JOKE: It was Sunday morning, and the preacher was very satisfied with the good turnout

It was Sunday morning, and the preacher was very satisfied with the good turnout. He was especially pleased to see Leroy sitting in the front row. Leroy hadn't been to services in several years.

After his usual lengthy sermon, the preacher made his usual offer: "Anyone with 'special needs' who wants to be prayed over, please come forward to the front by the altar."

And Leroy leapt up to be first in line!

"Leroy, what do you want me to pray about for you?" the preacher asked.

Leroy replied, "Preacher, I need you to pray for help with my hearing."

The preacher certainly had experience with that! He put one finger of one hand in Leroy's ear, placed his other hand on top of Leroy's head, and then prayed and prayed and prayed. He

prayed a "blue streak" for Leroy, and the whole congregation joined in with great enthusiasm.

After a few minutes, the preacher removed his hands, stood back and asked, "Leroy, how is your hearing now?"

"I don't know, preacher," Leroy answered. "My public defender sez it ain't 'til next week."

Woman has dead son's ashes in tattoos

A Welsh woman whose son died said she had his ashes mixed with ink and tattooed into three designs on her back.

Kim Mordue of Llanelli said her son Lloyd, a rugby player, died after taking the party drug GHB. She decided to memorialize him with the tattoos etched by her husband Dave, who owns a tattoo parlor.

The mother said her tattoos depict a tree of life, an angel releasing a butterfly and a poem dedicated to Lloyd.

"I've put Lloyd back where he started -- he's in my body again," Mordue said. "As soon as I knew it was possible I wanted to have the ashes tattoos
as a tribute to Lloyd."

Mordue said she hopes the tattoos will serve as a warning about the dangers of drugs.

"Losing a child to drugs really is the worst nightmare a parent can have," she said.

JOKE: Shmuck

A Rabbi was opening his mail one morning. Taking a single sheet of paper from an envelope he found written on it only one word: "shmuck."

At the next Friday night service, the Rabbi
announced, "I have known many people who have written letters and forgot to sign their names, but this week I received a letter from someone who signed his name. . .and forgot to write a letter."

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Tiniest: The British toddler is just 22 inches tall and may not grow much more

Young Charlotte Garside loves playing with her cuddly toys and dolls like any two-year-old girl. But at just 22 inches tall, the toddler is smaller than many of her playthings.

The youngster, who lives with her family in a small seaside village near Hull,England, has a rare form of primordial dwarfism that affects only 100 people in the world.

She is currently half the height she should be and doctors have told her parents, Scott and Emma, they don't know if she will grow much taller.

Charlotte, 2, plays with her nursery friend Dexter. At 23 inches tall she is far smaller than her peers

Her mother Emma Newman, 28, said: 'Our daughter has a form of primordial dwarfism, but doctors have not been able to pin it down exactly. It may be that Charlotte is the only person in the world with her subtype.'
Emma and her partner Scott Garside, 24, said they didn't realise there was anything wrong with Charlotte after she was born four week premature.
'We didn't think she looked any different,' Emma told the Mail Online.
'We just knew that she was very small. She was so tiny the only clothes that would fit her were doll's clothes. But then the doctors said Charlotte had a serious condition but they weren't sure what it was.'
Three months later a geneticist diagnosed dwarfism. Charlotte is unable to eat and digest food and instead is fed a milk formula through a gastric tube. She weighed just 1lb 1oz at birth and aged two weighs 7lb 8oz, which is the same as a newborn baby.

'Charlotte is fed through the tube just over 11 hours each day,' Emma said.

'We place her in a travel cot when she is being fed and then she can play with her sisters.'

Charlotte can crawl but can't walk unaided because of a problem with her Achilles tendons

Charlotte has three old sisters, Chloe 13, Sabrina, 10 and Sophie six, none of whom have the condition.

'They love Charlotte to pieces and they play with her all the time,' Emma said fondly.

'The past few years have been hardest on them really as they've watched us go in and out of hospital with Charlotte. Charlotte used to need treatment for something every three months but she hasn't been in since January.'

Charlotte is fed through a tube for 11 hours a day, but is able to go to a private nursery two days a week
Emma said one of the more difficult things to deal with was how people reacted in the outside world.

'We get annoyed when people just stare at us,' she said.

'We would much prefer people to come up to us and ask us about Charlotte instead.'

One lifeline for the family has been the Walking with Giants Foundation, which holds an annual event for children with primordial dwarfism.

'The Foundation really has been one of the best things for us over the last few years,' Emma said.

'They have given us a lot of help and it has been so good meeting other families who are in the same situation as us.'
Charlotte meanwhile is progressing well since her last hospital visit.

'Charlotte is crawling now, although she won't be able to walk until she has surgery on her Achilles tendons,' Emma said.

'She is a happy child and goes to a private nursery two days a week. We're hoping she may even go to a mainstream school in a few years' time.'
However, Emma said she and Charlotte's builder father Scott didn't like to look too far into the future.

'We are just enjoying having Charlotte with us - she is such a bundle of energy,' Emma said.

'We just hope her future will be a nice one.'

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Man dies on plane ride intended as a birthday gift

Daniel Lauritsen

The pilot came from Florida to offer a 31st-birthday flight. The plane crashed near Rochester.

The plane ride that killed Daniel Lauritsen and two friends from Florida last week was intended as a birthday gift for the Eagan man.

Lauritsen, 30, died along with a Florida couple in a plane crash last week.

The flight that ended in a fatal crash near the Rochester International Airport just after midnight Wednesday was a gift from the pilot, Christopher Livingston, 29, of Ocala, to Lauritsen, said his mother, Nancie Lauritsen. The two men had been friends since they met through an Internet-based science club 13 years ago, she said.

Livingston came up to Minnesota last week to "take Danny for a couple of plane rides" for his birthday, Nancie Lauritsen said. Her son, who worked at a Twin Cities science lab, would have turned 31 on June 26.

"The three kids had been at my house for dinner [Wednesday] night," she said. "I was actually invited to go on the plane, but I declined."

She said they left her house in Cottage Grove for Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie for an 8:30 flight around the Twin Cities.

"Wednesday was supposed to be a sunset ride," said Nancie Lauritsen. "They were going to cruise over Lake Superior on Thursday."

She said a "little red flag went up" when she hadn't received a call from her son by midnight. The plane crashed a few minutes before midnight, shortly after the pilot reported engine trouble to the air tower at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "I put the news on at 5 p.m. [Thursday], and what do you think I saw?" his mother said, recounting that the evening news detailed that two men and a woman were in the downed plane.

Nancie Lauritsen said she sent in her son's dental records and spoke with the medical examiner Monday.

Livingston flew to Minnesota Tuesday from DeLand, Fla., with his girlfriend, Heather Nichols, 28, of Clermont, Fla., and two other people who were not part of the fly-around

JOKE: A salesman checked into a futuristic motel

A salesman checked into a futuristic motel. Realizing he needed a haircut before his meeting tomorrow, he called down to the desk clerk to ask if there was a barber on the premises. "I'm afraid not, sir," the clerk told him apologetically, "but down the hall from your room is a vending machine that should serve your purposes." Skeptical but intrigued, the salesman located the machine, inserted $15, and stuck his head into the opening, at which time the machine started to buzz and spin. Fifteen seconds later, he pulled out his head and look in the mirror, and saw the best haircut of his life. "Would wonders never cease! This futuristic stuff is amazing," he thought.

Two feet away was another machine with a sign that read, "Manicures $10." "Why not?" he thought. He paid the money, inserted his hands into the slot and the machine started to buzz and spin. Fifteen seconds later he pulled out his hands and they were perfectly manicured.

The next machine had a sign that read, "Machine provides a service men need when away from their wives, 50 cents. "Oh, man.... do I ever need that!" He looked both ways, put fifty cents in the machine, unzipped his fly, and with some anticipation, stuck his manhood into the opening. When the machine started buzzing, he let out a shriek of agony and almost passed out. Fifteen seconds later it shut off. With trembling hands, he was able to withdraw his member..which now had a button neatly sewn on the end.