Fête du Travail and other things

Our branch (congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) here had a party for Labor Day which was a great mystery to me. It was something about corn, which is already confusing because it's called "Indian wheat" here. (I learned corn as maïs…but apparently it's sometimes blé d'Inde too.) The party was called "épluchette de blé d'Inde" and the missionaries told us it's a great favorite here, something always done in Autumn, but no one exactly knew why. Épluchette means "peeling" so I deduced it must be something like a "Corn Husking Party."

It actually made sense to me when I thought about wards I've been in and how they've had their Fall party traditions too…the "Chili Cook-off" for example. Some people just LOVE the ward chili cook-off! And here, what they love is the épluchette de blé d'Inde.

(I'm not casting scorn upon loving these things, by the way. I like them too! Fall parties are great! I just think it's funny that there are pockets of people among whom a tradition is done every year, and "it wouldn't be Fall without it," while in other places it's totally unknown and weird!)

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Ziggy's birthday and the Aquarium

 

Ziggy turning seven is a puzzle to me. He has just been such a funny, quirky, friendly, imaginative, role-playing, neighborhood-wandering little monkey for so long! It seems he should never, and would never, grow up! But seven-year-olds are grown up! They are full-fledged school children! Impossible that Ziggy could be such a thing…and yet, as I think over the last few months, I see that he has been asking lots of questions…wanting to have more serious little talks with me, about repentance and what Jesus is like and who is "the meanest animal"…reading harder stories and writing more words…confidently facing things that used to make him nervous. And so I have to admit that yes. He must be seven! But with hopefully his inimitable Ziggy-ness to remain forever!

We went on a morning birthday walk with him, ending where such walks should always end:

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Abe and Seb visit

When we said goodbye to Abe and Seb and left for Quebec, we were hoping maybe they could come visit us sometime while we were gone. Seb can fly free on standby because of his job with United, and it's great, but it's not really the same as having a ticket! You have to be flexible, and you have to be at peace with maybe getting stuck somewhere for longer than you'd like! It's a little nerve-wracking when you have a schedule to keep to. 

Still, there was a week in August before school started where Abe thought he could take a day off work and then maybe work from Quebec for a few days. (His MTC job is all online, working with missionaries in other parts of the U.S. and Canada.) And Seb thought he could switch shifts with a few people to get some days off. And Seb is able to get Abe on flights free too if they fly together! So they picked a week, and Seb pored over the standby schedule. There are no direct flights from Salt Lake to Quebec, so they would need to get to a hub somewhere that could get them to Newark or Chicago, and then from one of those two airports to Quebec. And they needed to do it all in one day so Abe could be somewhere to work (remotely) the next day! I know Seb was really worried about making it all work out. He figured out how to get to the right places at the right times so there would be two flight options in case they missed one. And then he figured out contingencies in case they ended up getting stuck overnight somewhere. Worst case scenario, he thought, they could turn around and fly back to Salt Lake and just try to come visit us another time.

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Clementine's birthday, DIY Ballet, Fireworks

We had two birthdays right in quick succession when we got to Quebec. (If Seb had been here with us, we would have had three! Not that he didn't have a birthday of course…but he didn't have one HERE.) I was excited about the birthdays in a new place because I thought it would be fun to see what different little exciting things we'd have to come up with to do.

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The effort to receive

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Relief Society Session of the October 2006 Conference.

This session was so good! I'm amazed that I don't remember it, because these women gave three of the best talks I've ever heard about God's love. I thought it was interesting that Sister Parkin used the word "entitled": "each one of us is entitled—and needs—to feel the Lord’s love in her life daily."

There are few things in life we are “entitled” to, I think. The fact that this is one of them should give us confidence in seeking and asking for it. It’s not selfish to want to feel God’s love. It’s necessary and worth pleading for! But we also have to do our part to feel it.

All three talks give great counsel on how to feel that love more fully. Sister Hughes talks about remembering.

I’m certain that each of you has felt, at one time or another, encircled in Christ’s arms. But if you are like me, there are times when you are fearful, when the stress and busyness of life seem to overwhelm you, when you feel adrift from the Spirit. Perhaps you even feel as though you have been abandoned. When I encounter those feelings, the best antidote is my memory of the moments when Christ’s peace has come to strengthen me.…

I recognize how true it is that life often feels like a great pile of obligations, frustrations, and disappointments. But the Lord is there, always the same, His arms still outstretched. When we feel overwhelmed, we have to remember the peace He has spoken to us on previous occasions. His peace brings comfort and strength; the world cannot give that to us.

As faithful women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have been blessed with the Holy Ghost. As we invite the Savior into our lives, the Holy Ghost will bear witness to us of the love which the Father and His Son, our Savior, have for each of us. But feeling Their love is dependent not only on our desire but upon our actions as well. And the actions we need to take are known to us: genuine prayer that is specific and humble, followed by quiet listening for the Lord’s answers; regular scripture study and time to ponder what we read; and, finally, a willingness to be introspective about ourselves and to trust in the Lord’s promise that He will “make weak things become strong unto [us].” As we study and ponder, we are entitled to the promptings of the Spirit, and as we grow more attentive to these promptings, we come to recognize each day the workings of the Lord in our lives. We will find Him, as Elder Neal A. Maxwell stated, “in the details of our lives.” And when that recognition comes, we feel His peace and recognize that we are truly encircled in the arms of His love.

The thing that struck me this time was that even receiving love is a form of effort; a sign to God that we desire more of His love. Ever since President's Nelson's talk about faith moving mountains, I've thought about faith in terms of "action that unlocks miracles." It's not that we demand or deserve miracles on our timetable. But when we act in certain ways, we enable power to flow from God into our lives. (Elder Renlund speaks of that as "activation energy" required for blessings.)  

So, when we find ourselves feeling abandoned by God, we need to exert the deliberate, conscious effort to receive love—clinging to trust that He is there, looking for evidence that it's true, calling up past memories of miracles. These actions and desires, small and weak as they may be, can unlock our ability to feel His love again.

Sister Hughes ends with this:

My prayer for each of us is that we will remember when the Lord has spoken His peace to us and has encircled us in the arms of His love. And just as important, will you, if you haven’t felt that love for a while, seek to see it and feel it as you go about the ordinary tasks of your life. As you do this, over the days and months and years of your life, the memories of those interactions with the Lord will become sweet gifts to open a second time—or many times—to bolster you when life is difficult.

Other posts in this series: 

Eternally encircled in his love—by Rozy

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Old Quebec "en tout temps"

Malachi, on his morning runs, was really the first of us to explore outside the immediate neighborhood. He was struck by the street musicians and people he saw selling things out in the pedestrian streets of Old Quebec and decided he want to go out and do card tricks there himself the Saturday morning after we arrived. So Sam dropped him off at the Chateau with a table and chair, and then went home to work while the little ones napped and the girls and Teddy and me walked around the Old Quebec ourselves.

(We never did get a picture of Malachi at his table, sadly. But he did make, as he described it, "Twelve Canadian dollars and fifty Canadian cents.")

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Reading nooks, a secret room, Daisy's birthday

It's boggling to me that there could ever be a thing such as "everyday life" for us here in Quebec. Yet now there is! These pictures are from a Sunday walk on a rainy day:

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Rue Saint-Jean and the two churches

Our quartier or neighborhood here in Quebec is called Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The long street running through the quartier is Rue Saint-Jean. It goes out of our little neighborhood too, across the big street Honoré Mercier into Old Quebec, and that part is full of shops and tourists. But I love "our" Rue St. Jean best, the part we walk on every day to get to our car or the market or the park. It's still busy and bustling into the night. We hear shouts and running feet sometimes after midnight, people drunk or making mischief, but it doesn't feel unsafe, just very foreign to us.

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It was so hot

It was so hot when we first came to Quebec. I don't know if we were just unaccustomed to the humidity? It had been humid in Nauvoo and New York, and we felt okay there. Maybe it was just that in Quebec, we couldn't cool off at night because the house was so hot all the time! But somehow, that first week or two, even though the temperatures were only in the mid-80's (which at home I would consider hot but by no means unbearable) we just felt limply, wearily, dreadfully hot all the time. Out of sheer desperation, we sought out every water-related activity in the city, and luckily, there were a lot of them. 

It pleases me that waterfalls are "chutes" in French. We loved Chute-Montmorency!

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The quirky little things God has in place for you

When we first arrived in Quebec and I was going through a little…crisis of adjustment, let's say (funny thought, because I hadn't thought I of all people would need to adjust! The children, yes. But not me!)…the dearest, most inspired friend texted me something that comforted me so much. Something like, "Because you didn't find exactly the clear things you hoped you’d love right away, now, you can be a blank slate—able to discover the quirky little things God has put in place for you to discover and love."

Maybe because she said that, I've been looking for them. And I have found them! Of course I'm still a pilgrim and a stranger here. But there are already so many places that feel like my own special discoveries, so many details that feel like dear little secrets—so many funny little things I've grown to love.

I'll show you some!

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II: A long bright line of goodness

We left me (rightly or wrongly) feeling sad, uncomfortable, and lonely in my garret room in Quebec. And the next day, quite frankly, was a hard one too. Daisy and I went to the store and bought some laundry baskets and a clothes rack and other items for the house. It was nerve-wracking to drive the unfamiliar roads, even with a navigator. My shoulders ached with the tension of it. And then when we got home, I spent hour after hour trying to find some more permanent place for us to park. 

You must understand, this was not my first attempt. Ever since we found this house last winter, I had been scouring the internet for parking options. I'd asked the owner of our house and my Quebecois friend on the French conversation practice app I'd been using. I'd emailed parking companies large and small. I'd even found an outdoor lot that seemed promising, but there was a waiting list to buy a monthly space there. I put us on the waiting list and then just had to hope that when we got here, some option would become clear! I thought that surely if we could just walk around and SEE what was available and how far was a reasonable walking distance, we'd be able to work something out. 

What we found was that the streets around our house are all narrow and one-way and completely packed with parked cars at all hours. There are several steep hills. If you can find a spot, you are allowed to park for one hour, but no longer. So as things stood, once we arrived at the house and whenever we were at home, Sam was setting a timer and going out to move the car and hunt for a new place every hour! And then he was parallel-parking in the tiniest and most nerve-wracking places. It definitely did not seem sustainable. But getting a resident parking permit, I learned after much effort, was impossible for us because we would be here less than six months. There are several parking garages around by hotels and other large buildings, but none of them had high enough clearance for our seven-foot-high van. (One garage said it had a height of 2.1 meters. 7 feet is 2.13 meters…we didn't dare try it.) We walked around taking pictures of signs that might have a phone number where someone could help us, but I was already having to learn new French words for half of these topics, and when I got talking to someone who was throwing around French bureaucrat-speak like "resident use permit" or "adequate utility documentation" I got hopelessly lost. One guy got so fed up with my confusion on the phone that he just hung up on me!

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I: The first day

This root beer float represents a great moment in time. I will tell you why. But first…

Looking back on a hard experience always feels strange. Were you imagining the difficulty? Was it all a matter of context? Which feelings were really there and which are you imposing from your current vantage point? Reflecting on the thing while it's ongoing is even trickier. I feel like some of my experiences will take years to really understand…and by then I might have forgotten all the details about them! It's the tension I've been aware of since I was a teenager. Live life or think about it? 

We stumble along doing both, of course. But I give that preface partly as explanation, partly apology—because it's always hard to know which parts of life to share. Not even with the world at large, but with my own children and my future self—the people I try to write this blog for. Do I tell them only the best parts and risk "whitewashing" a complex reality? Do I tell them the hard parts and risk mistaking motes for beams? Do I wait to write until my perspective is more full and less susceptible to hasty error? I want the pillars of faith and testimony I feel to be the pillars those future others see in me. But I don't want to do it at the cost of them seeing the struggle and sacrifice jumbled into the mix.

Read this, then, Future Self, with a dash of generosity toward your past-self sister, who was weak and changeable and too often affected by silly things. Remember she had never lived any of this before—whereas YOU, O Future one, have lived all of it—and learned the lessons from it besides. We can hope so, at least!

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The tender love of God

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the October 2006 Conference.

This post is actually from the Sunday Morning Session of October 2006, but somehow I read it with the afternoon session talks, so I'm posting about it this week!

I've thought a lot about (maybe written about too) the difference between knowing about the love of God and actually feeling it for yourself and others. Elder Anthony D. Perkins (whose name I don't even recognize! from the Seventy) gave a talk I really liked on that subject. He talks about how Satan uses feelings of false inadequacy or exaggerated imperfection to keep us from feeling God's love for ourselves. And then he gives suggestions of ways we can combat those Satanic deceptions and learn to"more fully feel the tender love of God."

He talks about refraining from thinking or saying negative words about ourselves—a habit I try to emphasize often with my children. I always tell them to try to say, "I'm not good at drawing cats yet" or "I'm still practicing how to shoot free throws"—rather than what they always do say, which is "I'm so bad at [whatever]." It's funny that that's an easy thing to tell children, but not so easy to do for myself! Elder Perkins also says:

Jesus Christ has commanded us, “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” Doubt, fear, and worry indicate we have taken all of life’s burdens and anxieties on ourselves. When plagued by thoughts that you are inadequate, confidently say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Then as you “cheerfully do all things that lie in [your] power,” you can rest assured that the Lord will do the remainder and things will work out all right.

But the counsel that struck me most this time was this:

To forgive yourself and others, you must trust the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The prophet Zenock prayed, “Thou art angry, O Lord, with this people, because they will not understand thy mercies which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy Son.” Our Father in Heaven is saddened when we limit the power of His Son’s atoning sacrifice.

I don't know why that "Our Father in Heaven is saddened when we limit the power of His Son’s atoning sacrifice" stuck out to me exactly. Some people might read that and think, "Oh no, another thing to feel guilty about! Not only am I failing at everything, but when I get discouraged, I sadden Heavenly Father too!" But thinking about it from a parent's perspective, it makes so much sense to me. When my children struggle with small things, and bigger things as they get older, my strongest hope for them is just that they won't give up trying. I don't feel disgusted or judgmental when I see their struggling efforts. (Only when I see their lack of effort. Ha ha. But that's probably not fair either...) But really. I don't. I just feel so glad that they are trying to improve themselves. So glad that they're moving along the path, moving forward past their mistakes. So hopeful for them. And if I feel that way, of course Heavenly Father does too! He doesn't want us stuck on our past failures. He doesn't want us paralyzed with fear. He wants us using the power through our covenants, the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, to keep moving cheerfully toward Him! And if we inadvertently limit that power by refusing to take advantage of it—of course he feels sad about that! Not for Himself but for us, because He knows we could have so much more peace and confidence if we would just let His love work in us.

Elder Perkins ends with

You will experience greater joy in life as you eradicate adult-onset pessimism and substitute childlike optimism. Optimism is a virtue that allows us to see God’s loving hand in the details of our life.…I testify of Heavenly Father, who in great and wonderful love reaches out to each of His children. I bear witness of Jesus Christ, who is “mighty to save” us from our inadequacies, imperfections, and sins. I bear testimony of the Holy Ghost, who will accompany the imperfect yet penitent soul.

When I think of it that way, there is such great reason for optimism! We have three members of the Godhead cheering for us, lifting us, loving us, and helping us. How can we possibly go wrong with Them at our side?

*****

Bonus quote, this one actually from the Sunday afternoon session, which I've been thinking about all week. This is by Elder Bednar:

One of the greatest indicators of our own spiritual maturity is revealed in how we respond to the weaknesses, the inexperience, and the potentially offensive actions of others.

!!! 

*****

Other posts in this series:

Settle this in your hearts, there are prophets in the land again!—by Rozy

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Come to him ourselves

 This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 2006 Conference.

I think often about how many gospel principles I really only started to understand once I was trying to cultivate them in my children. So I loved Sister Margaret S. Lifferth's reminder about the progress we ourselves make when helping others progress toward God:

Brothers and sisters, as a mother and a Primary leader, I know this work with children is not easy. Protecting, teaching, and loving children can be demanding, often discouraging, sometimes exhausting, and occasionally the fruits of our efforts are long delayed. But it is precisely because it is not easy to bring children to the Savior that we must come to Him ourselves.

As we seek Him and His Spirit to help us, we will see a miracle. We will recognize that our own hearts are changing and we too are becoming “submissive, meek, humble, patient, [and] full of love.” We too will reflect the light of the gospel in our own countenance.

Other posts in this series: 

God's love is the antidote to scrupulosity— by Nathaniel

The faith to stay on—by Jan

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The good life

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the October 2006 Conference.

This priesthood session was a very bracing one for the men! Lots of great talks about "rising up and being men." It was definitely the theme of this session. I'm sure the men who heard it felt energized and inspired to quit whining or being lazy and just be better—President Hinckley and his counselors were so good at helping people feel that way. I feel urged in that direction every time I listen to President Nelson, too.

However, the quote that stuck out to me most is actually not about what we should be doing better, but about the benefits that come as we do. Elder Christofferson said in his talk:

Though he will make some sacrifices and deny himself some pleasures in the course of honoring his commitments, the true man leads a rewarding life. He gives much, but he receives more, and he lives content in the approval of his Heavenly Father. The life of true manhood is the good life.

It's so true. The Lord, and the church, do expect a lot of us, both men and women. We have a lot to do and we should almost always be doing it better. But I love that reminder that really, what else would we want to be doing? This—the life we live in the church of serving others, trying to learn and grow, sacrificing for our families, letting the things of the world go—this IS the good life. It is the best life. And the things we gain far exceed the things we give up to live it.

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Random Thoughts in which I use the phrase "mustards of my youth"

We've been in Quebec for a month now! It feels both longer and shorter than that. While I slowly edit other pictures, here are some random thoughts for the occasion:

• I use an apron when I cook here a lot more than I did at home. I think it's because I have a limited number of shirts. (Of course, that was true at home too, but somehow it didn't feel like it.) 

• I've suddenly gotten much more adventurous with cooking too, or at least more cavalier. Something about being here in a strange place and kitchen has encouraged me to just throw caution to the wind! I've never been so willing before to just put together random ingredients and assume it will work for dinner. I am used to adjusting recipes as I go, but I've usually felt that I ought to at least be referring to a recipe, loosely. But here I find myself just throwing things together, thinking sort of crossly, "Well, I ought to be able to make up a recipe, after twenty years, for crying out loud!" 

• Part of that comes from having an unfamiliar mix of ingredients to work with and a bunch of different kitchen utensils. Since I don't have the usual things, I feel I might as well do unusual things. Not that I am making do like the pioneers, let me be clear. I have a very nice kitchen and a great bunch of equipment. Just different stuff than I'm used to! Somehow it encourages me to toss things in without measuring, add ingredients, leave out ingredients, use whatever I have. And (you will have to ask my family, of course, for independent confirmation) I think it has worked out fine! No huge meal disasters yet (knock on wood).

• Speaking of being adventurous, I suddenly like mustard! That is one of the two foods (along with pickles) I would have told you, as a child, I would never like. To be fair, I have long accepted mustard as an ingredient in things, and in recent years I have even come to embrace it in things like honey mustard dressings or creamy mustard sauces…so maybe this new liking is more like a continuation than a sudden change? At any rate, there are so many mustards here, of all different interesting sorts. On a whim I bought something called tarragon mustard at the store, and it was so good! So now I've been finding others too and I like all of them! (Basil mustard. Hazelnut mustard. Apple maple mustard!) I even like to just spread them on a sandwich and they're amazing! They aren't like the mustards of my youth at all! In fact, when throwing meals together (see above) I often throw in a bit of mustard just for fun!

• It is odd to smell cooking smells that are not from my cooking! Our house is really three apartments, and we're connected with the houses all along the street too, so I often have a sort of subconscious anticipatory feeling ("Mmm, soon I will get to taste whatever I'm smelling!") and then am disappointed to realize it's the neighbor's dinner and not one made in our kitchen for us by some Good Samaritan who has happened by. (The exception was on one of our first nights here when I was anxiously trying to decipher French websites to find parking, and after several hours I smelled food cooking and realized how late it was, and when I went sadly and drearily down to the kitchen to dredge something up, Daisy and Junie had already made dinner to surprise me! Bless them forever for that.)

• I'm sure you're thinking, "But the downside is the BAD shared smells." Well, yes, I suppose. There is an unpleasant sickly-smoky smell in the little antechamber downstairs after you come in the first two doors and before you walk upstairs to the real door of our house. Luckily, there is no trace of it in our house itself. And occasionally I will smell someone's cigarette from one of the neighbors' yards. But all the cooking smells so far have been absolutely delicious. Even when walking down the street! Like a dozen mouthwatering meals all being made side by side in a fancy restaurant!

• The upstairs bathroom in this house has a toilet paper holder I hate more each passing day:

I don't know why it's so bad. Looking at it, maybe you think it might be quite nice for keeping the end of the toilet paper tidy. It is not! The metal flap traps the toilet paper tightly so you can only pull out tiny torn-off fragments at a time. Getting the right amount of toilet paper to unroll is impossible. When the roll is closer to empty, the end gets lost under it altogether and you have to pinch your fingers trying to lift the flap simultaneously with trying to grasp the end. If you succeed, the paper pulls out unfettered and rolls all the way to the floor. When the roll is closer to full, it gets stuck and won't turn at all. I abhor it.

• Graffiti is weird, especially when it tries to make a political statement. And even more especially when it tries to make a political statement in a different language.

• The city is a completely different place in the early morning and at night. The contrast seems much greater than simply morning and night at home, maybe because the number of people around varies so widely. But there have been multiple times I have realized belatedly and with a shock that I'm in the same place I've been before, because I was there at a different time of day.

• The most French French word is, objectively, pneu (tire). You pronounce the "p" and end up with the perfect wrinkled-nose, tight-lipped "eeoo." A masterpiece of a word.

• It's so fun when I randomly run into one of my kids at the store or on the street. I'll have just run out for milk before dinner, and suddenly there are Junie and Gus walking down the street to the ice cream shop. Or I'm heading out for bread at the bakery and I see Malachi running up the hill. It makes this place feel like home.

• This object:

is the bane of my existence, first of all because I have no idea what it is (a chain, yes, but why?) or where we acquired it. We certainly did not pack it at the beginning of the trip. Yet it was already with us when we arrived in Quebec. I suspected Ziggy of appropriating it from Andrea's house, but she says it isn't theirs. At any rate, second of all, it is the bane of my existence because it is constantly fought over. For some reason all of the children under age seven find it indispensable to their play. Absolutely imperative. They cannot build a building, drive a car, pretend to be a policeman or any other thing without it, and unless no other child has it, their enjoyment and indeed, permanent well-being, is utterly impossible. Utterly.

• I wrote on instagram that we only brought one toy on our trip, to wit: a huge bin of magnet tiles. I am sorry to report that having less stuff around is just as great as the minimalists say it is. I love how easy it is to clean up the toys every day! However, that is not the full story. I can also report that the children are able to fight just as much over one kind of toy as over many. And they are able to make nearly as many messes, by the simple expediency of their using any random household object as a toy. They are also able to get attached to and fight over those things (see previous bullet point). And to break them. To sum up: getting rid of all your stuff will not solve all of your problems. 

• The kids' creativity with the Magnatiles™ (mostly Picasso Tiles™ really, I think) is amazing and fun to watch, though. I could do a whole post on the cool things they've built and the interesting ways they've used them. It does make me think we made the right choice of toy to bring!

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