Shiner

Look who got his first big shiner...Shark did.  Guess who gave it to him?  Didi did!  They were throwing the softball back and forth, and one came unexpectedly, landing right on Shark's nose.   He had a good time telling curious onlookers "you should see the other guy..." and "he's getting the R.I.P. treatment"  ha ha : ). 

Seek for a Better World

This is a very long post...but I thought some of you might enjoy reading the talk I gave in church today.  It's about 10 minutes long.  Here goes nothing : ) (pretend like you're sitting in the congregation)...

I am grateful to be with you today.  I am always grateful to be with you, Sundays at church are always a highlight of my week.  I love being a member of this church, and I have loved being a member of this ward.  Our family has about four weeks left before we move for Jazz's new job which we feel extremely blessed to have--he will be a music professor this fall in Pennsylvania.  It's funny--when I told one friend that we will be moving on Pioneer Day, she pointed out to me that we will be like backwards pioneers--going across the country in the wrong direction, on Pioneer Day :).

In

Doctrine & Covenants 25: 10, the Lord gave counsel to Emma Smith saying,

"I say unto thee that thou shalt lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better."

I'd like to share with you some of the ways I have learned to apply this counsel to my life.

First, how do we define the things of the world?

   I would define holding onto "the things of this world" as living a life without consideration for Heavenly Father's eternal plan for us, or for his commandments.  In other words, living only for what feels good and right in the present moment, with little consideration for others or for future consequences.

Elder Neal Maxwell gives another explanation that I liked:  "When we speak of letting go of the world, this does not mean forgoing its sunsets, its beautiful music, nor, best of all, its people.  The 'world' is a way of life that takes us away from, not toward, God.  Away from, not toward, happiness.  Away from sense to nonsense."

Many people we know seem to have made a conscious choice to refrain from including religion in their lives because they feel that the effort is not worth it.  One friend of mine recently said "I have nothing against religion, but I have no use for it."  It makes me sad to think about all that he is missing out on.

I would like to share with you part of the testimony of my friend Maria, whom I met on my mission.  She and I served in Spain, her native country.  She wrote in a letter to me:

"My life was "religion free" for a good portion of

my life. What I'm grateful the most for our religion is for the perspective it brings to everything I do. Before I learnt the Gospel and joined the Church life seemed at times too difficult. When I faced adversity I easily felt discouraged and wondered what the purpose was for my existence. I cannot explain how my heart was changed when I heard for the first time that we existed before we came to this earth and that we really had a Father in Heaven that loved us beyond our understanding. Someone that knew my heart, that saw my potential to become like Him and lovingly showed me the way to return to my heavenly home. I learnt to be thankful that in His wisdom, He prepared a plan for us to help us achieve our potential as His children. I could finally understand why it was important for our growth to have trials and sorrow in our lives."

Having the Church in my life anchors me. The voice of the prophet speaks clearly to us all and keep us focused on the things that really matter. The simple truths of the Gospel are available to each one of us and in them we can find the peace and happiness we all search for.

So to state it simply, I believe the Lord was counseling Emma (and of course the rest of us) to lay aside worldly cares, and be active, faithful members of the church.

 The second part of the scripture talks about seeking for a better life.

A better life comes in part through spirituality.  One thing that I've really appreciated learning recently through my associations with good people here in Oregon is that spirituality can be an important part of our lives even outside of the church.  One of my friends told me that he finds spiritual renewal in music more than anything else.  Some find it by running miles and miles, or being close to nature.  Barbara Johnson shared in her talk in Stake Conference that it was through meditation and yoga that she finally was able to re-strengthen her spiritual connection with Heavenly Father.  It's wonderful for us to enjoy this connection with God in all different forms.  As my husband once put it, we do not have a monopoly on spiritual experiences.  I think what's most important is that we follow the spiritual promptings that Heavenly Father does send us.  If we listen, He will lead us closer to Him by guiding our life's choices, and we will find ourselves learning about, understanding, and desiring his will for us.  And He will give us opportunities to make necessary changes--to help us find that better world.

One very dear friend of mine was raised in the church, but spent several years in her youth not living the church standards.  To paraphrase for you some of her experience in her words, she told me,

"(I decided I wanted to change when) I realized how unhappy I was, and I knew what I was doing that was making me unhappy.  I also remembered how happy I had been back when I had been living the gospel before, and I wanted to have that again.    I wanted to make the change several times, it just took awhile to make the change.  ...I had to get rid of bad habits and replace them with good things."    During her time of lesser faith, she had never actually stopped coming to church.  She made a new commitment though, and made the changes, and came into full activity.  She ended up serving a mission, and now has a happy family of her own that is committed to living the gospel.

Elder Bruce Hafen:  “Reaching out from the center of light, Jesus “entices” us with a spiritual gravitational pull toward him.  … “Repentance and forgiveness eliminate the rubbish and the bad habits that can hold us captive in the worldly orbit.”

Part of the good news of the gospel is that laying aside the things of the world does not mean we must sacrifice our happiness now so that we can have it in a future world.

If I could give my friends and family just one piece of wisdom regarding finding happiness in this life, it would be that "we can make a conscious choice now, to be happy now."

In college, a friend once casually asked me "how are you?'"  I replied, "overwhelmed, and stressed, but I feel that way all the time, so that's normal for me.

He said, "well if that's normal for you, you need to change something about your life."

        -since then, I have always been very interested in how to find happiness.

A fun quote from Mary Englebright inspired me last week--it said "Be HAPPY, for no reason at all."

One of the first scriptures we memorized with our children was "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy".

It's not a new concept that being happy is a choice.  We are in control of our attitude.  On my bedroom mirror at home I have written in marker a scripture from Proverbs: "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine", reminding me that every day I can choose to have a merry heart, regardless of what's going on around me.

When I worked as a secretary right after college, a favorite boss of mine taught me the value of a good attitude--anytime we asked him, "Bob, how are you today?"  He would always answer, "The best in the history of the world!"  I try to follow his example whenever I remember him, because it always uplifts me. 

The last experience I want to share with you is a lesson that I learned from another new friend I made here in Oregon.  I was telling her ,

"I will be so happy when we get out of college and we finally have money someday.  All my life I've been waiting to get to that point.  I never had too much as a child, and not sure if I'll really be rich someday, but at least when we get out of school...I'm hoping...    

My friend lovingly replied, "But you know, money isn't everything."

And when she said that, my first thought was, "Yes, it is.  I saw on TV that 'a study showed: People who have money are happier than people who don't.' "

      But the more that I thought about it, and pondered her current situation (raising two children on her own, having to go back to college while she's a single mom, and having financial struggles of her own), I realized, there's no good reason for me to WAIT  to be 100% satisfied and happy with my life.  After all, when I get started counting my blessings, I can see that the most important blessings that I ever dreamed of for my life--I already have them.  But what if I didn't?  And what if I actually got stuck in “student’s-wife” status forever? I guess there's no guarantee that my husband won't change his major again, and again, and keep himself enrolled in school for eternity...  (we’ve been in college this long, what’s a few more years?). Hopefully he didn't hear that ;).  But would THAT be a good reason to wait to be happy?  No.  I know of lots of people that have yet to receive blessings that they are longing for desperately, and yet, they have a super-hero ability to express gratitude for what they do have, and they are happy.

 The bottom line is that Heavenly Father wants all of his children to be happy, not just in the life to come, but even now.  And he will bless us with that happiness if we ask him to.  Happiness, like faith, I believe, can be his gift to us, when we do our part and make the choice to be happy.

 I love the happiness that I have found by living the gospel.  True religion helps me lay aside the things of this world, and allows me to experience “that better world” which is promised.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Happy Un-Birthday, Angela!

Today is my little sister's un-birthday.  So, I thought that makes now a great time to tell you some of the many things I love and admire about her.  : )

I love my sister because she is brilliant, organized, and sooooo smart!  This is a picture of us at our last family reunion, tallying up the guessing jars guess sheets, to see who wins which prize jar.  She made the tally sheets.  She also got all of the planning emails going for the reunion itself, organized all of the meal preparations, helped delegate the different activities so we could have one big giant BLAST from beginning to end of the reunion, and helped us figure out the costs of things so we could all pay a fair share.  She's THE mathematician of the family, and a great book keeper.  I love that she is such a smarty pants, and I look up to her for her planning/event organizing skills.  She's so cool like that.

I love this picture of Angela.  It's of her in the hospital right after she had a baby.  I wasn't there, but I believe she is just enjoying watching her other children enjoy the new baby in the room.  Angela's middle name is Joy (no really, it is).  And I love, love, love how joyful she is.  She really knows how to have fun, feel happy, and make others feel happy around her.

Here she is with her now 1-year-old.  She's naturally a wonderful, loving mother.  She loves motherhood as much as I do.  And her babies are so cute!

Here is Angela with her family so far : ).  I love watching her family grow.  And, I know that any baby that has entered the world via her family is a lucky baby, indeed.  They have a very happy home.  I'm so grateful for that.

Here is Angela and me with our four brothers.  You can see that we have an awesome time together.  We are the best of friends.  I love that Angela and I both have cool naturally curly hair...which became curly only once we were teenagers (and which grows straight while we are pregnant or nursing).  Some people think we look alike, and at times we have been mistaken for one another.  We think that's pretty funny.

This is one of Angela's many "look how great I'm doing with my after-baby weight loss!" pictures.  She is my Weight Watchers hero!  She has a great talent for sticking with her exercise and diet goals, and has done such an awesome job of regaining her pretty figure after each baby was born.  She truly motivates me, and I love looking to her for inspiration.

Angela is a super-mom.  She does the coolest fun crafts and family home evenings with her kids.  I admire any mom who can parent 3 young boys at the same time--that's a lot of energy.  She sets a good example for them by balancing her hobbies and her have-to's (work, exercise, church activity, supporting her husband in school, etc.).  Again, her kids are so very lucky to have her!

Here are a few extra things I love about Angela:
1. She has an awesome amazing smile.  Happy, and gorgeous teeth.  What a fun blessing for all of us because she shares it every day!
2.  She is a great cook.  She makes the world's best chocolate chip cookies.  It doesn't matter which recipe she uses, they always turn out.  She also makes wonderful dinners for her family all the time.  Lucky them!
3. She's really funny.  She has a great sense of humor, and we ALWAYS laugh when we talk with each other.  And I love her laugh.  It makes me feel so happy.
4.  She's devoted to her faith.  She shares the gospel with her children, and lives her religion.  She's a worthy Christian and a faithful member of our Mormon church, and she serves in her callings well.
5. She enjoys the same shows as me--American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.  It's fun to discuss the season highlights with her, the same way sports fanatics exchange game stats. 
6. She's forgiven me for being a mean older sister when we were growing up.  I'm sorry for always piling stuff on her bed when she didn't like it, and for any of the other mean stuff I did.  I'm so glad that we survived our younger years and have become such great friends now as grownups.

I love you, Angela!