A family sundered!

It was my dear friend Rachael's hour of need! What could I do but go to her? (I do have to admit here that she's had at least two other hours of need during which I was sadly absent. But I am mending my ways!) Rachael's son was getting married and, thanks to Seb's flight benefits, I was in a position to hop on a flight to Edmonton and make myself useful. I brought Goldie (also on the flight benefits this year, as you may recall) to make herself useful as well.

Meanwhile…the rest of the family went to a Nielson Family reunion in Fairview at this place, Hideaway Valley Lodge. I, of course, didn't see it in person, but it looks like a cool place. Sort of four houses joined together by a big sport court/common room in the center. So when they cooked dinner, for example, they were doing it in four different kitchens and then just bringing it all out into the common room to eat. I guess it worked pretty well?

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Lake Catherine 2026

It's been a year or two since we've done our favorite summer hike. Four years, in fact, I see upon consulting my records! Goodness, where does the time go? We were in Quebec one of those years. In Oregon one of the others, I believe. Still, hard to believe that last time we went (for Daisy's birthday) she was only turning 13! A baby!

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Pioneer Day, &c.

We often go to my mom's ward's Pioneer Day party on July 24th. They've been doing it since before I was born—homemade ice cream and a pioneer parade for the Primary children. I used to love it so much when I was little. But they didn't have it this year, so we had our own very modest pioneer day celebrations. We made homemade root beer, and homemade bread and butter, and our own homemade ice cream. All delicious!

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Trip to St. George

When we went on our family trip last year, we thought it might be our last one with Malachi, but since he didn't leave till mid-summer, we managed to fit this year's trip in before he left! A bonus trip with Ky. So good. 

Fortunately, we found a rental house in St. George to make it quick and easy enough to do between everything else that had to happen this summer! 

Unfortunately, that also meant we'd be in St. George in July, which is…not the ideal time to visit. The temperature while we were there was consistently 108º. 

Fortunately, we had a house with a swimming pool!

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Our place in His kingdom

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the General Women's Session of the October 2014 Conference. 

I find myself thinking about "confidence before God" frequently ever since President Nelson's talk last year. (His last Conference talk! 😢) It's such an interesting idea—the thought that our own lack of confidence is often what keeps us from receiving more from God. You'd think, with pride being such a danger to our souls, that maybe confidence would be dangerous too. And perhaps some kinds are. But not the confidence that lets us boldly approach the throne of grace, because that is based on obedience and trust in God. President Nelson said,

As we diligently seek to have charity and virtue fill our lives, our confidence in approaching God will increase. I invite you to take intentional steps to grow in your confidence before the Lord. Then, as we go to our Heavenly Father with increasing confidence, we will be filled with more joy, and your faith in Jesus Christ will increase. We will begin to experience spiritual power that exceeds our greatest hopes.

As I read the talks from this October 2014 Women's Session, two of them helped me understand that concept better. One was President Uchtdorf's, where he said:

The promised blessings of God to the faithful are glorious and inspiring. Among them are “thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths.” And it takes more than a spiritual birth certificate or a “Child of God Membership Card” to qualify for these incomprehensible blessings.

But how do we attain them?

The Savior has answered this question in our time:

“Except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.

“For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation. …

“… Receive ye, therefore, my law.”

For this reason, we speak of walking the path of discipleship.

We speak of obedience to God’s commandments.

We speak of living the gospel joyfully, with all our heart, might, mind, and soul.

At first glance this seems a little confidence-undermining, if anything: is he saying just being a child of God isn't enough? That's just what we fear, isn't it? We fear that we aren't good or important or chosen enough to receive what God has? But actually Elder Uchtdorf doesn't say anything about "good enough." He says discipleship, obedience, living the gospel. Just like President Nelson's emphasis on virtue, his emphasis here is on what we can do to become like God, and obedience is one of the things we can actually most easily do! Because obedience includes repentance, all it really takes is our own desire and willingness, and then making one effort, one step at a time, according to our best understanding.

But then this, from Sister Jean A. Stevens, made the last connection for me:

Covenants with God help us to know who we really are. They connect us to Him in a personal way through which we come to feel our value in His sight and our place in His kingdom.

Something about this explanation works for me. I know covenants give us power, but in this way they also give us confidence. Keeping covenants helps us (correctly) feel that our place is with God! It's almost like covenants prove to us, when we would otherwise (also maybe correctly) feel those "I can't possibly be good or important or chosen enough" feelings, that we DO belong with our Heavenly Father. We belong there because we've chosen to get on the path to get there! Sort of like you wouldn't be afraid to ask your piano teacher for help learning a piano piece. That fact that you couldn't already play the piece wouldn't stop you; that's the whole reason you're there. Your clumsiness and your ignorance as you first try to fumble through the notes wouldn't make you think, "Oh, I shouldn't be here. I can't play for my piano teacher sounding like this!" You'd know that you already signed up for lessons. Your teacher is sitting there next to you for the entire purpose of helping you be a better pianist. Why not show him exactly where you are and ask him the questions that will help you improve?

Our covenants with God can work the same way. "Of course I should ask God my questions, I'm going to him for 'godhood lessons.' Why wouldn't He want to hear from me? We're already in a contractual relationship where I asked Him to help me and He agreed He always would!" Obviously He is a Father too, and loves us always, but as Elder Uchtdorf said that fact alone doesn't necessarily reassure us. It's our virtue (as President Nelson says) and our discipleship (as President Uchtdorf says) and our covenants that prove (to us ourselves!) that we not only can approach God for help, but we definitely have the right to!

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Peace will radiate out from you

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Afternoon Session of the October 2014 Conference.

Here's a great promise about scripture study from Elder Richard G. Scott. I love it because it's so surprisingly broad and also so personal:

As you dedicate time every day, personally and with your family, to the study of God’s word, peace will prevail in your life. That peace won’t come from the outside world. It will come from within your home, from within your family, from within your own heart. It will be a gift of the Spirit. It will radiate out from you to influence others in the world around you. You will be doing something very significant to add to the cumulative peace in the world.

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Pre-Ky-goodbye July

Various and sundry things occupied us as the days sped by toward Malachi's departure! We went to the new "Inside a Temple" Experience at Temple Square. It was really good. They have built a sort of mini-temple under the visitor's center and you actually get to go through it and see what the different rooms look like. We loved it! I'm so glad people who have never been inside a temple will get to see it! (You can even take pictures inside, but I didn't.)

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Wherefore murmur ye because that ye shall receive more of my word?

(Forgive the slight irreverence of this post's title; I was referencing my post about my previous book!)

Well! Amidst six months in Quebec, two weddings and an engagement, three missionaries, and a million other things that make up our real lives, Rachael and I somehow finished our second book! It took us four years this time (I think our last book was three; at this rate we only have a couple more left in us before we become too senile to write) and it included two rather lengthy periods of getting burned out and basically giving up on it altogether. But the beauty of having a co-author is that you can't just wallow in your own discouragement forever, and one or the other of us always eventually said, "Shall we just try a slight rewrite of this part…?" and got us going again.

This book is a Scarlet Pimpernel re-telling, in the same magical "world" as our other book—though it takes place before that one and isn't connected to it. After all this time, both Rachael and I still like it, which is more than I can say for some things I've written!

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Love for the prophet is a gift from God

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the October 2014 Conference.

I liked this simple quote from President Eyring in this week's Conference:

Don’t take lightly the feeling you get of love for the prophet of God. Wherever I go in the Church, whoever the prophet is at the time, members will ask, “When you get back to Church headquarters, will you please tell the prophet how much we love him?”

That is far more than hero worship or the feelings we sometimes have of admiring heroic figures. It is a gift from God. With it you will receive more easily the gift of confirming revelation when he speaks in his office as the Lord’s prophet. The love you feel is the love the Lord has for whoever is His spokesman.

Since I've been an adult at least, I think I have always grown to love the current prophet. I haven't really known how I get to that point—maybe just by hearing so many of his talks over the years, and learning little details about him. But I didn't realize that feeling of love was a gift from God. And I didn't know that "with it you will receive more easily the gift of confirming revelation when he speaks." I love to know that! And it makes sense. You learn to listen to your parents because you love your parents. You give a teacher's words more weight when you love that teacher. You trust counsel from a friend when you love that friend. So of course love can help us listen to the prophet better—but I think it's cool that with the prophet, it's more than just "I respect this guy; I'll hear him out"—it's actually a spiritual gift that can protect us from Satan's traps. And it's something we can strive for even when it doesn't come as naturally:

That [feeling of love] is not easy to feel continually because the Lord often asks His prophets to give counsel that is hard for people to accept. The enemy of our souls will try to lead us to take offense and to doubt the prophet’s calling from God.

I have seen how the Holy Ghost can touch a softened heart to protect a humble disciple of Jesus Christ with confirming revelation.

Enemies of the church (and even some people within the church) would twist this idea into "never question what the prophet says," and they'd scoff at it. But that's not what President Eyring says at all. He says that when we start from a position of "I love the prophet, and He is God's spokesman," it actually gives us more clarity and more power to get revelation to discern for ourselves whether what he is saying is true. And in a way, that's how it works even with Heavenly Father Himself! When we love Him, and react to challenges or commandments as if they are coming from someone we love, it helps us see things as they really are. It helps us keep responding with trust when we're confused. It helps us be a little more patient with apparent unfairness. Our love for God is truly a gift for us! And so is our love for God's prophet.

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All the camps

Someday June will not be full of camps for us. This year was not that year. And knowing Malachi would be leaving for his mission this summer (but not when) made everything feel a little more frantic. It was our stake's year for FSY, and Ky decided to go one more time, but he went the last week of May to make sure it wouldn't interfere with his mission. The girls (Daisy and Junie) wanted to go to FSY early in June also to avoid conflicting with YW camp, but that meant they had to go to Snow College instead of the much-more-convenient BYU. And Malachi had all kinds of last-camping-trips and last-time-with-this-friend events he wanted to do in addition to our own family trip we were hoping to fit in. Whew! It makes me tired just remembering it.

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A seriousness of purpose

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the October 2014 Conference.

I was struck by the tone of some of these Conference talks, especially Elder Cook's and Elder Uchtdorf's. I don't even know quite what I want to say about it. President Uchtdorf never sounds mean or judgmental. He is always full of love. (Maybe that's why he can call people to repentance!) But these two talks were very much of the sober, arise-my-sons-and-be-men, call-to-repentance variety. And I feel like I just don't hear that very much lately! Is it just my perception? (You do hear people say things like "when I was young, the church was a lot more hard-line" or "when I was young we didn't focus on the Atonement as much," and I don't know if that's really true—I find, reading these old talks, that there is a lot more love and mercy and grace preached than people give the "old church" credit for.) Or possibly there really is a shift away from this strong, firm tone in conference talks today? [Okay, I looked through the most recent Conference. And there are several talks that do have a "we need to do better!" sort of tone, even if it's not said outright. So I think maybe I am just exaggerating the generational shift.]

Anyway, I of course dislike being scolded as much as the next guy, but there's something I really like about this gentle-but-also-deadly-serious talk. Maybe it makes me feel like the gospel is real—like we really need to start living better now and there's no time for messing around. And that makes me feel like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ really is actually going to come soon, and I like believing that! But I also know that for some people, a call-to-repentance talk makes them feel guilty and paralyzed and want to give up altogether. (But is that just because they don't sense the love of God behind these calls? I don't know.) 

Well, whatever the reason, this is the quote that felt most powerful to me from Elder Cook's talk:

I encourage everyone, young and old, to review goals and objectives and strive to exercise greater discipline. Our daily conduct and choices should be consistent with our goals. We need to rise above rationalizations and distractions. It is especially important to make choices consistent with our covenants to serve Jesus Christ in righteousness. We must not take our eyes off or drop that ball for any reason.…

This life is the time to prepare to meet God. We are a happy, joyous people. We appreciate a good sense of humor and treasure unstructured time with friends and family. But we need to recognize that there is a seriousness of purpose that must undergird our approach to life and all our choices.

I feel this in my life more and more. Not every moment. Sometimes I still just want to relax and do something easier for a while. But in general, I feel more serious about each little thing because I'm starting to recognize how little time I have left (with my kids specifically, but honestly even on earth!). I was just telling my kids how when I do get a few minutes to practice the piano these days, I do it so differently than when I was young. Now I just want to do whatever it takes to actually learn the piece right! Why would I keep playing fast without stopping, just so I can make the same mistakes over again the next time? Why would I put in almost enough work to make it good and then just hurry past the difficult parts hoping no one will notice the sloppiness or the missed notes? That feels like such a waste to me. I don't want to sound "good enough." I want to actually master the music. I want to actually know the piece—for my fingers to know it, for my mind to know it, to understand what it means to me and what I am trying to create when I play it. Obviously I have time limitations and technique limitations so I can't actually just play everything perfectly, and that's fine, but if I AM practicing, I have no desire to just go through the motions so I can say "I spent an hour on it!" Who cares the time it took. I want the music to SOUND like I want it to sound.

And I feel something similar for the gospel. Of course, like anyone, I rush through my prayers sometimes and I fall asleep while reading my scriptures and going to the temple, and I get fed up with my kids and think "why do I always have to be the one who apologizes and forgives?" But at least more than when I was younger, I'm not interested in justifying that behavior or trying to gloss over it. I actually do want Heavenly Father to "refiner's fire" it out of me. 

And I just feel serious about discipleship! Even in the midst of really not liking something and not wanting to go through it, I usually manage to think with some part of myself, "But…if this is the cost of becoming like God, I am willing to go through it." I see my growing children and I see the lives of other people who are struggling and suffering and I just think, "I'm not interested in going through all the hard things in life pointlessly. I only want to do this if there's a purpose in it! Sure it's a lot of work to follow Jesus. But it's work that gets you somewhere! It's work with a beautiful end result! Why would I want to have an easier life that won't end up being as fulfilling or meaningful in the end?"

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