Scripture Power #Light the World

The scriptures have played such a pivotal role in my life.  It's too hard for me to choose just one favorite because of the many ways my life has been directed by inspiration from searching and pondering them.
Alma 7:11
"For behold, I say unto you there be many things to come; and behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all—for behold, the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people."
I moved the summer after 6th grade.  My first grade of middle school I remember feeling comfortable, confident and I enjoyed walking home with friends, excelling in orchestra, participating in intramurals even though I wasn't very good.  After the move some small seeds of insecurity set in.   I worried about my clothes being unstylish, I felt uncomfortable and out of the loop when people talked about the latest shows or songs they had seen or heard or vacations they had taken.  The Classical and spiritual music that I loved and that inspired me definitely wasn't making me feel "cool" and the only vacations we took were visiting family in our own state.  In my personal scripture study one night this phrase jumped out at me "behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all."  When I read this I felt the reassurance that my slight insecurities were insignificant when seen through the perspective of my purpose here on earth and the Lord's love for me.  I feel so blessed for parents who taught me to pray and study the scriptures so I could develop a personal relationship with my Saviour.

Doctrine and Covenants 6:2-3

 34 Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail. 35 Behold, I do not condemn you; go your ways and sin no more; perform with soberness the work which I have commanded you. 36 Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.

This was the theme scripture in Relief Society my first year living away from home which I memorized after reciting it in church every single week.  I especially love the phrase "fear not."  When my college piano audition didn't turn out as I had planned, this brought me peace because I knew the Lord had a plan for me, even if it was different than I had expected.  Later in life when I was 5 months pregnant, it helped me take the leap of faith to take the job with my husband at the Utah Boy's Ranch as a home parent helping 15+ teen boys as their parent figure even though their intake info scared me to death.  And most recently, because of the incredible peace I felt during a 5 minute moment of decision I was able to make a peaceful choice to uproot our large family to move away from a community and ward family we had grown to love to embark on new adventures. I'm grateful that when I look to the Lord he can take away my fear and pour out unanticipated blessings.
Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

Doctrine and Covenants 15:4-6  "For many times you have desired of me to know that which would be of the most worth unto you.  Behold, blessed are you for this thing, and for speaking my words which I have given you according to my commandments. And now, behold, I say unto you, that the thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father. Amen.

This is the scripture my book flipped open to on the day when I was making the pivotal decision about whether or not to serve a mission. I was grateful for such clear direction and for the amazing experiences I had serving and meeting people like Tim, Alvin, Ruth, Tabitha, Avis, Rose, Ronnette and Brother Petersen.  It truly changed my life and opened my eyes to the sweet blessings the gospel brings to me and others.

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

After my mission as I was making the important decision about where to live, I know that he guided my path.  After checking out several apartment complexes, I narrowed it down to 2 and decided to sign up for the apartment that gave me a good grade discount.  But that day 2 different people who I didn't usually talk to on a regular basis, let me know that the complex I had chosen had  "party" reputation which definitely was not a good fit for me.  I changed my mind and chose to live in the complex where I met Jared. Marrying him is the greatest blessing that has ever happened to me!

Psalms 119:105 "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

Becca Dating & Driving :)

Becca had a great time at the Halloween dance.  She is enjoying her new friend group and I think that what she thought was going to be the worst curse of her life (moving) has turned into an incredible blessing.  And now that she has her driver's license, she can run errands for me and hang out without me having to drop her off.

At the Young Women in Excellence "Night of the Stars" she displayed her virtue project - completing the Book of Mormon.

Time Flies!

The greatest blessing for me this month is that she has been cooking the majority of our meals in exchange for me doing her kitchen cleanup chores.  Definitely a sweet deal for me.

Free Family Fun

 A few weeks ago we were invited by our friends to come play family games.  We had a blast playing chair soccer, poison, and some other fun group games.  Daniel was super disappointed that he had to miss it because he was at scout camp. Feeling so blessed to be surrounded by awesome neighbors!

Victory and Defeat

 Jacob took 2nd place in the varsity wrestling tournament.  I missed the first matches where he quickly pinned his opponents, and only made it for the grueling match of the championship round where he got a nosebleed from being thrown hard against the mat and faced defeat, but the amazing thing is that he always has such a positive outlook on life.  Afterwards he was optimistic despite the tough match.  Wrestling is definitely not for the faint of heart.
His attitude carries over into other areas in life too.  When he misses the bus, he thinks everything is just fine because he can just walk in the cold and get there in time.  He astounds me with his ability to bounce back when things are rough.  His grades in Math are less than stellar even though he has turned in all of his work and spends significant amounts of time studying and doing  homework.  But he just rolls with it and keeps on trying, going early, redoing things until he gets it right even if it he doesn't get the perfect grade.  I could seriously benefit from more of his don't quit attitude, because although my perfectionist tendencies paid off with scholarships and some nice piano pieces, too often I struggle seeing what is not good instead of having the hope that I can always get better and enjoying the good parts of life.

Let's Play

 

I enrolled Joshua in Let's Play Music this year and I totally love the curriculum, the bonding experience and musical play we enjoy together each week.  He doesn't love to practice at home(none of my kids got that gene from my :( ! ) but I love hearing him spontaneously sing the songs we've been learning.  I've been contemplating becoming a trained teacher for their company for several years because I love incorporating the element of play in music teaching and working with young children and their curriculum is so carefully sequenced and comprehensive while being fun at the same time.  Making decisions like this are not easy for me because I analyze so much and have to weigh in my time and energy constraints, financial costs and potential, my strengths and inadequacies, time management with the increasing demands of my large family, my need for creative outlets, etc.

After a lot of deliberating, weighing the pros and cons, discussion and prayer I made a difficult decision this week that I've been going back and forth on for a long time.  I decided to stick with teaching private piano lessons because it is a better fit for my current family situation even though that means letting go of an opportunity for now. 

 I am eating up the moments that I get to do learning activities with Josh during the day.  I'm not ready for this chapter of my life to be closing soon.  I love how he is fascinated with counting.  He skip counts the numbers on my Kitchenaide (2, 4,6,8) when we're making bread, and wants to take his time when reading stories so he can count objects on the page.  He loved fishing for numbers and finally made the connection between the digits and the teens when we "married" the matches (2 &12, 3 &13, 4 & 14, etc.) by putting pink paper clips on all teens and blue ones on all the single digits and then matched them up.

 Making playdough snakes

He is such a social little guy that I have to keep fetching him from the new neighbors house because he wants to go play with their older kids.  He's lucky to have several friends his own age close.

 He entertains himself often by playing creatively and makes me laugh.

Sometimes I get too caught up in teaching preschool concepts, that he doesn't get the spiritual focus that I gave my oldest kids when they were little and we listened to primary songs and read simplified scriptures more consistently because I wasn't running around to tons of activities.  So lately I've been trying to watch scripture videos together with him while we eat lunch.

 He was so excited for the first day of preschool because he got to have Rebecca as his teacher.

 Afterward he played 2 hours straight making playdough creations with his new preschool friend who lives nearby.

"I wish we could have an emergency!"

I had to laugh the other day after a conversation I had with Joshua.  He said,
 "Mom, can you buy me a [toy] truck because you have ALL this money (extra cash and change in the coin jar)?" I replied, "No because that money is for emergencies." He moaned, "Oohh, I wish we could have an emergency!"

We've had a lot of talk around our house lately about emergencies partly because I  was called as the provident living specialist in Relief Society.  So I can see why he thinks emergencies could be cool.  He couldn't eat some of the granola bars and fruit snacks I bought because they were for restocking our emergency 72-hour kits.  I asked him not to play with the cool Luci solar lantern I won at the emergency expo, because they need to stay charged in my closet window/glove compartment for emergencies.

I was in charge of this candle jar project for Super Saturday and ended up emptying 3 different Dollar Tree shelves of all their emergency candles to get the 360 needed!

Definitely don't want to run out of this in an emergency!
Following are some of the thoughts from my monthly messages. I especially love the November talks!

September Provident Living Focus: Food Storage/Rotation

The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah.” (Spencer W. Kimball Oct. 1980.) “I speak with a feeling of great urgency. I have seen what the days of tribulation can do to people. I have seen hunger stalk the streets of Europe. I have witnessed the appalling, emaciated shadows of human figures. I have seen women and children scavenge army garbage dumps for scraps of food. Those scenes and nameless faces cannot be erased from my memory.” (Ezra Taft Benson).  "There will come a time when there isn’t a store" (Spencer W. Kimball).  The Lord has warned and forewarned us against a day of great tribulation and given us counsel, through His servants, on how we can be prepared for these difficult times. Have we heeded His counsel?

Challenge: Increase or rotate your food storage this month.

October Provident Living Focus: Light

Being prepared with a variety of physical light sources (solar lanterns, candles, flashlights with batteries, solar glow sticks, etc.) can provide peace during emergencies.  But even more important is our continual need to "recharge" spiritual light through consistent gospel study and personal prayer. "As we draw near to God, He will draw near to us.  And day by day, the hope of God’s light will grow within us, 'brighter and brighter until the perfect day.'” (Dieter F. Uchtdorf)

Challenge: Choose a conference talk to listen to and add adequate sources of light to your 72 hour kit.

 November Provident Living Focus: Finances
"Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted." (2 Nephi 9:51) 

Challenge: Read, ponder and discuss how the principles in "The Cost of Riches" (Lynn G Robins, June 2003)and "Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually" (Robert D. Hales, April 2009) apply in your family situation and set a specific goal for improvement.

There are so many compelling thoughts in these articles that is was hard for me to choose which of them to share but these are some of my favorite quotes.

"When faced with the choice to buy, consume, or engage in worldly things and activities, we all need to learn to say to one another, “We can’t afford it, even though we want it!” or “We can afford it, but we don’t need it—and we really don’t even want it!”
"When we are addicted, we seek those worldly possessions or physical pleasures that seem to entice us. But as children of God, our deepest hunger and what we should be seeking is what the Lord alone can provide—His love, His sense of worth, His security, His confidence, His hope in the future, and assurance of His love, which brings us eternal joy." (Robert D. Hales, "Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually", April 2009).

"It seems that while the average home has increased in size, the average family has decreased in size; and while homes have more time-saving devices, the average family spends less time together. Why isn’t more money buying greater happiness?" 
"Due to improvements in productivity, Americans could work 22-hour workweeks if they were satisfied with a 1948 standard of living"
I think this statistic is so compelling. Hard to imagine a life where my husband only works 2 and a half days a week, but we enjoy our small home, share just 1 car, have more together time, but with a lot less stuff!

"Each item we accumulate, he says, “stifles us and robs us of freedom because it requires so much of our time to tend.” He writes further: “We have to pay for it, keep track of it, protect it, clean it, store it, insure it, and worry about it. … Later we have to move it, hide it, apologize for it, argue over it. … But these things are valuable, you say? "
"Our success will depend not only on answering the question “What do we need to be happy?” but also on answering the question “What don’t we need to be happy?”" (Lynn G. Robins "The Cost of Riches", June 2003)

Harvest Break

 The kids had some fun adventures after we picked apples at the college orchard and then checked out the waterfall nearby on the first day of Harvest Break.

The next week I joined Jared on his work training for a few days and totally indulged in family history, reading piano blogs and adding a bit more to my personal history while he was in meetings. It was awesome not to have to cook or clean for almost 2 full days I could have repeated it for at least 2 weeks without getting bored!  During the busy months of fall football it feels like we rarely get time to really talk, so it was nice to enjoy the evenings and drive together.

Compiling my history is a bit daunting of a task, but when I take the time to reflect and remember the people who have had a meaningful impact in my life it reminds me of how good the Lord has been to me by sending me to a loving family and sending influential friends teachers and leaders to help me along journey of life.

Following is one "memory" that I typed up about my childhood.  

"My mom tried numerous strategies to help instill in us the value of work and keep the home organized enough to keep her sanity.  When I was young I remember looking forward to adding stickers to my chore chart which included basic things like “ I got dressed without being told. I cleaned my room.  I brushed my teeth. Etc.”  I took pride in getting a perfect sticker chart and have a fond memory of going out to IHOP to eat breakfast with my dad one on one when I won the chore contest.  I ordered a pancake with strawberries and cream and never knew that kind of “dessert” breakfast existed until then.  Later it was trips to get a Dairy Queen Peanut Buster Parfait, Farr’s ice cream cone that kept me motivated, but I also just loved the intrinsic feeling of being good and having an organized room.  Later we had colored pegs for our am, pm housework and talent responsibilities inspired by Richard and Linda Eyre’s “Teaching Children Responsibility.”  One of my favorite strategies was when we divided up into 2 teams of four and were assigned different zones of the house to get completely clean as we worked with our team.  This appealed to my competitive spirit and in the end we usually all ended up getting a special treat despite which team won the contest."

I feel like teaching my kids to clean the house is definitely not one of my strengths.  Although I took pride in keeping my own room clean as a child, I fall short in the "managerial" duties of training my kids to do their chores consistently. So I expected to come home to somewhat of disaster after leaving our older teenagers in charge, but it was totally worth the break!  But I was pleasantly surprised to come home to a totally clean kitchen with some leftover homemade apple muffins that Rebecca had made.   I was so glad they stepped up and helped out.