If I am rich...

While trying to read my scriptures this morning my thoughts kept wandering. Does that ever happen to you? It seems to happen to me too often. When it does happen, i either keep reading half heartedly or i stop and write down what i am thinking and then continue reading. So today i stopped to write down my thoughts. And these were the things i was thinking about.
Lately i have had multiple friends take big trips to different parts of the world. They have been able to see such cool things and have really cool adventures. I thought about how we have Charlie now and we probably won't be taking any vacations like that. The kind of vacations you have when you don't have kids. But then I thought...our time will come! This thought kind of came out of nowhere but i like it!  My thoughts continued down this path and it turned into some daydreaming. If we became rich this is what I want to do:
Every summer i want to take my kids on a trip, 4-6 weeks long. As a family we will choose a new location. The place has to be somewhere where we can do humanitarian work. I thought of places like: African Orphanages, places in South America rebuilding schools, teaching English in China, doing some sort of work in India etc. The projects would also have to be based on the age of our children and what they can handle and participate in. So maybe while they are young we will keep it more simple but we will do something! (Maybe we could make a documentary and put it in the Banff Mountain Film Festival! A family who travels the world doing service...that would be an awesome film. Now i am really getting ahead of myself :) I want to do this because i want my children to learn some things you can't learn in school, playing sports, or taking music lessons. I want them to learn to embrace different cultures. I want them to learn and to feel the love God has for all his Children. I want them to learn it's better to give than to take. I want them to always be grateful for the blessings God has given them and because they are so blessed i want them to learn to give to others. I want them to see the good in the world. I want them to feel comfortable talking to strangers about life and what brings them joy! I want them to love and accept people for who they are. I want them to have the desire to make the world a better place. The children i have met who have had these sort of experiences have a level of maturity i don't often see in kids. I hope i can provide that for my own. And if we do make it big we'll all take turns writing on a blog about our experiences and what we learn.
You know what! We don't have to be rich to do this. We can have a special savings to save up for these trips. And when we can't go abroad we will do it from our home. We can find families who are in need and give secret service, help missionaries in our area, we can serve in the temple or do family history, we can volunteer at shelters, we can make meals, do yard work, write kind notes to our neighbors. I just want to teach my children that joy comes from service. I want them to know if we do have money we use it to help others not for our own selfish desires. Ultimately, I want them to feel the love of the Savior!