Countdown....

thing I've enjoyed attending.....

Children's choir with some young friends performing.  Sorry I missed a picture of Ava.

Lydia (we are BFF's)

Michael and Lydia

Leea

Noa & Luca

 attending The Nutcracker.....

Michael and Lydia

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Are you ready for Christmas?  I am.  It's as good as it's going to get around here and I'm okay with that.  The tree is still outside and still slightly stinky.  We think we will bring it in tomorrow.  I had fun with my Laurel class on our Christmas lesson.  Have received love gifts.  Loved our Ward Christmas program and also a wonderful Sacrament meeting. It's a beautiful time of year!   Have gone to several different Christmasy events and loved them!  And yet.....

Sorry.  Rude to do a blog and then not blog!  Sifting and sorting and having a bit of unraveling in my mind.  I seem to have a million things to do and woefully lack accomplishment.  I need to do some brain tweaking  (right there.... that description shows that I need to get a grip!!)  So...I'm going to gift myself with a very luxurious sabbatical of sorts!!  Not going anywhere.  Just stopping full force all the scatteredness of my mind which seems to be on overload with my to do list.  Conservatively it's like a full mile long!!  Not going to just shift gears but am getting out of the vehicle and mentally walking away.

Going to look at the realities of my life...figure out where the leak is in the wall...dismantle what needs to be changed and move ahead.  I will gift myself with unlimited time to think and ponder and read the last few pages of Elder Scott's book and when the new book by Elder Holland arrives, I will get right into it.  Delving deeper into the Scriptures.  Love that feeling!

The temple will be a spot that I will frequent as it's a place of peace and personal revelation.  It seems to me that I lack the Spirit in the intensity that I enjoy.  So spiritual questing will be my gold mining project.  I expect to figure out more balance, with the necessities of mortality taking less time, and more of the scale being balanced and if it's heavy on one side to let it be spiritual.  Can you ever overdo that personal spirituality aspect in your life?  I don't think so!

 I will also be checking over my Creed List.  So on and on I go.  If it sounds jumbled...that is why I'm going to do a sort and evaluate of my life.  I will be back here blogging in 10 days.  Please, don't think I need rescuing.  I just need to figure out how to feel content with the direction I'm headed.  Only I can do that for myself.  Just like all of us.

This is what mortality is all about...figuring out how to live so you feel your life counts, in your estimation, to the point you feel in control of it (well, mostly!)  My Patriarchal blessing will be studied and do some redirecting with that beautiful document.  It's such a nice one.

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Endure it Well by Elder Maxwell.... here

By itself, of course, the passage of time does not bring an automatic advance. Yet, like the prodigal son, we often need the “process of time” in order to come to our spiritual senses. (Luke 15:17.) The touching reunion of Jacob and Esau in the desert, so many years after their sibling rivalry, is a classic example. Generosity can replace animosity. Reflection can bring perception. But reflection and introspection require time. So many spiritual outcomes require saving truths to be mixed with time, forming the elixir of experience, that sovereign remedy for so many things.

We find that experience can produce a high spiritual yield. (See D&C 122:7.) Laban, for instance, was reluctant for Jacob to leave his employ, “for I have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.” (Gen. 30:27.) The modern Church even today is instructed to “wait for a little season” to build up central Zion. Why? So that we “may be prepared … and have experience.” (D&C 105:9–10.)
We gain knowledge through particular experiences, but only incrementally, “in that thing.” (Alma 32:34.) Hence the ongoingness of it all, and perhaps we can be forgiven for wondering, “Is there no other way?” Personal, spiritual symmetry emerges only from the shaping of prolonged obedience. Twigs are bent, not snapped, into shape.

Without patient and meek endurance we will learn less, see less, feel less, and hear less. We who are egocentric and impatient shut down so much of our receiving capacity.