Learning, Not Learning, Profanity, and Homesickness

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the April 1986 Conference.
There were a bunch of little snippets I liked from this session of Conference. Here are my favorites:

Elder Packer, on reading the scriptures:
[In the Book of Mormon], just as you settle in to move comfortably along, you will meet a barrier. The style of the language changes to Old Testament prophecy style. For, interspersed in the narrative, are chapters reciting the prophecies of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. They loom as a barrier, like a roadblock or a checkpoint beyond which the casual reader, one with idle curiosity, generally will not go. 
You, too, may be tempted to stop there, but do not do it! Do not stop reading! Move forward through those difficult-to-understand chapters of Old Testament prophecy, even if you understand very little of it. Move on, if all you do is skim and merely glean an impression here and there. Move on, if all you do is look at the words.
I didn't think that much about this when I first read it, but I've remembered it over and over as I've read the scriptures this week. I know we should be always seeking to get more from the scriptures; to move beyond skimming. And I've had some great teachers that have helped me with these more difficult sections. So I know it's very rewarding. But…I don't know, there are still just some parts of the scriptures I do NOT understand, and it was comforting to imagine Elder Packer saying to me, "It's okay—just glean an impression here and there…just look at the words if you have to. You don't have to get all this stuff right now."

Elder Jack H. Goaslind, sounding like Elder Maxwell:
Our yearnings for happiness were implanted in our hearts by Deity. They represent a kind of homesickness, for we have a residual memory of our premortal existence. They are also a foretaste of the fulness of joy that is promised to the faithful. We can expect with perfect faith that our Father will fulfill our innermost longings for joy.
Elder Oaks, on profanity:
Profanity leads to more ungodliness because the Spirit of the Lord withdraws and the profane are left without guidance.
Vulgar and crude expressions are also offensive to the Spirit of the Lord…Profane and vulgar expressions are public evidence of a speaker’s ignorance, inadequacy, or immaturity. 
A speaker who profanes must be ignorant or indifferent to God’s stern command that his name must be treated with reverence and not used in vain…Members of the Church, young or old, should never allow profane or vulgar words to pass their lips. The language we use projects the images of our hearts, and our hearts should be pure.…
When the names of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, are used with reverence and authority, they invoke a power beyond what mortal man can comprehend.
It should be obvious to every believer that these mighty names—by which miracles are wrought, by which the world was formed, through which man was created, and by which we can be saved—are holy and must be treated with the utmost reverence.
I've encountered profanity in a few unexpected situations lately and haven't been exactly sure why I've been so disturbed by it. It's so normal these days you do tend to get used to it…even in news articles or other places that used to be free of it. And I know it's maybe not a terrible sin, and that "taking the Lord's name in vain" can mean more than just swearing. But the fact remains that I've felt a spiritual uneasiness in those situations, and Elder Oaks' talk helped me understand why. I especially liked his positive statements about the power of the names of the Father and of Christ. When you think of their power and who they are, it makes sense why we'd want to use only words of love and respect toward them.

President Hinckley, on lifelong learning:
This restored gospel brings not only spiritual strength, but also intellectual curiosity and growth. Truth is truth. There is no clearly defined line of demarcation between the spiritual and the intellectual when the intellectual is cultivated and pursued in balance with the pursuit of spiritual knowledge and strength.
Maybe this seems like the opposite of my first quote, but I suppose they balance each other out. Sometimes I feel inspired to learn forever…sometimes I feel like my brain is full and I'll never be able to learn again! :)


Other posts in this series:

To Study Carefully the First Vision—by Jan Tolman
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Donuts, skeletons, picnics


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The last leaves, for real this time

After seeing how dry and dead the trees were after our early October cold spell, I wasn't sure we'd be able to find pretty ones anywhere! But we had one more day of projected good weather, and Goldie and Teddy were sad they'd missed our other trip up the canyon, so I cancelled school for the afternoon and the middle children and I went out looking for Fall. The mountains appeared mostly bare and dull from our house, but the day was warm, and we had a picnic lunch, which always does wonders for the collective mood.

We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to one of our usual spots (we'd had a fun time playing Family there last year, which the children remembered fondly) but everything was dead there. Dead and bare. Then as we drove back down to the mouth of the canyon, we saw one little area that was beautiful flaming orange. And after a bit of trouble trying to find the turn-off, and navigate around a port-a-potty truck packing things up for the season, and so forth…we got there!

The lady we met (she was the "campground host") in the picnic area said she had been all up and down the canyon and this was the very last spot with colored leaves still on the trees. She said the aspens up at the top never even got to turn yellow. I don't know how this spot had managed to escape the worst of the frost!
The view from our picnic table was just lovely. A perfect rainbow of leaves!
Daisy brought her hammock. We are quite experienced hammock-put-uppers by now, you know. We pride ourselves on it. It's lovely to lie in a hammock out in the woods!
Little Goldie-elf.
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Elder Maxwell, on a favorite theme

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the April 1986 Conference.
We are not now ready for all things the Lord has prepared in the City of God for them that love Him. Our present eyes are unready for things which they have not yet seen, and our ears are not prepared for the transcending sounds and music of that city. 
The trek will be proving and trying. Faith, patience, and obedience are essential, but he who completes the journey successfully will be immeasurably added upon. And he who does not will have subtracted from the sum of his possibilities. 
When we arrive home, we shall be weary and bruised. But at last our aching homesicknesses will cease. Meanwhile, our mortal homecomings are but faint foreshadowings of that Homecoming!
Elder Neal A. Maxwell, "Called and Prepared from the Foundation of the World"


Other posts in this series:

Hope for those who wander aimlessly—by Jan Tolman
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Pumpkins and Dead Leaves

Pictures of Fall! Quick! While it's still Fall!

We didn't go to our favorite pumpkin patch this year. (Or last year.) So sad. They've priced us right out! We still got apple cider donuts there, of course, but Sam just picked them up for us and we ate them at a park in the gathering gloom of what Monday nights are this year. Sam teaches until late, so our family home evenings are always in what feels the middle of the night! But that was fun, anyway.

Pumpkins still had to be gotten somewhere, so another day we (some of us…it's sad to me that the big boys usually don't get to come with us on our little field trips these days, but I must admit it also makes things simpler in some ways!) went to the little farm right by our house, and it turned out to be quite fun. They had emus, for one thing, which Ziggy immediately identified as BIG CHICKENS. So THAT was good.
They had one of those corn pits that seem so fun. Maybe not quite as fun as ball pits, but fun!
Goats. Ziggy loved them and called the long-eared ones "bunnies."
More "big chickens."
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Upon the road to Zion

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 1986 Conference.
I've been thinking (and feeling hopeless about...ha ha) becoming a "Zion People" for a LONG TIME. (Ten years ago; really? Where does the time go?!) My thoughts usually run along the lines of "The church as a whole becoming truly of 'one heart and one mind' is SO out of reach, but maybe we can be of 'one heart and one mind' in tiny pockets…for short times."

That's still pretty much all I've got for answers. Even in one family…even in one marriage…there are so many differences to overcome! I know there must be a way; the Nephites and the City of Enoch did it somehow! But I can't fathom it. So I like the perspective in this quote from Elder Robert D. Hales:
The welfare plan builds a Zion People. … This promised Zion always seems to be a little beyond our reach. We need to understand that as much virtue can be gained in progressing toward Zion as in dwelling there. It is a process as well as a destination. …Many are perfected upon the road to Zion who will never see the city in mortality.
It's nice to think that attempting true Zion-like unity is worthwhile, anyway! Even if it still seems so very far away.


Other posts in this series:

Principles and Doctrines Cause Spiritual Change—by Jan Tolman
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Halloween 2019

We thought Halloween was going to be freezing cold this year (I think the forecast said 16 degrees or something--Brrr!) but it ended up not too bad. Still, I encouraged everyone to choose out the warmer things from the costume box. Junie was a bear and Daisy was an elephant—
THIS elephant, to be precise.
Goldie was a winter princess.
Ziggy was dressed by his sisters in multiple costumes over multiple days, but the one I got a picture of was this bear suit. His fur feet got quite dirty! But he only went trick-or-treating around the block, so it was fine.
(Here he saw a truck driving by)
Teddy was a UPS man.

Our neighborhood is so fun on Halloween. It's made me like the holiday much more than I otherwise would. There are SO MANY KIDS! Tons of people drive in from other places, so I don't recognize most of them, but it's still fun to look outside and see crowds of kids and parents walking around. It makes it feel so festive! Some people make huge elaborate Halloween scenes in their yards, or haunted houses that the kids can go through. There's a map on facebook of all the different special things to drive around and see. And there are lots of fun things people do like giving out homemade scones or hot chocolate or See's Candies.

Oh—Malachi was dressed up too (his last year going trick-or-treating!). But I didn't get a picture. He wore the same Darth Vadar costume as last year.
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