How do you feel about shades of red...

I lay in bed wondering what this might mean.......

I’m in the airport once again.

I’m flying to Phoenix again.

The last time I was in Arizona, I shot a wedding at the

Mesa Arizona Temple.

I witnessed the sealing and prepared

Myself for the exit of the couple.

As I stood outside the Temple, two

Men, large in stature rolled up on old restored modified

Bicycle.



It was hot outside, peaking 105 degrees.

They wore white beaters and wanted something.

They walked up the stairs and I centered myself in front of the Temple entrance.

This all happened so natural,

One of them spoke to me and said, “We are catholic, that doesn’t matter to

Us, we need a message, a blessing from God.”

“I’m sorry you can’t enter the temple, but I can help you out.

Wait, right here and I’ll go get someone that can give you a blessing.”

As I turned to go into the House of the Lord, everything seemed to move in

Slow motion, I noticed all these people staring at me as I turned away from the men.

One man had screwdrivers and other tools in his pocket, and a black grab with something inside.

I entered the Temple and approached the desk.


The windows were tinted and the desk clerk could see exactly who waited on the outside, for a message from God.

“Those men need someone who can give them a blessing.” I said.

He responded, “We don’t do that.”

I could not return outside to tell them we can’t do that.


“What should I tell them?” I asked.


“Sister, Let me scan your temple recommend, go do the hall all the way to the end, turn left, head all the way down that hall,

and left again, you’ll see a door, it reads: “Temple President”

So I headed there, in a fast pace manner, mind you my bride and groom are getting ready, primping, putting on the wedding
get up.


So I have two cameras around my neck, and I’m inside the Temple.


I felt as though I had so much authority.

I met the Temple President, told him the same exact story I told the nice guy at the front desk.

Both men were dressed in white shoes, socks, slacks, jackets, dress shirts, ties and hair. Okay the hair was silver of sorts.

The Temple President said, “We can’t go outside in our white clothes, we can’t give those men a blessing.”



I suggested then directing them to the Temple Visitors Center, which he agreed.


I was sorely confused, which means I do not know the proper temple protocol.


And when I write sorely, I mean, I just don’t hold the priesthood and I don’t own white ties and jackets, so this was all just new

to me and if this was new to me, then I am sure Anthony was going to think I was crazy.


The fast pace walking continued and I exited the temple. My bride and groom had yet to exit.

The two men were there, as I approached them, I felt embarrassed.


I didn’t know how to tell them, they came to the wrong place to get an answer from God.


“Hey, so no one here can give you a blessing.”

Anthony looked at me and replied: “ We need a message from God, we need a blessing, YOU GIVE IT TO US.”

“I don’t have the authority to act in God’s name.”


When those words came out of my mouth, the spirit reminded me that those men did not have the full restored knowledge

about authority and power and priesthood endowments.

He replied with something blurry like: “You came out of the Temple, you can do it.”

“You’re right, I can. Come over to the side away from the door, I’ll pay for you.”

Huddled in a small compartment on the exterior of the Temple,

we meet as I asked them for their names:

Anthony and ________. The second name only stayed in my mind long enough for me to pray over it to the Lord.


I asked Heavenly Father to bless the two of them that they would find perfection in Christ as they serve others.

I felt so grateful to pray with them and for them.


The power and authority that many people search for is simply pray, a two-way communication between God and us.


As I concluded the prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, followed by Amen, I was received in some type of gangster related hug,

not so much a chest pound because im a girl, but it was a sincere hug, a warm embrace that connected us.

They returned to their low rider bikes and off into the basking desert heat.


I returned to my position as Head/Solo Photographer, when I saw through the tinted window, a tiny Philippine beauty.

My bride and groom were ready. Their sealing was pronounced and they awaited me to get ready.

I entered the Temple one last time and my convert said to me “You are still Sister Hansen!”

There are no words that suffice the way I felt to see one of my converts dressed in shades of white exited the Temple with her eternal companion.


I had spent many glorious weeks teaching her what I knew to be true and now I watched as she led by example and fulfilled the everlasting covenant.


Any time we live in light and truth, it come back to us, to usher us on and remind us what we know to be true.

I can’t wait to get back to the Desert.

Me, Always Wondering
by Jenny Hansen

I don’t cut and paste to often

and when I do,


it becomes somewhat altered according to my own mind.

I dont think that is a bad thing,

I just know I like typing, being and doing.

To do and be and asspire to something more than I am now is

amazing.




People consider

adding on to their homes,

adding to their purse collection:



adding to their families

and even adding to their debt,


and in all cases if you really have the desire to do so, it happens.



So it is with our personalities,


we are molded by the choices we make,

the people we meet and

our environment around us.


Good things come when we look outside of ourselves and reach for the unknown.


Most of the un known things are some what attractive to us and there fore we search it out.


There comes a time where and when we learn of new things

to the point we will incorporate it into our lives

(OR in opposition, on the other hand we will become extremely dis interested in the information at hand).


I am a happy girl.

I choose bright colors



but lately I have noticed I need to wear more patterns with my outfits,

right now it is too many blocks and shapes, their is no deminsional stimulation.




I think I went through a phase,

where I was quite uncomfortable with myself

so I avoided patterns and especially stripes.

You would probably speculate this was a recent time in my life...





you are right.

it got scary but now I’m changing alittle bit.

I see stripes as assests and so I must use them that way.


I’m sitting in class, just sitting, typing, eating salt and vinegar chips.


My professor said we might be able to get out early.


For once in my life, I would like to be sad when they say that, but


I never am.


I’m ungrateful

and selfish with my time, talents and when I have time alotted to do productive things, I choose the wrong, or the good, but the better and not the best.(I'm always working on this, always, every single day.)
How can I always choose the best when I just barely got good and choosing the right. One fine day, it will get better and I will be the very best at choosing the right. Right time, Right person, Right place, Right authority, Right dress, Right cake, Right shoes, Right Calling, Right house, Right color paint, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

September

READ IT...


NOW!

You know when you wait for something for a very long time...

Sometimes we call that patience.

Sometimes we call that pain and suffering.

Rarely do we call it the "right thing"


This photo is about the right things in life.

I had the blessed opportunity to teach this gorgeous girl

as I labored as a full time missionary for

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

We would study: words, phrases, meaning and most importantly

how we felt.

This photo is also about feeling.

Not so much, the type of feeling that can have a

collective touch on an audience of photograph viewers,

but a feeling that speaks to the very people who live inside this image.

There wasn't alot of posing in this photo session, mostly because that

isn't who these two are.

They are really this beautiful.

They are really this great.

And they are really this real.

And for this, I am grateful to celebrate their Brand new colony together.

The colony they have planned and worked out for the past three years.

I doubt not their successes and their goals.

I know they love beyond the world's capacity to know and feel.

I’m in the airport, in transit to Phoenix, AZ.

As I type this, I sit upon the floor against the window.

The carpet is blue/gray/green/red Delta Airline based design.

My back faces the west, the heat feels good through the window
and I can only imagine it as a foretaste for the Tempe Sun.

Something I will feel in hours, unless I give up my seat again.
The flight is schedule at 7:54 p.m.

I have just bumped my own flight for a 400.00 voucher.

I’m a sucker for no brain good deals and now I sit here with my goodies:




1. 400.00 voucher for giving up my seat. { Where will I travel next?}

2. 2 6.00 airport store vouchers, which one has turned into the following:





I have with me a book.

GB let me borrow it.

“As a Man Thinketh” written by James Allen.
GB told me it was amazing, I believed him

but now I experience it myself: with the following passage:

“Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces it’s own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good Thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit…. man learns both by suffering and bliss.”

Suffering and Bliss

takes my thoughts down memories of the actual two

and trails unknown. Things that may come.

Things that maybe others close to me are already experiencing.

Sometimes {very short times I might add}
I think being 27 and single is some type of suffering.

Then I realized:


I'm 27

I’m travel back to my mission whenever I feel like it.

I can bump my flight because I don’t have a demanding weight bearing schedule.


Yes I have school and all the responsibilities, but I don’t have a boss that says I cant have what I want.

I’m lucky.

I’m blessed.

Then I think about my lovely friends.

Two women of great faith come to mind:

Jackie.

She couldn’t be here bumping flights with me.

She is expecting her third baby.

She is probably bartering with a sun-kissed toddler about how many cups of chocolate milk are okay to drink per day.

Jackie.

She is lucky.

She is blessed.


Then I think about Amy, who just had baby number three.

Her second oldest child had a bath and dressed himself for what I assume is the day to come, whereupon he decides to get back into the tub with his clothes on.

She also is not available to sit in the airport for hours, checking emails, doing homework and waiting

to bask in the areas starting in 8528____blank.

Amy is a mother,
a wife and a great person.

She is lucky.

She is blessed.


My thoughts can only give credit to James Allen.

These moms have blossomed their thoughts into decisions pertaining to

dating
which lead to
marriage which lead to
husband and wife which lead to
families which lead to
motherhood which lead to
small children drinking chocolate milk in the bathtub fully clothed.

And evenly I feel we are lucky we are blessed.

We decide if sitting in the airport is suffering or bliss.


Personally,

the times I have had extra chocolate milk or gotten in the tub with clothes on,

I felt bliss.

Let bliss emerge from the times we think of suffering.

I am 27 suffering in bliss and I am blessed.