Chuggin' along!

I am still on a natural high from Thanksgiving!  We had our youngest son and his wife and 2 boys here plus our oldest son.  It was a great mix of personalities and there was a lot of laughing and so much enjoyment!  I can't find the words.  

They did the entire meal...I best qualify that...at their request Safeway prepared an entire Turkey Dinner plus a Ham Dinner with a variety of different side dishes for each one!  Way to much food but it made for great grazing!  We ended up making scalloped potatoes and turkey tetrazzini with some of the leftovers.  Tomorrow I will make Terry's favorite- ham and Navy beans.

They wanted to help do things.  They wanted to work and help us out.  And wow!...they worked and did so many odd jobs that it was incredible!  One of the fun projects...bringing the 72 hour packs in, from garage, so we could unpack them and regroup.  We had a big backpack for each of us plus we had two big dufflebags and then things like a small Coleman stove and all sorts of bulky things to haul along.  

Well, there is no way that I can haul all of that plus help Terry and a walker!  We got a huge laugh out of some of the things we'd packed all those years (and years!) ago...a machete!  Lots of MRE's that I'm sure even the military would reject!  Huge goggle masks that looked like something from a science fiction movie!  So many individual water packets that were now nothing but a flat foil pouch with nary a drop of water. We had a lot of fun -making fun of - what we'd packed!  We had an assortment of everything imagineable!

After that sorting which was really a fun and games expereince...we opened the boxes from Costco that I bought a couple of years ago... it seems that long ago!  And for the first time saw our new, sensible size, individual back packs with 5 days of food/water packets (yes. they have water).  we will add some clothing and call it good.  So we are ready if we are told to evacuate!  Probably 2 blocks down to the Church! 

Those two, Ben and Mo, worked like whirlwinds and tackled things that were beyond me right now.  I so appreciated all of their deeds of kindness and done with such love.  Family is so wonderful and of course I love mine beyond measure!!

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I think it's important to try our utmost to do what the Church suggests on things like a pack at the ready and 3 months supply of food in our home pantries (we are overboard on that one).  That is also how I feel about embracing this new program in January and, for we women,...finish reading the Book of Mormon by the end of December.

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There is a lot of planning to do before the NT program starts.  Technically it starts on Dec. 31st.  So we need to decide what we want to do, in our home, for the two of us plus me, finishing the Book of Mormon.  The nice thing is, once we get going, we have until April General Conference before they would most likely announce any more changes.  That makes me feel good to think we can get 3 months experience under our belt with the current newness.  

I think it's so vital to hop on board the ChangeTrain because several of the Apostles, including the Prophet, have told us there will be more changes.  What on earth?  What more can be changed???  That I don't know but this I do know...I don't want to be trying to play catch-up.  I just want to give it my best, even if it's wobbly!, and not be overwhelmed with whatever else comes down the Pike!  

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Elder Holland recently made reference to more changes   read entire article here

Elder Holland expressed a wish that members could be with him in the weekly temple meetings of the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He noted that not all revelation in those meetings is shareable, but he promised that, after a year in which the church has announced multiple major initiatives, more are to come.

"The windows of revelation seem free and open and abundant," he said. "Since the moment he became president of the Church, Russell Nelson has been particularly open, particularly receptive and particularly entitled to revelation that is more public, is more sharable."  

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“If you think the Church has been fully restored, you’re just seeing the beginning. There’s much more to come.” From the restructuring of Melchizedek priesthood quorums to temple announcements and a change to a more “home-centered Church,” members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are experiencing a rush of revelation from President Russell M Nelson.

Still here!!

I'm still here!!  Plugging along!

yesterday I did something that I honestly can't believe I did it!!  I actually threw away my old Ensigns!  Now I know, I really do know that all things are available on line, but you know...I'm a paper gal.  A hold it in my hand...smooth the pages and relish the moment of reading.  Many years ago I pitched all I had as we were moving Stateside.  Then I felt lonely for the Ensign so I started saving again.  The furthest back they went was to 1971!!  only one from 1971 and then one from 1973 and then suddenly, in the '80's, I was on a tear again!

My motivation was the impact that April 2018 and then even more in October 2018 had on me...it was like a whole new life for the Church so I got rid of all those magazines.  I'm always thinking...what if...but what if...there was no power and you couldn't get online etc. etc.  that has justified my Ensign hoarding.  They were picked up with the trash this morning! 

I confess to tearing out the centerfolds with the Presidency and the Quorum of the 12 as I find it interesting in some macabre way to look at them and think...Wow!  I saw all of these men come and go!

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I am always trying to downsize all of this type of hoarding that I do....fabric (I did stop buying fabric and gave away yards and yards but it's still way to much)....books- cookbooks/chilrens' books/health books/Christmas books/how-to books/novels/talks/poems/magazines-Church or not!  Just books of any sort...big books...teeny books....it really doesn't matter.  I love books and I love having books around (read or unread).  I need to glean and clean.  so what am I doing?....trying to pawn them off on family members! 

two of five have said...thanks but no thanks.  My daughter said no thanks but her daughter said...Nana, yes.  please.  If they don't want them, and I still have to hear from 3 others, then friends will get gifts!

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We have family coming for Thanksgiving and we are really looking forward to that!!  Plus Kim is going to come over next week with the kiddos and baby Jack!!

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To say that I'm excited about all of these changes is way to understated!!  Not even close!

Moving along...

Terry and I were talking and I was sharing my efforts to keep up the dog-paddling and plate spinning and the challenges that make up my life...I told him I'd narrowed it down to Health/Home/Money as the headings and I've not even really approached details on those 3.  Aren't those 3 on everyone's list?  Aren't they main headings and all else falls under one of those categories?  I like to think I'm in good company!

So we were jabbering back and forth about that sort of thing and then we started talking about Jeanee's marvelous accomplishment and then we segued into individual lives, yours and mine and ours, and how each are a personal Camino.  Difficult/Challenging/Wonderful.  With No Quitting and just keep moving one step at a time.  

My LifeCamino is sort of whipping on me again but I am still feeling blessed.  Had a little tearful heartfelt talk in prayer.  Longer than little.  Long talk.  The Lord is so good and merciful and I ended up feeling at peace...increased faith...and confidence.  I can deal with life when I feel peace.  I don't know the outcome or the solution formula but I just know that there is an Awareness of my situation and things will work out.  I can do this.  Life is definitely an ongoing process.

I don't have pictures on my phone like a new Mom but I am almost to that stage that friends might be whispering  ...watch out!  here she comes with another YouTube of her daughter on her Camino Pilgrimage...yep!  that is me!

In this one she is telling what she would take/not take...do/not do.  Enjoy!  here it is!!!

Reading...

On the 10th of October I posted....

My favorite quote from Saints is found in the preface.  We are just getting started with our listening to the book.  The quote?  Every scene, character, and line of dialogue is founded in historical sources, which are cited at the end of the book.

The back of the book is filled with 71 pages of sources cited.  I love the word every.  Every line of dialogue!  Wow!

I also appreciated and enjoyed hearing the First Presidencies hope, for us that read it...We pray that this volume will enlarge your understanding of the past, strengthen your faith, and help you make and keep the covenants that lead to exaltation and eternal life.

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So....here it is the 2nd of November and we just finished reading Saints.  We started off reading one Chapter a day but our interest was so keen that we upped it to two a day. 

For me- it was quite the ride in reading...both rough at times and then smooth.  I found it interesting and informative....raw and real...very comfortable and very uncomfortable...soothing and disturbing...clarifying and confusing.  I found myself...understanding events and misunderstanding events... feeling tender and feeling disturbed... un-kinking mis-information I'd absorbed along the way and absorbing information I'd never even heard of.  At times I felt -What?!!!....Why?!!!...Really?!!...No Way!!!...You've got to be kidding!!!  Decisions were sometimes made and I'd feel/think...That is wrong!/That is right!  Often I judged people if I thought they didn't do it my way!!  There were liars mixed in with honest men.  Deceivers and righteous leaders.  It made my head spin!

For he- Kept things more in perspective of it being the History/doings of the Church being restored...the entire 1st Volume only covers 31 years and that was 203 years ago...this is a history and the Church has grown and developed to what it is today.  He was caught off guard sometimes and would say...I'll be darned.  Didn't know that.  Can you believe that?  Never heard of that before.

Both- We were horrified at the suffering.  Our hearts were sorrowful.  Then our hearts would be joyful.  and we'd teeter totter back and forth, with whatever was going on.  We admired the faith and testimony and determination and bravery of these early Saints.  We saw faith diminish in some and grow in others.  There was faithfulness and desire along with deceit and lies and slander.  We both marveled that they would hold on to their faith, in the midst of such persecution from the outside and then dealing with the newness of the Gospel and varied opinions, at times, on the inside.

Saints was not what I expected and I don't know why I thought it wouldn't be exactly as it is. It's a real History.  Every word taken from documents.  Remember that part that I said I loved?
Every scene, character, and line of dialogue is founded in historical sources, which are cited at the end of the book.  71 pages of footnotes. It can be a trusted read. 

It's a documented History.  Not a novel.  Perhaps I overlooked that?  Truth can be very painful at times.  Even with all of that being said...I guess I'm an optimist and maybe a believer in fairy tales mixed with when pigs fly.  I wanted that last page to wrap it all up with everyone living happily ever after.  I wanted that so bad that I read, on my own sans Terry, the last 3 Chapters...hoping hoping hoping for that ending and it just left me hanging!  Without giving me that path blazed with roses...it just left me sitting there rather dumbfounded.  This is a history of the Church, the Gospel that I love...why can't it be all pretty?  Why all of this stuff?  Perhaps in the next 172 years, that is left to tell about...at some point it will get into my comfort zone part that I'm familiar with...the Church that I joined years and years and years ago!  I need to wake up and just smell the roses for the reality of this book being the way it was.

Maybe I'm just not cut out for reality???  I came into this BookReading, telling Terry
...they say there will be 3 more Volumes and I wish they had them now.  I don't like to read a book series and be held up.  

Well, I'll eat those words and now I say
...I need a little breather to absorb what I just read before I read more of the same!  I'm glad the other Volumes aren't ready!

We decided to go back and re-read one chapter a day...starting tomorrow.  Stay tuned...I may do this 2nd reading and come out all on fire about it!

Hey!!  no judging.  not nice.  no judging me.





  

The leaving...

 Yesterday I attended yet another funeral.  This time a 42 year old Mother of 5 children.  Her bout with cancer was swift. Her oldest child was 18 and the youngest 9.  It's a kindness and very compassionate, at least in my book, that we do not get to choose the time we, or others, depart this life.

I met Kimberlee when I was working in the Stake RSP and she was working in her Ward.  She was just so sweet and wonderful.  Although I didn't look like, or resemble her Mother, she always wanted a MomHug and I just loved that association.

She mentioned in one of the notes she sent me that the hardest thing to deal with, in knowing she was going to die, was watching her family have to deal with that reality.  I wish I could find that note but I did find this one written 9/1/18

Awe! You guys are so good to me! When I was real sick before chemo started I couldn’t read and feel the spirit in the scriptures bc my body was dealing with such a physical thing and my focus wouldn’t work. I felt terrible about it not knowing I had cancer...I remember thinking is this how so many people feel, bc I’ve always been able to feast! I love the scriptures!!! Couldn’t read or focus on anything during my first bit of chemo so a dear friend came and read to me every morning, even when the chemo knocked me out...but I felt the scriptures she read me, I could feel them when I didn’t have to focus so hard to read...she had some struggles too and the spirit prompted me to ask her to do this and it’s been such a gift from the Lord for both of us! My mind is better now and so I can read to myself at night too but we are still doing the mornings during the week. 

Before everything hit I had a sacred experience with Heavenly Father and guidance from the spirit! After this tender experience the spirit told me something hard was coming but there would be great purpose behind it. I hang on to the words that there is great purpose behind it and completely trust in the beautiful hands that bear me up...how does anyone do this without the gospel? If my kids come to know their Father in Heaven and Savior personally for life it will all be worth it!!! This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through but it has purpose! 

I love your thoughts on covenant path, I was invited to go up to girls camp and speak at the end of the faith walk...the tree behind me was decorated like the tree of life and I talked about the love of God and sticking to the covenant path...shared stories about the joy the covenants have brought me throughout my life and that I would hope that they would give it everything to and have my happiness too! It was a sacred experience! My Eliza was there so that made it even better! I love and appreciate you so much! When we first crossed paths I knew you were someone I would just love! Thanks for making me ponder and take time to remember my blessings. Love you dearly! Kimberlee

I will miss her sweetness and goodness and remember with fondness our association.  

Kimberlee-- this has to be one of the most beautiful bridal pictures ever.  

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Here are two quotes that I love...

2002 -talk by Elder Maxwell- The Holy Ghost   here    (quote below from his talk)

We do not control what I call “the great transfer board in the sky.” The inconveniences that are sometimes associated with release from our labors here are necessary in order to accelerate the work there. Heavenly Father can’t do His work there, with 10 times more people than we have on this planet, without on occasion taking some of the very best sisters and brothers from among us. The conditions of termination here, painful though they are, are a part of the conditions of acceleration there. Thus we are back to faith in the timing of God, and to our need to be able to say “Thy timing be done,” even when we do not fully understand it.

AND

by Henry Scott Holland (27 January 1847 – 17 March 1918)