I love Eliza

Eliza R. Snow, that is.  (She was the second General Relief Society President.)

I read this quotation from her this morning, and I think it is so powerful:

"I will go forward.  I will smile at the rage of the tempest, and ride fearlessly and triumphantly across the boisterous ocean of circumstance...and 'the testimony of Jesus' will light up a lamp that will guide my vision through the portals of immortality."

Awesome.

Smiles

Finding moments of happiness via YouTube.


Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

You Matter to Him

I feel like I am increasingly understanding how much our Heavenly Father really does care about us and our individual lives.  


Recently I watched a video on mormon.org in which a professional skateboarder who is a member of the Church shares this thought:


"I think a misconception that I had that a lot of people have is that God is just... boring.  It's through skateboarding and remaining prayerful that I've found out the complete opposite.  I realize that He's given us everything that we love.  Every crazy color...feelings, emotions, rushes, adrenaline...everything that inspires you, gets you pumped and excited, is directly from Him."


I love that so, so much.  Everything that we love and that gets us excited is directly from God, who loves us.


Who loves us.


I have been recognizing this in so many ways in my own little life.  As I get flashes of inspiration about what to do to be a better mother to Evie, or to reach out to others, or to find new ways that really excite me to organize our little life and home...I just recognize through all of it that He cares for me.


They may seem silly to anyone else, but I've seen Him show love for me through things like the following:

• Last year I was bummed to miss out on Halloween, and there have been many, many times in the past year that I just plain miss home and the traditions I grew up with.  As Halloween came up this year I assumed that I would just get over the fact the holiday isn't celebrated here the same, but after talking with my friend Renata about Halloween and thinking about how fun it is, I got this flash of insight: Why not have a Halloween Party/Family Night?  And invite Renata and her family, several other friends, and especially our neighbors who've been feeling we want to get to know?  I was instantly pumped!  I spent the next couple of days planning it, Tinoa was excited and wanted to "let me fly," and we had the Halloween party on Monday!  And all throughout I had little promptings letting me know that Heavenly Father was helping me with it and wanted me to enjoy the whole thing.  Like I wanted to have games for the little kids who were coming, and all the ideas came as inspiration:  Why not do limbo using a piece of clothesline and use the song "Thriller" by MJ?  Why not look on Pinterest to find some Halloween game ideas?  And then I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to decorate without spending any money.  I spent a while thinking about it, and then this idea: Use Evie's clean cloth nappies to make ghosts, and hang them from a clothesline hanging from the ceiling.  It was a great party, and I learned a lot about how to throw parties for the future.  Now Tinoa and I want to use things like Halloween and Thanksgiving, which aren't really celebrated in NZ, as fun traditions for our kids that we can use to have fun times with others.  All from inspiration.
• I've had somewhat of a hard time with Evie's napping during the day.  She is a champion at nighttime, because she has the routine down pat.  One of us takes a shower with her, we give her a baby massage, I give her a little feed, we put her in her bed with her dummy, and we turn on the radio to an off-station so she has white noise.  Then that's it--no fussing, no anything, she's straight to sleep.  But during the day I get carried away with things I'm working on and she doesn't always get tired at the same time.  I know from the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child that by this age we should be aiming for a 9:00am nap and a 1:00pm nap, and possibly a late afternoon nap, but I also remember a discussion with a Plunket nurse who said that "every day is a new day" and to follow her drowsy cues.  So when I see her getting tired I have been just sort-of dropping what I'm doing and going and putting her in her cot.  Sometimes she's fine and she goes down, but other times she fusses and fusses until I take her out and try later or even put a teeny bit of Pamol on her dummy for her to suck on.  So I was thinking about all this yesterday, and I received a flash of inspiration, remembering something I read somewhere:  that at naptime I should do a mini-version of bedtime.  So of course!  I should set aside 8:45 and 12:45 to stop, spend some time with Evie, do some reading with her, and give her a little rub, and then put her down for her nap when she is calm and knows to expect me putting her into her bed.  And then this morning, another flash:  In the morning I should read to her from Church materials, so that I am getting in the spiritual reading that I need, and we both get in the habit of spending time studying the Gospel together each day--a tradition that of course I want to have with my children.  And so this morning I did that.  A few minutes before 9, I read to her a few pages from Daughters In My Kingdom, gave her a little rub, put her in her bed, and set the radio to an off-station.  She fussed a little bit, since this is a bit new and she likes to be with me, but I know it will only take a few days for this to become routine as well.  I'm thrilled with it, and I know that it's all from Heavenly Father helping me to sort things out.

So those are just two examples, but I feel that there are so, so many more I could list--flashes of insight about how to decorate our house...inspiration about how to organize my spices, since they've all been in a big mess...inspiration about the types of bread recipes I should look up since we are set on learning to eat better...and on and on.

Yesterday I listened again (several times actually, since I had it on repeat while I was cooking) President Uchtdorf's talk from General Conference, "You Matter to Him."  I loved the whole thing, and this part in particular has stuck with me today:

"My dear brothers and sisters, it may be true that man is nothing in comparison to the greatness of the universe. At times we may even feel insignificant, invisible, alone, or forgotten. But always remember—you matter to Him!" 

So even in times when I feel too far from home...lonely...desperately wondering if anything I'm trying to do is actually making a difference for anyone at all, or for me, I can remember:  I matter to God.  We all do. 

And in a related way, how important it is that we are kind with one another, and remember that the worth of EVERYONE'S soul is great.  In my heart I am too quick to blame my loneliness or frustrations on other people and the ways I feel they have "let me down."  But this morning in reading with Evie I was taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith who said, when commenting on 1 Corinthians 13:

"Don't be limited in your views with regard to your neighbors' virtues....You must enlarge your souls toward others if you'd do like Jesus...As you increase in innocence and virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand--let them be enlarged towards others--you must be longsuffering and bear with the faults and errors of mankind.  How precious are the souls of men!" (DIMK, p.23).

What a beautiful teaching, and one I need to remember.  My soul is precious is God.  ALL souls are precious to God.  We should help and lift each other up on this journey of life and love one another enough to give each other the benefit of the doubt.  Today I am praying for greater love. For the ability to forgive.  For eyes to see opportunities to reach out, secure in knowing that who I am and what I have to offer is GOOD because I am undoubtedly loved by my Heavenly Father.

Wednesday

...is today, which means that it is almost a whole week that has passed since I posted about my new plans to write about my spiritual progresses.

Well, I believe I have been progressing, but I just have not been writing.

There's just so much living going on that sometimes it's hard to take a step back and write about it.

However, I read last week that D&C 25 is intended to apply to all Relief Society sisters.  I read it again, I thought, holy cow, this really does apply to me.  I particularly liked this verse:

"...thy time shall be given to writing, and to learning much" (verse 8).

I need to do more with writing, but learning much?  Oh yes, that is me these days.

I am learning about finances.  About budgeting.  About baking bread.  About "The Top 10 Foods You Need to Eat" (from a book that is amazing and changing my life, of course).  About taking care of an almost 5 month old little girl.  About being a wife.  About being a friend.  About serving.  About having charity.  About blogging.  About gardening--at least indoors.  About making homemade donuts.  About hanging ghosts made of white towels from my ceiling for a Halloween party.  About reading.  About being able to just plain reach outside myself.

Learning and progress.

Cheers for today.  Off to eat my baked oatmeal and quinoa.  (Quinoa--the wonder grain-- is one of the Top 10, of course.  I'll also remember that it would be an excellent use of a Q for Scrabble.)

A New Approach

When I was a teenager I read the book Clothed with Charity--a collection of talks from the 1996 BYU Women's Conference in Provo, Utah.  At the time I had recently made myself a book for quotations and notes, a book which I still have and use often.  The message of many of the talks that I read in that book have remained with me through the years--I even read a talk by the woman who would one day be my mission president's wife.  What a surprise it was one day while doing personal study in the mission field to come across a quotation from Sydney S. Reynolds!

I mention this because I have been thinking a lot lately about how to find greater value from my scripture reading--how to invest myself in it more thoroughly and more actively engage myself in spiritual growth.  I have remembered several messages from those talks that discussed the power of WRITING--especially about the scriptures and our spiritual experiences:

"...write to find that in exhaustive dailiness is power, courage, a bringing forth of the highest consciousness of what it is to be a woman.  Write." --Carol Clark Otteson

One message in particular was focused all about writing and journaling about the Book of Mormon.  N.C. McCullogh taught several ideas that have stuck with me through the years:

"A journal can be the welcome garden where the heart's seeds come to fruition."
"I keep a journal to discover what I know, how I know it, and why it matters.  I write to unearth treasures and mysteries buried in my heart.  Writing the tender stirrings of my heart if the act of spring on my subconscious.  It is not always a blossom that rises up to be shown, but it is always important."

I didn't record it in my quote book, but I remember her talking about how she has written about the Book of Mormon specifically for years, and that as she has gone over her writings as she reads and rereads the Book of Mormon she discovers new layers of meaning...new insights...places where her understanding has deepened since her last reading.

So I've been thinking about that a lot--this idea of writing about our spiritual journeys and The Book of Mormon inparticular--along with this thought from that Women's Conference:

"...eternal life doesn't start at the Savior's Second Coming....it's right now.  Our relationship with God and Christ goes back all the way and today is a part of it.  We need to think about each day as being an integral part of the great picture.  In other words, the mere fact that we are alive today is holy in itself."  --Mary B. Kirk (emphasis mine).

I think it's a beautiful idea that each day is an integral part of our relationship with God and Christ--that each day is holy.  I want to find spiritual growth each day.  So I've been thinking that I want to start using this blog to reflect on the things that I am reading in the scriptures and that I am learning spiritually.  I don't plan to be exhaustive in detailing every thought I've had--who would have time for that anyway?--and certainly not all things I meant for sharing in a public forum.  But I'm finding that I am in a rich period of learning right now, and not to record it would be to waste important lessons that ought to be remembered and shared.

So by way of introduction, here's where I am right now in my scripture study.  In a bit of a blur, really, ha.  I have been thinking a lot too recently about the recent Visiting Teaching Message in which Julie B. Beck teaches us that we should live our covenants with precision, and lists scripture study as one of the things we can do precisely.  I'm not very precise about scripture study.  But I want to learn to be. :)

Tinoa and I are reading The Book of Mormon together--along with Evie of course, who joins in by trying to chew on the pages.  Today we read in Alma 38 about Alma's teachings to his son, Shiblon.  We have found great success in reading together in the past few months as we have made it a habit that every morning, no matter what, we get up, we sing a hymn or a Primary song, and we read a chapter in the Book of Mormon.  I really love it.  By way of personal study I have blundered along trying to study the New Testament, as that is the course of study in Sunday School this year, but I haven't been extremely consistent.  Recently I started reading the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon, because I know I should study the Book of Mormon often, but I felt like if I started in 1 Nephi for the 65738th time and then didn't actually pursue the whole book that maybe I would seem false and without real intent.  (To whom I don't know, but I was concerned about it.)   What I have been really excited about reading though is the new book that has come out about the history of The Relief Society, Daughters in My Kingdom.  I love having incredible female role models in the Gospel--like Sister Beck, Chieko Okazaki, Barbara Thomspson, my mother, etc.  I have been reading in that one and have learned a lot already about how the Relief Society was put together and what it's goals are.  For example, yesterday I learned that D&C 25 is to apply to all women in the church and that it "establishes foundational principles for all Latter-day Saint women" (DIMK, 14).  I thought that was pretty amazing.  

So this is me.  It's Thursday, my battery on my laptop is dying, its rainy and gray outside, but I've decided that it is a day and a time for new beginnings anyway.  The beginning of my writing about my spiritual learnings.  For me, for you, for whomever may read.

Cheers.
xE

I've been 'laughing about this for 4.7589 days

When I was in high school, I somehow came across an excellent book called A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel. As the back cover says, it "offers and rare and welcome treat: a memoir of a happy childhood." It is a collection of stories and memories from the life of Haven, nicknamed Zippy by her father, from her growing up years in the 1960's and 70's in the tiny town (pop. 300) of Mooreland, Indiana, USA. I started reading it by myself when I first found it, but my mom heard me laughing out loud so much as I made my way through it that she forced me to stop so that she and Dad and I could read it out loud together. Which we did.

Some years have passed since then, but recently I came across the book again in the library system here, and I thought, why not have all the laughs again? It's so fun reading it. I've forgotten so much of what happened in the book, and it's sheer delight discovering the world of Zippy anew.

Anyway, I'm explaining all of this because I wanted to share a snippet of the book that seriously tickled my funny bone this week. Perhaps it will spark your interest and you can go find Zippy in your local library too. :) This is from pages 117-118 in my copy:

"I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I was going to be when I grew up. There were just so many things I was good at. For instance, I could run across the living room and dive into a headstand on the couch, with my legs slapping the wall behind it. Sometimes I would make my parents sit and watch me do this fifteen times in a row.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, it's another perfect ten for Zippy!' Dad would shout, while my mother clapped politely. I tended to do it until my neck got twisted, which would make me incredibly mad. Sometimes I had to stomp out of the house saying I hated that sport and would never do it again.

I was also very good at Interview. What follows is an actual transcript from a tape I made with my mother:

Me: 'Mom. Mom. Mom. Hey. Let's do Interview.'

Mom: 'Not now, sweetheart. Let me just finish this arm.' [Note: She was knitting a sweater.]

We hear the 'Me' character snort unhappily into the microphone, and then something that sounds remarkably like cat fur. The recorder is shut off abruptly, and then comes back on.

Me: 'Hey, Mom. Mom. Mamamamamamam. Let's do Interview now.'

Mom: 'We will. I'm almost done with this.'

There is generalized stomping and fury. The recorder is shut off, and then comes back on.

Me: 'Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Lootle ones to heem belonga. They are weak but he is stronga. Mom. Mom. Is it time for Interview?'

Mom: 'If you don't stop pestering me I'll never finish this sleeve and then we'll never play Interview.'

A little primal throaty sound. The recorder is shut off. Comes back on.

Mom: 'Good evening, and welcome to Interview. Let's just go straight to our guest and have her tell us her name. Can you tell us your name, miss?'

Me: 'No.'
Mom: [surprised] 'Don't you know your name?'

Me: 'No.'

Mom: 'Okay, then, is there something else you'd like to tell our audience?'

Me: 'Not today.'

Mom: 'Well, then. I guess we'll just sign off. Would you like to say goodbye?'

Me: 'No.'

Tape is shut off."

Hahahhahaha. I especially love the bit about the "little primal throaty sound." Isn't that JUST the sound kids make when they are annoyed?

Had to share.