made an extra effort to tell her how great she was and the biggest effect this night had on Tatiana is it healed a rift that was going on between her and another girl.

She's not in this picture but X&X are.  They came to help.  Again, this was the night before Nan's family was coming in.

Tatiana is the blonde sitting down.

Nan's handwriting. She helped put it together that night.

2. Christina Brockway- A girl, and one of my good friends, is not a member, but friends with about 20 of us in my ward. I have invited her to church but she never comes because there are two women there who have really hurt her, but she lives like a Mormon.  She and her husband don't drink, smoke, swear, etc.  She also had bad experiences with Mormons when she was younger because some Mormons down the street (in a very, very small town) wouldn't let their kids play with the non-Mormon girl (Christina).  I've always stayed lowkey and just been a good example of being a "good person."

For Christina, here's a small thing that I did for her.  I was getting ready for our Relief Society Christmas Dinner and I got the inspiration that I should invite Christina.  One thing about me...  I don't feel comfortable inviting people to church things. It's just not one of my strong suits.  But I really felt like this was something I was being inspired to do.  In my head I thought, "there's no way she's going to come.  She never comes to any of the Mormon things she's invited to." But I did.  And she said yes!  All my Mormon friends who saw her there were so excited to see her and amazed I got her to come. :) It's something small but I thought of how mom and dad are always so willing to invite people places, especially as missionary experiences.  I hope I'm becoming a good influence in her life.

The other person I encouraged and got to come to that same dinner was also Heather Schwartz. She swore off coming to ward functions because she felt so isolated at the last one. I told her to come, bring Tatiana (YW were invited) and we would have a good time together and wouldn't feel weird. She totally did!  And thanked me afterward for encouraging her to go.  I was pretty proud that we were able to encourage two girls to come.

3. Aubrey Horner
A girl, her husband, and her four kids just moved to Germany, and into the ward, one week before Christmas. She posted on our Out & About Group Facebook page that she was feeling overwhelmed with putting on a Christmas. She was living in a hotel, had no idea where to go, and didn't have a car.  She was mostly asking for ideas, but I randomly (and unlike me) offered to pick her up and take her shopping. After I posted, I thought to myself, "What the heck are you doing, Christy?"  But then I kept thinking of my mom and how good she is about doing this kind of thing. My dad too!  They love to serve people!  Anyway, the day came and, like always, I was talking myself out of it. But I made myself go.  We were gone about 4 hours and ended the night going to McDonald's (all the restaurants were closed), which turned out to be a good thing.  Living in the hotel, you eat out for every meal because there's no stove or anything.  She was stoked that I introduced her to another place to go.  (Oh and by the way, Germany McD's is actually quite posh).  She thanked me profusely for taking her.  She was totally done with Christmas and was not stressing anymore.

A sneaky picture of Aubrey about to pay.  This was our 4th store we drove to.

Christina Brockway (on the left) came along too.

Xoe & Xanthe
April Brandt-There is a girl named April in X&X's Young Women's group.  She moved in during the summer and is 14 years old.  To say she is "shy" is an understatement.  She is terrified of almost everything. Won't even get up to say a prayer or talk in class. But to take it even further, she will barely say a word to anyone anywhere.  She is a bit "slow," dresses in tennis shoes and pants whenever she can, and tries to blend in rather than be seen.  Here is a picture of her in the group at Young Women in Excellence.  She would not even participate the whole time.  Sat in the audience and just watched.  X&X, however, noticed that she actually loves to sing so they got her to come to at least sing in the song for the chorus. You can see her in the front row in pants and a burgundy top.

X&X made it a special point to make friends with her.  They are almost 2 years old her than her and so I think she was a bit intimidated by her at first. But to see them work with her and befriend her has been amazing.

At ice skating in December, she didn't want to participate but they made a big point about how they wanted her to hang out with them and would stay by her side to help her skate.  I think she smiled 2 miles wide that night.  I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of it.

The girls keep talking about how she will actually talk with them now, and they watch her at school to make sure she always has someone to talk to. She's opening up a lot more and they sort of feel this "motherly pride" that she's making friends and coming out of her shell a little bit more.  I'm so proud of X&X for this.

Brian
Anthony Swanson-A coworker who was his trainer when he took this new job. Anthony is quite mean to Brian, constantly putting Brian down in a sarcastic way.  Brian made an extra effort to help him this December, despite how much he gets frustrated with him. One night he went to help Anthony disassemble a bunch of furniture because he and his family are moving back to the states.  He also took the night off to take Anthony to the airport.  The thing that made it a sacrifice was that it was the same night as my Relief Society dinner and Spencer was left home with Grandma and Grandpa. That night the traffic was the worst it had been in a long time, it was raining really hard,  so he was running around with Anthony helping him get to the airport after driving for about 3 hours (which usually takes 15 minutes each way).  I was proud of Brian for making that sacrifice even though he's not someone Brian gets along with too much.

Amanda
Amanda even adopted a friend to help this Christmas Season.  She's a single soldier named Lolo. She's Mormon and only been here for 2 months. She and Amanda have become good friends but Amanda found out she didn't have anywhere to go for the holidays, so we invited her to our house.  We invited her to spend Christmas Eve with us and to sleep over and spend Christmas morning.  Lolo kept insisting she didn't want presents but I kept hearing Mom's voice in my head "Everyone has to open something on Christmas morning." And no matter who was there on Christmas, Mom always had something for them to open. So the day before Christmas, I ran and got her the same set of pajamas I had bought for the girls to be matching, and Amanda, X&X and I went shopping downtown for a few hours to include her in our shopping for presents for her to open on Christmas morning.  Everyone got her presents.  It was fun having her there and she was so humbled that we had her for our big Christmas eve dinner and for the entire next day.  We even let her use Brian's car when we left the next day after Christmas.  She didn't have to work and so Brian willingly just offered his car so she could have places to go (she doesn't have a car yet).  My Mom and Dad are the best examples of letting randoms into their home and so we felt like this was a great way to give back to her.

Lolo is on the top right.

The Whole Family
Seminary Breakfast for Dinner-Like in true Schultz form, we work best last minute sometimes.  I thought of this idea on the Sunday before Christmas.  I knew we had done so much service during the months of November and December (some I haven't even mentioned).  But I felt like we needed to do something big.  Missionary Breakfast was what I originally wanted to do because that's dad forte.  But all the senior missionaries decided to travel for the holidays and the elders and sisters already had lots of places to be.  So, I thought, "My Dad sometimes invited the seminary kids over for Missionary Breakfast, and what better way for Brian to give back to his seminary kids than to invite them over for a party right before Christmas?"  As in... two days before christmas.  But! I asked all the family what they thought and they loved the idea.  Brian worked during the week so it was too hard to have them in the morning.  We invited them over for "Breakfast for Dinner" and a movie.  We got it approved by the bishop and spread the word during all the classes.  Each of us worked to make sure it happened.  It's a lot of work, for sure. Wow, Mom and Dad I can't believe you did so much every week.

We had our missionary "Seminary" Breakfast for Dinner on Tuesday, the 23rd.  The morning of, I ran and got a bunch of the shopping done.  While I was out, Brian called and was nervous no one was going to come.  Xoe and Xanthe started calling around (phone calling isn't a normal thing nowadays so it was a big deal for them to be calling people) and got word that 17 out of 24 kids were planning on coming.  It was really cool.  We all gutted out the front room (I'm talking, removed the Legos and train table. That's a big deal!) to make room for everyone and got to work!  Grandma and Grandpa Pethel were helping me with the hot food and Brian even got in on the action halfway through.  X&X and Amanda were setting the tables and getting out everything that needed to be.  We had pancakes, butter syrup, whipped cream, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, sliced oranges, OJ, apple juice, and milk. Oh and two of the seminary boys brought a French Toast casserole that they had made as part of their cooking badge for Scouts. Ha!

They had a great time eating and visiting and then we watched a movie.  They then played "Just Dance" and didn't leave til 11:00 p.m.  I was so happy they all felt so comfortable at our home and knew Dad would have been proud!

A duplicate picture, but wanted you to see the "Poof" bean bag one person even brought and few others brought gaming chairs. Haha! It was a fun night!

I know this was a long read but I hope you made it all the way through. Mom and Dad, thank you for being the greatest examples of making sure people felt loved and welcome in your home.  Thank you for teaching us "People are more important than things."  And thank you for showing us how wonderful everyone feels when they are doing service.  We love you guys!