Mikayla left to go back to college yesterday. It was such fun for all of us to have her here for 11 days. We went out for pie and ice cream on Saturday just to celebrate being together. They had to push two tables together for us and we had so much fun visiting and laughing. An older gentleman, who was sitting nearby with a large family group, came up to our table and complimented us on our happy family. It's a good thing he wasn't privy to our conversation in the car on the way over, while we were trying to agree on one pie that everyone would be happy with,=) but it was a kind thing for him to say. He was there with his immediate family and his parents who were 95 and 98. We were feeling awfully happy that evening. We ended our outing with some fun window shopping and then played Pay Day at home until we all crashed. Good times.
This Sunday all the YSA Advisers in the stake and the Branch Missionaries are going on a "Find Hunt" to track down and visit or track all those who are less active and between the ages of 18-30. It is a considerable list so it will be a full on "door knocking" experience. I'm a little nervous but the branch missionaries enthusiasm "floweth over" and is contagious so I am sure it will be a good experience.
I had to run Olive in to the veterinarian this morning for her routine annual vaccinations, but the poor girl couldn't jump into the back of the suburban. With a lot of encouragement she tried and fell out. So sad. I had to pull the suburban onto the street so that the driveways descent would make the car floor lower before she would attempt it again and she was just plain stubborn at the vet's office. The vet had to come out into the waiting area and lift her onto the scale because she was utterly refusing. He was very kind and good with her. She's getting old and a little overweight so he suggested we change her diet a little bit and get her exercising more, to ease the strain on her joints, but not to let her off leash because the canals are full of giardia and the weeds are full of ticks. Of course there is no way to exercise her sufficiently if she's not off leash, so he suggested going to the giardia/tick safe park and playing daily games of catch. The only problem is that I have the only lab in existence who refuses to retrieve more than twice without pouting. The vet thought that was hilarious. So now we are left with the one "safe" option of exercising her on a bike--on a leash--which I am too scared to do and which Fred rarely has time to do. I'm an anxious pet owner and of course now have internal conflict. Mikayla told me to just keep running her off leash and be careful. Pets give me stress!
Lily and Sophie both received their Faith in God books in primary today. They have watched all of the other kids go through the program and they have been eager to get their hands on their own books for a few weeks now. They finally went and personally requested them and Lily immediately bore her testimony in public, for the first time that Sunday and Sophie passed off one of her FHE lessons last night. It is rewarding to see them so motivated and excited about setting and achieving these goals. The programs have been such incredible parental helps in teaching and guiding our children and I am so grateful for their inspired origin.
I experienced a sweet and personal tender mercy yesterday afternoon. Since high school I have had a particular gospel question that has just nagged at me and caused me quite a bit of internal distress. I have relied heavily on the prophets to answer all doctrinal questions and with enough study have almost always been rewarded with answers or at least the peaceful assurance that I don't need to worry about something--that it will all be sorted out in the end--except for this particular concern. I have always been emotionally tortured by the story of Kind David and his lifelong struggle to repent. I have cried over him many times and have taken sadly and hopelessly to heart the repeated statements by prophets about his salvation being lost. And yet, there has always been a seemingly opposing conflict as I have also read prophets, especially recently it seems, who are constantly telling us that other than sinning against the Holy Ghost there is no sin that the atonement can't cover. The latest example is Elder Hollands words in general conference, "... however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines." And yet Elder McConkie has taught that the atonement doesn't cover murder. So you see my internal struggles (or probably you don't because maybe most people understand the process more intricately that I do--but sometimes I make things harder than they have to be and so internal war is an often and excessive occurrence for me--Mikayla says it my blue/red personality that causes innate "fire and ice"). Anyway.......Sunday night I was pondering this same plaguing question and verbalized it to Fred. I wasn't really asking for an answer, just needing to say it out loud, and he didn't have answers. When I woke up this morning, the thought had completely left my head and I went about my daily routine. In the afternoon, I was waiting for a few minutes near a "decorative stack" of books in my bathroom, all of which I have read cover to cover, and randomly pulled the second book in a stack of 5 out and opened it up, randomly to the middle of the book and in front of me were the words, "It Is Possible to Sin Beyond Repentance". I was not consciously looking for anything, I was just literally filling a few minutes and I saw King David's name on the page and then a concise and detailed answer from President Joseph Fielding Smith. It wasn't necessarily the "comforting" answer that I have always hoped for, but it was a definite answer and for some reason--FINALLY, after all these years--received that calming assurance that Heavenly Father would make it all work out and that it wasn't necessary for me to carry that anymore. It wasn't a hard answer and I'm not sure why I had to wait so long to find it, but maybe I needed to experience enough of life to make it possible for a hard answer to bring me peace. I am just grateful that Heavenly Father is ALWAYS mindful of us. I KNOW that his hands are daily, hourly, even minute by minute, actively engaged in my life.
Quote of the Week:
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
This Sunday all the YSA Advisers in the stake and the Branch Missionaries are going on a "Find Hunt" to track down and visit or track all those who are less active and between the ages of 18-30. It is a considerable list so it will be a full on "door knocking" experience. I'm a little nervous but the branch missionaries enthusiasm "floweth over" and is contagious so I am sure it will be a good experience.
I had to run Olive in to the veterinarian this morning for her routine annual vaccinations, but the poor girl couldn't jump into the back of the suburban. With a lot of encouragement she tried and fell out. So sad. I had to pull the suburban onto the street so that the driveways descent would make the car floor lower before she would attempt it again and she was just plain stubborn at the vet's office. The vet had to come out into the waiting area and lift her onto the scale because she was utterly refusing. He was very kind and good with her. She's getting old and a little overweight so he suggested we change her diet a little bit and get her exercising more, to ease the strain on her joints, but not to let her off leash because the canals are full of giardia and the weeds are full of ticks. Of course there is no way to exercise her sufficiently if she's not off leash, so he suggested going to the giardia/tick safe park and playing daily games of catch. The only problem is that I have the only lab in existence who refuses to retrieve more than twice without pouting. The vet thought that was hilarious. So now we are left with the one "safe" option of exercising her on a bike--on a leash--which I am too scared to do and which Fred rarely has time to do. I'm an anxious pet owner and of course now have internal conflict. Mikayla told me to just keep running her off leash and be careful. Pets give me stress!
Lily and Sophie both received their Faith in God books in primary today. They have watched all of the other kids go through the program and they have been eager to get their hands on their own books for a few weeks now. They finally went and personally requested them and Lily immediately bore her testimony in public, for the first time that Sunday and Sophie passed off one of her FHE lessons last night. It is rewarding to see them so motivated and excited about setting and achieving these goals. The programs have been such incredible parental helps in teaching and guiding our children and I am so grateful for their inspired origin.
I experienced a sweet and personal tender mercy yesterday afternoon. Since high school I have had a particular gospel question that has just nagged at me and caused me quite a bit of internal distress. I have relied heavily on the prophets to answer all doctrinal questions and with enough study have almost always been rewarded with answers or at least the peaceful assurance that I don't need to worry about something--that it will all be sorted out in the end--except for this particular concern. I have always been emotionally tortured by the story of Kind David and his lifelong struggle to repent. I have cried over him many times and have taken sadly and hopelessly to heart the repeated statements by prophets about his salvation being lost. And yet, there has always been a seemingly opposing conflict as I have also read prophets, especially recently it seems, who are constantly telling us that other than sinning against the Holy Ghost there is no sin that the atonement can't cover. The latest example is Elder Hollands words in general conference, "... however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines." And yet Elder McConkie has taught that the atonement doesn't cover murder. So you see my internal struggles (or probably you don't because maybe most people understand the process more intricately that I do--but sometimes I make things harder than they have to be and so internal war is an often and excessive occurrence for me--Mikayla says it my blue/red personality that causes innate "fire and ice"). Anyway.......Sunday night I was pondering this same plaguing question and verbalized it to Fred. I wasn't really asking for an answer, just needing to say it out loud, and he didn't have answers. When I woke up this morning, the thought had completely left my head and I went about my daily routine. In the afternoon, I was waiting for a few minutes near a "decorative stack" of books in my bathroom, all of which I have read cover to cover, and randomly pulled the second book in a stack of 5 out and opened it up, randomly to the middle of the book and in front of me were the words, "It Is Possible to Sin Beyond Repentance". I was not consciously looking for anything, I was just literally filling a few minutes and I saw King David's name on the page and then a concise and detailed answer from President Joseph Fielding Smith. It wasn't necessarily the "comforting" answer that I have always hoped for, but it was a definite answer and for some reason--FINALLY, after all these years--received that calming assurance that Heavenly Father would make it all work out and that it wasn't necessary for me to carry that anymore. It wasn't a hard answer and I'm not sure why I had to wait so long to find it, but maybe I needed to experience enough of life to make it possible for a hard answer to bring me peace. I am just grateful that Heavenly Father is ALWAYS mindful of us. I KNOW that his hands are daily, hourly, even minute by minute, actively engaged in my life.
Quote of the Week:
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
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