“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.
After reading through my 2023 blog posts, I’ve decided that I want to end the year by listing one daily, one weekly, and one monthly thing that helped me get through a year which was actually very challenging.
A daily practice that helped:
I took the counsel of President Nelson and I kept a journal of impressions that I had while I prayed, and I acted upon those impressions. This created a leap in progress in my understanding of how revelation works and how interested God is in my life.
A weekly practice that helped:
Friday dates with Richard
A monthly practice that helped:
I tried to do a variety of work in the temple. Richard and I were able to complete temple ordinances for several ancestors with the help of our children, my brother, and my parents.
I have also looked over my reading list from 2023 to see where I have been. I have a special shout-out for Charles Dickins’ David Copperfield and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
As I prepare for 2024, I don’t have any major resolutions. I do have plans to keep my good habits, while giving myself the grace to just do one thing at a time, including new things.
Wishing you a gentle look back at your 2023, and a hopeful look forward to your New Year.
The most extraordinary thing in this world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.
G.K. Chesterton
The end of all activity in the Church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home and sealed together for time and for all eternity.
Boyd K. Packer
Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done…
Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature…spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life.
Thursday is when I try to spend an hour doing family history. This week, I read a personal history about the Trembaths, written by this grandfather, pictured above. The Trembaths are my dad’s ancestors, and they came from Cornwall, England. They were miners and farmers.
The first Trembath to arrive in America came in rebellion against his controlling father. One day, while farming the poor land, he decided he would not stay another day. He abruptly left home, found passage to America, and he continued mining here. Funny detail: the bossy dad and the rest of the family ended up following him to America. 😂 There was no shaking this father.
They mined in the Great Lakes area, then they made their way to California, where they mined for gold in the early 1850s. They found a good gold mine, and it is too bad that they were swindled out of that. So much for riches.
This week’s story reminded me that our Trembath ancestor had hopes for riches through mining, but his family found them in different ways, including growing almonds. What he didn’t know is that America’s greatest riches weren’t in mines or almond groves, but in the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, and the sealing keys. These blessings were possible because of the inspired religious liberty of the land, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
The gold that would sustain his posterity wasn’t in the seams of rocks, but in buried gold plates. It wasn’t a goldsmith who would work the gold, but a “Smith,” just the same, who translated the words found in the Book of Mormon. Their great-great-grandchildren would be the first to benefit spiritually from the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, founded in this land.
Our ancestors sought a better life in America, but Heavenly Father had bigger plans than riches or even religious liberty. He had plans to seal this family together through all generations, for eternity, through the atonement of Christ and temple covenants. He wants to give them all He has. It is a blessing to do temple work for these ancestors!
I have a temporary workspace set up in Paige’s empty bedroom where I am sorting through family history documents and photos. I have two main goals: identify individuals in the photos so we can attach them on the FamilySearch website, and assemble a family tree of Great-grandmother Cerie’s Swedish relatives.
I have found a lot of incidental treasures in the process:
A collection of squares of toilet paper from various countries throughout Europe from 1957. These vary in quality and composition, ranging from waxed paper to gritty and rough-ridged. Strange souvenirs.
A lengthy journal which described a long journey from California to Sweden, only to be almost silent about the relatives they visited there.
A photograph of a great-great-great grandmother that I do not recognize. She is merely labeled, “Mormor,” which means maternal grandmother.
Menus from the Swedish American Line from 1957 with artwork so beautiful that I framed them to display in my house.
Hair samples of loved ones.
A scrapbook of sensational stories and pictures from newspapers from 100 years ago, highlighting the cute, macabre, and cultural. I think of this book as “Cerie’s Pinterest boards.”
It is a big puzzle, and I have spent many hours studying, reading, and cataloguing these things. It is incredibly slow work. I have learned that in 100 years, when your great-grandchild is sorting through your photos, she will not know the identities of your close loved ones. Please, label your photos with care, including first and last names and locations.
