Tears Guaranteed

It happens every year. I can't help it. And, it happened again today.
As I was driving around town today and listening to my Christmas-all-the-time station, a version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" started playing. I can't listen to this version and drive. I don't know if the vocals are good. I don't know if the accompaniment is any good. All I do know is that the meaning behind this song is amplified a million times for me as soldiers speak their Christmas wishes to their families (here, I'm even choking up thinking about it) is plugged into the song.
BAM! Total tears. It just rips my heart out to think about these men and women that have made the decision to support our country in this manner. I sometimes feel selfish because I know I couldn't do it. These moms and dads and brothers and sisters are out there because of me (and the rest of the millions of people in the United States). They give me a gift 365 days out of the year; year after year. I truly do wish I could say thank you to every single one of them. Of course, they'll have to excuse the continual downpour of tears, but I'm seriously that grateful for them.
Any of you armed service personnel or relatives of such individuals, know that I am truly grateful for the sacrifice and service you provide! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

Grattitude

On Facebook there is a thing going on that everyday you post things that you are grateful for during this month in honor of Thanksgiving. I thought I'd do a blog post on the same subject.
1. I'm grateful for my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It isn't enough just to believe in Jesus Christ. There is more expected from our thoughts, actions, as well as ordinances mandated by our Savior. I am so grateful the gospel has been restored and that we are looking forward to the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for modern prophets to keep us on the right track. I'm grateful for my copy of the latest General Conference addresses both in the Ensign as well as the DVD's that arrived yesterday.
2. I am grateful for my patriarchal blessing. This is a special blessing (prayer with hands laid on my head) I received at the age of 17. There was no way the man speaking these words could have imagined what would happen to me and the choices I would need to make and the people with whom I would come in contact. There is great counsel within those pages that helps me to make correct decisions and recognize the Lord's hand constantly guiding my life.
3. I am grateful for my wonderful husband. I went through some rough times in my dating years and had trouble finding someone who could compliment me so perfectly. I am grateful to know the Lord guided me to Eric and confirmed His approval in my decision to marry Eric. He's the best man in the world for me. He brings out a better me than I would be by myself. We are truly, best friends.
4. I am grateful for my opportunity to be a mother. My girls are the world to me and I have so much fun raising them and discovering/rediscovering the world through their eyes. Daily I am able to find the little joys in life and to truly become more like a child in the simplicities that lead us back to God.
5. I am grateful for my extended family and the support they give me. Although I am not in close proximity to my siblings and parents, it is wonderful to have things bring us together, such as the Roe's sealing earlier this year. I love the random phone calls I get from my parents and siblings...or text messages or emails. It's nice to be sent love from all over the country. I'm also grateful for my in laws and the relationship we've been building for the past 4 years. They are great grandparents to my children, too!
6. I am grateful for answered prayers as well as unanswered prayers. The Lord truly knows what He is doing with my life.
7. I am grateful for good friends who can handle my specific personality. Sometimes I can be offensive, unintentionally, and it is through these friends that I can become a better person but still have my feet grounded because they can see that I am trying to be good.
8. I am grateful for my husband's job in these tough economic times. The Lord truly blesses us with his continued success at work. We are also amazed, through his job, to have amazing other benefits that make the company even more valuable as an employer. Health insurance and education are made possible through Verizon, and they do a great job of providing those!
9. I am grateful for my home and my van. I know we were led to this home and feel such peace and joy in being a homeowner. We have a clean and spacious environment to raise our small children. Although I wasn't very fond of the idea a year ago, I am also glad we were able to trade in our cars for my van. It's been a blessing on so many levels that I hadn't even considered. My back is appreciative!
10. I'm grateful for my body. I have always had a bit of a body image issue. I never truly felt beautiful until I married Eric. He has brought out more of my beauty because of the way he sees me. I am more confident in other aspects of my life because of it. I truly feel like Mahana...the post-marriage version.
11. I'm grateful for the country I live in. No matter the problems I may have with different political ideas and policies, I am still grateful that I can disagree with those things and have my free life. I am not in any danger for my views and am given the liberty to express said ideas.
12. I'm grateful for talents. Not just my own, but those that are shared by individuals who are confident enough to let their light shine. I love to listen to people play the piano and other instruments. I love to look at works of art and evaluate the way they make me feel. I love to read books and discover new and old truths about past and current societies and humans of all ages, race, nationalities and creeds.
13. I'm grateful for modern conveniences. I am grateful for whoever discovered how to make formula and the ensuing improvements to make it more like mother's milk. I'm grateful for disposable diapers because I just don't like to mess with the dirty aspect of raising an infant. I am grateful for baby wipes for the above mentioned as well as having something to wipe hands clean away from home. I'm grateful for running water, electricity, my washer and dryer (even if I don't like folding the laundry), and refrigeration. Thank goodness I don't have to figure out how to keep things cold living in the South!
14. I'm grateful for my calling at church. There is nothing like randomly running into the kids in my class and having them give me a big hug. It definitely brightens my day.
15. I'm grateful for my education and my continued desire to learn and find new skills and talents. I know that not everyone enjoys formal education, but I thrived in it. I also love discovering on my own with the skills I was taught in school. Reading and writing about literature is such a passion and I'm grateful to have found a group of women interested in this pursuit so I can share this.
16. I'm grateful for you because you are still reading this. There are so many things to be grateful for in this day and age. I'm still thinking about what I am grateful for, but I think I'll leave the rest to be recorded in my journal.

Re-rating Movies

I hear LDS people say things like "I can't watch rated-"R" movies," and then leave the reason to be that the "church" doesn't let us. Or, I've had non-member friends comment in a similar manner. I'd just like first, to correct this misnomer. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't BAN anything. The whole concept of being a LDS revolves around being given good and sound counsel and then CHOOSING what to do with that counsel. The actual advice as given by the leadership of the Church is "Do not attend, view, or participate in entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way. Do not participate in entertainment that in any way presents immorality or violent behavior as acceptable." (For the Strength of Youth)
I think over the course of my lifetime, it has become easier to classify what is acceptable and what is not as an adult. However, I have found that there are movies that I thought were okay and later found that my memory of that movie appears greatly different from the perspective as "mother". So, I am currently sorting and classifying our "G" and "PG" films so I can teach my children by example that there are things that are not suitable to watch even when the rating appears "appropriate".
There are websites out there to assist parents in this discussion, such as Common Sense Media. However, I think that simply borrowing someone else's views and opinions can be just as damaging as relying solely on the ratings marked on the box. I encourage parents to view and come to their own conclusions before allowing their children to watch movies. Children are such sponges!

Substitution, Please!

I volunteered to make cookies for a church activity that was held tonight. Part of the yumminess of cookies is for them to be fresh baked, so I set myself an alarm to start baking with enough time to get cooled cookies to church. Things were going well, especially since both of my girls were napping. After mixing most of the ingredients together, I realized that I was an egg short of the recipe requirements. Uh-oh! It's Sunday, so there is no going to the store to purchase more eggs. I quickly call a couple of neighbors, but don't reach anyone. So, what would any desperate girl do?
Call Mom. Sure enough, Mom had all the answers! She gave me a couple of choices, but the one I went with was flax seed. Seriously? Flax seed can replace an egg? Doesn't that seem unlikely? Well, it did and it was beautiful! No one would even know my substitution story, but I just had to rave about this new discovery, BECAUSE, you can actually store flax seed whereas eventually, eggs DO go bad and there aren't many things that are worse than the smell of a bad egg.
So, tonight, I pay tribute to my Mom who knows everything and to the power of flax seed.

Stares in the Grocery Store

No, my kids weren't misbehaving. No, I didn't go in my pajamas. I just experienced great amounts of incredulity from the cashier and the two bagger boys assisting me today at Kroger. It was pretty funny from my standpoint.
I don't like shopping. It's one of my least favorite things to do, but it must be done. So, I try to do as much at one time as possible. This means that when I go grocery shopping, I am NEVER thinking about the week. I am ALWAYS thinking long-term and "in bulk" (not necessarily bulk items but bulk in quantity).
Today, I just couldn't pass up the sales on canned goods. I've been paying attention to prices and they FINALLY had cans of veggies for fifty cents a piece. As I pull the annoying uncooperative "car" cart up to the conveyor belt, I begin unloading and not thinking anything more than, "Man, glad I came shopping today!" A bagger boy approached me and asked if I'd like help. SURE! Let your young manly back bend over and pull them out for me! Of course, after about 10 cans, I noticed he shot the cashier a look and she raised her eyes back at him. I know they were thinking, "Man, this lady is CRAZY! What does she need all these cans for?" To prove my point, when the poor boy completed his task, he turned to me and said, "Looks like you'll be good for a year." Smiling at him, I replied, "That's the idea!"
Now, there is no way that what I bought truly would last us a year, but it did bring our food storage back up to where it should be. It was a good thing to have the supply when money was short awhile back. It's even better now that we can replace it all. Isn't modern revelation wonderful!

White Towel

We aren't rich and fancy. We aren't melodramatic (at least, I don't think we are). Yet there is something almost "uppity" in Emily's requests for a "white towel" to clean up messes. All items used to clean messes are referred to as such: a napkin, a tissue, toilet paper, bath towel, hand towel, whatever. It is always called a "white towel". For some reason the image evokes the same illusion of prosperity defined by the white telephone movies of yesteryear. And, that's all it would be: an illusion! haha

What Do You Get....

What do you get when you combine 2 empty diaper boxes, 4 toilet paper rolls, some elastic, 6 old CD's, packing tape, sewing needle and thread, a couple cans of spray paint and Eric's brain?

A Wall-E costume made out of recycled items!!


This was so fun to watch Eric make and to see Emily trick-or-treating in it (although, she couldn't maneuver steps very easily)! It was a blast...even if I didn't take pictures to immortalize the event. The whole costume only cost about $4...what we had to pay for spray paint. Not too shabby for four bucks!

His Image

On my mission, I encountered a woman in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, who shared her conversion story with us. She said that when she opened the door to the missionaries, one of the elders was different. She said that his countenance glowed and that she truly felt he was a messenger from God. I have tried to have that same image in my countenance since that day. It is a constant struggle because it means that my actions need to be the same as if Christ were performing these tasks and daily works. It also means that it cannot just come from actions. It must begin in the heart. If I forget my goal, I can get upset and frustrated. When I truly am trying to be like Jesus, I must have a pure heart focused on doing what is right and for the correct reason.
I reflect upon this again as I am reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. There is a lot to ponder religiously as you read this novel of Harriet Beecher Stowe. In the section I am currently reading, St. Clare, a Southern slave owner, is pontificating on the evils embodied in slavery, and also in himself. He comments upon his twin brother and mentions that this brother is exactly like their father, not just in appearance, but also in personality. In fact, he states, "My brother was begotten in his image." I had never considered the scripture "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27) in this way. Of course, I have always been of the opinion and understanding that man is in the appearance of God. I just never applied "image" to pertaining to our personalities, desires, actions, and hearts...those things that truly account for who we are.
This understanding brings greater light and understanding to the reason we are taught to discipline ourselves and become master over our will and desires. We know we are to follow the commandments and "be good" because God has commanded this of us. I just never thought about us actually changing that nature from the pureness we began with. This gives me more appreciation for the true gospel of Jesus Christ, as there is no "original sin" and that children ARE born innocent and completely sinless. We are born into mortality to gain a body, and we remain alive in Christ until we become accountable for our actions and can actually commit sin (see Moroni 8). Committing sin is not possible for infants and young children, which is why they feel so pure and innocent: they are still in possession of the image of God.

Talents and Responsibility

For the past few months, the concept of "talents" has been on my mind and I have definitely been pondering talents and the reason God's gives an individual such gifts. After conversing with my husband over different matters, an epiphany came to me concerning The Parable of the Talents. I shared similar thoughts with my church congregation today and felt that I should also share with you, my friends.
God gives us all of our gifts and abilities. One of the greatest spiritual gifts we are given is the gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift is only given after an individual promises God to obey and follow Him by entering the waters of baptism. This gift is God's part of the baptismal covenant. In like manner, the parable references a man "calling his own servants". Thus, the Lord has called his servants and those who have heard and covenanted are then given gifts. Even the "lowest" servant is given a "talent" which we will refer to as the gift of the Holy Ghost. This lowest of servants hid away this gift by not sharing his knowledge, understanding and experiences of the Gospel and eventually, even that was taken from him as he truly did not love the Lord.
As we develop our relationship with the Lord through the gift of the Holy Ghost, we gain the ability to stand before him and have our "confidence wax strong in the presence of the Lord." As our confidence grows, so does our willingness to gain skills and talents; to do better and help those around us. At no point in time are we allowed to hid away our talents. They are only given to us to build the kingdom of God; not to glorify ourselves, but to glorify Him who gave the gift.
Each one of us has a responsibility to God and toward our fellow man to seek out the gifts God desires to give us and find the way to develop the gifts and build the kingdom of God upon the earth.