"Heavenly Father is Watching Over Me, and Everyone Here"

I really have enjoyed the idea of this blog in recognizing the Small and Simple Things, so I thought I would join in. My name is Parker Hamrick, and Erin Garner is my sister. There is a pretty big age difference between us, I am only 18, and she is already old enough to have a family! For the past few years I have gone through high school with the passion for music, and will continue to chase after those dreams in music. I am going to be leaving for my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on February 5th 2014 in the Brazil Fortaleza East Mission for two years. Anyways, enough about me, this is about the simple things.

This past week I had the opportunity to volunteer at a Farmstead for kids near my house. To be completely honest,  I was reluctant at first. I woke up at about 8:30, and it was just another day. We arrived at the farmstead and were given some pretty cool vests (you will see those later on). We walked down to the "Pumpkin Hollow" event where there were multiple activities set up for the little kids including: A big hay slide, a train ride, a mini corn maze, a bowling area, and many more. Once the kids arrived you could see the joy in all of their faces.

At first I wasn't really assigned to any certain position, all of the areas that specifically needed someone to watch over were taken. I'm not going to lie, boredom hit me pretty fast and pretty hard, it just seemed like there was nothing for me to do there. I decided to go around and just see what the kids were doing, whether it was running from their parental advisors/teachers, or going down the slide, they were simply having fun. Then one of the sweetest things happened. A little girl who had apparently just fallen down was being asked by her mom "are you okay?", the little girl replied "yes, I'm fine. Heavenly Father is watching over me, and everyone here". I couldn't help but smile. This little girl, the age of a preschooler has a better line of thought than most people do. Whenever we are having a bad time we need to remember this small thought  "Heavenly Father is watching over me, and everyone here". Something Small and Simple.

From that time on I just kept looking for little things like that, and for opportunities to help out. I started to notice that some of the parents and leaders were struggling with the bowling pins, while trying to take pictures and just take care of the little kids. I decided to go over to the bowling pins and set them up every time the kids would roll the bowling ball. As soon as there was a system and the bowling pins were being set up at a good rate, the number of kids wanting to bowl largely increased. The bowling station was right next to the front, and right next to the slide so it became quite the popular place. Kid after kid would come through getting so much joy out of simply rolling a ball down the slide and hitting some pins down. I couldn't help but smile because of how happy they seemed to be. A lot of adults stood there watching saying "man, looks like you got the hardest job here" and "I hope you're getting payed the big bucks". All I could do was look at the smiles on the kids faces, smile back at the adults and say "no I'm volunteering".

I had been there for about two hours when I started getting tired, it was quite a hot day in Kansas, and the kids kept me moving fast. I feel like young children know when people are upset, or are in need of help. Basically as soon as I started getting tired I felt like the kids would just come out of nowhere and just start helping me. They were happy with helping set up pins as well as bringing the bowling ball to their friend who was next in line. Observing kids in everyday life can make us enjoy the Small and Simple things even more.

There are always little things there, we just need to open our eyes.