I love you; Zarahemla, and an anniversary

Dear Reader,

First, have I told you lately how amazing you are? Well, you’re amazing, and the best little online community. You are family, our friends from living in different states, and recently, you are friends in our Utah neighborhood.

I love you, Texas! (Not the fire ants. You hurt my babies.) I love you, Arizona! (Not the heat. You nearly killed me.) I love you, Utah! (Not the inversion) I love you, friends in many other places!

Since I’m an introvert and won’t make a phone call, please know that I think of you as I write. This blog is mostly a love letter to family and friends. My older kids read the blog faithfully, and this makes me feel like I can still be their teacher and their friend when I have fallen asleep before anyone’s bedtime (last night…and often) or other times when I’ve created other motherhood epic fail moments.

Next, let’s talk about the book of Mosiah in The Book of Mormon. Don’t worry, it’s just a little sermon.

Most classes I have attended about Mosiah include a big diagram of groups of people from different origins, some splintering off for a time, but everyone coming together in the land of Zarahemla. The details make me tired, so I normally skim Mosiah 25 when all the groups come together.

But last week I didn’t skim and I finally learned a lesson from Mosiah 25. You have all of these groups, and they’ve been through a lot, and everyone has something to share. They gather and take time to listen to one another’s stories. As they listen, they begin to see patterns of the Lord’s hand in their lives. I focused on the emotions they felt as they try to blend their cultural backgrounds and understand experiences. They feel awe, joy, pain, joy and pain. Amazingly, this sharing (and allowing themselves to feel for others) becomes a catalyst for developing concern not just for one another, but for their enemies.

So in real life, I’m a member of a community and a church, and I visit neighbors and I try to be friendly in my own way. I grow in my capacity to love people who are different as I listen.

I haven’t been much of a listener to my “virtual” community. My biggest request from readers is that I should allow comments. Perhaps we have missed some opportunities to grow in friendship because I’ve done all of the sharing.

I’m celebrating the fifth anniversary of this blog on Sunday. It’s growing up and I’m going to allow comments this year. Your opinions and experiences range over a full spectrum; you’re delightful people; I enjoy hearing from you. If you don’t feel like sharing, that’s okay, too. There will be no guilting for comments and I’ll be nice if you disagree with me, but take a few hours to consider whether to be harsh. If that isn’t long enough, take a year to consider. I’m very sensitive.

Happy fifth anniversary, little blog. I’ve written nearly 950 posts. Some of you have read every word. Thank you. The posts are saturated with ideas and whims, family activities and memories, and it’s grown beyond my original vision for it. I’ve grown a bit, too. And let’s not forget how many inches the kids have grown since we began writing about our lives.

Happy fifth anniversary-of-being-brave-and-sharing-thoughts-online to me!

Happy General Conference weekend with love,

Angela

28 miles

I have no big projects that I am working on lately, unless you count spring cleaning. I’m not even tackling any difficult books right now.

That is okay. Sometimes I run myself thin because completing big projects means I am making progress, right?

Not really.

I think that if I were to look at the little things I try to do each day, I would see that these are the source of real progress.

For instance, I biked 28 miles last week. I didn’t do it all at once. It took 4 exercise sessions to make it. I am no athlete, but 28 miles is pretty far! I just chose to exercise 4 times.

I have a goal to read a chapter of The Book of Mormon each day. It is such a minimal amount, really, but since January 1, I have read 159 pages. At this rate, I could complete the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and be well into the Bible by the end of the year.

I have a goal to practice the violin several days a week, but I am failing. Perhaps I need this reminder that small, consistent efforts really can produce results.

The other thing I need to do is make a set time to practice. Consistency demands structure.

I guess we’re all working on a few big projects little bit each day. We become the kind of people we create with our small, consistent efforts.

Wrapping Up

IMG_1144-001 Hello, it’s been a while. We’ve been busy wrapping up projects and goals, reading fat books, and being a complete family again.

During the final weeks of the year Richard and I spend a lot of time wrapping up the lessons and events of the year into a video to send to the grandparents. The kids perform their piano pieces and we make a music video where we lip sync a funny song. My favorite part of the video is the slideshow. We choose music to accompany the images from the year. I watch these videos again and again. I love the memories. My Stewart grandparents say that it is part of their Christmas Eve tradition to watch our video each year. It’s a way that we try to reach out to family far away, but I know that I watch these videos more than anyone.

We threw 3 parties. One was a pizza and game party for Daniel and his friends. Next was Timothy’s birthday.

Timothy turned 11 just before Christmas and we threw him the traditional gingerbread house making party and ate red velvet cake. He finished all of the activity pins for Webelos (Scouts) just before his birthday. He earned every one.

The big family party to celebrate my parents’ anniversary was next. Daniel received an autographed cast picture of Studio C from his uncle that evening. Timothy is being a clown. Aside from the slideshow that we presented of my parents’ marriage, I was most proud of the decorations upstairs and lights we hung across the ceiling in the basement to make our stage magical.

With the kids home I have felt so happy because we haven’t had to go anywhere. Someone asked what we did for Christmas. After I said that we had thrown a big family party, they wondered what ELSE we had done. I couldn’t come up with anything big that we had done, but my mind wandered to what was accomplished without leaving the neighborhood.

I played my violin in church. That’s always an epoch in my life.

We made 20 pints of salsa and delivered them to the neighbors since the thought of baking was making me grumpy.

The kids played in a Christmas piano recital.

We were invited to celebrate Joseph Smith’s birthday on December 23rd with two other families up the street for Family Home Evening. This was super fun. We ate stew and cornbread, sang, had a lesson about the Prophet Joseph, and listened to the kids play the piano.

We took the kids to see Frozen in the theater on Christmas Eve afternoon.

We watched Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concerts on video and opened simple gifts. On Christmas morning, the kids were surprised by Legos and technology. My favorite gifts were the exercise balls that the little boys received. They bounce around on them all of the time. It makes me happy to see kids playing like that. We never have great pictures of Christmas celebrations, but you can probably picture us on our sofa in the basement, Christmas lights everywhere and the fire place warming the room. Small gifts inspire hugs and smiles and in the simplicity is the magic.

We rested and watched Christmas movies such as It’s A Wonderful Life and Mr Kruger’s Christmas. Oh, we needed this. The boys went skiing, but I didn’t do much away from home. Shopping was minimal. Daniel and Richard rebuilt the kids’ computer.

Richard and I went out to dinner one evening. We’re still on the search for a good local Mexican restaurant. We have very discriminating tastes, having lived in Texas, Arizona, and Provo, Utah where good Mexican food (or Tex-Mex) is everywhere.

December 31st was the day Paige got her driver license and I tried to finish reading both The Book of Mormon and War and Peace. I only finished The Book of Mormon in time to ring in the new year. Timothy and Mark stayed up until midnight for the first time in their lives, but Timothy was the only one to truly celebrate. He jumped up and went to everyone’s rooms to wish them Happy New Year!

I dressed in layers and loved the bright sunshine reflected from the snow through my windows. I have twirled in place this week because this life makes me so happy.

As January arrived, I was slow to put away the Christmas decorations, but once they were away, I enjoyed the empty shelves and clean slate that appeared in our home.

Things are getting a little busier each day.

Richard’s parents visited and we went to Gladys’s place to wish her a happy birthday.

We went to the airport to welcome Richard’s niece home from her mission. Richard was very clear that he wanted each of us to hold a letter of her name to greet her at the airport. This attention to a decorative detail was a new side of him that I haven’t seen before. He truly wanted to make his niece’s homecoming a special time.

This morning I finished reading War and Peace. When I introduce myself for the next while, I will say, “My name is Angela and I have read War and Peace.” 😉

Part of the end of the year wrap up is the writing of thank you notes and Christmas cards. This brings to mind so many people who have influenced our lives for good throughout the year. On that note, I will end this post. Thank you, Readers, for sharing your time to read about us.

Happy New Year. There will be many more posts to come. Life is precious and worth writing about.

Notation

I keep a personal journal full of tiny writing and a planner of TO DO lists. The blog only shows a few thoughts each week from our lives.

At the beginning of January I began a project to keep my daily TO DO lists in a planner. I know that I am not original in doing this. However, I didn’t appreciate the patterns that I would see emerge from my lists or the story that they would tell.

Here are a few randomly picked dates from the past 9 months and what I listed along with a little commentary.

Saturday, January 5
Piano lessons 10:45-12:45
Piano lesson 2:00 (Timothy)
3:00 Paige and Dan
Pay piano teacher

Apparently the only thing I did on this day was drive kids to and from piano lessons over a span of 5 hours. Even if this was actually all I did, I think that it would be enough.

Saturday, March 23
SPARKS This was the day we drove from Elko to Sparks to visit my Stewart Grandparents.

Thursday, July 4
Paint trim (2 coats) in Daniel’s room
Integrity goal #5: Stand as a witness day 4
Family barbecue 1pm (Spring Lake)

Summertime brought a lot of painting and Young Women Personal Progress goals. The Stand as a Witness goal that I mentioned was to write about my experiences as a Mormon on the blog.

Tuesday, August 13
library
lego shopping with little boys
work on Knowledge #9
type out YW calendar
vacuum upstairs
garden assignment: 3 needed

Summer was winding down; I was trying to make the most of the last days with my little boys by shopping for their favorite toys with them. Knowledge #9 was a Young Women Personal Progress goal where I collected and compiled my favorite quotes from General Conference talks by topic. The garden assignment was for the Church garden which supplies the nearby Bishops’ Storehouse. The big boys and Richard took the assignment.

Thursday, September 5
Drive Richard 5:45 am
Drive Daniel 6:50 am
30 minutes Virtue project
Pick up Richard at work–sick day
YW presidency meeting
10% of Richard’s group laid off today (notation on the side of the to do list)
Costco trip
Bring doctor’s note to school for Mark’s absences
Piano lessons 5:30-7:30
continue paint work in craft room

This was a very stressful day on many levels. There were extra errands because of illness and there was worry about Richard’s job. The Virtue project is my current Personal Progress goal to read the Book of Mormon. Thank goodness most days are not this busy.

I love my life, but I don’t always see the beauty in the little pieces. Keeping my little planner has been a good exercise to help me see that I’m going somewhere in all of my circles of errands and small efforts.

How I Know

This is #14 (and the last) in a series of posts in which I share some of the things I have experienced because I am a Mormon. In each of these posts, I will give you a basic background and share a small experience. I hope that through the sharing of these small things you can have a glimpse into my experience as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I will also try to explain principles and doctrines of my faith that bring me so much happiness.

When I first set out on this project, I listed many experiences, but chose only a few to write online. I have only written experiences that I would feel comfortable sharing in Sunday school. I have many sacred experiences that would be trivialized by sharing them on the internet with inadequate words and without my voice and person to help convey my message. I have not been able to come up with a post that adequately expresses what I feel about the Savior. The experiences that have led me to know him best are deeply personal.

I hope that you have not found my posts about Mormonism “cocky” or “self-righteous.” It’s been a difficult project, more difficult than you know. What I have shared has been a big deal…for me.

How I Know

There are hundreds of experiences that have confirmed to me that my religion is true, but my experiences won’t sustain faith in another person. So in this last post I will just tell you the things that help me to maintain my position that this Church is true.

I read the book (present tense): I read the Book of Mormon. I read the Bible. I personally love the Bible best. Thousands of times I have felt that these are the words of God.

I live it. In true experimental fashion, I live what my religion teaches and see if I’m happy. The more closely I align my life to the teachings of Jesus Christ, the happier I am. ALWAYS.

I pray and I receive answers in the Lord’s time. I can tell you that the mode and timing to the answers to my prayers are always meaningful and memorable.

That’s it. I read, I live, I pray. Then I wait upon the Lord, who is so, so generous.

By Small and Simple Means

This #5 in a series of posts in which I share some of the things I have experienced because I am a Mormon. In each of these posts, I will give you a basic background and share a small experience. I hope that through the sharing of these small things you can have a glimpse into my experience as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I will also try to explain the principles and doctrines of my faith that bring me so much happiness.

Background: For three years I taught early morning seminary to the high school students in my congregation in Austin, Texas. My title was Volunteer in the Church Educational System. We met in our home from 6:00-7:00 a.m. each school day. Seminary students focus on a book of scripture each year of their high school experience. The first year I taught Church History and the Doctrine and Covenants. There were 6 students. The next year I taught the Old Testament, and my last year I taught the New Testament and by this time, my class had grown to 15.

seminaryclass2001 — My class on the last day I taught seminary: I loved them all.

By Small and Simple Means

When I began teaching seminary, my main focus was on content. The lessons had to be memorable and interactive. The kids needed to be immersed in the scriptures. However, I soon discovered that lesson preparation and even love for the students was not enough. I needed help from heaven to be successful.

My education began the night when I received a call from one of my seminary students to say that he had decided to drop out of class after just a few weeks of attendance.

His mother was so sad. I assured them that we wouldn’t forget him and he was always welcome to return and then I said a very sad goodbye.

That night as I wept I realized that this boy was so important to me that this was the first time I had cried this much for someone besides myself.

My heart didn’t remain broken forever. My young and idealistic mind quickly moved to a contingency plan. “He may be gone this year,” I thought, “but he will never wonder if he was missed.”

So began our seminary class mission to remember this boy. We wrote notes to him all year. We prayed regularly for his return. I looked for times to say hello to him at church. One day our class held a special fast and invited his family to participate. Like Esther in the Old Testament, we fasted (went without food and drink for two meals) and prayed for a good outcome for this young man.

There was a continuing conversation with his mother that year about our efforts. She, of course, was doing all she could to help him and our seminary class was only a minor contributor to the mighty prayers that were offered for him that year by his family. She shared with me that one of his favorite scriptures was in the Book of Mormon in Alma 37:6-7, “Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass…and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.”

We trusted in that.

The next school year, the young man returned to seminary. Part of the joy of his return was shared by everyone in the class because we had thought about him more than he knew. Reticent for only one day, he was a born leader and became a dynamic seminary class president as he completed his final years of seminary.

A year after high school graduation, he called me on the day he received his mission call to tell me where he was going to serve for two years. He was excited to preach the gospel. That was one of the best days.

We live to pass on the faith to the next generation. Parents are most important players in this responsibility, but the parents in our Church are assisted by leaders, teachers and advisors who are each called of God and given blessings through the priesthood by the laying on of hands (2 Timothy 1:6) so they might be effective. I have seen the power of God produce miracles in the lives of the youth as they are upheld by supportive parents, leaders, and true friends.

My 18 month project

Hello, friend. Thanks for reading and checking on our family adventures. Some posts I write for myself, others are a history, and sometimes I write with just you (dear reader) in mind. What can I share that will help and lift you? Today I’m writing a religious post.

Sometimes the familiar can become almost invisible. About a year ago I realized that my religious study was not feeding me. The familiar words of scripture weren’t making a difference in my life. I needed something to help me focus.

I decided to journal what I learned about my Father in Heaven as I read The Book of Mormon. At first I kept a notebook at my side, but then I found that notes in the margins of the scriptures kept my mind focused on the words more effectively. I just wrote short statements about Heavenly Father’s interactions with his children based on the stories I was reading. It wasn’t difficult. I just asked myself over and over, “What does this passage tell me about my Heavenly Father?”

I didn’t use my regular set of scriptures. I used an old copy so I wouldn’t worry about taking up too much room in the margins with my notes. I did this for 18 months (I’m a slow study). What I now have is an old copy of the Book of Mormon filled with insights about my Father in Heaven. I learned so much and I am sure I could repeat the project and wonder why I didn’t see more.

I’m not going to make a list of what I learned, but perhaps if you feel that your study of scripture has become a little peripheral this may help you to focus. I found my Father in Heaven in the words and I felt his influence in my life more fully through the exercise. If God is unchanging, these miracles and principles from the Bible and The Book of Mormon should still occur today. As I searched for principles and practices, I found that my life was rich with blessings and my mind was opened to the miracles in my life. It was a simple way to feel the power and love of God.

Here is what a few of my pages look like. Sorry some pictures are blurry. I’m in a hurry today.

Sunday Sounds

Click below and listen as you read:

How was your Sunday? How was church? Did you make a decision to be better about something? I decided that I need to focus on a topic as I read the scriptures. In my study of the Book of Mormon, I am going to catalog the tender mercies of the Lord, specifically how he imbues his children with power.

How was your Sunday dinner? Ours was nice. We had a salad and some fruit and Rice Krispies squares for dessert.

Did you think about someone far away? I did.

Did you get a nap? I didn’t, but that’s ok.

Are you ready for a new week? I think I am. We still have fresh groceries, clean laundry and sheets, and the school lists are made. We have a birthday in our family this week. Paige turns 14.

Sweet dreams.

-A

General Conference

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

I wish to say that I side with Elder Jeffery R. Holland, an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. On Judgment Day when the books are opened, I want it recorded that I stand with Joseph Smith. Because the Book of Mormon is true and it has changed my life. I hope all my friends will read it and learn for themselves.

Here are two of my favorite talks from the weekend General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (each is an ordained Apostle, and special witness of Jesus Christ):

Elder Jeffery R. Holland

President Dieter F. Uchdorf

And some of my favorite music:

O Divine Redeemer

Come, Come Ye Saints

Have I Done Any Good?