Tulip Festival

We went to see the tulips on a windy, slightly stormy night. As most nights have been this month, it seems! I love it!

This tulip has fringed edges!

I like these spiky flames, too.

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Goldie turns 10, Mother's Day, etc.

Dearest little Marigold! What would we do without her? Goldie is like a girl in a storybook. I am not even exaggerating a little when I say that she frequently clasps her hands at her bosom while she talks. She speaks in italics and says things like "I do hope we'll be able to go to the party!" and "Oh, how I long to see Paris someday!" She's loving and sweet and adores having pretty hairstyles (as she would say), so Daisy made sure to do something fancy in her hair for her birthday. She looked beautiful!

Goldie loves to draw and paint and create things, and she has beautiful writing. This is what her spelling tests always look like, with illustrations and checkboxes and metrics for me to circle and fill in. So cute.

She dances around the house constantly. And she loves to pick bouquets of flowers—even dandelions.

We watched a lovely golden sunset the night of Goldie's birthday and it seemed perfectly fitting ("Oh, I do so love sunsets!").

Daisy is wearing Goldie's dress here, for some reason

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The quiet building up of his kingdom

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the April 2001 Conference.

Lots of good talks this week (such as Elder Oaks' talk on Focus and Priorities…it's still so relevant for today!). But I'm going to write about a story I really liked by Elder Bruce D. Porter. Like my dad, Elder Porter went to Harvard for his PhD. His studies took up most of his time, obviously, but one day he got asked to substitute in Primary for two weeks, and he reluctantly agreed. He says,

The appointed day came to teach Primary. That afternoon I was in the university library, absorbed in a book on international politics. The subject I was studying seemed somehow more important than the upcoming Primary class. Consequently, I procrastinated until just 30 minutes before the class was to begin to review the lesson I was to teach. Then I walked from the library down to our ward chapel on the edge of campus. My reluctant attitude must have slowed my steps, for I arrived a few minutes late. As I stepped to the door of the Primary room, the children were just beginning to sing the opening hymn. It was a song I had never heard before, a song whose melody and message touched me deeply:

As I have loved you,

Love one another.

This new commandment:

Love one another.

By this shall men know

Ye are my disciples,

If ye have love

One to another.

As I stood there, transfixed in the doorway, the Spirit bore witness that I was looking at the most important class taking place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that day.

Back at the university in dozens of classrooms and laboratories, dedicated scholars were pursuing answers to the world’s problems. Yet valuable though such efforts may have been, the university did not and could not hold the ultimate answers to the problems of a troubled world. Here before me was the Lord’s answer: the quiet building up of His kingdom on earth by the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What was taking place in Primary that day was a small part of a divinely revealed plan for the salvation of a fallen world.

"The most important class taking place in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that day." I love that so much! Not only because I work in Primary right now (although, it would be so amazing if all the Primary teachers could have that vision!) but also because there are so many times everything about teaching children seems…well…futile! Sometimes I feel like there's no way I can possibly be making a difference or even making an impression on the people in this small sphere around me when there's so little evidence of it. The harvest feels far-off, even impossible, especially when I see around me so many more important people doing more important things. Obviously I believe in the work of motherhood and nurturing children. I know it's important—but it's sometimes hard to FEEL it's important. So it's just cool to see Heavenly Father teaching that truth to even this educated, well-known man who, on the surface, seemed to be doing much more important things with his life than teaching children.

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True joy comes from sacrifice

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the April 2001 Conference.

I've been thinking lately about how the "wisdom of the world" is so wrong about so many things. One of the most damaging (in my opinion) is the modern focus on self-fulfillment and personal happiness; a concern more with our own "boundaries" and preferences than with selflessness and sacrifice. (Not that there aren't bits of truth woven in with these worldly ideals. But their focus is so often wholly wrong!)

There were several quotes from this Conference session that reminded me how counterintuitive God's plan can seem when we're steeped in that focus on self. Here's Elder Maxwell on suffering:

Others can and should encourage, commend, pray, and comfort, but the lifting and carrying of our individual crosses remains ours to do. Given the “fierceness” Christ endured for us, we cannot expect a discipleship of unruffled easiness. …

Uniquely, atoning Jesus also “descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things.” How deep that descent into despair and abysmal agony must have been! He did it to rescue us and in order to comprehend human suffering. Therefore, let us not resent those tutoring experiences which can develop our own empathy further. A slothful heart will not do, and neither will a resentful heart. So being admitted fully to “the fellowship of his sufferings” requires the full dues of discipleship.

"Let us not resent those tutoring experiences which can develop our own empathy further"! I am trying not to resent mine, but to welcome what I learn from them and how they invite me to grow. (And how they are teaching me what a fulness means.)

Bishop Keith B. McMullin said,

Beware of worldly preoccupation with self. The highs are counterfeit; the lows are despairing. Love, kindness, personal fulfillment, and genuine self-worth are found in service to God and others, not in service to oneself.

And Sister Carol B. Thomas said,

Are we encouraging our children to sacrifice by giving their time and resources, such as helping a lonely neighbor or befriending someone who needs it? As they concentrate on the needs of others, their own needs become less important. True joy comes from sacrificing for others.

I love these reminders of where I should put my focus when I want to find true happiness!

Other posts in this series:

Faith—by Rozy

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Rocks and Gardens

I have always loved flowers and gardens—not just liked them but LOVED them. I feel refreshed and renewed and filled by them somehow. Even my daughters are named after plants and flowers, and I think they have the most beautiful names in the world! The first thing Sam and I did as a married couple—well, after the wedding lunch and waving goodbye to everyone and kissing in the car for a while—was go to the Thanksgiving Point gardens to look at the flowers. It was April, and they were so beautiful! Since then, everywhere Sam and I have gone in the world, we have looked for gardens. Parks, botanical gardens, even desert gardens. We've seen so many beautiful things!

Sam, on the other hand, loves rocks. Old rocks, new rocks, slanted rocks, sparkly rocks. If it's a rock or even rocklike, you can bet Sam's going to want to

• look at it

• look at it again

• talk about how it got there

• marvel at the geologic layering around it

• consult "Roadside Geology" about it

Everywhere we've gone in the world, we've looked for rocks. Fossils and topaz, wonderstone and agate. We've seen so many beautiful things!

As I was reflecting on our 22 (!) years of marriage at the end of April, I was thinking about how fitting it is that we've loved these two conflicting and yet complementary things. We've seen so much good together, so much happiness. But we've felt pain and sorrow and loss too. We've cried together, we've cried apart. We've felt our hopes crumble and our faith falter. We've seen ashes and beauty and beauty for ashes. Flower and soil, valley and mountain, water and rock. Marriage is all of this, and we're learning to hold all of it within ourselves, the two of us like one, trying to make our garden grow. There's beauty in all of it, if we look for it. And maybe this is what a fulness means. 

 

But on to what this post was originally supposed to be about!

Once many years ago while Sam was out of town, I bravely drove to Vernal with all the kids to see Dinosaur National Monument. We were having a school unit about dinosaurs at the time, and it was so much fun to get close to them in this way. We loved the huge wall of dinosaur bones in the park, and the cool dinosaur museum in town. Teddy was a baby, and Abe sat next to me in the van and we talked and talked about all kinds of things as he tried to keep me awake. 

Ever since then Sam has felt a little sad that HE didn't get to go, so we decided for our anniversary this year, we'd drive there, just the two of us. We even found a little basement apartment Airbnb where we could stay overnight. Seb and Malachi had school off that day, so they were home to keep an eye on everyone while we were gone (although, let's be honest, the girls did most of the eye-keeping-on).

It's such a pretty drive out that direction. We so rarely have a reason to go that way! Last time we went it was so much greener, but this time there were huge stretches of terrain just covered in snow. It didn't seem that deep until you saw just the tops of a tall fence sticking out of a drift, or this little bathroom we saw by a reservoir…

…which as you can see, is halfway buried under the snow!

The landscape when you get to Vernal is interesting. Desert-y and dry, but with green valleys and farms and such colorful, twisting rock layers!

Sam and I hiked around by the visitor's center to see some bones and fossils along the trail. There are clam impressions in rocks, and lots of bones just captured haphazardly by ancient rivers and now trapped in cliff walls.

It was Monday (that's the day missionaries in Abe's mission can call home), so we were talking to Abe a lot of the time as we were walking around. We showed him some fossils too! :)

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Not a hired servant

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the April 2001 Conference. 

We've been talking about shepherds and hirelings in Home Church for the last few weeks, so I have lots of thoughts tumbling around in my head about them. Then I read Elder Eyring's talk and it brought out some of those thoughts even more. To me, this was a Motherhood talk…even though it's really a Priesthood talk. Of all the "sheep" in my care, my own little family lambs are the dearest and the most difficult!

Elder Eyring says,

The Savior warns us that we must watch the sheep as He does. He gave His life for them. They are His. We cannot approach His standard if, like a hired servant, we watch only when it is convenient and only for a reward.

I've thought so much about this. Of course a mother would never see herself as a "hireling" watching over her children! We love them so much! But I was thinking about owning a business versus being employed at one. A employee is annoyed when she has to stay late. She leaves quickly the moment her shift is over. She would rather not do the dirty, thankless jobs, and she would certainly prefer free time over going to work at all!

But a business owner wants to go early and stay late, if it will help the business. She does whatever she must to help it succeed. When the work is hard or time-consuming, she accepts it willingly, knowing that her own fortunes are tied to that work. She rejoices when the days are busy and full of customers, even grumpy customers, because she knows that her business's success depends on them.  

Even though I'd like to think I'm a shepherd and not a hireling, I have to admit as a mother that sometimes a "hireling" mindset creeps in for me. It's when I resent all the work I have to do, or feel ill-used because I don't have enough time for myself, or get discouraged because it seems like I will never get back the love I put in. All those things make me feel like ME and MY FAMILY are separate (sometimes competing!) entities. But that mindset is the exactly wrong. At my best, I realize that my family IS "my work and my glory." If I own that fact and take pride in it, I'm so much happier! 

If I could give one piece of advice about motherhood and homemaking to my girls, it is that they give themselves wholly to it. I know there are so many different family situations, and not all mothers can be full-time in their homes. But like any work, homemaking is much more fulfilling when we take the time to get good at it—when we take pride in it and ownership of it. If we see the work we do in our homes as temporary and temporal, if we feel like "hirelings" there, we can neither love fully nor feel fully loved! I fear that too many women inadvertently end up in that place—unsatisfied and frustrated because they don't see "homemaking" as a "real job" at all, let alone a vocation worthy of sustained effort, practice, consideration, and improvement.

Likewise, I think motherhood is infinitely more satisfying when we see it as not a temporary job, but an eternal one, a role of effort and vocation that is bound up with our very souls and which will bless us as much as it will bless the "sheep" we care for. When I am discouraged with what (I am sorry to say) seems a rather paltry return on my motherhood investment, I have to remind myself what a disappointing prospect I must seem compared to the price Jesus paid for me! And yet he continues to pour effort into me! "The shepherd does not recoil from the scabs of the sheep"! The Good Shepherd has compassion for me. He invests everything in me. And He continues to see my potential when I seem least likely to live up to it. Can I be that kind of shepherd to my children? I want to. Elder Eyring thinks I can!:

It is love that must motivate the shepherds of Israel. That may seem difficult at the start, because we may not even know the Lord well. But if we begin with even a little grain of faith in Him, our service to the sheep will increase our love for Him and for them. It comes from simple things that every shepherd must do. We pray for the sheep, every one for whom we are responsible. When we ask, “Please tell me who needs me,” answers will come. A face or a name will come into our minds.…In those moments, we will feel the love of the Savior for them and for us. As you watch over His sheep, your love for Him will grow. And that will increase your confidence and your courage.

Now, you may be thinking: It’s not that easy for me. I have so many people to watch over. And I have so little time. But where the Lord calls He prepares a way, His way.

When I feel overwhelmed with the tasks ahead, I have to remind myself that there is another, better Shepherd who loves my children even more than I do. And I have to remember that He's the one in charge. I am, actually, a sort of hireling for now—but He's training me to be someone better, to be something more. To be the kind of eternal Shepherd He already is.

Other posts in this series:

"You Can't Pet a Rattlesnake"—by Rozy

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Ill-advised bike lessons, Scary creatures, Changing seasons

Ziggy has learned to ride a bike! He took to it like a duck to water! And…has immediately gotten his bike privileges taken away about 8 of the 10 times he's gone out riding, for various offenses ranging from riding on the street (when warned not to) to riding far away to a park (when told not to) to not asking us before leaving (when told to). Ha! He's always been an explorer and a wanderer at heart, so now I'm wondering if it was a good idea for us to effectively increase his exploring and wandering range by about 1000%. Well. I suppose there's nothing we can do about that now!

———

About three years ago, Sam did some character design and visual development work for a movie some studio was making about the Super Mario Brothers game. I remember watching Sam drawing the characters for it and wondering if the movie would ever actually even be made! He's worked on others that never made it to the screen. But finally this year Sam told us the movie was coming out! So we took a few of the kids to go see it. He hadn't seen any of the final story and didn't even know how many of his designs they'd use. But they used almost everything he did, including the design work for Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and that other guy, the bad guy, whatever his name was. We even got to see Sam's name in the credits, which was fun. 

———

In our old house, whenever he was babysitting, Sebastian used to come upstairs into the little kids' room wearing a coat over his head and with a balloon in his hood. He called this scary guy "Mascot" and he had quite an effective reign of terror for a little while, making the kids get in bed so "Mascot wouldn't get them." Seb would always reappear a few minutes after Mascot disappeared, having no clue what had just happened and telling the kids they shouldn't let their imaginations run away with them.

Anyway, Mascot resurfaced here a little while ago, and suddenly he has a slew of copycats! Scary!

———

Seb went to Prom with the lovely Charly. They had such a fun time! When he came home late that night he was just sparkling and bubbling out with happiness at how much fun they'd had. I don't see him like that too often!

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Forward and Back

Spring! Winter! Winter! Spring! I loved the big snowstorms, but they did make the winter drag on and on. This storm was on April 4th. Certainly, we've had snow in April before, but a foot of it? Tsk tsk. And the blossoms weren't even trying to come out yet (which is for the best, I guess).

Then here we are on April 11th! Sun hats! 70 degrees!

Poor Gussie didn't know what to do. He couldn't open the door wearing these gloves, for one thing.

And putting on a coat and exchanging the gloves for mittens didn't help anything. He stood there helplessly, pawing ineffectually at the doorknob and pounding on the window every now and then hoping someone would come to help. (I was wrapped in a blanket at this moment and couldn't possibly get up. Although…I eventually took pity on him and did.)

This was another day when it was somewhat warm, but so windy! The kids went outside to read and made these…wind…shelters? There are three of them under there, if you can believe it.

Full moon over the snow

I wrote about Easter, but I don't think I wrote about the rest of Holy Week! We've been trying to celebrate Holy Week for…oh…I guess it's been ten years now, since we had a Homeschool unit on Easter traditions around the world. We found lots of traditions that we loved so much, we adopted them for ourselves! We read Eric Huntsman's book and it was so inspiring (I think he has a new book now and even more resources). I think that's when we bought the Easter creche I love, too. 

Anyway, the last few years we've done a big Spring Cleaning during the week along with our other traditions. I really love it; the children…not so much…but I try to make it at least a little fun! This year the deal was that after we checked our cleaning tasks off each day, we would do a fun activity.

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Your life is your preparation

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 2001 Conference.

It's weird, maybe, that the talk I feel like writing about from this session is Elder Hales' talk about how the church needs more senior couple missionaries. In some ways it feels like that time will never come for Sam and me! It seems quite likely that we will be raising children in our home forever! But I don't know what it was, maybe the fact that I've started to have siblings with grandchildren, or I've realized how fast time passes, or that our Stake President has recently been pleading for more couple missionaries from our stake—anyway, it's all got me feeling like a mission for Sam and me is, if not just around the corner, at least…on the horizon. It makes me kind of excited to think about it. I never wanted to serve a mission as a young woman; it just wasn't ever my desire. But I've always wanted to go as a senior couple, and I hope we'll be able to!

The part that stuck out to me most from the talk, though, was something that applies to me right now, and is an echo of what I wrote about last week from Elder Holland's talk:

Your life is your preparation. You have valuable experience. You have raised a family and served in the Church. Just go and be yourselves. The Lord has promised that angels will go before you. You will be told by the Spirit what to say and when to say it in a very natural process as you strengthen young missionaries, testify to investigators and new members, teach leadership skills, and friendship and fellowship less-active members, helping them return to full activity. You are the testimony, and you will touch the lives of those with whom you come in contact.…Simply be yourself. Serve to the best of your ability, and the Lord will bless you.

I've been thinking lately how the "mantle" of leadership in the church, if there is such a thing, is largely just the decision to choose to accept a call and be who you need to be to fulfill it. You don't really have to be a certain special leaderish type of person. You just have to be willing to treat the call, to whatever position it is, as if it's from the Lord—which, of course, it is! And then you have to throw yourself in and do your best at it and trust God to pull you along the rest of the way. I like thinking about this not only with my call to church service but with all of my stewardships, mother and sister and aunt and neighbor and all the rest. 

It is so calming and comforting to trust that God has already given us all the experiences we need—just in the course of our regular faithful lives—to be whatever he needs us to be! And he is currently in the process of giving us experience for the next things we need to know and be! So all we have to do is…keep going, and we will be fine!

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The Nielsons

I almost never click on video links in anyone's posts (who has time) but I feel this should be preserved somewhere for posterity. We made it sometime…last summer?…for Family Home Evening. (And when I say "we" I obviously mean Sam.) It's an introduction to our family in the style of a 90's sitcom. I already look at this and think how much everyone has grown!!

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The gospel will just tumble out

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Morning Session of the April 2001 Conference.

April 2001. The month I got married! I think I went to the temple for the first time the Friday after this conference. I don't remember what I felt or what stuck out to me when I listened to this session back then. But 22 years later, I'm finding a lot of meaning in Elder Holland's great talk on missionary work.

It's funny how having a missionary out makes me consider things I've never thought about. I've been hearing "every member a missionary!" my whole life. But talking to Abe about the wards he serves in, listening to his testimony of how members affect the work, makes it real to me in a way it hasn't been before. One of the things Abe is always going on and on about is that just "finding" random investigators (which isn't the word they use now…but it describes what I mean here better than "friends" does, ha ha) is the least effective way to share the gospel. The people that get baptized and actually become committed members of the church are nearly always (I think it really is like 98% of the time) people that are found through existing members—friends, family, and acquaintances who are already known, loved, and cared about by someone in the church.

Well, here is Elder Holland saying exactly that in 2001:

Indeed, one of the axioms of our day is that no mission or missionaries can ultimately succeed without the loving participation and spiritual support of the local members working with them in a balanced effort. If today you are taking notes on a stone tablet, chisel that one in deeply. I promise you won’t ever have to erase it. Initial investigators may come from many different sources, but those who are actually baptized and who are firmly retained in activity in the Church come overwhelmingly from friends and acquaintances known to members of the Church.

I think there have been many years when I've kind of tuned out whenever there's a talk about missionary work. No matter how much the apostles have said how easy, how natural, how possible it is—my mind just shuts off and thinks "I can't!" I keep trying to break through that barrier and remember that missionary work isn't some special work—it's the work I'm already trying to do of being a disciple of Christ! I just need to bring that discipleship into every situation I encounter. So, I loved this description from Elder Holland about how simple sharing the gospel can be:

When the Lord delivers this person to your view, just chat—about anything. You can’t miss. You don’t have to have a prescribed missionary message. Your faith, your happiness, the very look on your face is enough to quicken the honest in heart. Haven’t you ever heard a grandmother talk about her grandchildren? That’s what I mean—minus the photographs! The gospel will just tumble out. You won’t be able to contain yourself!

But perhaps even more important than speaking is listening. These people are not lifeless objects disguised as a baptismal statistic. They are children of God, our brothers and sisters, and they need what we have. Be genuine. Reach out sincerely. Ask these friends what matters most to them. What do they cherish, and what do they hold dear? And then listen. If the setting is right you might ask what their fears are, what they yearn for, or what they feel is missing in their lives. I promise you that something in what they say will always highlight a truth of the gospel about which you can bear testimony and about which you can then offer more.

I really do think I can do that. And I want to! When I hear about the members in Abe's wards, faithful men and women who are so busy and have all the same worries and responsibilities and demands on their time as I have—and yet they are making time to go out with Abe and his companion, befriending missionaries and investigators, feeding them, caring about them—it makes me want to do the same. And I want to fill myself up so full with the gospel that, like Elder Holland says, it will just tumble out of me!

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