Faith to be healed

Viana was one sick pup last week! When it seemed like there was no end in sight Eric gave her a priesthood blessing. He gave it to her at night when she was too ailed to fall asleep. She was still very sick and didn't seem to be on the mend one bit! But she was blessed to recover and gain her health back. The next morning I was half asleep in bed when Viana ran into my room and sang out, "I am all better I can go to school today!" Then as quick as she came in she dashed back out to find Brooke. I then heard her tell Brooke, "Do you know why I am all better? Because I got a blessing from Daddy." She had absolute faith in the power of the priesthood, and so she was healed...and then she shared her testimony of that experience, which is sometimes harder than having the initial faith. What a great example.

Eternal Families, Joy

I wasn't around my kids for 9 whole days!! That's the longest I've ever been away from them. After I picked them up from the airport and dropped my mom off later that same day, it was amazing to me to see how Ally and Daniel reacted to being home again. They have always been sooooo good about playing with each other or entertaining themselves. They play in the front room or in their bedroom. Well, Friday evening, they both would follow me around the house and set up "imagination play zone" right at my feet, no matter where I was. The kitchen, the foot of the couch, the table, my bedroom. They just wanted to be with me at every step. It made me think about how special it is to have a family in this life and that having a loving home brings great joy. And then it made me think about how happy Heavenly Father must be when we try to be close to him like Ally and Daniel were with me. Or even happier when we are faithful and return to him at the close of mortality. As a mother, having Ally and Daniel have taught me a lot about the feelings that Heavenly Father has for me and each of us.

Trials and opposition

"At the Grand Council we also learned the purpose for our progression: to have a fulness of joy. However, we also learned that some would be deceived, choose other paths, and lose their way. We learned that all of us would have trials in our lives: sickness, disappointment, pain, sorrow, and death. But we understood that these would be given to us for our experience and our good (see D&C 122:7). If we allowed them to, these trials would purify us rather than defeat us. They would teach us to have endurance, patience, and charity (see Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [2006], 15–16)." -Gospel Principles Manual Chapter 2

Sometimes I think we forget that we signed up for hard things! Pain, sorrow, trials, opposition--all of it is important to our journey! Ram was playing with a little stuffed animal puppy. I was sitting watching him and he took the dog and ran him into the wall. Then he looked at me and said, "Bonk!" Then again, "Bonk!" I said, "Did he get a bonk? Give him a kiss." So he said, "Yeah, muh" (that means kiss) then he kissed them. We went through this same routine 4 or 5 times. Trials and opposition are so important that it shows up in the imaginative play of a 2 year old. It is something that our spirits know has to happen.

Sisters and Comfort

Viana has been sick. She has spent the last 24 hours on the couch. Brooke and Ram have been playing together and leaving Viana to mend. This afternoon Viana says to me, "I want to say hi to Brooke." I went back to the bedroom where Brooke and Ram were playing and said, "Brooke, Viana wants to say hi." Brooke immediately stopped what she was doing and walked to the living room. She walked over to the couch and said, "Hi Viana." Viana said, "Hi Brooke." And that was it. Viana turned over content and Brooke went back to playing. It was so precious. Brooke was so anxious to help her sister, and Viana felt her love.
Mosiah 18:9
9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort,

Endurance

Sometimes it is easy to forget that we have to have faith, erpent, get baptized, receive the Holy Ghost and ENDURE TO THE END. But Endure we must! Viana came down with a harsh bug this afternoon and was out like a lamp. (Weird since Viana has never been a napper!) She was awake for scripture study but was still feeling very weak. I had thought that she would lay there feebly drifting in and out of dreamland. But as soon as I announced the word we would be listening for ("ye") she raised her hand about two inches and said "Ye" like we always do. Then for the rest of the scripture block every time I read "ye" I saw her pale and limp hand raise as high as she could muster it. It was so great to see her doing her very best to endure even though she could have had every excuse to be idle.

Joy in the Journey

Tonight I took the children on a little walk so that I could deliver something to a lady in our ward. I was focused and walked with purpose. The girls on the other hand stopped at every little rock and grasshopper and leaf. I was initially annoyed and wishing they would just walk! But then I looked up around me and saw the beautiful mountains and the clear sky and the colorful trees. I realized that I needed to find the joy in our journey!! Hardly ever a walk has gone by the the girls aren't enchanted with all the little beauties of this world. "Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family." -President Monson

Service

It's amazing to me how willing children are to serve and help others. Today, I was running around the house and a few stores like a chicken without a head in an attempt to get things together before we leave town. Throughout the day Ally would come jumping up to me in excitement and ask, "Mom! What can I do to help you?" I thought about her enthusiasm and I really don't think that I have that same kind of genuine interest in helping people all the time. Children are such a good example of serving. In Alma 30:9 it states, "...if he believed in God it was his privilege to serve him..." When we serve one another we are serving God.

Praying for the prophet

Tonight for family prayer Viana said she didn't like praying because she never knows what to say. So we talked about things we could pray for, Jimmy's lung, Charina's cold, Orion's mission and Pres. Monson. So, in her prayer she said, "Please bless our prophet that he can sleep good tonight, and that he can get smarter, and that he will stay healthy." I can't be positive, but I think the reason she prayed for him to get smarter is because we are always telling her that Jesus is the smartest person and that he knows everything, and she knows the prophet is his mouthpiece, so naturally she would want a smarter prophet. And I am quite certain that with the faith of this little child, Pres. Monson will have a fine night of slumber.

Missionary Work

Today while sitting in sacrament meeting, Ally was flipping through our Sacrament ABC's book and telling LaDon about each letter. She came to the M page. On that page there is a picture of a companionship of elders and a brief description about missionaries and the role they play in the Gospel. Ally turned to LaDon and said, "It's the missionaries. They come to my house to eat dinner!" I quietly giggled then asked her, "Do you know what else they do?" "They eat dinner!" "Actually, they teach people about Jesus Christ."

So....Ally didn't really know what missionaries are exactly, but she did recognize that they come to our house to have dinner. So, I think she probably knows that missionaries are young men and women that we are to support temporally, in some ways. More importantly, we are to support them by finding people for them to teach. Hopefully, our family will get better at having friends for the missionaries to teach so that Ally and Daniel will be able to say, "They teach people the gospel" vs. "They eat dinner!" Either way, we like having the missionaries around.

Prayer

Every morning, we say a prayer at breakfast. And every morning I have to remind Ally and Daniel to fold their arms. Daniel, well, he really doesn't like praying except for saying "amen" right now. Ally, will fold her arms when asked. This morning as we sat down to breakfast, Ally said, "Look mom! I'm foldin' my arms. We gotta pray. It's your turn!"

Knowledge/Learning

Ally is in a Joy School group and this week it is my turn to teach. It's a 3 hour long school session with 5 3-year olds. Going into it I didn't think there was going to be any way that they would all sit still and pay attention to several 10 minutes discussions about keeping our world clean or learning a few new songs. However, as we sat down and I started teaching them, they all were quiet and attentive! Shock to me! Not only that, but they would raise their hands and give great comments and input. Just sitting with these little kids today made me realize how important it is to "seek after truth" and "thirst for knowledge." And as we gain knowledge we become more like Heavenly Father (Isaiah 46:9-10, Act 15:18, 2 Nephi 9:20). Little children really are the example we need to follow.

Belief

Tonight Viana came in and told me that our neighbor boy was having a halloween party and that they needed to wear costumes. I asked her when and she said, "Right now!" It seemed a little suspicious and I didn't know if it was true or not, but even after my further questioning she insisted that there was a party. So I walked over to the neighbors house to find out. There was no parental organized party. But the little boy had imagined up such a great idea and Viana absolutely believed him. I'm not trying to say we blindly need to believe everything we're told, but I think there is something beautiful about the way children are so trusting and believing. It doesn't take much to convince them of goodness.

Music and Sacrament

During the sacrament today Viana was quitely singing to herself songs from the hymn book. I looked at her and she said, "I am singing these songs so I can feel the spirit." With 4 kids it can be hard to remember the purpose of the sacrament and focusing can be hard. It is nice to have one of those kids setting an example and helping me out.

Agency

“Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee” (Moses 3:17). As Brooke recently taught in FHE and as I taught in my gospel essential class, agency is an eternal principle. We are here on this earth because we wanted to have the freedom to choose that the plan of salvation provided for us. I was cutting CharlyAnn's fingernails today, and she did not like it one bit, nor have any of my other children. Was she previously doing something else with her hands? No. Did it hurt? No. Did it take away her agency? Yes. Isn't that interesting how simply in-born we are with our desire to keep that agency that we had in our premortal life.

Submission

I've been noticing little Ram lately. As we try to teach him things that are right and lead him in the way of goodness he eagerly tries to please us. Anytime he does make a bad choice and he gets in trouble he gets so intensely sad. More so than just, "I'm sad because I can't play since I'm in time-out," but a real sorrow and ache that he has disappointed us. And when we do put him in time-out he truly is "willing to submit to all things...even as a child doth submit to his father." (Mosiah 3:19) Yesterday at dinner he was spilling his milk everywhere and all Eric said was "Ram" with a stern instructive tone and Ram just broke down in tears of such sorrow and submission. If I am always trying to obey my Heavenly Father and then show true godly-sorrow when I make bad choices then I am on the right path.

Book of Mormon, Family Home Evening

Since we were traveling on Saturday, we missed both AM and PM sessions of General Conference. So, for family night we decided we would listen to a talk. We started with Elder Richard G. Scott's talk. He spoke about the scriptures and the love he has for them and the strengthening of testimony he gets from them. Daniel and Ally, of course, were kind of wiggly and didn't seem to pay much attention to what was being said. In fact, they both got up and wandered around at one point. I started having one of those, "why do we even try" moments. After Elder Scott finished, LaDon asked Ally, "Do you know what Elder Scott talked about?" and to my utter surprise and joy she quickly responded, "The Book of Mormon!" So....although FHE is a struggle sometimes, it really is important and our kids are learning.

Prophets

As a re-cap to General Conference we asked each family member to share something they learned at family prayer last night. Earlier in the day Viana had sat and listened to President Monson speak and she giggled and laughed at his story right along with the audience. So when it was her turn to answer she said, "I learned that our prophet is silly!" Admittedly I had been hoping for something like, 'God loves me' or 'I can have my prayers answered', but isn't this a much better answer? For Viana to feel like she has a personal connection with the prophet I hope will lead her to be more obedient to his teachings (when she does start to internalize them more). Because she understands his nature she will be able to learn from him sooner.

Millennium, Second Coming

The blog has suffered this week since CJ and I were together. It was fun to visit though!

Tonight as we were finishing up our family scripture study, I started to explain to the kids that the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon were told to tell people about Jesus Christ and what they had seen. I went on to tell them that we get to live in a special time where we are supposed to tell everybody about Jesus. Ally then said, "Jesus is going to come back!" I was a little surprised at that one, but she's right! He will come back to the earth! She then followed up her first statement with, "We get to live with him again." And, she was right again. We do get to live with him (assuming we choose to live a righteous life and all that that entails). I love the complete faith of my little 3-year old. She has no question that we will live with him again.