Snow, Museums, and a Baptism

 This weekend was the Sunday Sampler in Great Falls.  Several museums had free admission and special events to open up to the community.  A group of friends and I visited the art museum and the history museum after we all got back from our respective church services.

 Great Falls definitely isn't Chicago, but the museums held their own and I felt very "grown-up" in a sequin sweater, pencil skirt, heels, and down jacket.  It was even lightly snowing.  Welcome to Montana!

We all met up before leaving for the museums and my friend Nicole gave me this beautiful Willow Tree statue as a present after Baptism.  I feel so blessed to not only have such wonderful friends but to be a part of this military community.  We always look out for each other, we're family.

 Our first stop was the art museum and I was able to capture some images of my favorite pieces.

This is Three-Thousand and Counting which is an installation piece by Great Falls artist, Jean Price.  

 The artist designed a dog tag for each of the fallen military service members in the Iraq conflict.  There were specific Montana-shaped dog tags for those service members specifically from Montana.

 It was definitely a moving and humbling piece.  I was instantly drawn to it because of the vertical lines and when realizing that it symbolized fallen service members, it was a sobering moment.  Many of the dog tags had service members who were 18 or 19-years old.  At 23, I was blessed with the opportunity to live even just a while longer and something I don't take lightly.

 

 My next favorite exhibit was a tribute to the artist Lee Steen and his totem pole-esque cowboys.

 I thought they were so neat and I can't imagine what it must have been like to drive past these while on a road trip.  They're creepy, yet whimsical and so incredibly tall!  Each one was so unique and their personalities were based on what the artist could feel with the surface of the wood.  Knots were turned into mouths and the width of the log became the size of their foreheads.  It was pretty cool.

 The Exquisite Corpse was a project done by the local high school students.  They were made from lineolum bars and carved out to make prints.  I loved these and thought that they would be so popular if they were made into prints for the home.  I know that I would have bought some.

 Now the final piece I photographed was this telephone stand complete with circuit breakers.  It was an interactive art piece that could be solved by using the provided riddle.

 We probably spent 20-30 minutes here and still couldn't solve it.

We then made our way to the history museum where they had a wonderfully large military display.  With a section dedicated to female service members, we thought it would be a great opportunity to take a picture.  Their uniforms were so cute and actually form-fitting.  Definitely different than the ones we have today.

 I thought these dolls were so neat! They were made by the Freundlich Novelty Corporation in 1943 to help show support for service members during the war.  I've visited several museums and their military sections and have never seen these dolls before.

 I thought this was pretty interesting as well since these dolls were used in the 1940s to teach young mothers how to care for their newborn babies.  I know it may sound silly but I bet some of those earlier principles could well suited still for today.

 Here's a slightly better angle of the dolls.  The ladies and I decided that we needed to bring these back and make ones for our specific career field ;)

 I love WWII history and anything to do with WASP or the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

 There was even a display on the Hutterites, who are a communal branch of Anabaptists.

These were my favorites as they had such detail and beautiful works of embroidery.  Plus I'm a romantic and I thought these were so cute to make for your sweetheart.

I don't really know what Ryan would do with it if I made him one of these.  Wouldn't it be neat to bring back one of these original traditions?  How was your weekend?

My Experience with Water Baptism

This is my year for Opportunity and I feel like God has been reaching out to me and blessing me in so many ways.  I finally am at the point where I could experience this and by sharing it with my family, friends, and readers of my blog, maybe I can inspire you as well.

 

This Sunday I was baptized at my new church home.  It was a thrilling and surreal experience that I have been wanting to partake in for a long time.  I was baptized as a baby in the Catholic Church and went through the entire list of sacraments up through Confirmation, however, I don't follow the Catholic Church.  I spoke about my church and faith experiences in a previous post, but I wanted to truly connect to God.  I felt like I was following a set of rules because an organization of people was telling me to and I didn't necessarily feel a spiritual link to this almighty being.  I did everything they told me to, from going to mass and Wednesday CCD, but it still felt either foreign or forced.  Praying to Christ felt far more comfortable in the setting of a conversation and I would pray to him about all of this.  While in college, I developed a love and yearning to follow in the path of Christ, but I didn't know what that necessarily meant.  I did know that I wanted to proclaim my love and devotion to Christ as an adult.  I had been praying about it throughout my college experience and when I got here (Montana) and discovered the new church I now belong to, I knew the time was right.

After taking a class and speaking with Pastor Kern, I was baptized at the service following the class.  It was such a cool experience and one that I highly recommend to those who are reconnecting to their faith.  Being placed in the water was such a beautiful moment.  I felt like God was reaching out to me and telling me that He was so glad that I made this decision, that I was finally content in who I am as a person that I could publicly declare this.  The church family has been so welcoming and open, I have never felt safer in making this decision.  A couple sitting next to me offered to take these pictures for me.

Exodus 14:14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still.

The scripture speaks to me on so many levels and it was crazy today because as I was listening to the service, I felt like God was telling me that I needed to become a pastor.  I know, it sounds so strange but I couldn't stop thinking about it and I have never thought about that as a career path.  Right now I'm looking at graduate school programs and came across Liberty University, where pastor Jarrid Wilson attends.  He is the Tennessee pastor that I think is truly helping bring young people into the church in a safe, non-judgmental environment.  I have so many thoughts going through my head right now and I'm not entirely sure how to process it all but I'm definitely willing to learn more.  I want to go where God will lead me.  I trust Him.