Out of changed hearts

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 2003 Conference.

Lots of speakers talked about sharing the gospel in this session. Two stories by different speakers were interestingly similar. One from Elder Eyring:

One humble man was called as the president of a tiny branch. There were so few members he could not see how the branch could function. He walked into a grove of trees to pray. He asked God what he should do. An answer came. He and the few members began inviting friends to join with them. In a year, hundreds had come into the waters of baptism and become fellow citizens in the Lord’s Church.

And one from Elder Ballard:

Some years ago a faithful convert, Brother George McLaughlin, was called to preside over a small branch of 20 members in Farmingdale, Maine. He was a humble man, driving a milk delivery truck for a living. Through his fasting and earnest prayer, the Spirit taught him what he and the members of his branch needed to do to help the Church grow in their area. Through his great faith, constant prayer, and powerful example, he taught his members how to share the gospel. It’s a marvelous story, one of the great missionary stories of this dispensation. In just one year, there were 450 convert baptisms in the branch. The next year there were an additional 200 converts.

I noticed these stories because they reminded me of my missionary Abe and his little 30-person branch in Arkansas right now. He is different than the men in these stories because he won't be Branch President very long. In a few months he will come home and his life and priorities will change. But he is similar to these men in that the work needing to be done in his branch seems monumental! The people he is teaching live in hard circumstances and have seemingly insurmountable trials. The strong members in his branch are few, and they are weary. There may be no miraculous end to this story.

But the thing I'm realizing is that the small miracles in these situations are just as real as the "450-convert-baptisms" miracles. And for the people involved, they are just as life-changing. One family who comes back to church. One man who returns to the temple. One woman who accepts a calling she first refused. One missionary growing into a more determined, mature servant of God. Maybe even one missionary's mother seeing in new ways what "sharing the gospel" means.

Elder Eyring says:

[People who are] bold and effective in sharing the gospel…see themselves as children of a loving, living Father in Heaven. And they see themselves as disciples of Jesus Christ. It takes no discipline for them to pray. They do it naturally. It is no special effort to remember the Savior. His love for them and theirs for Him is always with them. That is who they are and how they see themselves and see those around them.

Now that may seem to us to require a great change, but we can be confident that it will come. The change in individual members is happening across the Church in every nation. This is the great time foreseen by prophets since the Creation. 

I love seeing Abe grow and change as he serves his mission. And every once in a while I glimpse these changes in myself as well, like Elder Eyring said—as bit by bit I find it a little easier to remember the Savior, a little more natural to pour out my soul in prayer, a little easier to feel God's love. Those things are miracles too! And they're miracles that lead to more miracles:

I know now that the great miracle, a mighty change, will come inside the members, not in the world around them.

They and members across the earth will love and listen and talk and testify out of changed hearts. Bishops and branch presidents will lead them by example. The harvest of souls will be great, and it will be safe in the Lord’s hands.

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Auguste

Oh my goodness. It's taking me so long to report on life, I'm going to have to stop living life if I want to ever catch up. Just like how Sam said "If we could just put a $20,000 pause on spending money then I think we could get ahead again."

Anyway, is August my favorite month or something? We have three birthdays in August. And two children with a variation on it in their names (Theodore August and Augustus Finch). Clearly, something is going on. Although if you asked me to pick a favorite month, I think it would be May—or June—or September—or October. Still, good things happen in August and here some are!

Daisy's birthday, for one! She is 14! We celebrated a day early because we were going to be out of town with Seb, but we arranged for some of her friends to come over and surprise her with cake and games on the birthday itself too, so I think it was a happy day. For our celebration, she chose flourless chocolate cake…good choice!

I'm just looking at Ky and Junie in this picture and wondering…why?

The daisies next door are usually good at just the right time of year for our Daisy!

Goldie makes the sweetest presents! This was a little basket of paper picnic food she made for Daisy. It included some cute little dollhouse food too. 

Junie got Daisy a big penguin!

…not that she needed another!

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A wellspring of goodness

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Morning Session of the April 2003 Conference.

I liked Sister Kathleen Hughes' talk about Living Water. She says:

I have learned from my own experience, and I learn from those I meet, that we are never left to our own resources. We are never abandoned. A wellspring of goodness, of strength and confidence is within us, and when we listen with a feeling of trust, we are raised up. We are healed. We not only survive, but we love life. We laugh; we enjoy; we go forward with faith.

She seems to be using "living water" to mean something like a connection with the Holy Ghost, or a relationship full of trust in Jesus Christ. In my own life, I've found that "wellspring" when I try to calm my fears, notice my blessings, and simply trust that Jesus has me, and those I love, in His hands.

Other posts in this series:

Blessed by living waters—by Rozy

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None but God heard my covenant

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Relief Society Session of the October 2002 Conference.

This week I've been thinking about being seen and unseen. One thing that sparked these thoughts was reading Elder Bednar's most recent talk about the quiet, unknown sacrifices of many ordinary members around the world—and how those sacrifices are not unknown to God! Sister Bonnie D. Parkin's talk from this Relief Society Session took up a similar theme:

As I think about you, I am reminded of Priscilla Staines from Wiltshire, England. Nineteen-year-old Priscilla joined the Church in 1843. Alone. She had to steal away in the night to be baptized, because of the persecutions of her neighbors and the displeasure of her family. She wrote: “We waited until midnight … and then repaired to a stream of water a quarter of a mile away. Here we found the water … frozen over, and the elder had to chop a hole in the ice large enough for the purpose of baptism. … None but God and his angels, and the few witnesses who stood on the bank with us, heard my covenant; but in the solemnity of that midnight hour it seemed as though all nature were listening, and the recording angel writing our words in the book of the Lord.

Her words “None but God and his angels … heard my covenant” touch my soul, for like Priscilla—no matter our age, our gospel knowledge, our time in the Church—we are all women of covenant.…

Making covenants is the expression of a willing heart; keeping covenants, the expression of a faithful heart.

Sounds so simple on paper, doesn’t it? Of course, the doing is where we prove who we really are. Thus, every time we reach out with love, patience, kindness, generosity, we honor our covenants by saying, “Here am I; send me.” Usually we speak these words softly, unaccompanied by brass bands.

Here is the tiniest of tiny examples. It's a little embarrassing to even tell it. But we just barely moved into a new church building. A new stake was created near us that has no buildings within its boundaries, and so we were moved out of our usual building (just two blocks away from my house) and moved to our stake center so the new stake could have the whole building for their stake center. Now, you have to understand—our new building, while not as close as the old one, is still only about a five minute drive away. But…the old building was so easy! So nice! It only took a minute to walk over to church, or send the kids over for activities, or run back if you forgot something—I just loved being so close. 

In the new building, things will be marginally less simple. That's all. But I know it would be silly to be upset about it, and I haven’t been upset. I’ve been reminding my kids we should be so grateful for a building so close, and that people in other places often have to drive for long distances to church, and it would be so selfish and so entitled if we were to complain even a little bit about this change! We’re so blessed to even have a church building at all. And this emphasis is basically what everyone else in leadership has been giving too—expecting us not to complain, reminding us how privileged we are, and expecting everyone to just take it in stride and be grateful for what we have. As we should!

But this is the interesting part. Last Sunday the stake president was speaking in our ward, and he was saying how he knows it’s been a little disruptive to have to move buildings, and that it’s sad not to be in the one right next to our all of our houses anymore. And then he just said simply, “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

And it was just interesting because before, I didn't even call it a sacrifice in my own mind, because I told myself, “This is such a small thing, it’s not a sacrifice.” And I felt like Heavenly Father would think it was so stupid and ungrateful if I saw it like that. But somehow, when the Stake President spoke those words I felt such warmth and joy inside. To have God's representative for our stake acknowledge and thank us for our sacrifice—even such a small sacrifice—felt so good! 

I think it's because compared to what Jesus does for us, and how much Heavenly Father gives us, nothing is really that much of a sacrifice. Jesus could rightfully say to all of us, "Ha! You think THAT is hard? It's nothing!" But he doesn't. He "loves effort," and I can imagine Him saying to our tiny efforts, just like my Stake President—"Thank you! Thank you for swallowing that rude retort. Thank you for getting up a little earlier than you wanted to for scripture study. Thank you for letting your son have the last piece of cake. Thank you for going to church when you had a headache. Thank you for your sacrifice."

And of course, we all make bigger sacrifices too. Things that actually are hard, that are wrenching and painful and terrifying. Sometimes no one sees those either. Sometimes we can't even talk about them. But that's exactly why I think it was so touching to me to think that God saw, appreciated, and approved of my tiniest little sacrifice. Because if he sees that, he must see all of the things—everything hard that I do or try to do because I love Him, because I'm trying to keep my covenants, because I want to become like Him someday. To go back to what Sister Parkin said (and Elder Bednar too), even when no one else knows it—God knows, sees, and honors every effort to keep our covenants. And realizing that makes me want to do even better at keeping them!

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Hanging on

Last year, our Stake President told a story about when he and his wife were newly married and had so little money. They were scraping all the time to even have enough for the basics. But they were getting by. One day he was praying to see God's hand more in his life. He knew they were being blessed, but things felt so hard! He said he was driving home and he suddenly noticed all the houses around his. They all had new roofs. But his house had the same old roof it had always had. He felt the Spirit tell him: "Look! You haven't had to replace your roof! That's God's hand in your life."

I loved that story because it's so unexpected. The ugly old roof turns out to be an indication of God's love because the ugly old roof still works! A few months after I heard the story I still couldn't stop thinking about it. It was nagging at me…like it meant something for me too. Times are hard right now, aren't they? We do have so much, and yet—as my friend said to me recently—don't you just about have a panic attack every time you look at your receipt from the grocery store? I do! The cost of living feels unsustainable, and the future sometimes seems so nebulous and scary! When life feels like this, every unexpected expense seems like such a blow—like, "Oh no, not another thing, not now!" And for a few years now I've felt that "not now!" feeling over and over again with our children apparently on a quest to break everything we own, car insurance going up exponentially with teenage boy drivers having accidents, huge property tax increases, gas and grocery prices going crazy…

Anyway, after yet another of these "not now, not again!" moments, I was feeling a little betrayed by God—not because I expect Him to make everything smooth and perfect for us! But only because I'd just been praying for help in that specific area and it felt like, "Wait, this is my answer? But this is actually…the opposite of what I was asking for." Ha! I had this running list of things I was already worried about: "This is barely hanging on! Soon we're going to have to fix it and we just can't fix another thing!" But then because of the Stake President's story that had been on my mind, I started thinking harder about all those things in our house that were still hanging on. I started making a list of them.

• I backed into the garage door with our van (I know!) but when the guy came to fix it, he was able to just replace one panel instead of replace the whole thing like we'd feared. 
• The microwave was sparking and even flaming sometimes (I know! Dangerous! Should have gotten an immediate replacement!). It made the most awful noise. Actually, we grew kind of fond of it because Gus would say "the micwowave is gwumbwing." But—somehow—it held out and kept working for almost a year before finally giving out for good. 
• The vacuum was having trouble we couldn't seem to fix even after looking up all kinds of tutorials. For a while it seemed to be getting worse every time we used it. But then suddenly it kind of fixed itself. We didn't really know how. And it's still not perfect…but it's adequate and it works!
• The toaster plug broke, but it was only the grounding plug, so we were able to rig it back together with glue and it's still working.
• The car Seb uses has had various problems. It's gone through series of plastic panels on the bottom of it, which start hanging down, and then scraping the road, and then breaking off. Various warning lights go on. And we've had to fix a few things. But they've always been smaller than expected and some of them have mysteriously improved without us doing anything!
• The dishwasher was showing signs of problems for quite a while. We were sure we'd have to give in and call a repairman. But one day I realized it had been a couple months and I hadn't seen any sign of the problematic behavior. I guess the problems just…resolved?
• The iPad I use for some of our homeschool stuff gave out without warning. I was resigned to doing without, but then I was able to get an old one to use from some that Sam had left over from his BYU students.
• The kitchen sink faucet kept coming loose, but Sam was able to fix it…sort of. (I think it's coming loose again, but it worked for quite some time!)
• The plate under the swivel chair in our library broke, and when we tried to email the company about it, they said they couldn't do a repair NOR did they have any replacement parts. We thought we were just out of luck. But then Sam found a random part for $23 on Amazon that wasn't meant for the same brand or anything, but looked like it might work, and he ordered and installed it and it DID work!
• A while ago, my blog just…disappeared for a few days. I got an email about it being classified as "spam" or something, which made no sense, but I couldn't get any customer service to help and I was just SICK about it. I thought I was going to lose all these writings, all these pictures, forever. But then somehow, after a few days of extreme worry—it was back! You better believe I backed it up and have been trying to slowly print out books of it, knowing that could happen again at any time! But I was so grateful my previous failure to prepare didn't lead to me losing it forever!
• The children all needed SO MANY SHOES last year. We eked out what hand-me-downs we could, and some of them wore sizes that weren't quite right, and some of them stayed in their old ones longer than was quite ideal. But somehow we made it through a whole season and when we got to the new season there were the right sorts of hand-me-downs again, and I didn't have to buy all of them at once like I feared I would have to!
• My computer's charging ports have been bad for years, but there was still one that worked. Then it started not being able to charge at all. It finally just died altogether and I had to take it in to the Apple store, and the guys called it a "vintage model" and seemed hopeless about fixing it. But one of them managed to at least get it to turn on again using a certain kind of keyboard reset. No one knew what the problem was. No one could fix the problem. But I took note of what he did and the next time it wouldn't charge, I tried it, and it worked again! And for now, it's still working!

I could actually make this list twice as long (cracked-but-not-unusable windshields! Threadbare-but-not-unmendable pants! Unsightly-but-not-unfixable holes in walls!) but by the time I got here, I was crying, because I just knew that the things that didn't break when they should have—the miracles we didn't see—would have made an even longer list than this list of "things still hanging on." And I knew I was getting a glimpse of God's hand behind the scenes in our lives.

I felt a bit hesitant to post this, because I know our little troubles are so comparatively small. I know that "trials" like "microwave repair" would seem like unimaginable riches in so many homes! And I know that sometimes the worst-case scenario DOES happen at the worst possible time; the car DOES get totaled; the pipes DO burst. We've been in that place often enough, and God can be found there too. And some of these things for us, listed and unlisted, really are still teetering on the edge of disaster, and may yet give out or cost us all sorts of money to repair! But—whether they do or don't—I just felt a strong need to pause and be thankful; to acknowledge and remind myself that "barely hanging on"…is still "hanging on"! And "hanging on" is sometimes all the blessing you need!

I suppose we will never know the troubles Heavenly Father completely saves us from. The car accident we didn't get in. The job we didn't lose. The appliance that didn't break. I'm grateful, in the abstract, for those things. But there's something astounding about seeing God's hand in the broken, teetering, duct-taped-together parts of our life as well—to realize that even when times are hard, even in the specific details OF the hard things—He's there, keeping His eye on things, holding His finger in the dike while we catch our breath, sheltering us and strengthening us and propping us up. Helping us hang on.

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Happiness is there, in that simple life

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the October 2002 Conference.

This was a good session! I remember the "Dad, Are You Awake?" talk so clearly, I can't believe it was so long ago. Elder Scott gave the most Elder Scott-ish talk he may have ever given. And I really liked "Fun and Happiness" by Elder Claudio R. M. Costa. He re-told the story of the Prodigal Son, which I feel like I've been hearing everywhere lately, but he summed it up in a different way than I've heard before:

[The son] returns, repentant from all he has done, and his father, a righteous man, greets him as a special son. He finally understands that true happiness is there, in that simple life with his family.

I love that reading! Then Elder Costa says:

All who seek full happiness can find it in the gospel of Jesus Christ, taught in His Church. Through Christ’s doctrine, we are taught that we can be part of the great plan of happiness that He has prepared for all of us, His sons and daughters. As we keep His commandments, we are blessed and come to know true happiness. We learn that happiness lies in doing small things that build us up, that increase our faith and testimony. Small things we do in our everyday lives, such as:

We are happy as we pray every morning and every night, when we can feel that the Lord hears us and is always willing to bless, forgive, and help us. We are happy as we feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost in our lives—as we feel the Spirit when we have to make important life decisions. We are happy as we go home after a stressful and tiresome day at work to the arms of our families, as they express love and appreciation for us. We are happy to talk to our children, to enjoy the family, to get together on family night. In short, we can feel happiness every day in our lives through little things we do, and we are fully happy as we keep the commandments of a loving God who cares about us.

Sometimes, when I get overwhelmed thinking of the future and wondering how everything will work out (not to mention how many unknown trials are ahead) I have to remind myself of this truth. It is really true that happiness can come in these little moments, even during times of sorrow or fear. I can see it in my life in retrospect, but sometimes I forget to count on it in the future. But I should count on it! No matter what disappointments come, I can at least look forward to the happiness that can come from keeping the commandments and seeking the Holy Ghost. I can look forward to the little things that allow good moments even when days are hard…or good days when weeks are hard. 

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To light their way

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week we are covering the General Conference that just took place last weekend, the October 2023 conference. Back to 2002 next week!

I was so afraid President Nelson wouldn't end up speaking! And I was so glad when I saw he'd recorded his talk! The rest of the conference was great too. Unfortunately, I feel like I fell asleep even more often than usual. Usually the last session lulls me right off, but this time I was fighting it in the other sessions too! So I'm extra anxious to re-read all the many talks I missed parts of. Maybe it's time for me to take up crocheting during conference again…

Anyway, here are a few fleeting impressions:

• I didn't pick on any real themes this time. Sometimes in the past they've jumped right out at me. This time maybe I'll notice something later?

• On Monday I was talking to Abe on the phone and heard his companion saying "Think Celestial!" to someone in the background. So I asked Malachi if he thought people were going to pick up on that phrase a lot and and he said "I've already heard it three times today and if I hear it again I'm going to hit someone!" How's that for celestial thinking?

• My favorite thing from President Nelson's "Think Celestial" talk was not that phrase but another idea: "The very things that will make eternal life best will make mortal life best as well." Yes! That is true! I love the efficiency of it.

• Fell asleep mid-Elder Eyring, but I have a feeling I will like his talk—I loved where he was going with the Holy Ghost guiding people by "a series of experiences" or "minute by minute." I like anything that can help me learn more about how the spirit works! 

• Elder Bednar's talk was very tender. I kept getting teary during it as he mentioned sacrifices I have either made, or want to make, in the service of God. It was so comforting to think about the blessings reserved for all the unknown and ordinary people in God's kingdom! As I learn to trust God more fully, His promises become more sure. I suppose that's "think celestial" in a way too!

• Elder Cook said a couple different times that we should praise the Lord with music specifically. I just thought that was an interesting emphasis.

• Sam and I each take one of the kids out to lunch between Saturday Conference sessions, and I took Goldie this year. She and I talked about gifts and talents. She told me, among other things, how she "wasn't very good at drawing" and I was telling her that a gift doesn't mean "you were born being able to do this thing perfectly and with no mistakes!" Being "gifted" means that you're a person who wants to keep trying and is willing to keep trying at that thing until you improve. And Goldie definitely has that gift for art! She works and works to get her drawings to look just right, where some of her siblings will just toss off stick figures with no desire to do anything more.

Anyway, after we had that talk it was interesting that Elder Stevenson developed the same theme! I love how he said spiritual gifts require spiritual work if we want to receive them—"some assembly required."

• I really liked Elder Gong's "Love is Spoken Here" talk. I'm not sure what I liked about it, really, but I thought it was a cool idea to think about the ways (besides words!) that our Heavenly Parents speak to us, and the way we can learn to transmit these languages of love to our children as well. I could definitely work on expressing even ordinary conversations with warmth and love.

• Sister Amy Wright was one of my favorite speakers, mostly for this one line which struck me so strongly: "We can't share the oil in our lamps but we can share His light!" I have never considered that aspect of the parable. I've been so focused on the fact that the oil can't be shared! But of course! Yes, yes, we can't give anyone a testimony, but we can use our lamps to light their way, hopefully to get their own oil, in due time! I thought that was such a beautiful image of what we're trying to do for our children. Send them to buy their own oil…but not alone. And not in the dark.

• Sister Tamera Runia (not sure I got that name right?) was another favorite speaker. I missed quite a bit of the end of her talk due to…ahem…some less-than-reverent behavior from the children. But I felt immediately that it was going to be an important and meaningful talk to me. I'm excited to study it further. I loved the theme of feeling hope now, of choosing now to let God's promises be real in our lives. And I loved the idea that our hope in someone can change the way that person sees himself!

• Elder Robert Daynes (?) had me so intrigued about "face-blindness." I want to learn more about it! I loved the metaphor as he used it to describe our relationship with Heavenly Father, but where I thought he was going to go with it was that so many of us never truly learn to see and know other people like we should. We don't see their "true faces" and so we remain blind to who they really are—people like us, children of God. Anyway, the example applies both ways, I think. When we come to truly "see the face of God" it will be because we know Him—and that will be because we've learned to be like Him—loving everyone around us. 

I also loved his phrase "To serve is to stand in the river of God's love to His children." Another cool image.

• I liked Joni L. Koch's talk on humility. I like how he tied humility to following the prophets willingly. "Let strong opinions be swallowed by a stronger conviction that God speaks through his chosen leaders."

All right, I'm sure there is more, but now I'm falling asleep even writing about Conference! Anyway, it was great. I'm so sad it's over! Why is it always over so quickly? (Even when you aren't asleep…)

• Oh, and I have some contributions to the Puffer Fish hall of fame:

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