Are You Ready for This?

Hooray!  I can finally share with you my exciting news!

First you have to watch this Mormon Message though....

Well...what did you think?

Are you as excited about it as we are?

Ok, probably not.  But around this house, we are super excited to be a part of something as amazing as these Mormon Messages.  They are truly inspiring and you should go to mormonchannel.org and watch more of them.  

So here's the back story of how it came to be.

I have a super friend, Amber, who forwarded an email to me.  In this email they were asking for women who had exhibited great courage...like Queen Esther.  I definitely do NOT put myself in the same category as Esther.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story of Esther, I will try to tell it in a nutshell.

Esther was married to the King of Persia.  She was a Jew, but no one in the King's court knew that.  One of the King's advisers convinced him that he should kill all of the Jews.  Esther's uncle, Mordecai, came to her and begged her to go to the King and plead with him to save the Jewish people.  Esther said she would, but here is the tricky part.  No one could just go and talk to the king unless he specifically asked for you.  The penalty for this was death, even for the queen.  Esther asked the Jewish people to fast with her for 3 days and then she went to face the king, fully prepared to die to save her people.  Fortunately the king found favor with her and did not kill her, and also saved the Jewish people.

(You can read about all this in the Old Testament...the book of Esther.)

So back to this email.

I figured that filling out the little form wouldn't hurt anything.  I knew that there was really no chance that they would choose me over so many other women who exhibit courage on a daily basis.  But I was very surprised to receive a call a few weeks later from the producer's assistant.  They had narrowed their choices down and she wanted to ask me a few questions.  Again, thought that there was no way they would actually end up choosing me.  So I was really surprised when the producer (Christina Torriente-Robey...producer extraordinaire) called me and said that they really wanted to have me be a part of this video.  I was floored, excited, giddy, and mostly humbled that I could be included in the same category as Queen Esther.

After a few more phone calls, it was settled and a little film crew came to our house bright and early one fall morning.  They wanted to film us getting ready for the day.  Wait a minute...did I just sign up for having me be in my pj's and bedhead on You Tube?  Fortunately my hair was a little bit shorter then, so I didn't have this fantastic bed head look...

although that would have been fun for the whole world to see. ;)

We had such a fun time filming and the kids felt like movie stars.  About a month or so after filming, Christina called me again and had me go down to the studio to record my story so they could get some sound clips.  I was so nervous and prayed so hard that I would be able to say something right and not be tongue-tied.  That also, was a fun experience and now we have this beautiful video to enjoy and pass along to hopefully inspire and encourage people to face their challenges and trials with faith and courage.

So there it is.  My exciting news.  I hope you love it as much as I do.  I hope you share it, and any other Mormon Message, with someone who needs a "sweet moment" in their life.

(Remember the S.M.I.L.E.S. project?)

Thank you Christina (and whomever else was included in the decision) for allowing us to be a part of  something so wonderful!  It is really beautiful.