Faithfully and consistently

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the April 2009 Conference.

This session had an Elder Bednar talk I don't remember at all, but it's really good! He talked about how the temple is at the center of the gospel and should be at the center of our lives as well. I loved his insight about taking upon ourselves Christ's name in the temple. First he quotes Elder Oaks saying that when we take the sacrament, "we do not witness that we take upon us the name of Jesus Christ. [Rather,] we witness that we are willing to do so. The fact that we only witness to our willingness suggests that something else must happen before we actually take that sacred name upon us in the [ultimate and] most important sense." Then he continues:

"The process of taking upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ that is commenced in the waters of baptism is continued and enlarged in the house of the Lord…Thus, in the ordinances of the holy temple we more completely and fully take upon us the name of Jesus Christ."

I've always thought of taking upon ourselves Christ's name as so much a part of baptism, I haven't thought as much about how we do it again and more fully later in the temple. I like the idea of baptism as only the beginning of an apprenticeship in which we can later gain more authority, power, and ability to act as Jesus Christ would act and see things as He would see them. 

Elder Bednar summarizes something he says multiple temple presidents told him about the temple: 

There is a difference between church-attending, tithe-paying members who occasionally rush into the temple to go through a session and those members who faithfully and consistently worship in the temple.

He then quotes a scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 109 (which President Nelson has recently had us study too):

“We ask thee, Holy Father, to establish the people that shall worship, and honorably hold a name and standing in this thy house, to all generations and for eternity;

“That no weapon formed against them shall prosper; that he who diggeth a pit for them shall fall into the same himself;

“That no combination of wickedness shall have power to rise up and prevail over thy people upon whom thy name shall be put in this house;

“And if any people shall rise against this people, that thine anger be kindled against them;

“And if they shall smite this people thou wilt smite them; thou wilt fight for thy people as thou didst in the day of battle, that they may be delivered from the hands of all their enemies.”

Elder Bednar equates those words, "honorably hold a name and standing in this thy house," with the description temple presidents gave about people who "faithfully and consistently worship in the temple." It makes sense to me that becoming established in the Lord's temple, not just attending there but "worshiping" there, is a necessary part of our transformation to become more like God. And it makes me want to try and more fully immerse myself in temple worship, and in taking upon myself Christ's name as I do so!

Rachael, King Elizabeth, Bunnies

Let's start off this post with a Clementine update! 

Update: she is cute. And we love her SO SO SO SO much.

Matching with Goldie

She loves her own brown eyes (as she should). When she finds dolls or legos that also have brown eyes, she yells "Maaatch!" and holds them up so we can compare.

Wearing Daisy's shoes

She is constantly drawing gnomes! And they are such cute gnomes!

Nobody saw who draw these gnomes. But we all know who it was!

She loves this little bunny, Milky

I was giving the little boys haircuts and decided it was time to finally to even up Clementine's hair too. This is her first haircut…ever! I didn't think it would make much of a difference, but it did! It made her look more grown up!

Sweetie.

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We've been learning about Shakespeare in our school. This is Ziggy's Globe Theatre. Isn't it good?

Here are the groundlings watching a play inside.

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Dear little Gus is so sweet these days too. Here he is being the best police officer he can with the leftovers among the costume stuff (Ziggy having gleaned all the best things). Gus is perfectly happy, though!

Gus isn't officially in school yet, but he likes to participate in our activities. I love to see how his little mind is starting to absorb and work through things. For example, one day we learned about Elizabethan clothing and watched a video of all the layers an Elizabethan lady would put on when getting dressed for court. He put on his ruff with great delight. Then…

he went in and out of the room, gradually adding layers to his costume…

…until he had what was an astonishingly accurate Elizabethan silhouette!

Look how grand he is at the end of it all! Fit for a queen's court!

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I always admire how effortlessly the girls make their buns for ballet, but this one of Junie's was particularly impressive, I thought. Three neat coils!

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Of course you know we love our bunny Nutmeg, but I think we've loved him even more than usual since we got back from Quebec. I don't know if it's just because we missed him? Or because he is getting old and all of us were a little afraid he might not be there when we got home? But he seems nearly as spry as ever, so we're hoping he has another 12 years in him. Whatever the case, he is a very beloved bunny, and he seems to loved being loved. He loves sitting on Goldie's lap while she reads. Snuggling with Junie while she crochets. Playing outside with Teddy and Ziggy. All of it.

Dancing while holding a bunny?

Licking Junie's arm

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I had to talk about Nutmeg first so you didn't worry that we liked all these baby bunnies better! But you're going to see a lot of pictures of them. We've been visiting the farm at Thanksgiving Point for our field trips lately and they've had several litters of baby bunnies there! We love the babies SO much! We try to visit them every week and it's sad (but also cute) to see how fast they grow! We wish we could take them all home with us! (What would Nutmeg think of that??)

One day at the playground Gus was so fascinated with this auger. He played with it for an hour, intently loading gravel onto the bottom, turning it, and watching it go up to the top. He was very, very focused, and I loved watching him and trying to see what he was thinking. 

Bunnies are so funny. They just pile themselves up on top of each other with no regard for any sort of personal space! I don't even know if they know where one bunny ends and the other begins.

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I came in one night to find the boys in this bed-fort (bearing an uncanny resemblance to a coffin…)

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My dear friend Rachael and two of her boys, and her cute sister-in-law Jane (who I love almost as much as Rachael by now…we have spent a lot of time together over the years) came to visit the week before Conference. We spent a morning up in Salt Lake with them, walking around Temple Square and touring the Conference Center. Even my two big boys came, which was great. It was so fun! I haven't really been to Temple Square at all for several years, since the construction started on the temple. I've driven by there a lot! But you can see more while walking around, and it's nice. They've made a lot of changes. It was fun to see so much progress on the temple too!

We had a picnic at City Creek Park after going to Temple Square. 

Gus was fascinated with a little bug that started crawling around on him. Not a ladybug, not a box elder bug…something else. He kept saying "He loves me!" in awed and happy tones. He was quite sad when he finally had to put his little bug friend back down on the grass.

It was fun watching the kids get more comfortable which each other and come up with games to play together. They resurrected a lot of games they'd learned at FSY!

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What a beautiful Spring it has been (in between snow storms)! I love the blossoms coming out!