Daniel Spencer Jr was the first ancestor in my family to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his descendants can be found in many places. You can read about him here. He was a missionary, a mayor of Nauvoo, and a pioneer. During the last decades of his life he served as a stake president in Salt Lake City. One of my favorite facts about Daniel Spencer is that he was a missionary in England and visited many European countries, including Denmark, during this mission. So, Mark is following this ancestor’s path.
George Sterling Spencer was Daniel Spencer’s grandson. He built the original cabin on the land we still visit each summer which we call the Weber. Most of George Sterling Spencer’s children are listed below.
This week, Mark told me that he and his third cousin in the Spencer line, a fellow missionary, have been asked to do an Easter musical number together in Denmark. They are the great-great grandsons of the two brothers I have circled. The missionary’s first name? Spencer.
Family history is really interesting when you begin to connect the dots from the past to the good things happening now.
This week while sorting through boxes, I discovered these kid quotes I scribbled down during the first few months of 2009. Mark was 2, Tim was 6, and Daniel was 9. I don’t know if they are entertaining to anyone else, but they still make me laugh.
1/09:”My legs love to fight,” Mark admits as we try to pull him away from Timothy.
1/09: “Get your fingers off!” Mark screams as we try to help him steer the mini jeep.
1/09: To Mom, sitting at the school table, “Hey, I was sitting in that chair. Can you sit on my lap?” -Mark
1/30/09: “This is my room where I fight and build things and take naps and get changes.” -Mark
1/09: “It’s not really comfortable to play computer games before your first jobs are done.” -Timothy, discussing his daily moral dilemma.
2/09: Mark: “We need to go to Grandma’s house.”
Mom: “Which grandma?”
Mark: “The one with all the Legos and the sewing and the snacks and the little red cups!”
2/18/09: On the way to church on a cold February morning, Daniel says, “We wouldn’t want to send Cupid out in this weather. It would be hard to shoot an arrow and make anyone fall in love.”
2/20/09: Daniel, after viewing a stern photo of his ancestor, Daniel Spencer, said, “If great-grandpa Spencer were a dinosaur and they found a fossil of his skeleton, they would have a hard time knowing what he was really like because he would look pretty vicious. Thank goodness we have family history because he was really a good guy.”
3/1/09: Tim, on the carpet, “I’m making a snow angel. It’s not working.”
3/4/09: “When I wake up, I want to be in a jet. A red jet.” -Mark
3/5/09: Mark, handling a toy cement mixer, asks what it is called.
Mom: “It’s a cement mixer. It mixes cement.”
Mark: “And diapers. It mixes diapers.”
Mom: “How did you come up with that?”
Mark: “It’s just my observation.”
Mark, hearing Mom tell Dad about his “observation” quote asks, “Am I significant?”
3/6/09: Mark, displaying two of his Lightning McQueen cars, tells Paige, “These ones are sweet. But you don’t eat them.”
3/9/09: Mark, looking at the messy table after dinner, exclaims, “There are chili dots everywhere!”
3/10/09: Mark asks, “Are you the singing mommy?”
3/10/09: Taking in hand his electric toothbrush, Mark exclaims, “Start. Your. Engines!” and begins to brush.
3/21/09: Daniel, after spilling a little lemonade, remarks in a frustrated voice, “I just wish gravity wasn’t so strong. I mean, I’m grateful we’re not just floating around (although that would be fun sometimes) but I wish it wasn’t so easy to spill.
3/22/09: Discussing possible musical selections the kids can do for an upcoming sacrament meeting,
Mom: “Paige can play piano and Daniel and Timothy can sing.”
For years, I noticed the palms placed in the celestial room of my nearest temple. I saw them as a symbol associated with the shout of Hosanna from the Psalms and Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Hosanna is used in hope and praise and means, “Please save us!”
Not too long ago, the palms in the celestial room of my temple were replaced with fig trees. Every detail of the temple can be a symbol of Christ, and these are just my reflections on the pretty plants in the room, and I don’t suggest any hidden intent in the change of greenery! The fig tree can serve as a reminder that the Savior will come again in the last days, or in other words, he answers our plea, “I’m coming!”
While we await a glorious Second Coming of the Savior when all will see him, I know when I pray for help, he is already moving to my aid. He gently reminds me that he’s coming. He’s already taken care of everything, but he is on his way to comfort me while I wait for resolution.
Brothers and sisters, now is the time for you and for me to prepare for the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Now is the time for us to make our discipleship our highest priority.
In many of our neighbors’ lives there is much…exquisite goodness which can never be written or even spoken–only divined by each of us, according to the inward instruction of our own privacy.
Sometimes I wait for permission to do something that would make me happy. Here is a superficial example. My favorite color is red, and I love interior design, but red has been “out of style” for a long time. So, dutifully, after Christmas, I have ushered out most of the red from my house. This year, someone gave me permission to keep some red things on the shelves in January. Four red plates and my seasonal red seat cushions are all it took to make me smile at my January kitchen.
The trends are mainly fueled by consumerism, so here is permission, if you need it, to put whatever you love on your shelves. To ignore the trends. To ignore the noise that tells us we are not stylish enough, sophisticated enough, or tidy enough.
On another level, here is permission to ignore some of the calls to listen to podcasts rather than seek our own revelation from God about life, faith, and joy. Our time is limited. Do we want a life diluted by noise?
There is a universe of possibilities within each of us. It’s a shame when we allow the world to dictate to us that we are inferior and the answer is to chase after relentlessly changing trends. Here is permission to follow the simpler and better way.
My plea to you this morning is to find rest from the intensity, uncertainty, and anguish of this world by overcoming the world through your covenants with God. Let him know through your prayers and your actions that you are serious about overcoming the world. Ask him to enlighten your mind and send the help you need. Each day, record the thoughts that come to you as you pray, and follow through diligently. Spend more time in the temple and seek to understand how the temple teaches you to rise above this fallen world.
“The Lord is hastening His work to gather Israel. That gathering is the most important thing taking place on earth today. Nothing else compares in magnitude, nothing else compares in importance, nothing else compares in majesty.”
-Russell M. Nelson
One paradox of gospel living is that if we want to be gatherers, we will need to scatter in some way.
This might look like spending time away from home, scattered about in service.
Elder Cook taught, “When we shine, we gather.” Abandoning old habits, scattering them in the wake of better choices and Christ’s grace, has an effect of making a person shine.
Our family may be scattered for now, but wherever we are, we can be gatherers. Each time we have sent a family member to serve a mission, I have felt the blessing of additional spiritual strength. This is another paradox of gospel living, that in feeling incomplete, I become more intact in Christ. Gathered.
A few months ago we took a shift to clean the temple from 10 pm to midnight. People are doing this all of the time, and it was not a big sacrifice. I helped clean the baptistry, and part of my job was to dust the walls of the laundry room, which were not dusty, unlike the walls of my own home.
I was regretting that I wasn’t having a spiritual experience in this temple laundry room when this song came to my mind. The Spirit reminded me that caring for this room was a way to show my gratitude to my Heavenly Father for this temple and for His goodness to me all my life. So, I finished my shift, singing this song in my mind. The Spirit showed up for me in the laundry room that night to expand my vision.
I should ask the question more often, what can I do this day to show my gratitude to God?
On Mark’s ninth birthday I took him to the Payson temple open house. Later, this was the first temple that Mark entered to do baptisms for the dead. Through these experiences and more, this became his favorite temple, and recently, he received his endowment there.
In the Payson temple there is a fruit motif in the interior design, as it was built on land that was previously an apple orchard. As you ascend within building, the blossoms in the motif change to fruits.
As I reflect on raising Mark, I see that small, sacred things like attending a temple open house have yielded very sweet fruit.
(FYI: This grab ya image is misleading and overly dramatic.)
The last answer is my favorite part of this interview with the Church Architectural Historian who worked on the renovation of the Manti temple. (Nothing sensational or controversial here.)
This Instagram reel is an experiment to make my Grandpa Stewart’s home movies more accessible to my family.
One thing I have learned from watching his movies is that my grandmother was the star. ♥️
This was taken at the Spencer home in Salt Lake City at Christmas time in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are beautiful in this clip. Carol is in the pale pink dress, JoAnn is in hot pink, and Lucille is in red.
I don’t know, I just really needed to see this film today.
I will post more short clips with music now and then. I look forward to sharing some very special family times with you.
