Light Parade, Friends, and Service

The Christmas season just rocks. There's so much happiness, and peace, and nostalgia, and let's be honest, what other time of year can you wave to complete strangers with a real smile on your face? Just imagine, like, "Happy summer!" And the stranger smiles equally as merry as you wave in mutual happiness. No. It's just Christmas!

I got to take part in the Light Parade last night, and I had the best time ever! There's something about friends that just warms my heart. Especially when they're willing to be idiots along side me or just laugh at my jokes (even though sometimes they're just legitimately stupid). I love making people laugh. It is one of the most rewarding feelings for me.
Anyways, we sang Christmas hymns and some people gave us this look that just said, "Yes". I'm so happy that the true meaning of Christmas still reigns, even though it's not the "popular vote".

I'm just gonna take a paragraph and shout out to my awesome, hilarious, "better-than-yours" friends. My group of friends is a testimony to me that God does plan everything perfectly. I cannot imagine having a better group of people to spend my time with. We all strive to do what's right, none of us are afraid to do something that might look "stupid", and we all respect each other. I love my friends!! They are HUGE examples to me, and they probably don't even know it.

After the Light Parade, I had the opportunity to babysit. Earlier, I was really reluctant. I definitely wasn't in the mood to babysit right after that until midnight. Especially since my friends wanted to hang out. Amidst my selfish reasoning, a thought popped into my head, "Be the answer to someone else's prayer." I pondered on that thought, and finally decided to do it.
I'm so grateful that I was prompted to do that! Turns out, none of my friends could've hung out anyway, but aside from that, I'm certain I babysat one of the cutest children on Earth. For real, she is soo adorable. The mom told me she had been so stressed she was "going to kill someone" if she didn't get some release. I put the little girl to bed, and then had 3 hours to kill before she came home from her midnight hike.
After looking around, I decided that I would try to lessen her stress a little more (hopefully). If you know me, this is pretty miraculous. I rolled up my sleeves and did the dishes. The miracle in this is: I HATE doing dishes! Yet somehow I did it with a smile in my heart. I felt so peaceful and accomplished after I finished that. I hoped that it would help, if only a teeny bit. After that I did some minor cleaning (i.e. wiping the counter, picking up toys). By that time it was roughly 11 pm, so I stuck in my headphones and waited. I suppose I dozed because I woke up with the mom prodding my shoulder. I checked the clock: 12:20 am. She smiled and thanked me and I ran out the door before she could even think to pay me.
She hadn't needed to, anyways. My reward was service.
Mosiah 2:17 "...When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God."