my title of liberty



This week I read through Alma where we learn about the title of liberty and the battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites. I cannot imagine a more appropriate time to read this section of the Book of Mormon. I remember hearing about the pride cycle for the first time and realizing how true it is. Over all of time the cycle continues, we learn, we obey, we become haughty, and we rebel and we must be taught again....over and over again. Society as a whole never truly learns.
Where does that leave us? We've learned these lessons, how do we prevent ourselves from being caught up in the pride cycle. I loved the quite from President Howard W. Hunter, as posted in the Book of Mormon student manual that says
"Not all of us are going to be like Moroni, catching the acclaim of our colleagues all day every day. Most of us will be quiet, relatively unknown folks who come and go and do our work without fanfare. To those of you who may find that lonely or frightening or just unspectacular, I say, you are ‘no less serviceable’ than the most spectacular of your associates. You, too, are part of God’s army."
How can we fight the good fight? How can we be serviceable and help others in the battle?
My answer came from this talk. This is a clip of the talk with music as background. You can link and watch the full talk here


Christmas

"Christmas time is here. Beauty everywhere."  No fireside or snowflakes but an awesome season nonetheless. It's so easy to get caught up in all the chaos,  which I'm positive I did, but it was so nice to have time to reflect on the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.
We spent christmas eve with mom and dad, playing chimes,eating Chinese food, and song tim Tam slams. Christmas morning had too many gifts and an awesome trip to see star wars. Christmas day was spent preparing dinner for ourselves and a young family in our ward dinner. She is in the hospital on bed rest awaiting an early delivery with twins. Saturday following christmas we went to ikea and bought a shoe storage cabinet...long needed.... My favorite part was sitting in church listening to James give his first talk.  He wrote it all by himself and it was thoughtful and right on point. There are fewer things I ask for than seeing a child succeed quietly.  That's what it's all about. The drama of the days will fade away but the positive service and memories will last.

oh happy day


I keep using the phrase ridiculously happy because that's what I am. When we moved into this house 4 1/2 years ago it was untouched, and mostly unchanged from the builders specs. The carpet was original, from 1997. That's not dinosaur age I remind you but for carpet age it might as well be. We knew it would be a while before we could pay for new carpet so we dealt. Along the way the carpet just kept getting worse and worse. I couldn't handle the stairs anymore and ripped up the basement short steps because even the site of particle board flooring was better than that nasty carpet. The same thing happened to the stairs going from the front door to the upper levels. That set of stairs got paint, a carpet runner and wainscoting so it was made beautiful. The carpet in the remainder of the house was still nasty and getting nastier. Carpet cleaning was done nearly every year and touch up steaming done far more frequently.
We had estimates done several times with price tags that made us choke a bit. For carpet?!??! yikes! anyway, after 4 years and 2 earnest years of searching WE GOT CARPET! (we waited on the upstairs thinking we couldn't afford it, but we could have had we known the deal we got).

Enjoy the glorious pictures. Perhaps glorious is a strong word, but seriously after Captain Jack and 3 kids, countless students and all sorts of nastiness glorious may not be strong enough.








journal

roughly 2 weeks ago the church's handbook policy on same gender family changed and was released publicly by someone at the headquarters. this was not a huge public announcement it was a leak from someone hired by the church. the ensuing drama that unfolded publicly was played out on every major social media page and the opinions flew. it was one such social media page where i saw bullying happen and posts being repeatedly posted and commented on that i realized that this was a spiteful and harmful environment for me to be on. i took apps off my phone to reduce the time i spent reading everyone's personal take on the world. i stepped back and decided that for me at this time it's better that i write down my personal journeys and events. i won't be blogging regularly persay but unless my children just want 30,000 spiral bound notebooks with random thoughts and grocery lists i need to record life outside of social media. i'm also slightly hopeful that no one will read my random thoughts.  it made me think of this quote from david a. bednar.....


who i am is so much more than opinions and cat videos :)

the Sons of Mosiah

I loved reading Mosiah 27 and into Alma 7 this week. READ HERE
First we see the changing of hearts of the Sons of Mosiah. They had fully received a change of heart due to their humility and willingness to fast and pray and chose instead of taking over the roles of King and rulers to become missionaries to the Lamanites.


I am grateful for the power of the atonement that allows me to repent and receive the humility to have a change of heart. I may not be forgoing power and responsibility, but every time I choose to be humble to submit myself to the way of the Lord I have chosen to become a disciple of the Lord. 


Some of my favorite verses were found here
 35 And they traveled throughout all the land of Zarahemla, and among all the people who were under the reign of king Mosiah, zealously striving to repair all the injuries which they had done to the church, confessing all their sins, and publishing all the things which they had seen, and explaining the prophecies and the scriptures to all who desired to hear them.  36 And thus they were instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer.  37 And how blessed are they! For they did publish peace;they did publish good tidings of good; and they did declare unto the people that the Lord reigneth.
I love the visual of being instruments in the hands of God, and how we will be blessed for doing the work of the Lord.