Sunday March 29

We watched a Joseph Smith restoration video and other church video's this morning while waiting for Madi and Logan to get here for Home church.

We all fasted today for the world wide fast.

Some were more happy about it than others.

Elsie started out okay....but then she was pretty stubborn the rest of the day.

I think she would have been like that anyway, fasting or not.

She needs to get back on some kind of routine!!!!

She refused to be a part of the Sunday picture......so I got one of her pouting on the ground.

Anyway.

For church, we shared testimonies/discussions.

I shared about how while listening to the video the Pres. Nelson talked about the airplae he was in going down.....the part where he says that the downward spiral exstiguisehed the flames.

Now, the video didn't focus on that.....but I love what it taught me.

It was the downward spiral that probably freaked people out.

But that was the exact thing that put the flames out, which were the actual/original threat to the plane.

I tried to liken it to what we are experiancing right now in the world.

This virus/quarantine stuff feels kind of like the plane is spirlaling down and about to hit the ground.

But who's to say that this isn't what will fix what has been the actual problem.

Again, in that video Pre. Nelson speaks about men's hearts failing them.

I look at things that have happened around the world and to people we know very well.....

Things that are like the flame in the airplane engine.

And then I look at what we are experiencing right now, and how we can look and see how the Lord has been preparing us for this time RIGHT NOW!!!

This exact trial!

From having a more home centered church, to what has even become more personal to us this weekend.....adjusting the time between civil weddings and being sealed.

How could have we have ever thought that ALL the temples would close and there would be NO temple work done!!!!

No one could have ever imagined that happening.

But all the small steps for many years have prepared us to make our own homes a place of refuge and place where the spirit can dwell.

How could we have known just how important that would be!!!!

Right now, it is our homes that are the most sacred places....our homes have become our temples.

So when I think about us being in this downward spiral...….and those flames being extinguished.

By our hearts turning to the Lord.

By us recognizing that the Lord has ALWAYS been there.

He doesn't want our plane to go down.

The only way to put the flames out is do plummet in a downward spiral.

I don't even know if that makes sense...….But it works for me :)

I have been so filled with Gratitude today.

So thankful for this life we get to have.

Yes, it is scary right now.

But I also trust in the Lord and his plan and I know it will all work out.

I do know that one of my spiritual gifts is the ability to have Faith...and I know it is not something easy for a lot of people.

And it isn't always easy for me......but I do try to focus on the fact that the Lord is on our side!!!!

He doesn't want our plane to hit the ground!!!!

Logan talked about Patience and also trusting in the Lords timing.

How this Worldwide fast doesn't mean that everything will go away tomorrow.

It will still take time....

We are aligning our will with the Fathers....not trying to get him to do what WE want.

He also shared a thought about how he is excited about this new life with Madi.

They each have had their separate lives....and now their union brings them together to start a whole new life together.

And that is pretty exciting.

Cassi shared about Patience as well.

She read a couple conference talks yesterday and it got her thinking about having more patience with her family members.

Madi talked about not wanting to be slothful and looking for ways to fulfill what we have been called to do.

You know, filling the measure of our creation.

She talked about how her patriarchal blessings speaks about her involvement in family history work.

I love that.

I think about all the work she will be able to participate in with Logan being a convert and finding his family members with him.

That is so exciting.

We also talked about how when the temples open us, members will be so hungry to get back to the temple and the work will b pushed forward like crazy....and they will need names to take to the temple!!!!

It really is exciting!

Madi and Logan left after that.

We did Come Follow Me by talking more about the restoration.

I am so excited for General Conference next weekend.

I want to spend more time this week praying and listening and finding questions that I need answers to....and then participate with my whole heart during General Conference!

Also.....I am so excited to have Dad back home with me tomorrow!!!!

Sunday December 22

We had a wonderful Christmas Sunday.

Dad was asked to speak, and asked to speak more on the Atonement made possible by Christ than of Christ's birth.

Kind of a different topic than we are used to for Christmas.

But if not for his Atonement ad life, his birth would have been just another baby being born.

It went along with this past week's come follow me.

Anyway....we had some dear friends come to watch.

Bubble and Eldon came, which was fun.

And a friend of Dad and mine, Lynn, came.

He is a pretty cool dude.

First the choir sang, then the YW girls got up and sang.

Cass had a solo part and sang beautifully.

Then Dad got to speak.

He really did an amazing job.

It was very powerful and he didn't shy away from real topics.

I typed it out so it can be saved forever :)

As we learned in Come Follow Me this week, it's not only important to know how Christ was born but to know WHY.  We know that he came here to redeem us and we know that he came here to bring us the atonement of Christ.

The Atonement of Christ is something that is very near to my heart. I've come to appreciate it and to understand it in ways I didn't know were possible. It has brought great change to my life. I really can't say enough about it.

I found that hope in Christ and the Atonement of Christ are very powerful tools that we can use in our everyday life. And I need to use in my everyday life just to avoid the pitfalls of this world we live in.  They are powerful tools, but tools are only good if we use them.

I liken this to what happens to me quite often at get-togethers or parties when I meet someone new and they find out I am a fire fighter, one of the first things they say is, 'well good, if the house catches on fire we have to to put it out.' and I have to kind of laugh to myself because, I have a working knowledge of how to put fires out, I have experience with fire fighting but without my protective gear to get in close to the seed of the fire, without the big red engine outside pumping water through my hose, I am little more effective than anyone else there.

I liken that to how I was living my spiritual life.

I was born in the church, I had a very active family, read the scriptures, graduated seminary. I had a working knowledge of the gospel and I had experience with church but I was not utilizing the tools that I had at my fingertips. Specifically the tool of the atonement.  I have been thinking a lot about what are some of the reasons that keep us from using these tools that we know are so vital to our spiritual growth.

Even though the reasons may vary from person to person, there is one common denominator and that is the adversary.

As Elder Johnson told us in the October general conference, the adversary likes using the three D's to keep us distracted from our mission. Those three D's being deception, distraction and discouragement.

Deception, that has got to be one of his favorite ones, right? He's been using that since the very beginning and he has become very skilled at it. He knows what lies to tell us and how to make us believe them.  One of his best ones is that, whatever fight you are fighting, that we are fighting it alone. That we are the only ones going through addiction. We are the only ones that are dealing with depression.  The only ones that have feelings of inadequacy, that are experiencing loneliness.  He tells us we are the only ones with family issues.  By telling us these things, we put up walls.  He, essentially, is isolating us.  And we are isolating ourselves.  We are isolating ourselves from our friends and our families, from our ward, and most importantly, we are isolating ourselves from Jesus and from Heavenly Father. 

Once he's got us isolated, it's real easy for him to pile discouragement on top of that.  What that does is it isolates us further. It takes us further from the Light of Christ and from everything we know to be true. You know, we may feel overwhelming guilt for sins of our past or we are just unable to control certain behaviors in our life right now. We may feel that we just aren't good enough to be loved by God.  These are all lies that he loves to tell.

So how do we combat that isolation and the shame?  Well I propose that the opposite of isolation, the opposite of depression, the opposite of any of this stuff is connection.

Connection with each other, connection with our families and most importantly connection with Heavenly Father.

Sometimes, reestablishing those connections is tough.  We feel that we might have burned bridges that can't be repaired. We feel that we are just scared of being judged by others.  And sometimes we feel like we are in no position to ask Heavenly Father for anything.  Sometimes the situation is bad enough that praying and reading our scriptures isn't gonna help a whole lot. And we have made up our minds to go it alone. 

This duality has always interested me, how on one hand we can be so discouraged and down on ourselves and demoralized but on the other hand we are still too prideful to go to our Heavenly Father and ask for forgiveness.

But we have all been told that it is impossible for us to fall any lower than the light of Christ can reach and what an amazing thought that is. There is no situation in which we cannot fall on our knees and call upon our Heavenly Father. There is not anything we can do that would disqualify us from the atonement of Christ.

As President Packer taught 'for some reason we thing the atonement of Christ applies only at the end of our mortal lives to redeem us from the fall.  It is much more than that. It is an ever present power to call upon in everyday life.'

We can use it to give us strength when we don't have enough strength of our own. We can use it to overcome temptation.  We can use it to deal with grief. In other words, it is capable of healing us.

I testify of the power of the atonement on my own life.  I am a daily, if not hourly, user of the atonement. I have learned that there is great power and it has changed the very way I live my life. It made it possible for me to course correct when I did not like what I had become. The atonement has given me hope and that is important because there are times in my life that I had very little hope. This change didn't happen overnight and it has been a hard fought battle but I wouldn't change it for the world.  I do believe that all our trials are given to us for a purpose. I wanna believe that my trial will someday help others. I have learned to no longer compare myself to others, but I compare who I was yesterday to who I am today and who I want to be in the future. All we can do it just try.  President Hinckley said 'all the Lord expects of us is to try, but we truly have to try.'

I testify that there is great power in consistent incremental change. Be a little better tomorrow than you are today.

I also testify that the feeling of Joy and happiness that we feel during this Holiday season can be accessed, by any one of us throughout the year by utilizing the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I am sure hearts were touched today.

We only had one hour church, so after wards we came home and had lunch.

Dad got a call from an older guy in the ward who wanted to tell Dad of an experience after they left church today.

He said that they brought their Non-member son in law with them.

He has been to church many times and he complains about the 'Mormon' talks being shallow and (to him) self promoting.

I don't think that is the case.....but this is what this non-member feels.

He said that when they got home, his son in law told him that he has never heard a talk like that before.

It was real and raw and hit his heart.

I am grateful that our friend shared that story with us because just before he called Brent was saying how even though he saw people nodding off in the congregation, if there was only one heart touched, that was all he wanted.

And then we got the call saying that was exactly what happened.

But, I know for sure more than one heart was touched.

I am so grateful for Brent and his testimony and the growth I have seen in him.

He is a pretty amazing guy ❤

We were talking today and feeling the Christmas spirit.

I usually equate the spirit to emotional and crying.

But today was very different for me.

No crying.

But just a feeling of complete happiness.

I really think it because I have been feeling this 'Christmas spirit and joy' for much of this past year.

It is a feeling of happiness and contentment and love for all I have been blessed with, trials and all!!!

I love feeling like this and I hope I can continue to feel this into the new year as well.

We watched the Christmas devotional since we missed it when we were in Utah.

Then we all took a nap/quiet time!

After dinner we made some card and treat deliveries to neighbors.

We have been blessed with such great people in our lives.

I am just beyond grateful!!!!

Of course, today wasn't all peaches and cream.

There was actually a lot of fighting and grumpiness from the kids.

Lots...…….

But, I am still grateful for all the good and all the not-as-good.

Sunday November 17

Today we had our ward conference.

I really enjoyed the messages we got today.

And I finally wised up and took some notes :)

Reading my notes is a different story.....

But Bishop Keller first spoke about the opposites he found in ready the story about the tree of life.

He talked about the one path to the tree of life vs the many paths leading away.

Satan does not care what path you take...as long as it doesn't lead to the tree of life!

Then he spoke about the sweet fruit of the tree vs the mocking and hate that comes from the great and spacious building.

My favorite opposite was that when Lehi reached the tree of life, he wanted to invite others to come with him.

In the building, they mocked and scorned everyone.

They weren't inviting, they were talking trash.

How much does that sound like the world today???

Then also  when we reach the tree of life, we desire others to partake.

When you are on the other paths....you are wandering and lost......again, very much like the world today.

He gave us an invitation to make any changes we need to make to make sure we stay on the straight and narrow path!

President Keihl spoke about how we may feel inferior when there are so many things we should be doing and don't feel like we can keep up.

The Lord knows there is a season for everything.

What we may not be able to have time for right now, there will be time for that later.

If we turn to the Lord we will know that he understands that and that we just need to do our best.

He spoke about how important it is to pray to Heavenly Father about what he wants us to do NOW in the season we are in.

We need to keep our priorities in alignment with the divine truths.

He ended by giving us a quote that was said by a member of our ward that passed away last year from cancer.

He said that he always strived to make a situation better by his presence.

Man, if we could all have that as a goal, how great would that be!!!!

His invitation was for us to try and have a daily devotional experience, and then to report back to the Lord at the end of the day.

They got the Youth together and had to stake YM leader speak.

He spoke about loving one another and laying down our lives.

He talked about the Good Samaritan story.

A line he said really hit me.

If the youth could just take this and run with it, this world would be a different pace very quickly!

He said, 'When you find someone in a 'ditch' that is not the time to judge or assume, it's time to show love.'

We do so much judgment of our fellow men.

We assume what peoples motives are.

But why can't we just love.

Why can't we do as the Good Samaritan did and go out of our way to help those who are struggling!

President Loveland spoke after him.

He shared the two scriptures, 1 Nephi 3:7 "I will go and do."

and 1 Nephi 4:6 "I was led, not knowing."

Both these scriptures seem opposite at the beginning.

But the more you think about it, they are both speaking of Faith.

He shared a story from his sons mission.

He had an investigator who really wanted to attend church, but because of a medical condition he could not.

When he had to go to the bathroom, he couldn't hold it, it just came out.

So the missionaries prayed and the first thing that popped in their head was to find adult diapers.

They are in Mexico city and it was almost 9 at night on a Saturday.

They didn't think they would find.

But they went and they did.

He talked about Nephi in 1 Nephi 17:7, he was probably all cozy in bed when he was asked to go up into the mountains.

At that moment when he was asked to go into the mountain, he didn't ask 'Why?'....he just went and he did as he was asked.

He was led without knowing.

In that same scripture it says that he went to the mountain and he cried unto the Lord.

Pres Loveland shared and I agree, that when he cried unto the Lord, that was probably when he was like "Why did you have to pull me out of my warm bed right now???"

The message being that it is okay to ask why...why the Lord has asked something of you....BUT it was After Nephi got up and did what he was asked, THEN he asked why.

I just love that.

We must listen to the Lord, and act immediately.

Then if we still need more information, that is when we can ask.

But we must Go and Do first!

We must allow ourselves to be led without knowing right away the why's.

Personally I can see this apply to the Youth and the world today.....

So many things we are asked to do or not do without knowing the why.

We will get hose answers.

But we must get up, go and do and be led without knowing.

We must have trust in the Lord and have Faith that his plan has a purpose and that you will be happy at the end if you will just go and do :)

After church I had a meeting for my YW girls.

Then I went on visits with my Stake YW counterpart.

Back home for a little bit before we went to the Morgans to watch the face to face broadcast about the new Children and Youth program!

I am so excited about it!

I am excited to see my family grow with this program!

Then I had time to feed my kids some eggs before we went to a friends house for a farewell party for the Halls.

I am so gonna miss them.

Today was their last Sunday with us :(

I loved on Evie bug as much as I could!!!!!!!

This isn't farewell for us though!

They will never get rid of us!!!!

Madi goes to an allergist tomorrow morning.

I don't know what or if that will tell us anything, but it is the next step to try and figure this out.

Poor girl.

The hives weren't on her face much.

But her poor face is puffy,

Her eyelids were still really red and tender.

But the hives are still all over her back, legs, arms and stomach.

I hope we can start narrowing things down soon!!!!!!

Poor girls is miserable!

Sunday October 27

Today was stake conference.

It was an enjoyable meeting.

There were 6 areas that our stake was asked to touch on in our stake meetings.

Gospel Learning

Repentance

Ministering

Gathering Israel

Sabbath day observance

and 

The official name of the church.

We were taught well in all these areas.

A few thoughts from the last two days:

"The Lord has called you for who you are and not for who you are not."

"The greatest form of charity may be to withhold judgment."

"With LOVE as the motivation, miracles happen."

"Home centered learning will unleash the POWER of families."

"React with kindness."

"Never under-estimate the power of the Holy Ghost."

"Repentance is always positive."

"When you do your part, the Lord adds his power to your efforts."

"When God directs us to do one thing - he often has other things in mind."

"Saints are sinners that keep trying."

"Freely Forgive."

"The Lord puts us where we are, with the people we should be with, to fulfill our purpose."

"We need to righteously and INTENTIONALLY care for each other."

"He just wants us to do our best."

After church I had a YW meeting.

Then I came home and we worked on Come Follow Me together.

Dad made a yummy roast dinner and we played some games before getting to bed at a good time :)

Wednesday October 23

Dad had class again today.

I worked in the office.

When I came home, I spray painted the bed frame.

It turned out really good.

Dad came home and we had lunch together before he left again.

Then I went running.

Came back, put the bed together in the room and put the mattress on there.

I also cleaned my art room....because I teach art classes tomorrow.

Cassi had a cool experience.

A couple days ago, she sent a text to a lady in our ward who recently had a baby.

She asked if she could come help in any way.

She got a text today asking for her to come help clean up the house and take care of the baby before the missionaries came over for dinner.

Cassi was excited to get over there after school.

She walked in, and this sweet lady just started crying.

She had been so overwhelmed with everything and was praying for Heavenly Father to send her someone to help.

Cassi helped clean the house, watch the baby.

She even helped watch the kids while the missionaries were over for dinner.

Then she stayed while she went to PT conferences.

I just think that was such a cool experience for Cassi to have.

To experience her side about having a name pop in her head and sending the text.

Then for this sister to TELL her that she was the answer to a pray.

So cool to see the hand of Heavenly Father in our lives.

I am proud of Cassi for acting on her prompting to text this certain sister :)

Then this evening we had YW.

Elsie and I learned how to bullet journal with one of the girls teaching us.

It was awesome.

Elsie loved it and I borrowed Stacia's stamps and stuff so she can play with it some more.

Monday October 21

Got the kiddos off to school this Monday morning.

Dad had to go to school today too.

He is taking a class for his fire science degree stuff, basically this will give him a raise when he is finished with it.

I painted trim in the entry way and then Dad came home for lunch.

After he left, I went for a run.

It was pretty nice outside.

Back at home, I moved the armoire into the guest room.

Dad came home about the same time as the kids did.

The boys swapped out the electrical sockets in the room and they look much better now.

I think I will spray paint the bed tomorrow and get that room all done.

Then move on to the next project!

We had dinner then FHE.

I listened to a podcast that was awesome about holding space.

So I decided to talk about the for FHE.

Basically 'holding space' is the power to choose the emotion we want to feel and hold onto it despite the emotional pull from our environment.

It talked about a study that a Dr Nelson did with tuning forks.

He had several tuning forks and he hit one of them......but all of them gave off the same frequency.

This relates to emotions because our emotions have frequencies as well.

Sad, depressed, angry, those are all low frequency emotions.

Happy, joyful, loving, those are all high frequency emotions.

The lady gave the example of driving home and you are in a good mood and then you step in the door with family members fighting.

You automatically tune to their frequency.

I talked to the kids that when we feel grumpy and Evie comes to give us a hug, do we stay grumpy???

No, we tune to her high frequency of happiness.

So the whole idea of holding space is sticking to the emotion you want to feel, no matter what others around you feel.

This will cause them to tune to your frequency.

I heard about this a few days ago and I decided to experiment this morning on Porter :)

He had been quit grumpy lately.

Not sure what is going on with him…..

But he did NOT want to go to school.

I stayed happy and upbeat.

I knew what would happen if I got mad, because that is usually what happens.

I tune to him.

He and I did a fun kids mediation and then I put on music and started dancing silly.

At first he wasn't having any of it.

But I HELD ON :)

I kept dancing and just having fun with myself and eventually he joined me in the happy frequency.

No, he wasn't dancing, but he was laughing :)

In Mosiah 18:9 it talks about mourning with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.

This is holding space at its best.

We hold the vibration for them in their time of need so they can feel comfort.

Holding space doesn't always mean joy.

We can feel sorrow when it is appropriate, sadness.

But, for the most part, we want that high frequency flowing in our homes :)

The first step is for us to just notice how we are feeling.

When we feel angry, look around, what made us angry.

Do I want to be angry???

Am I feeling happy, am I happy because those around me are also happy.

Anyway.....I think they thought it was a cool thought.

Let's see if we can put it into action.

Then we got in the Hot tub for just a bit before showering and getting little ones to bed.

Did we maintain a high frequency the whole time....

No, we did not.

But hey, just means we need to work a little harder :)

Sunday October 20

I really enjoyed the meetings at church today.

The speakers did very well.

One spoke about a bike trail he went on this past weekend that was so brutal and he related it to life and the challenges we go through.

And how prepared we are for those challenges.

The next speaker spoke about the conference talk 'Hearing his voice' from Elder Homer.

But what stuck out me from his talk was when he spoke about growing up thinking that people who smoked were bad people....only because we were taught that smoking was bad...so if you some, YOU must be bad.

But I loved how he spoke about people can make bad choices but they are never too far from the love of the Lord.

My heart has been softened the last few years when I think about people who are struggling.

I mean, we all struggle....but when those struggles are deemed "bad" by the world around you, that makes it even harder for those people to see that they can still have the love of the Lord.

When society tells them they are not worth that love, why should they believe it?

Oh I wish we lived in a world where everyone would take care of their side of the street and just worry about loving others instead of judging.

But...I guess that is what we are called to do.

Pull away from what the world thinks and says and does and work hard to just love one another NO MATTER what their choices are.

Because we are all worth that love from our Father in heaven!

In Sunday school e talked about come follow me and about finding joy, even in our trials.

I found a quote from an account I follow.

It goes like this: 

"This life is less about WHAT we face and more about WHERE we face"

I love this so much.

When you look around at the trials people are facing....sometimes it seems unfair.

Some trials are so large and some seem so small.

But really, it is not about the trials we face.

It is where we look when we face those hard times.....well, and where we look when we are facing the good times too!

And who is to say one trial is harder than another anyway.

We each handle things so differently, we have no idea what their experience with their trial is.

So we just love :)

At home, we did Come Follow Me and we talked about being grateful, even in our trials.

Man, am I seeing a theme here ;)

It is all about your mindset.

I still have a lot to study this week for CFM, but I am looking forward to it.

We had some quite/nap time.....

Kendyl came over to make cookies for her and Cassi to take to the boys they bribed to come to choir.

Then we played some card games after she left.

Dad made burgers for dinner and then Cassi went to choir.

We watched the BofM videos for a little bit before getting the little ones to bed ealry.

Port had been struggling today.

I don't know what is going one.

He seems so angry all the time.

I don't know....maybe he just isn't feeling well.

But he just seems overwhelmed with life right now and it breaks my heart.

Hopefully a good night sleep will make a difference.

The kiddos all match without even trying!!!!!!

Well, I did choose Port's tie, but that is the only thing!

Cute college girls!