I had nearly all the pages turned down

 This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 1990 Conference.

President Monson quoted my great-great-great-grandfather in his talk! I love this description of Robert Gardner's testimony, and it makes me want to live so he can be proud of me like I'm proud of him!

Robert Gardner describes the day of their baptism: “We went about a mile and a half into the woods to find a suitable stream. We cut a hole through ice eighteen inches thick. My brother William baptized me. … I was confirmed while sitting on a log beside the stream. …

“I cannot describe my feelings at the time and for a long time afterwards. I felt like a little child and was very careful of what I thought or said or did lest I might offend my Father in Heaven. Reading the Scriptures and secret prayer occupied my leisure time. I kept a pocket Testament constantly with me. When something on a page impressed me supporting Mormonism, I turned down a corner. Soon I could hardly find a desired passage. I had nearly all the pages turned down. I had no trouble believing the Book of Mormon. Everytime I took the book to read I had a burning testimony in my bosom of its truthfulness.”

Once someone in stake conference told a story about some pages getting ripped out of his Book of Mormon by his kids. Then he asked us, "Which part of the Book of Mormon could you live without?" I've thought about that a lot as we've read through it this year, and my conclusion is that I can't live without any of it! Like my grandfather, I love every page! Each part is precious and necessary. In this week of Thanksgiving, I'm so thankful to have in my life the wisdom, insight, power, and spirit of this "most correct book"! Each time I read it, I become more amazed at the prophet Mormon's skill in gathering source material, weaving it together, and adding masterful editorial comments to support his overarching purpose. And he succeeds: through the Book of Mormon's teachings, I have come to know my Savior Jesus Christ, and to desire to know Him better still.

Other posts in this series:

The church is called by its name—by Jan Tolman

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A generous amount of your time

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the October 1990 Conference.

A good thought for me to read as I contemplate going upstairs to put Ziggy back in bed…again:

[To be a righteous leader of your family,] a generous amount of your time is required. Not a superficial moment here and there…but an honest, generous piece of your day on a continuing basis, even at the sacrifice of things social, things personally entertaining, or even things financially rewarding.

—Elder Durrel A. Woolsey

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So enlisted in what is small

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the October 1990 Conference.

I know I've read this talk before. (But when?) It's so good! I can't resist a good talk on parenting these days. It feels like a long time now that I've been feeling so thirsty for something, anything, that might help me figure out what on earth I'm doing! Was my mom this desperate when she was raising me? She didn't seem to be…must be because I was such an easy child (ha ha).

Anyway. There's a sort of satisfaction in President Faust validating the difficulty of this endeavor:

In my opinion, the teaching, rearing, and training of children requires more intelligence, intuitive understanding, humility, strength, wisdom, spirituality, perseverance, and hard work than any other challenge we might have in life. This is especially so when moral foundations of honor and decency are eroding around us.

…Somehow, some way, we must try harder to make our homes stronger so that they will stand as sanctuaries against the unwholesome, pervasive moral dry rot around us.

 This humility, too, is typical of President Faust as I remember him:

One of the most difficult parental challenges is to appropriately discipline children. Child rearing is so individualistic. Every child is different and unique. What works with one may not work with another. I do not know who is wise enough to say what discipline is too harsh or what is too lenient except the parents of the children themselves, who love them most. It is a matter of prayerful discernment for the parents. Certainly the overarching and undergirding principle is that the discipline of children must be motivated more by love than by punishment.

I always wish, reading these talks, that there would be some pearl of wisdom that solves all my problems. (Less of the "somehow, some way, " please, President Faust!) Oh, of course I know there can't be! The only answers are personal answers—and the broad answers we all know, like being "motivated more by love than by punishment." But I thought this was a comforting reminder:

Children are also beneficiaries of moral agency by which we are all afforded the opportunity to progress, grow, and develop. That agency also permits children to pursue the alternate choice of selfishness, wastefulness, self-indulgence, and self-destruction. Children often express this agency when very young.

Let parents who have been conscientious, loving, and concerned and who have lived the principles of righteousness as best they could be comforted in knowing that they are good parents despite the actions of some of their children. The children themselves have a responsibility to listen, obey, and, having been taught, to learn. Parents cannot always answer for all their children’s misconduct because they cannot ensure the children’s good behavior. Some few children could tax even Solomon’s wisdom and Job’s patience.

"Some few," eh? What are the odds of having several of those in just one family? Asking for a friend…ha ha. And I like his delicate phrasing of "children often express this agency when very young." Next time I find marker scribbles all over the wall I will remind myself that the child is merely expressing his moral agency in an alternate way.

Let's get to my favorite part, though. My friend Montserrat may have quoted this before, or at least it sounds like something she's talked about. President Faust says:

Parental teaching moments need not be big or dramatic or powerful. We learn this from the Master Teacher. Charles Henry Parkhurst said:

“The completed beauty of Christ’s life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of beauty—talking with the woman at the well; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart that kept him out of the Kingdom of Heaven; … teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; kindling a fire and broiling fish that his disciples might have a breakfast waiting for them when they came ashore from a night of fishing, cold, tired, and discouraged. All of these things, you see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of [Christ’s] interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed with what is minute.” 

And so it is with being parents. The little things are the big things sewn into the family tapestry by a thousand threads of love, faith, discipline, sacrifice, patience, and work.

I kind of feel like I'm doing most things wrong these days. Every night when I'm looking back on my various interactions with my children that day, I can see how my children are learning and growing, and I feel sorry that I wasn't more patient with them. I often feel like the only one NOT making progress is…me! But reading these words makes me feel a little better. I do usually manage to do the equivalent of "kindling a fire and broiling fish" that my family "might have a dinner waiting for them" after a hard and busy day. I am teaching, and have taught, my own "little knot of followers" to pray—whether they do that habitually on their own yet or not. I "talk with the [child] at the well"…or in the car…as we go here and there. I'm trying! And I'm "enlisted in what is small," that's for sure. All these small moments…adding up bit by bit. I hope they'll be enough.

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Sunsets and a few other October things

October was full of the prettiest sunsets! It seemed like every evening was more beautiful than the last. From our hill we can see the whole sky around, and I love it so much! Every night I would be inside making dinner and look out to see the mountains looking like this:

all golden and glowing. And then I'd know sunset was near. For awhile I kept thinking, "well, I can't just stop everything and go up on the hill to look at the sunset every night! Can I?" But it turns out…I could. It was worth it!

This was actually a sunrise. Equally beautiful. :)

People in front of sunset (with waving baby)

The hill is pretty in the moonlight, too. (That's Seb and a friend on their bikes up on top)

This was from a walk Sam and I took one warm Sunday morning. Everything was so golden and Fall-y.

Abe turned 18! I thought I was totally prepared for it, especially since he started college last April so I felt like I'd already mostly dealt with that milestone. It's been nice that online classes have kept him closer to home than he might otherwise have been, and he's such a great young man, and I'm so proud of all the things he's doing—so I wasn't expecting the torrent of emotions I suddenly felt the night before his birthday. I lay awake for hours, remembering and crying over I hardly know what—remembering those almost-three years when he was my only child, my little companion and friend, spending every waking hour with me (and many hours we should have been sleeping, too). News flash: watching children grow up is hard. And great. But hard.

Another pretty sunset, from a park this time (where Sam and I were eating hamburgers for our date night).

A colony of…bunny bats in Ziggy's bed? I don't know. Seb used to do this to make "carwashes" when he was little.

Junie, and Gussie in a bunny hat

Goldie, and Gussie in the stroller, walking to church (the weather has been glorious!)

Daisy and I had a picnic lunch date between Saturday General Conference Sessions (Sam and I each take one of the kids every time)…and SHE was the lunch! For this little fish. :)

Zekey in a foxy sweater

The girls spent all day planning a "party" on the hill and this was what they did: a little picnic lunch, "reading time," "singing time," and then sliding down the hill on boxes. Pretty good party if you ask me!

Reading stories with Grandpa Nielson

Another sunset! This was after one of Malachi's cross-country races (he's on a youth team) when he was running to the car to catch us…leaving without him. But we didn't! :)

It was actually very obliging of Malachi to have several cross-country races in beautiful places on beautiful evenings this month! Most of the races only allowed one spectator per runner, so I had to go alone with him, but it had the nice side effect of giving me some long quiet evenings waiting for his races to start and wandering the surrounding areas. I walked on some beautiful wooded trails and got to enjoy Fall in a way I have not otherwise had much time to do!

And here is the man himself. Not nearly as concerned as he ought to be about that pack of yellow-shirts on his tail! He is the most photo-aware runner I've had so far, and always looks at me and smiles while running by, rather than concentrating intensely and soberly on the race at hand (or should I say at foot). I like him.

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No room for fatalism

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Morning Session of the October 1990 Conference.

This post will publish on Election Day, and I have just the talk you need to read as an antidote to everything else you are probably reading and thinking about! It also goes perfectly with the chapters we've been studying in the Book of Mormon, describing the terrible fall of the Nephite civilization. I've been thinking so much about how Mormon must have felt as he watched his people destroy themselves, and wondering how he could still say "I loved them, according to the love of God which was in me, with all my heart; and my soul had been poured out in prayer unto my God all the day long for them." I confess to occasionally feeling as hopeless as Mormon perhaps felt, about the state of the world in general and our recent times in particular.

But when I read this talk by Elder Glenn L. Pace, I felt called to repentance! I have felt the fatalism Elder Pace describes—and sometimes, unfortunately, the lack of compassion he talks about as well. But I can see that those attitudes are not the ones Jesus Christ would have me adopt. Here are a few excerpts that struck me particularly hard (but go read the whole thing!):

We know the prophecies of the future. We know the final outcome. We know the world collectively will not repent and consequently the last days will be filled with much pain and suffering. Therefore, we could throw up our hands and do nothing but pray for the end to come so the millennial reign could begin. To do so would forfeit our right to participate in the grand event we are all awaiting. We must all become players in the winding-up scene, not spectators. We must do all we can to prevent calamities, and then do everything possible to assist and comfort the victims of tragedies that do occur.

The great prophet Mormon set another example worthy of emulation. He lived at a time that was hopeless. Imagine this: “There were no gifts from the Lord, and the Holy Ghost did not come upon any, because of their wickedness and unbelief.”

In spite of this hopeless situation Mormon …had Christlike love for a fallen people. Can we be content with loving less? We must press forward with the pure love of Christ to spread the good news of the gospel. As we do so and fight the war of good against evil, light against darkness, and truth against falsehood, we must not neglect our responsibility of dressing the wounds of those who have fallen in battle. There is no room in the kingdom for fatalism.

And then this, which hit uncomfortably close to home:

Sometimes we tend to take joy in seeing the natural consequences of sin unfold. We might feel some vindication for being ignored by most of the world and persecuted and berated by others. When we see earthquakes, wars, famines, disease, poverty, and heartbreak, we may be tempted to say, “Well, we warned them. We told them a thousand times not to engage in those activities.”…

We know many wounds are self-inflicted and could have been avoided simply by obeying gospel principles. However, to shrug it off as “their problem” is not acceptable to the Lord. He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Although He does not condone sin, His arms are always open to the repentant sinner. In modern revelation the Lord has asked us to go one step further: “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.”

Our forgiveness must be manifest by reaching out to help mend wounds even when they are the result of transgression. To react in any other way would be akin to setting up a lung cancer clinic for nonsmokers only. Whether the pain has come to someone who is completely innocent or is something of his own making is irrelevant. When a person has been hit by a truck, we don’t withhold our help even when it is obvious he didn’t stay in the pedestrian lane.

I don't know what's going to happen this year and next year and the next. Sometimes I think things are really not so different than they have always been, and I think life will go on as usual for a good long time. Other times I really wonder if the whole world is falling apart. To be honest, I'm pretty withdrawn from a lot of the world right now, by choice. I am largely consumed with taking care of my little family in my own little home, and I like it that way, and I don't feel much need to emerge. :) But I do want to keep engaging in the work Jesus would do if He were here—ministering to and loving and meeting the needs of my neighbors, noticing the people around me and trying to be kind amidst our differences. And no matter how these next few years unfold, it seems like that goal is a good one to keep my focus on.

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