Some things I needed to hear

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Women's Session of the October 1985 Conference.

The theme of this session was "Drawing Near Unto God" and there were some really good talks. Here are some quotes that spoke to me:

We are sanctifying ourselves one step at a time as we accept personal responsibility for our actions and honor the covenants we make at baptism, in the temple, and as we take the sacrament each Sunday. ("Draw Near Unto Me Through Obedience," Sister Barbara W. Winder) 

And then a bunch of thoughts from President Hinckley:

I urge you to lift your heads and walk in gratitude. Spare yourselves from the indulgence of self-pity. It is always self-defeating. Subdue the negative and emphasize the positive. Count your blessings and not your problems.…

You have the gift, the opportunity, and the responsibility of doing good. You possess an instinctive inclination to help those in distress, and you have a peculiar and remarkable way of doing so. There are so many who need your help. …

Yours, my sisters, is the privilege to teach, yours the responsibility, yours the opportunity. There are few resources of which we are in greater need than dedicated teachers of the gospel who teach with faith, with conviction, and with the knowledge that comes of study. …

Yours may be the spirit of prophecy.…Can anyone doubt that many women have a special intuitive sense, even a prescient understanding of things to come?… John the Revelator makes a very interesting statement: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” As much so as any man in the world, each of you has the opportunity and the responsibility to develop a testimony of Jesus as the Savior of mankind. That testimony is the “spirit of prophecy.” It is a gift that may be yours. …

To you who are mothers, I wish to say that I know that your labors are heavy, that your burdens are many, that the task of rearing children in this complex age is a serious and demanding one. But there can be no doubt that as the years pass you will enjoy a sense of satisfaction that will come in no other way. You will enjoy a measure of peace, of love, of that gladness which is deep and sweet and good and which can come from no other source. ("Ten Gifts from the Lord," President Gordon B. Hinckley)

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Races, Marriage plans, Piggies

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We've been having fun watching Sebastian and Malachi's cross-country races this Fall. Sebastian's team won Region! And Malachi got 9th in his most recent race! I loved watching them both.

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Ziggy loved running up and rolling down the hills at the races, pointing out all the doggies, and staring fixedly at the little orange flags that marked the course (when he wasn't trying to pull them out).

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Abe had his birthday! He chose fresh peach pie for his dessert (graham cracker crust with a cream cheese layer and sliced uncooked peaches on top). Yum. 

Sam had the kids make lists about traits they wanted in their future spouses and families. Junie's list: "Someone like Daddy. Someone who listens. Someone who is happy. Someone who wants kids. Someone who wants to be with me when I die. Someone who is a member of church. Someone who cares about me. Someone who agrees with me." 

Goldie's list: "I want to marry a boy. The boy will like me. He will happily have a baby. He will happily let me have home school."

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We've had a good mix of Fall weather. Warm and sunny, rainy and windy. I like it all.

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The girls and I went up American Fork Canyon on one of the warm and sunny days, while we were waiting for Malachi's choir rehearsal to finish. The leaves were mostly dead (I think that early cold snap killed them all) but it was still beautiful. They rode "horses" and played orphanage while I read a book. It was nice.

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Seb had a good General Conference: he colored these amazing pictures and snuggled with Ziggy. What could be better?

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Speaking of Ziggy. He persists in being utterly irresistible. Even Nutmeg loves him! The picture on the right is of him standing by some emus (which he immediately identified as "Big Chickens"). 

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I got to hold a baby piglet at the girls' Animal Science class (I was just hanging out waiting for them, and suddenly I was being invited to hold piglets. What a treat. I held some bunnies, too!) You can see how tiiiiiny he is! He was furrier than some piggies I've held, so he seemed extra sweet. And there was another pink piggy, and also a teeny baby cow, and they all snuggled together. It was almost too much to bear.

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Learning through contraries

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the October 1985 Conference.

I've been thinking about how knowledge seems to come through a continual process of adjustment. Sometimes I think I have the overall right idea about some principle, and more details just fill in as I gain more knowledge. But often, I instead bounce back and forth between opposites, favoring them alternately depending on where I am in life. I suppose the process is a way of reaching "balance," but we don't (nor should we?) always end up perfectly in the middle.

Take justice and mercy. Sometimes someone will give a talk about how "we place too much emphasis on justice and not enough on mercy, and it's giving us all too much guilt." Sometimes someone will give the opposite talk (there was one of those in this conference: Elder Hartman Rector said, "All too often, the justice of God seems to be relegated to the back burner, while the mercy of God seems to get the lion’s share of attention. I presume this is true because we are all hoping for mercy and trying to avoid justice if at all possible. But it is a fact that God is just, and mercy cannot rob justice. Justice will have her due!"). I guess it's because there are always people that need one message and others that need the other one? Or people who need to drift a little toward the other side in their thinking?

It's always interesting when I've been leaning one way in my understanding ("People always say ____, but really it should be ____!") and then I hear a talk emphasizing the other way! At least when it's a talk by a General Authority, I try (though often imperfectly) to use it as a chance to moderate myself and see if there's something I've been missing.

Elder Boyd K. Packer gave a very…forthright talk that might fall into this category for some people. It's about how we are "the ONLY true church." I like Elder Packer and I think I can understand where he was coming from in this talk, and I also think he would agree that we CAN learn from other faiths, and that other faiths CAN and DO bring people closer to Christ. I don't think any of that contradicts what he says here (in fact, in this very talk, he even makes the very President Hinckley-ish statement "We do not claim that others have no truth. The Lord described them as having 'a form of godliness.' Converts to the Church may bring with them all the truth they possess and have it added upon."). But he also doesn't mince words. That's part of what I like about him! Here's what he says:

One doctrine presents a particular challenge. It is our firm conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, as the revelations state, “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.” 

This doctrine often generates resistance and repels the casual investigator. 

Some have said, “We want nothing to do with anyone who makes so presumptuous a claim as that.” 

The early Latter-day Saints were bitterly persecuted for holding to this doctrine. They were the butt of many clever stories. We, of course, are not free from that today. 

Should we not then make one accommodation and set this doctrine aside? Would it not be better to have more accept what would be left of the gospel than the relatively few who are converted now?… 

Some have recommended that we confine ourselves strictly to evidences of the gospel: happy family life, and temperate living, and so on. 

Could we not use the words "better" or "best"? The word "only" really isn’t the most appealing way to begin a discussion of the gospel. 

If we thought only in terms of diplomacy or popularity, surely we should change our course. 

But we must hold tightly to it even though some turn away.… 

A few weeks ago I was returning from the East with President Hinckley. We conversed with a passenger who said something to the effect that all churches lead to heaven. How often have you heard that—the parallel path to heaven philosophy? 

They claim one church is not really better than another, just different. Eventually the paths will converge. One is, therefore, quite as safe in any church as in any other.
While this seems to be very generous, it just cannot be true.

He goes on to tell about an experience speaking at Harvard and wondering what people would think of our more surprising doctrines. He says,

I determined that however preposterous talk of angels and golden plates and restoration might be to them, I would teach the truth with quiet confidence, for I have a testimony of the truth. If some must come from the meeting unsettled and disturbed, it would not be me. Let them be disturbed, if they would.… 

As I grow in age and experience, I grow ever less concerned over whether others agree with us. I grow ever more concerned that they understand us. If they do understand, they have their agency and can accept or reject the gospel as they please.

Ha. He's so great. I can't help but admire his fearlessness! I could learn a lot from it.


Other posts in this series:

Two really good reasons to fast—by Jan Tolman

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Echoes from the past

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 1985 Conference.

I always like it when I find convergences between the older general conferences and the new ones. Of course, the overall doctrine, and even the specific themes (things like strengthening families, becoming more Christlike, learning to love others, etc.), always match up SO well that it's more the rule than the exception. But sometimes there are even closer parallels than that, and when there are, I always wonder if there is some special message for me in that coming together of ideas? I'll show you what I mean.

In 1985, Elder Marvin J. Ashton said:

Many years ago I heard a story that impressed me. I share it with you today as I endeavor for a few minutes to direct your thinking toward the important word "peace." A beautiful little blind girl was sitting on the lap of her father in a crowded compartment in a train. A friend seated nearby said to the father, “Let me give you a little rest,” and he reached over and took the little girl on his lap. 

A few moments later the father said to her, “Do you know who is holding you?” 

“No,” she replied, “but you do.”…  

Our trust and our relationship with our Heavenly Father should be one similar to that of the little blind girl and her earthly father. When sorrow, tragedy, and heartbreaks occur in our lives, wouldn’t it be comforting if when the whisperings of God say, “Do you know why this has happened to you?” we could have the peace of mind to answer “No, but you do.” 

In October 2019, Elder L. Todd Budge said:

Recently our grandson Abe was afraid to ride one of the carousel animals that move up and down. He preferred one that didn’t move. His grandmother finally persuaded him that it would be safe, so, trusting her, he got aboard. He then said with a big smile, “I don’t feel safe, but I am.” Perhaps that is how the Jaredites felt. Trusting God may not always feel safe at first, but joy follows. 

I loved these reminders of the childlike trust I am seeking to gain (regain?) for Heavenly Father and His plan for me.

Here is another convergence I noticed. This is Elder Oaks in 1985:

Elder John A. Widtsoe taught that “there is a spiritual meaning of all human acts and earthly events. … It is the business of man to find the spiritual meaning of earthly things. … No man is quite so happy … as he who backs all his labors by such a spiritual interpretation and understanding of the acts of his life.”

And here is Elder Bednar in October 2019:

Just as important lessons can be learned by observing the behavior of cheetahs and topis, so each of us should look for the lessons and warnings found in the simple events of everyday life. As we seek for a mind and heart open to receive heavenly direction by the power of the Holy Ghost, then some of the greatest instructions that we can receive and many of the most powerful warnings that can safeguard us will originate in our own ordinary experiences. Powerful parables are contained in both the scriptures and in our daily lives.

This was interesting to me because trying to find deeper meaning/metaphors in "the simple events of everyday life" is something I do habitually, and maybe TOO much. Lately I've been rolling my eyes at myself a little bit and telling myself, "Not EVERYTHING has to MEAN something!" Even after I heard Elder Bednar's talk, I thought, "But how would I know WHICH simple events have spiritual parallels and which are just meaningless?" But the Elder Widtsoe quote makes it sound like finding that out is part of our blessing and challenge. I guess as long as I make sure to have the influence of the spirit, I really can learn a lot even from the seemingly mundane lessons that suggest themselves from my everyday experiences.

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A surprising number of people communing with goats

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Daisy and Junie are taking an Animal Science class at a little farm this semester. It's really cute. They have learned how to care for pigs and bunnies and chickens, they've trimmed animals' claws and fingernails, they've made obstacle courses for goats, they've made some goat-milk lotion, and in the spring they will learn to ride horses.

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We had some passes all year which we've been using for Homeschool field trips—they get you into the zoo and various museums and so forth. They expire in mid-October so we had a last little flurry of field trips while we still could. September is really such a good time to go on field trips—it seems like a lot of elementary school teachers don't want to deal with finding school buses and chaperones that early in the year, so we often have places all to ourselves. And the weather is so great! One day we rode the Snowbird Tram, always a favorite activity. There was still snow at the top! I think it never melted this year. Teddy and Ziggy were fascinated with the tram, just like Seb always was—and still is, to be honest. :) He was happy to have two little enthralled followers to show around. (You can see Ziggy's excited face peeking through the tram window, if you look closely in that far-right picture.)

 

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We also visited This is the Place Heritage Park. We haven't been there for years, and they have some new things to see—more activities to do, too. You can ride ponies, and make little bead necklaces in the Native American village, and pan for gold, and go into a wooden sailing ship, and so forth. The girls liked the petting zoo (goats were communed with) and Ziggy tolerated the pony ride after much initial apprehension. The train was fun to ride, though we all cringed at the bad jokes and memorized script the poor tour guide had to rattle off as we rode it. The playground was probably everyone's favorite part. There was even a zipline and a tiny cute little playhouse!

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And lastly, here are a few pictures of various nice days. The flowers I saw walking out of the temple one morning. Daisy by the lake after our mid-General-Conference lunch. Sam and two handsome little boys. Me and three darling little girls. And, Daisy and Junie and me going off to watch Junie's first Women's Session together! It is so fun to have daughters to go with!

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