Cancer Walk

Yesterday, Gordon and I went and participated in a cancer walk. There is a family in our ward that has a son that passed away from cancer a little over a year ago, and they did this walk last year and have decided to have a team in honor of him each year. It was SO great!!! I think it's one of the coolest things we've done since we've been out here.

They do it in a big park in our area and the whole community is involved. They make a big loop in the middle of the field for people to walk around, and all around the "track" are booths from community members. The booths have items to sell and also a ton of raffles. All of the money goes to the American Cancer Society, so you can't help but feel like your money is going to a good cause. And if you're lucky and win a cool prize basket, cool beans. :)

It was just neat and overwhelming to see all of the people in the community that come out to support this walk. There are so many people affected by cancer in one way or another. The best part of the day, in my opinion, was the evening ceremony. At 9:00 they have a lighting ceremony. There are TONS of luminaries lining the track that people have purchased and then decorated in memory or in honor of surviving family members or friends. They light all of the luminaries and then have a survivor speak to the audience. There were probably 2,000 people there listening. (Gordon would want me to insert here that JBL does the sound for this, so the audio was great. Very clear.) After she spoke, she lit her candle, and then the candles her family held. Then, she and her family lit the candles of all of the survivors on the front row, and they turned and lit behind them, etc, etc. It was so cool to watch the candles slowly all be lit. Then, they played a slide show of pictures that people sent in of family members and friends who had battled cancer and we all did a lap together. It was awesome.

I'm sure there are people reading this who have family members who have in the past or are now battling cancer (we have several in our family) and it just gave us hope that someday there will be a cure. It was really neat.

We also took some pictures, but we only had our phones with us. So, once we find a cord that can download the pictures to the computer, we'll put 'em up.

Happy Sunday.