How cool is that?

So my mom stopped by on my birthday to surprise me!  This is quite a surprise since she lives about 200 miles away!  Yeah, totally didn't see that coming!  And what is even more of a treat is that she came downstairs with me and helped me finish clean my basement--I had guests coming that night to spend the weekend with us.   As we were cleaning things up I would stubble upon random things to show her...Josh's Jr Jazz pictures, Wesley's school home work, my collections of items for my cub scout and nursery callings.   You name it--it's down there!  She found a beat up copy of an old Friend magazine and wanted to know what I wanted done with it.

I quickly explained that it was my most favorite issue of the Friend magazine and I opened it up to show her why.  There is a big poster of the Savior on the center page that I just love.  So I had to tell her the story behind it. 

The first time I saw this poster in the magazine it didn't stand out to me in any way, I thought it was a wonderful picture, it had the Savior holding a lamb, and several children surrounding Him.  I realized it would make a great picture for Singing Time during Primary instead of the pictures that I usually take from my GAK files. (Gospel Art Kit--I heard they don't sell them any more...so sad!)  So I set the magazine aside to take take with me to church on Sunday.  When I finally sat down to finalize my lesson for singing time, the day before Easter Sunday...I again found that picture and looked at it more closely.  What I saw amazed me, the picture was going to fit PERFECTLY into my lesson! The next day when I was presenting my lesson I introduce the song we would be learning that month, and then I held up the poster from the friend. I asked the kids to look at the picture and point out anything they thought was neat about the picture.  They all came up with the same things I had seen when I first looked at it.  I asked them to look closely at the Savior, did he look any different than how he is usually depicted?  He had on White robes, His hair was shoulder length, He had His usual beard, He was even wearing sandals...This is the man we know as our Savior..no question.  So what was different about the picture?  What are the kids in the picture wearing?  I went up and down the aisle and showed my Primary kids the belt buckles, the buttons, the rubber sole shoes, the hems, stitches, ruffles, gathers, collars and material the kids where wearing.  Some of my primary kids looked amused while others still looked confused...I said,  "You guys, this is YOU! -- Children didn't wear this type of clothing when Jesus lived on the earth, neither did the Nephite children when the Savior appeared in the Americas!"  (revealed in the Book of Mormon.)  As soon as I explained to them who we were looking at, the whole room got quite and they just stared at the picture until a young boy (who is known to be quite the goof ball) raised his hand, I called on him and he said "You're right Sister C. There I am sitting at the foot of the Savior!"--Wouldn't you know it the boy in the front row and the boy in the picture were wearing tan slacks, a blue polo and his hair style and color matched perfectly!  (chances?)

Anyway long story short (too late) this is the picture I would hold up when we would sing I Wonder When He Comes Again. (see how it works perfectly for the song?)  I also have used this picture whenever I've been asked to sub a primary class and also with my current nursery kids.  I use it all the time...and it shows.

--So as I was showing my mom this picture...The middle page it fell out of the staples!  It's well used and much loved.  I was sad, I knew that it wasn't going to much longer, now that it was loose, that it would get more and more beat up than it already was.  I told my mom I would love to find an actual print of this picture, but have never actually looked into finding it! 

Fast forward to a few weeks ago.  My mom was at work (she happens to work at a Beehive Clothing Store)  and was organizing the picture bin, she was pushing all the pictures to the left and noticed she couldn't get the pictures to move down any further...so she picked up the pictures that weren't moving and found an old Friend magazine wedged on the bottom...it had to have been down there for TWO years!   She showed a co-worker of hers and asked what she thought should be done with such an old magazine.  My mom decided to flip thought the magazine as she was walking back up to the front of the store.   

It fell opened to the middle page where there was a large poster of the Savior!  My mom turned around and went back to her co-workers and asked her if there was anything special about the poster!  Hahaha...mom gave them a mini-lesson--I'm quite proud!  So it turns out they were all pretty touched by the story as well as the picture, they looked into finding a print of the picture, but didn't find it in the system.  That's when they realized that there were only 200 copies of the April 2009 Friend left in print!!  Mom was able to save this magazine for me and she also informed me that there is a big an order of old Friend magazines being sent to one of her co-workers home...it should arrive any day!  Awesome! 

I've never actually wrote down the exact Easter day lesson that I had given that day, 2 years ago.  I have it locked away in my computer on the chance I might get a chance to teach it again someday.  I blogged about how well everything turned out that day...turns out the grandpa visitor who had given me such a nice compliment that day in primary was Carl Watkins, the guy who helped put together the Sounds for Sunday for the Radio Station KLCE up in Black Foot Idaho.  Pretty cool huh?

I think it's amazing that this lesson I taught a few years ago happens to "come up" each year...around the same time!  Don't you?