I am so grateful for the miracles of every day! I need to get back to writing here, recording even just simple moments of miracles because they are so abundant every day in my life.
This week has been a buzz of activity as we have been fully engaged in participating and preparing for great events and activities together as a family and as a ward family.
I am so grateful for the opportunities of life. Right now two of the young people in my family are attending school at BYU-Idaho. I am so grateful for that miracle and blessing! C changed his mind mid December after he had been to UofU a couple of times meeting with counselors, and then seeking a place to live to attend that school. After two days of looking for a place to live, he returned to us with feelings of confusion, and said that he just didn't feel that this was the right decision. I am so grateful that he is open to the promptings of the the Spirit and willing to listen. He explained that in two days of looking, interviewing if you will places to stay, he found some really fun places. One that had the entire porch of the older home loaded with bikes locked to the railings outside, and the entire front bedroom full of equipment to play in the snow, skies, snowboards, poles, etc. He said, "Oh I have no doubt that I could have a fun time there, but I couldn't find a place to study there, to learn." Later he admitted that in that place, there were beer cans littered through the living room left over from the parties the night before. He said "Mom, I just can't find a place to go to that school and feel the spirit." In ten possible places he investigated, he explained that he found only one future possible roommate who had served a mission, and he admitted that he was not attending church currently. C is such a great young man! He came home from that trip to immediately engage on the BYUI website, accepting the invitation to attend there, and immediately finding the necessary orientation steps online to be enrolled in classes and having a place to live within 36 hours of making that decision. He testified later that when he made the right choice, the pieces "fell into place so quickly it was astounding!" I am so grateful for him! So he and L are currently there, studying, learning, growing, and I am so grateful to hear of their adventures together. Today I understand they went skiing together with another couple of friends. What a great opportunity for them to share memories together!
Also in our life right now B has the opportunity to be serving as the 2nd Counselor in the Stake Presidency. He was called in November 2015 from the position of Bishop to serve there with President Robert Jensen. We are thrilled for this opportunity and blessing. This week that has meant that three nights, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights he was to be at the stake center by 6 or 630 one of those nights, and didn't return until about midnight (or a little after on Thursday) every night! Friday was Stake Youth Temple day, and so he was at the temple Wednesday morning at 6:30 with our Jr team and their friends, and then B went again on Friday morning at 6:30 to help with Stake Youth Temple day, and returned again that night at 4:00 until 5:30 to help in the Baptistry. Today, Saturday, he attended Best of EFY for the morning 9-noon and then EFY Express this afternoon. We had purchased tickets to the EFY Express back before he was released as Bishop thinking that he would offer the four extra tickets we purchased to young people in our ward that he saw that would benefit but might not have the means to attend. When he was released, we shared those with the new Bishop, but they slipped through the cracks, and we learned this morning that he had not given those away so we scrambled to find people to give them to. Admittedly it was a Dixie High School dance tonight, but we were shocked at the amount of people we offered them to who found other excuses to not attend. We all have a choice. Lately we have been keenly aware of opportunities to grow that often are not accepted. In D&C 88:32 it reads:
"And they who remain shall also be quickened; nevertheless, they shall return again to their own place, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received."
Not willing to enjoy that which they might have received! How often do we decline opportunities to thrive, to grow and expand because we will not receive. I want to open my heart and accept His opportunities!
This week Elder Bednar spoke at the devotional at BYUI. It was an amazing talk. So many messages from our Church leaders lately have been so valuable in my life. I didn't get to watch it live, but found it online here so I could learn and grow! I typed out the last 4 minutes of his talk because I was so touched by it!
Brothers and Sisters, in particular: A warning is most needed when we do not think we need to be warned.
Using the language of the Old Testament Prophet Haggai I invite you to “Carefully and prayerfully consider your ways!”
• Is your pride allowing intellectual arrogance to creep into your mind and heart?
• Are you forgetting the Lord and failing to appreciate His bounteous blessings and promises?
• Are you turning inward becoming increasingly self-centered and gradually developing an attitude of personal privilege and entitlement?
These insidious spiritual flaws can develop in us so subtly that we may not recognize or respond to them. As you ponder these questions sincerely and with real intent, I promise the Holy Ghost will help you to see yourself as you really are and to identify both the things you presently are doing well and the course corrections you need to make in your life. With all my soul, I believe consecrated people like you, in this sacred and set apart place, with the help of the Lord and by the power of His Holy Spirit can attenuate the pride cycle so prominently highlighted throughout the Book of Mormon. You can prosper and remain submissive. You can succeed and avoid arrogance. You can receive blessings with gratitude and not be seduced by a sense of self-serving entitlement. You can increase the intensity of the righteous light that shines forth from BYU Idaho. I love you. I love BYU Idaho. I invoke the Lord’s blessings upon you both individually and collectively even the spiritual capacities and gifts that will be necessary for you to overcome and avoid the pride that so often follows periods of great prosperity. I testify of and witness the living reality of our Heavenly Father and his beloved Son. I know Jesus the Christ is our resurrected and living Savior. I witness that the Father and the Son appeared to and instructed Joseph Smith, thus initiating the restoration of the Gospel in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Of these truths I testify and I invoke these blessings upon you, in the Sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Powerful from a living Apostle of our Savior! I am so grateful to have young people who attended that devotional live and who take the time to attend every Tuesday at noon! What a blessing to attend University at a Church sponsored school where such opportunities are frequent! I am grateful that as a family, we unite to share such testimony! Wow! L called me that afternoon excited about the messages she had heard and anxious to have me listen to them! Sister Bednar's messages was also eloquent! She talked about having the courage to walk out onto the water! We have been so richly fed lately! Just two weeks ago President Russel M. Nelson and his dear wife Wendy gave a youth fireside on Sunday evening that was so riviting! I have been talking about their message of "Becoming true Millennials." Wow! I loved Sister Nelson's message. I felt the Spirit witness that I need to urgently and "desperately" prepare today for the coming of our Savior! I loved the last 1:30 of her talk! The entire fireside was super Powerful!
I regret that I constantly battle where and how to record miracles! I commit to get back to recording here now that I have moved all the files on my blog to a private space so it is not open to the public. For a time when I moved it to private, then it disappeared completely and all the files were jumbled and a mess. It made me sad at the hours upon hours of time I have spent in writing here to have all these files lost and gone. I am grateful for modern technology now that I have a computer to type on here by my fireside, and I can click away recording the miracles once again!
On Thursday night I was in charge of the Relief Society activity for our ward. With the help of mostly my family but also a couple of sisters in the ward, we called our activity Operation Comfort. We kicked off a project this year to donate quilts to the Hospice organization here in our community who go in during the last days of a person's life to offer help and support to the care givers of those about to pass. I have been preparing for this evening since I was called to serve on the ward Humanitarian committee about the time B was released last November. We were searching for a project we could really back and feel good about, and Sister Eyre of our ward got a call that her Brother out of state was about to slip to the other side. She made preparations quickly and boarded a plane to bid him farewell, arriving there just hours before he indeed passed to the other side. While there, she noticed that he had a handmade quilt over him, and after his passing, his wife gathered up that blanket and carried it home with her. When she went later to check in on her, she found her wrapped in that quilt. She learned that the hospice group had given him that quilt when they put him on hospice and she witnessed as family members took turns cuddling under that blanket over the course of the next week as they prepared for the funeral. When the blanket was not wrapped around someone, they laid it on the dining table as a table cloth, the center of the home. She was touched that this quilt had been donated by someone not knowing who or how it would be used, but it was such a blessing to her and her brother's family. She returned to share her feelings of the time she spent bidding her brother farewell, and mentioned this quilt. I heard of it, and decided to investigate to see if hospice groups here in St. George were offering something so comforting. They are not. So I have met with Dixie Hospice a few times about making this our project for the year. At first we felt that if we made 70 quilts as a ward that would be enough for the patients they help in a years time, but I knew this is only one of several (I thought 7 but learned this week there are 14 other) hospice groups here in St. George. Then I learned that our 70 would not even cover all that one group helps, they requested 150 as the average of the last four years is about 140 patients a year. Our ward Relief Society leadership feels we should stick with the goal of 70 quilts, and recruit a "sister ward" to join our efforts to make quilts to provide for all of those patients. Whatever we provide will be a blessing, and if every patient doesn't get a quilt, we must remember the ones who do! So we set out to kick off this project. I asked the hospice group to send someone, Sister Pamela Jensen, to teach us about hospice. We have several in our ward who are currently in the trial of helping their parents through hospice. We kept the details of the evening secret until they arrived, and for some maybe that was difficult as they didn't know they were going to learn so much about what they are going through. Sister Jensen (A member of the Stake Relief Society of the St. George East Stake) shared that they call the nurses that help in their organization "Midwives to the Next Life." What a beautiful message!
Weeks ago, I was up through the night, worried about this activity, concerned about how to make it engaging and perfect. I got on my knees and started with a sheet of paper, first filling it down one side, turning it over, and filling the backside with details of what I had received, and then returning to the front side to write down both margins further details. I was inspired to include the song "I am a Child of God" and "As Sisters in Zion." I was guided to lay the evening out like an operating room. This was BEFORE I learned from Sister Jensen what they call those nurses. That came the next week as I shared with her our plan. She confirmed that the messages I had been inspired had come from heaven. So we welcomed the Sisters and had them remove their shoes and put on fuzzy socks like they were being admitted to the hospital. In our advertising, I dressed in a lab coat, and invited them to come be a part of our medical team in Operation Comfort. I joked that they would get to choose to either be part of the surgical team, or they would be the patients in the Operation. We heavily advertised and hoped for good attendance. We have 120 sisters on the ward roster online. I was told to make 90 invitations, but to only expect 20-30 people at the event. The night of, we met at the church, and Sister Eyre of the presidency told us if we filled the 28 chairs we had set up in the first room we should be ecstatic! I was hopeful for 50 but braced for much less. Why do we refuse to partake of that which is prepared and offered to us? Oh the blessings we pass by. D&C 88:32. I witnessed many miracles along the course of preparing for the night including many in my own home! The young people in my home are amazing and jump right in to help with every detail! I am so grateful for their help!
We had about 35 sisters attend. We had to put up more chairs and for that I was grateful. I was sad that we had only two sisters (the pianist I had asked to play I am a Child of God and a teacher) from all those serving in Primary attend. None of the sisters serving in Young Women's came and None of the wives of the Bishopric came. Wow. That is sad! Sisters in leadership positions in our ward that didn't come even after I made special announcements in their organizations both of the last two weeks, I have had it in the Sacrament meeting bulletin for three weeks. They have known about it, but chose not to come.
Today, Saturday as our Jr team was at EFY, B came home for the last hour before the sunset, and we snuck out for a hike. Last night after we took the old bishopric to dinner, we attended an Owl Prowl with our kids and Budd and Jolene who are down. It was Jolene's birthday and we had fun decorating her front yard of their little condo in Washington yesterday. They joined us, and we went with a large group of people to try to find owls outside. There were lots of people, and they had held an Owl Prowl the night before withOUT success in seeing or hearing any owls. We went with them for about a half hour, and then decided to come to our own neighborhood where we have seen owls and do our own owl watch. We didn't see or hear any either. Tonight we took the littles team for a hike named after the St. George historian Bart Anderson out in Sun River out to some indian ruins on the top of a mesa. Along the way, we threw sticks and rocks in the river, listened to the ducks in the willows, watched the sunset, and then sat on the hillside and played the owl calls, watching for owls. I believe we saw one fly into the trees below us, but because we were high on the hill side, we didn't get to see it. Then we heard what we believe were two Western Screech Owls down river from us a bit. I loved sitting quietly on the hillside watching the colors of the sky disappear and listening carefully even with little ones (3,5 and 9) sitting silently as we listened for owls.
Our family theme for this year is "Summit." We have a little huddle after prayers often, and put our fist in to chant our one word them - this year "Summit." So even though the darkness was coming quickly and we had not come prepared to hike in the dark, we had to summit to the top of that mesa before we turned around. I love holding little Stephen's hand and Sophia's a
s they hike along. Sophia is such a happy girl, she sings and makes up songs constantly! It was touching tonight to ask her to please be silent and listen as she was singing I am a Child of God. What a beautiful life we live! I am grateful to share it with my best friend B! I love him for all eternity!
This week has been a buzz of activity as we have been fully engaged in participating and preparing for great events and activities together as a family and as a ward family.
I am so grateful for the opportunities of life. Right now two of the young people in my family are attending school at BYU-Idaho. I am so grateful for that miracle and blessing! C changed his mind mid December after he had been to UofU a couple of times meeting with counselors, and then seeking a place to live to attend that school. After two days of looking for a place to live, he returned to us with feelings of confusion, and said that he just didn't feel that this was the right decision. I am so grateful that he is open to the promptings of the the Spirit and willing to listen. He explained that in two days of looking, interviewing if you will places to stay, he found some really fun places. One that had the entire porch of the older home loaded with bikes locked to the railings outside, and the entire front bedroom full of equipment to play in the snow, skies, snowboards, poles, etc. He said, "Oh I have no doubt that I could have a fun time there, but I couldn't find a place to study there, to learn." Later he admitted that in that place, there were beer cans littered through the living room left over from the parties the night before. He said "Mom, I just can't find a place to go to that school and feel the spirit." In ten possible places he investigated, he explained that he found only one future possible roommate who had served a mission, and he admitted that he was not attending church currently. C is such a great young man! He came home from that trip to immediately engage on the BYUI website, accepting the invitation to attend there, and immediately finding the necessary orientation steps online to be enrolled in classes and having a place to live within 36 hours of making that decision. He testified later that when he made the right choice, the pieces "fell into place so quickly it was astounding!" I am so grateful for him! So he and L are currently there, studying, learning, growing, and I am so grateful to hear of their adventures together. Today I understand they went skiing together with another couple of friends. What a great opportunity for them to share memories together!
Also in our life right now B has the opportunity to be serving as the 2nd Counselor in the Stake Presidency. He was called in November 2015 from the position of Bishop to serve there with President Robert Jensen. We are thrilled for this opportunity and blessing. This week that has meant that three nights, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights he was to be at the stake center by 6 or 630 one of those nights, and didn't return until about midnight (or a little after on Thursday) every night! Friday was Stake Youth Temple day, and so he was at the temple Wednesday morning at 6:30 with our Jr team and their friends, and then B went again on Friday morning at 6:30 to help with Stake Youth Temple day, and returned again that night at 4:00 until 5:30 to help in the Baptistry. Today, Saturday, he attended Best of EFY for the morning 9-noon and then EFY Express this afternoon. We had purchased tickets to the EFY Express back before he was released as Bishop thinking that he would offer the four extra tickets we purchased to young people in our ward that he saw that would benefit but might not have the means to attend. When he was released, we shared those with the new Bishop, but they slipped through the cracks, and we learned this morning that he had not given those away so we scrambled to find people to give them to. Admittedly it was a Dixie High School dance tonight, but we were shocked at the amount of people we offered them to who found other excuses to not attend. We all have a choice. Lately we have been keenly aware of opportunities to grow that often are not accepted. In D&C 88:32 it reads:
"And they who remain shall also be quickened; nevertheless, they shall return again to their own place, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received."
Not willing to enjoy that which they might have received! How often do we decline opportunities to thrive, to grow and expand because we will not receive. I want to open my heart and accept His opportunities!
This week Elder Bednar spoke at the devotional at BYUI. It was an amazing talk. So many messages from our Church leaders lately have been so valuable in my life. I didn't get to watch it live, but found it online here so I could learn and grow! I typed out the last 4 minutes of his talk because I was so touched by it!
Brothers and Sisters, in particular: A warning is most needed when we do not think we need to be warned.
Using the language of the Old Testament Prophet Haggai I invite you to “Carefully and prayerfully consider your ways!”
• Is your pride allowing intellectual arrogance to creep into your mind and heart?
• Are you forgetting the Lord and failing to appreciate His bounteous blessings and promises?
• Are you turning inward becoming increasingly self-centered and gradually developing an attitude of personal privilege and entitlement?
These insidious spiritual flaws can develop in us so subtly that we may not recognize or respond to them. As you ponder these questions sincerely and with real intent, I promise the Holy Ghost will help you to see yourself as you really are and to identify both the things you presently are doing well and the course corrections you need to make in your life. With all my soul, I believe consecrated people like you, in this sacred and set apart place, with the help of the Lord and by the power of His Holy Spirit can attenuate the pride cycle so prominently highlighted throughout the Book of Mormon. You can prosper and remain submissive. You can succeed and avoid arrogance. You can receive blessings with gratitude and not be seduced by a sense of self-serving entitlement. You can increase the intensity of the righteous light that shines forth from BYU Idaho. I love you. I love BYU Idaho. I invoke the Lord’s blessings upon you both individually and collectively even the spiritual capacities and gifts that will be necessary for you to overcome and avoid the pride that so often follows periods of great prosperity. I testify of and witness the living reality of our Heavenly Father and his beloved Son. I know Jesus the Christ is our resurrected and living Savior. I witness that the Father and the Son appeared to and instructed Joseph Smith, thus initiating the restoration of the Gospel in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Of these truths I testify and I invoke these blessings upon you, in the Sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Powerful from a living Apostle of our Savior! I am so grateful to have young people who attended that devotional live and who take the time to attend every Tuesday at noon! What a blessing to attend University at a Church sponsored school where such opportunities are frequent! I am grateful that as a family, we unite to share such testimony! Wow! L called me that afternoon excited about the messages she had heard and anxious to have me listen to them! Sister Bednar's messages was also eloquent! She talked about having the courage to walk out onto the water! We have been so richly fed lately! Just two weeks ago President Russel M. Nelson and his dear wife Wendy gave a youth fireside on Sunday evening that was so riviting! I have been talking about their message of "Becoming true Millennials." Wow! I loved Sister Nelson's message. I felt the Spirit witness that I need to urgently and "desperately" prepare today for the coming of our Savior! I loved the last 1:30 of her talk! The entire fireside was super Powerful!
I regret that I constantly battle where and how to record miracles! I commit to get back to recording here now that I have moved all the files on my blog to a private space so it is not open to the public. For a time when I moved it to private, then it disappeared completely and all the files were jumbled and a mess. It made me sad at the hours upon hours of time I have spent in writing here to have all these files lost and gone. I am grateful for modern technology now that I have a computer to type on here by my fireside, and I can click away recording the miracles once again!
On Thursday night I was in charge of the Relief Society activity for our ward. With the help of mostly my family but also a couple of sisters in the ward, we called our activity Operation Comfort. We kicked off a project this year to donate quilts to the Hospice organization here in our community who go in during the last days of a person's life to offer help and support to the care givers of those about to pass. I have been preparing for this evening since I was called to serve on the ward Humanitarian committee about the time B was released last November. We were searching for a project we could really back and feel good about, and Sister Eyre of our ward got a call that her Brother out of state was about to slip to the other side. She made preparations quickly and boarded a plane to bid him farewell, arriving there just hours before he indeed passed to the other side. While there, she noticed that he had a handmade quilt over him, and after his passing, his wife gathered up that blanket and carried it home with her. When she went later to check in on her, she found her wrapped in that quilt. She learned that the hospice group had given him that quilt when they put him on hospice and she witnessed as family members took turns cuddling under that blanket over the course of the next week as they prepared for the funeral. When the blanket was not wrapped around someone, they laid it on the dining table as a table cloth, the center of the home. She was touched that this quilt had been donated by someone not knowing who or how it would be used, but it was such a blessing to her and her brother's family. She returned to share her feelings of the time she spent bidding her brother farewell, and mentioned this quilt. I heard of it, and decided to investigate to see if hospice groups here in St. George were offering something so comforting. They are not. So I have met with Dixie Hospice a few times about making this our project for the year. At first we felt that if we made 70 quilts as a ward that would be enough for the patients they help in a years time, but I knew this is only one of several (I thought 7 but learned this week there are 14 other) hospice groups here in St. George. Then I learned that our 70 would not even cover all that one group helps, they requested 150 as the average of the last four years is about 140 patients a year. Our ward Relief Society leadership feels we should stick with the goal of 70 quilts, and recruit a "sister ward" to join our efforts to make quilts to provide for all of those patients. Whatever we provide will be a blessing, and if every patient doesn't get a quilt, we must remember the ones who do! So we set out to kick off this project. I asked the hospice group to send someone, Sister Pamela Jensen, to teach us about hospice. We have several in our ward who are currently in the trial of helping their parents through hospice. We kept the details of the evening secret until they arrived, and for some maybe that was difficult as they didn't know they were going to learn so much about what they are going through. Sister Jensen (A member of the Stake Relief Society of the St. George East Stake) shared that they call the nurses that help in their organization "Midwives to the Next Life." What a beautiful message!
Weeks ago, I was up through the night, worried about this activity, concerned about how to make it engaging and perfect. I got on my knees and started with a sheet of paper, first filling it down one side, turning it over, and filling the backside with details of what I had received, and then returning to the front side to write down both margins further details. I was inspired to include the song "I am a Child of God" and "As Sisters in Zion." I was guided to lay the evening out like an operating room. This was BEFORE I learned from Sister Jensen what they call those nurses. That came the next week as I shared with her our plan. She confirmed that the messages I had been inspired had come from heaven. So we welcomed the Sisters and had them remove their shoes and put on fuzzy socks like they were being admitted to the hospital. In our advertising, I dressed in a lab coat, and invited them to come be a part of our medical team in Operation Comfort. I joked that they would get to choose to either be part of the surgical team, or they would be the patients in the Operation. We heavily advertised and hoped for good attendance. We have 120 sisters on the ward roster online. I was told to make 90 invitations, but to only expect 20-30 people at the event. The night of, we met at the church, and Sister Eyre of the presidency told us if we filled the 28 chairs we had set up in the first room we should be ecstatic! I was hopeful for 50 but braced for much less. Why do we refuse to partake of that which is prepared and offered to us? Oh the blessings we pass by. D&C 88:32. I witnessed many miracles along the course of preparing for the night including many in my own home! The young people in my home are amazing and jump right in to help with every detail! I am so grateful for their help!
We had about 35 sisters attend. We had to put up more chairs and for that I was grateful. I was sad that we had only two sisters (the pianist I had asked to play I am a Child of God and a teacher) from all those serving in Primary attend. None of the sisters serving in Young Women's came and None of the wives of the Bishopric came. Wow. That is sad! Sisters in leadership positions in our ward that didn't come even after I made special announcements in their organizations both of the last two weeks, I have had it in the Sacrament meeting bulletin for three weeks. They have known about it, but chose not to come.
Today, Saturday as our Jr team was at EFY, B came home for the last hour before the sunset, and we snuck out for a hike. Last night after we took the old bishopric to dinner, we attended an Owl Prowl with our kids and Budd and Jolene who are down. It was Jolene's birthday and we had fun decorating her front yard of their little condo in Washington yesterday. They joined us, and we went with a large group of people to try to find owls outside. There were lots of people, and they had held an Owl Prowl the night before withOUT success in seeing or hearing any owls. We went with them for about a half hour, and then decided to come to our own neighborhood where we have seen owls and do our own owl watch. We didn't see or hear any either. Tonight we took the littles team for a hike named after the St. George historian Bart Anderson out in Sun River out to some indian ruins on the top of a mesa. Along the way, we threw sticks and rocks in the river, listened to the ducks in the willows, watched the sunset, and then sat on the hillside and played the owl calls, watching for owls. I believe we saw one fly into the trees below us, but because we were high on the hill side, we didn't get to see it. Then we heard what we believe were two Western Screech Owls down river from us a bit. I loved sitting quietly on the hillside watching the colors of the sky disappear and listening carefully even with little ones (3,5 and 9) sitting silently as we listened for owls.
Our family theme for this year is "Summit." We have a little huddle after prayers often, and put our fist in to chant our one word them - this year "Summit." So even though the darkness was coming quickly and we had not come prepared to hike in the dark, we had to summit to the top of that mesa before we turned around. I love holding little Stephen's hand and Sophia's as they hike along. Sophia is such a happy girl, she sings and makes up songs constantly! It was touching tonight to ask her to please be silent and listen as she was singing I am a Child of God. What a beautiful life we live! I am grateful to share it with my best friend B! I love him for all eternity!