Joy comes in moments

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the April 2008 Conference. 

Elder Ballard gave the sweetest talk in this session! I remember him becoming softer and sweeter after his wife died in 2018, but I guess he was sweet all along and I just didn't know it! In my memory, he was stern and intimidating all the time, but now that I re-read them, his talks really aren't like that at all. Yet another thing I got wrong as a young person.

This talk is called "Daughters of God" and you can really sense how much Elder Ballard loves and admires the women in his life. He mentions using hand puppets to entertain his kids in sacrament meeting. And he shows genuine understanding for all kinds of situations women face:

There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children. The choice is different and unique for each mother and each family. Many are able to be “full-time moms,” at least during the most formative years of their children’s lives, and many others would like to be. Some may have to work part-or full-time; some may work at home; some may divide their lives into periods of home and family and work. What matters is that a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else.

He also says this about the demands of motherhood:

Through my own four-generation experience in our family, and through discussions with mothers of young children throughout the Church, I know something of a mother’s emotions that accompany her commitment to be at home with young children. There are moments of great joy and incredible fulfillment, but there are also moments of a sense of inadequacy, monotony, and frustration. Mothers may feel they receive little or no appreciation for the choice they have made. Sometimes even husbands seem to have no idea of the demands upon their wives.

You should read the talk yourself, because he gives some beautiful (and very wise, I think) advice to husbands about supporting their wives, and even talks sweetly to the children saying "pick up your toys, thank your mother for meals," and so on. But my favorite advice he gives is to young mothers, and it is very simple:

Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction.

I think I am not a "young mother" anymore, which is strange, because I still have young children and I don't feel like I've mastered motherhood sufficiently to be considered a "non-young mother." Ha. But maybe that is why I can now see the profoundness and the truth in the statement "the joy of motherhood comes in moments." I was thinking about it in the first decade of parenting, but I think it has only become more meaningful to me in the second decade, as I've seen both how fleeting and how anchoring family life can be. As a "young mother," maybe I would have heard that statement and said "Joy in moments? I don't want just moments! I want joy always! What's the point of all this work if all I get is moments?" But now I think I get it. Moments are the form in which joy comes. Those moments aren't lessened by their brevity; in fact, they are deepened by it. And because the "shining moments" are glimpses of a better and truer world, they can come even during times of the most painful and exhausting "mortalness." They can't replace those hard things. They come in and through those hard things. They help you endure the hard things with your gaze on what life is really about.

Maybe this is true to some extent for everyone, but I can testify it is especially true for mothers. I don't know if I could have grasped it earlier than I did—perhaps you can't really feel it until you've lived it for a while. But it's interesting how different certain tasks of mothering feel to me now—now that I can see an end to them. This semester I've been taking the little kids on "field trips" while the bigger kids are at rehearsal for their Choir. I've often had to do that; entertain the young ones while taking the older ones somewhere. It used to feel so pointless and exhausting. Sitting in the car or at the library trying to keep them entertained, the baby screaming in a carseat or on my lap nursing, the toddlers constantly needing to find a bathroom, the preschoolers being noisy or fighting or asking me for help with everything, and all I wanted was to read my own book for a second or be able to string two thoughts together! I haven't forgotten how hard it was, and I don't minimize how hard it was! (And of course I don't have babies now, and that makes these times much simpler.) But though I'm still busy, I just don't feel those resentful or exasperated or panicked feelings as much now. I don't constantly feel like I should be doing something else. I am more peaceful about just watching the kids, talking with them, sitting there and experiencing those moments with them. I know they won't last forever. And I can feel and believe they won't last forever and it actually makes me so sad! I've learned to more easily recognize the beauty in those small, ordinary, boring, even frustrating little moments where my children truly want or need my presence. I'm still not always as patient in them as I should be! But I now know, deep down, that these moments really are the building-blocks of joy.

Other posts in this series:

Giving and Becoming—by Rozy

Power to Overcome—by Jan

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The Last Walk

I'm a great one for "last walks," it seems. I've gotten in the habit of praying while I walk or run, and now I feel I can't face any big event or important change without having a good long walk and talk with the Lord about it. I feel downright unsettled until He and I have had our time together and I've poured out to Him all the things I'm feeling—doubly so when there's a lot of uncertainty or fear or sadness mixed in. Before we came to Québec, after we came to Québec, when we moved from our old house, before each baby was born, during miscarriages, whenever I get a new calling—whatever it is, you can bet I will be out walking or running to try and make sense of it all.

Of course I say plenty of prayers on just regular old everyday walks too—but I become very sentimental and especially remember these significant "last" or "first" ones! This walk was beautiful; such a gift on the last morning in Quebec. There was new snow and the sky was clear and brittle, and the sun rose and turned everything a cold pink and blue. Oh, I miss this city.

Eglise St. Matthew

Looking back down the hill on Rue Honoré-Mercier. The wind is always bitter on this street—I'm not sure why; maybe the tall buildings make a sort of tunnel for it?

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To express my deepest identity as a woman

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the April 2008 Conference. 

I loved this part from Sister Susan W. Tanner's talk:

I take great delight in my role as a nurturer, which allows me to express my deepest identity as a woman. I never fail to be struck by the way that women, young women, and even little girls seem to have an instinctive interest and ability in nurturing. It is not only a mother’s primary responsibility but also part of our “individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” To nurture is to teach, to foster development, to promote growth, to feed, and to nourish. Who would not shout for joy at being given such a blessed role?

In today's world there is a lot of confusion about what "identity as a woman" even means. It seems so shortsighted to me when people in the trans movement reduce womanhood to "liking pink" or "wearing high heels." But equally ridiculous when women limit their own capabilities by saying things like "I'm not really the nurturing type." Of course women have many and varied talents! Of course all of us also have areas in which we need growth! But we also can count on the fact that as women, we all have the potential to be like Heavenly Mother, the ultimate nurturer! 

So I like the truth expressed in the order of Sister Tanner's statement here—our deepest identity as women is expressed through nurturing. So the identity is who we are or can be—strong, capable, smart, perceptive, powerful daughters of God. And how we express those traits is by caring for and loving those around us! In other words, as women we use our strength, intelligence, abilities, perceptions, and power to serve and nurture others. And it doesn't matter if we feel like we're "good at" doing it; of course none of us are that good at it without practice. We learn it by doing it; we develop all of those traits as we do it. Nurturing is the process by which we grow into the kind of woman our Heavenly Mother is! 

It reminds me of what people sometimes say to me when they learn I have ten children (or when they learn that I homeschool them). They say: "Oh, you must be so patient." Or "Oh, you are a saint." It's so funny to me because it is SO untrue. My ten children make absolutely sure that I will never feel patient (as I sometimes assumed I really was before becoming a mother!). Homeschooling shows me in great and painful detail all the ways I am NOT a saint. But…the one true part is that I do think that these roles as mother and teacher are shaping me and letting me practice patience in ways I wouldn't necessarily do otherwise. I am able to "express my identity" (or more accurately develop my identity) as a patient person by stepping into roles that demand a patient person. Maybe eventually I'll really get there.

And that is what being a woman really is, I think. It is willingly assuming the role of nurturer to nourish and serve those within our stewardship, and it is rejoicing in the growth that comes as we do so. I agree with Sister Tanner: "Who would not shout for joy at being given such a blessed role?"

Other posts in this series:

True Religion—by Rozy

Modern-day Prophets—by Jan

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Dogsledding

At a Relief Society brunch in Quebec, Daisy and I were struggling through in French talking to one of the ladies, and she told us she owned nineteen dogs! I thought maybe we misunderstood that number, but she confirmed…oui…dix-neuf! She told us that she was saving up money so that she could take her dogs and drive to Yukon territory to live. I thought she said she was living in her car, or maybe the dogs lived in her car, but I wasn't sure.

Then she said, "If you want to, you can come visit me and ride the dogsleds." 

I said, "Oh, that would be so fun!" but it was one of those moments where I wasn't really sure if that was an actual invitation or just an imaginary "sometime" or if there was some Quebec etiquette about what she really meant. But then she typed into Google Translate on her phone so I could read in English: "It would be criminal to come to Quebec and not do this." 

Well. That seemed clear. I said "Yes! But…we leave next week!" 

"Come on Saturday morning," she said.

So I copied down her address, and she gave me a bunch of qualifiers like "it's near there" and "look for the green mailbox and then turn to the other side" and "there is a road going off the main road…" which I just prayed I would remember. Lots of people in our branch said they didn't speak much English but when I got talking to them and the need was great, they'd break it out! But this lady, Mylène, really did not speak English at all, so I kept repeating everything she said back to her slowly in French as a question, just hoping, hoping I had understood it all correctly. She lived forty minutes out in the country, across the river through Lévis, and I felt there was a good chance we would get lost!

Later in the week Mylène texted and asked if we could help her put up a big tarp/shelter when we came, which I was actually relieved about because it felt like we would be less of an imposition if we were helping her. And she said "I will have a fire in case the children get cold." So, Saturday morning we got up and dressed as warmly as we could. The kids didn't have snow pants or boots (we hadn't had room to bring any), but they wore multiple layers of pants and socks and I hoped it would be enough! It was only five degrees outside!! (That's -15 C.) One of the coldest days we'd had yet.

Clementine did NOT want to wear the lion hat. She was very sad about it.

But we gave her Malachi's bally leopard to hold in the car (he is snuggling in my hat here) and that cheered her up!

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The darkest evening of the year

I've never felt it was worthwhile to take little kids ice skating because they will just (a.) fall down and (b.) get cold, both leading to (c.) lots of whining. And I was inclined to pursue the same policy in Quebec, right up until the older kids begged to be able to take their little siblings and promised they would "help the whole time" even if there was falling, whining, and crying. Well. I didn't want to get on the ice myself, but with several other willing helpers…and with the little ones SO excited about the prospect…Sam and I said we would do our part by funding the skate rentals and coming to watch. So that's what we did. 

And they were so cute! Yes, they did fall, and they did whine somewhat…but the girls and Malachi and even Teddy took turns pushing the little sleds, and carefully helping the little ones get their balance, and picking up and kissing cold little hurt hands, and I think everyone actually had a wonderful time! In fact, we ended up letting them go twice because it was so fun! (The big kids, of course, were going every day with their thrift-store skates.)

This is my favorite picture in the entire bunch. I can't help laughing every time I see it. Clementine's poor stiff posture, like a sack of turnips that has fallen off the truck. Her helpless arms sticking out uselessly from her puffy coat. And Junie turning back in surprise at her lost cargo, cheery smile already pasted in place, ready to pick Clementine up and jolly her back to health as necessary. It's all so good!

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People we love

 

Isn't it strange how when you look at the faces in someone else's pictures all you see are strangers? And you can think dispassionately "that guy looks weird" or "that lady looks like my 3rd grade teacher" and that's the end of it? While, meanwhile, I look at these faces and feel a great swelling up of love and memory. Oh we love these people. It's not like we spent every hour with them even when we were in Québec. We all lived our own busy lives. But the time we did spend together was somehow magnified or deepened enough that we grew to love them so quickly. I keep wondering if we will find a way to go back and visit. But even if we do…things will have already changed. It feels so sad.

But this wasn't a sad day. It was a happy one. We made a million cinnamon rolls and invited all our Lévis Branch friends to come over and eat and talk with us on a Sunday evening. It was a mini version of the Butterscotch Roll Party we do on Christmas Eve in Utah. It was a lovely snowy night and our house felt so happy and full with so many friends in it!

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La Citadelle and lots of puppets

The Citadel (Citadelle in French) is a big star-shaped fortress on top of the cliffs above the St. Lawrence River. It's in the spot on the Plains of Abraham where the French were beaten by the British in the Battle of Quebec (that's why Quebec is part of Canada now and not New France), but it wasn't there at that time. If it had been, things may have turned out differently! Anyway, the British Army built up a fortress there later, as a defense against the Americans! But the Americans never did end up coming up to attack. So the Citadelle has never been through a real battle.

It's still a working army base (?), though, housing the Royal 22nd Regiment of the Canadian Army, the only French-speaking regiment.  (They are called the "Van-doos" for the French number 22, vingt-deux. The kids liked knowing that.) They do a "changing of the guard" in the summer months (we never made it to see that). We walked by and around and on the citadel all the time (one of my favorite walks takes you up onto its walls) and we heard the cannon firing every day at noon. But we never actually went in until we were about to go back to Utah! We had a tour of it and went to the museum inside, and I was glad we did—it was very interesting!

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The First Snow

Ky only had a week left in Quebec (he was flying home a week earlier than the rest of us so he could go to a Brandon Sanderson convention) and we were heading out to show him the "mayonnaise sampler" at Chez Victor when it finally started to snow.

(yummm, all these different flavored mayonnaises for the fries)

We had all been waiting and hoping for snow for or several weeks, listening to everyone say, "Usually we have piles of snow by now! Sometimes it starts in October! Winter in Quebec is not usually so mild!" They seemed to very much want to assure us that they could endure much worse than this sissy-winter we were currently experiencing. We loved the mild days, of course, but we really wanted to see some snow too. It was the right time for it, and it would have felt wrong to leave Quebec without seeing any! There had been little flurries now and then, of course, but not REAL snow. We'd heard from the missionaries about how swift and efficient the snow removal was too, and wanted to see that for ourselves.

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To experience love from God

 This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the April 2008 Conference. 

I feel like I have talked about feeling God's love a lot lately. I guess it's been on my mind, so I'm seeing references to it everywhere! I remember Elder Uchtdorf's talk from this session well—it's one of his more well-known ones, I think, called "A Matter of a Few Degrees." And even though I love the main point of this talk, this time through I was most interested in this little side note: 

Commandments and priesthood covenants provide a test of faith, obedience, and love for God and Jesus Christ, but even more importantly, they offer an opportunity to experience love from God and to receive a full measure of joy both in this life and in the life to come.

That's so interesting to me. It reminds me of the recent Robert M. Daines talk about our church callings being a way to "stand in the river of God's love." It's just such a different way to think about covenants. Rather than obligations, they are chances to feel more love. So when we're feeling sad and guilty and unloved because of whatever things we're doing badly at the moment (sins we're committing, even)—could the simply remedy be to find a commandment and try to keep it better? Any commandment? One of the times in my life I've felt most discouraged and hopeless was when I knew I was "actively sinning," but I didn't really feel like I could easily correct or leave behind that sin. I felt that God must be so disappointed in me, even if He still "loved" me in some abstract way. I imagined that He was listening to my prayers with exasperation or feelings of "get your act together, Marilyn, and then come back and maybe I'll listen and send love and guidance."

I see now that this assumption was "blocking" in my own heart the ability to detect the love that Heavenly Father was still actively feeling for me (because He always does). I wonder now if it would have helped to just do something good, even if I couldn't bring myself to do "the big thing." In fact, I think that actually is what I did do, without knowing it. I just kept doing small good things. I kept praying (without tons of hope, but I did it). I kept serving my kids. I kept obeying my priesthood leaders. I kept trying not to criticize them even in my own head. And eventually, I felt God's love again. Not that I felt I'd "earned" it by those small acts of covenant obedience; that never crossed my mind—but in some way maybe it was those very efforts that gave me more confidence and helped open up my heart to feel God's love again!

That same 2023 talk about the river of God's love has this interesting sentence:

Covenants are the shape of God’s embrace.

And I think that's what Elder Uchtdorf means here too. Covenants allow us to experience God's love by bringing it into our own lives. Covenants help us obey. They help us serve. They help us sacrifice. And all of those things are the exact things that open the floodgates so we can feel God's love. Maybe not immediately or on command—I know many people, myself included, have times when they struggle to feel it. But I love the idea of reacting to those times not with hopelessness, but by saying to myself, "Okay, I feel like God doesn't love me. So what covenant can I keep better so I can experience His love again?" It's not about me doing something so He'll "reward" me with love—but about me opening a covenant door that will let His already-abundant love flow into my heart.

Other posts in this series:

Prophets who speak for the Lord—by Jan

Give heed unto the prophet's words—by Rozy

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Open our hearts

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 2008 Conference. 

My reading of Elder Gerald N. Lund's talk came at an interesting time for me, as I had just been discussing the idea of "walls around a heart" with someone, and his talk is called "Opening our hearts." My discussion had been in the context of marriage and how hard it sometimes feels to let down our defensive walls after being hurt by a spouse. But Elder Lund applies the same concept to the effort of letting the Spirit of God inside our hearts. As I think of times in life when my faith has felt weak or my ability to feel God's love has been compromised, the two feelings (defensiveness toward God or toward spouse) really are remarkably similar. You wouldn't think anyone would need to be self-protective and defensive toward a perfect God! But we are! I have been! It surely is not God's fault that I don't feel His love. But in that blinded state, it feels like His fault sometimes. Elder Lund says:

The heart is a tender place. It is sensitive to many influences, both positive and negative. It can be hurt by others. It can be deadened by sin. It can be softened by love. Early in our lives, we learn to guard our hearts. It is like we erect a fence around our hearts with a gate in it. No one can enter that gate unless we allow him or her to.

In some cases the fence we erect around our hearts could be likened to a small picket fence with a Welcome sign on the gate. Other hearts have been so hurt or so deadened by sin that they have an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire around them. The gate is padlocked and has a large No Trespassing sign on it.

…Individual agency is so sacred that Heavenly Father will never force the human heart, even with all His infinite power. Man may try to do so, but God does not. To put it another way, God allows us to be the guardians, or the gatekeepers, of our own hearts. We must, of our own free will, open our hearts to the Spirit, for He will not force Himself upon us.

So how do we open our hearts?

How do we open our hearts? That's the great question. When my heart feels hard, it feels impossible to even want it to soften…let alone to make it soften. And Elder Lund gives some ideas (you can read the talk yourself to find them, hee hee), but the thing that struck me most overall was the thought that God really can't (won't) guide us until we trust Him! Not because he withholds the Spirit or revelation, but because our lack of trust blocks it! I can think of specific times in my life when I've prayed for something, while at the same time thinking hopelessly, "He won't answer, He won't answer." And I can see how that really blocks my own ability to feel and receive. I'm giving up before I've even begun! 

After reading this talk, I think that even if I'm not sure how God can help me…or if I feel so beyond help or unworthy of it…the very act of asking and continuing to ask is an act of trust that can open my heart and let me receive the very thing I'm looking for. Continuing to ask means I think God will answer. Continuing to ask means I think He's aware of me. Hanging on to those truths (and obviously they are truths) can get me through a "dry spell" where I really don't feel much connection with God at all. And gradually, my heart can and will "open" again, and I will feel the love and guidance I so needed.

I say again, the condition of our hearts directly affects our sensitivity to spiritual things. Let us make it a part of our everyday striving to open our hearts to the Spirit. Since we are the guardians of our hearts, we can choose to do so. We choose what we let in or hold out. Fortunately the Lord is anxious to help us choose wisely.

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Cozy

The days got short and dark so fast in Quebec. By the end of November the sun was setting at 3:52 or some such time. I have never been anywhere where the sun sets in the 4:00 hour (I think sunset is after 5 pm in Utah, even in December) so having it in the three o'clock hour felt otherworldly. I actually quite liked it. It felt cozy and wintry, and the house was snug with the lights of the city outside. (I realize if I were to have stayed through the gloom of January and February and even March…perhaps I would have felt differently.) 

But it did make the days feel so fleeting. I'd go out to do the shopping after putting Gus and Clementine down for nap around 1 pm, and when I walked out of the store at 2:30 I'd see the slanting sunlight and feel mildly panicked and disoriented, like I'd better hurry home to get dinner ready. By the time we ate dinner around 6 pm (or 18h as I finally became accustomed to thinking, just in time to go home), it felt like it had been dark for hours and must surely be about time for bed!

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One last temple trip, Benjo, secret rooms

After we took our trip to Montreal we appreciated Quebec City even more. But the temple is in Montreal, and I started wishing we could get down there to attend one more time. If we crossed the river way up in Quebec, toward Lévis, then we would already be on the Longueuil side where the temple is, and we wouldn't have to go onto the island or deal with Montreal traffic at all. It is only a 3 hour drive, which is doable— (we'd done a temple trip both ways in a day before) but if we were going to do a 7:30 evening session it would make for a pretty late night driving home. So I found a little room in a bed-and-breakfast type place (just bed, no breakfast) for Sam and me and we found an evening we could stay over. Malachi and Daisy would hold down the fort at home.

The street we stayed on was, coincidentally, named the same thing as our home street back in Quebec—Rue Richelieu. The town was called Beloeil (beautiful…eye?) and it was right along the Riviere Richelieu. Our house looked over this peaceful view.

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Bucket trucks, Francophones, "No ascen"

 

We were a little afraid that we would miss the last beautiful days of fall in Quebec City while we were in Montreal, but luckily when we got home it was still pretty! Lots of leaves still on the trees even at the end of October! Everything seemed extra nice to us because we were so happy to be back. :) Here is a collection of a few views around the city, and a bunch of assorted things we did at the lingering end of Fall after Halloween!

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