Family First Friday (on Saturday) Busy, Busy, Busy #20

Life has just been very, very busy.  But here are a few of the things we have been doing.

Sport's Graduations (college and high school):

Now that those are out of the way :-)

Sun has her Spring Review Show tonight.  Because she is singing a solo, she gets to wear whatever she wants for her solo.  She had nothing that she felt comfortable wearing.  So we dug through the fabric piles and found some materials that would work.  I have been busily sewing for the past week and would have been finished a while ago, except my sweetest little son spilled yellow nail polish all over the skirt I was sewing, so we had to start over.  Since then, I have been pumping out the next skirt and shirt especially the past three days.  But!!!  Last night at 11:30, I finished the outfit.  Hopefully, I'll get to video her performance tonight and then put it up here on the blog.  Then you can see my magnificent sewing skills (NOT).  But you can see what I did and hopefully hear my beautiful daughter.  If it doesn't work, then Oh well!

And, my dear friend called me yesterday in my mad sewing place and said, "Do you want to pick my raspberries? They are falling off of the plants and I don't have time to do it or do anything with them."  So I sent the boys over yesterday to pick.  And pick they did!  Now I have tons of raspberries to do something with.  Luckily they freeze pretty well and fairly easily, so they can wait until next week.

Also, next week, Slim arrives home.  Currently he is traveling across the country visiting a few peoples here and there.  Next weekend I have to go and pick him up. 

With all the extra men, there has been a lot of extra cooking, and we had a death in the ward, so there is that business also.  The funeral is on Monday and the death was expected.  Also, on Thursday, we got a phone call that one of the ward members was in the emergency room, a home teachee of my sweetheart.  When we arrived there, the missionaries were there.  One of their companions fell off his bicycle and broke his arm.  One of our other ward members was there.  He had just brought his mother-in-law in because they thought she had experienced a stroke.  And we had another ward member there who had had two surgeries earlier in the week.  So there has also been lots of visiting others and doing what we can to help them.

You can see, things are a little chaotic.  But things are happening.  Life is moving forward.  Now we just have to really focus and get Sun's class finished off completely.  That will be the focus for the next week.  Wish us luck!

I have a scanner!!!

(I missed Family First Friday, I  know!!)

Woohoo!!!  I have wanted a scanner for quite a while, just because we have photos that I have no other copies of other than the original print.  Like this one:

This is the only photo I have of my father's parents, Melvin Cleo (Bill) and Dorothy Rosella Bryant.   (The little people are my brother David [baby] and me.)  Don't you just love the green paper on the ends??!!  And the tapestry on the wall---I think my mother still has that.

But I am so excited to upload some of these photos on Family Tree!!!

In fact, in researching some of my ancestry and evaluating some genealogy my mother sent me, I learned that her side of the family, in fact, is descended from the Chief of the Wampanoag Federation of Indians, Massassoit.  He is THE Indian who had the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims.  Oh!  Ya!  That Indian!  There is a statue of him:

See the resemblance?!!

Nope?  Me either!  Oh well!

I think he is actually the Indian on BYU's campus!  Maybe?  Maybe next time I am there I am going to have to have a photo with that statue!!  So cool!  Anyway, even cooler than that, one of the women who just moved into my ward is also a descendant of Massassoit!  We can trace both of our lines back to him and we can see where our families branched off!  I have to say that I was just a wee bit jealous knowing that her relatives actually went to Kirtland and helped to build the temple there and my ancestors didn't have the gospel until my grandmother Dorothy (above) accepted the gospel when my father was baptized and married my mother.

But I was also able to scan in this little gem:

These are my great grandparents, Dorothy's parents.  I knew them for such a short while.  My great grandmother died when I was 11, and my great grandfather was killed in an automobile accident when I was 13.  Don't you just LOVE his hair???!!  And the bow tie, so sheik!

My other scanning treasure, also a family history jewel.  I guess on my mother's side, there is a coat of arms.  No kidding!  Kind of strange, I know.  But here it is:

I scanned it in straight, but when I color corrected it, for some reason, it slanted it.  So weird.  It didn't seem to matter even if I tried to scan it in crooked.  That just made it worse.  My girl friend who is also apparently my cousin many, many times removed, said that each of those symbols on the coat of arms have a meaning.  So I started doing a little research.  Not everyone agrees on what the symbols mean, but I did find out that those little birds are called 'Martlets'--footless sparrows, which are a symbol of the fourth son (mark of difference) that may signify one who has to subsist by virtue or merit, not inheritance.  Well, that's nice to know, and still very, very true today.  Yep, that part fits.  The belt across the front is called a Fess.  It is a military belt or girdle of honor, representing readiness to serve the public.  That fits me too.

As far as the scrolly plant stuff??  No clue.  Don't know about the helmet thingy either.  Or the three rings, or why there are three swallows.....

Any thoughts on your end?

Well, anyway, it is a cool thing. I am enjoying it and I can upload these things to Family Tree (as soon as I figure out that) and then someone who is related to me will have more information to work with.

Those are my ramblings about how fun Family History can be.  I really do enjoy it and I like finding things out about my family and the people who came before me and paved the way that I can enjoy the life I have.  I find it a particular and sacred honor to be able to go to the temple and perform eternal ordinances for them so they may have the blessings of the gospel, if they so wish.

That is the wonderful thing that I think some people do not understand.  Yes, we do perform ordinances for and in behalf of people who have left mortality.  However, we do not believe that because we have done that that the people whose work has been completed are now members of our church or our religion.  We believe that these ordinances are necessary for each and every person ever born.  However, we also believe each person has their agency.  If they do not want to accept the work that has been done for them, they do not have to accept it.  It is their choice.  On this side of mortality, we do not usually know if they accept it or not.  But we do the work, so it is available if they want it and are worthy of it.

So that's a little bit different.  Anyway, now that I have rambled on and on, I may go scan some more stuff!  Have a great Memorial Day as we remember those who have gone before us and paved the way for us to enjoy the lives we do!

commons.wikimedia.com

The Lord is in the Details

I wish I was an amazingly consistent blogger who you could always count on to post something inspirational every day, that my posts would go viral and my readership would just soar through the roof.  But alas, I do sin in my wish.  I'm just an average, ordinary person with a life and a family and oh, did I tell you I have nine children?

This is what I want the world to think it looks like.

 

THIS

is more often

the reality of

how it is.

I would like to think that as they have left the house and grown up that my mothering job is done.  Not so.  On occasion, I am more needed, and usually more urgently.  When the big boys (because my only daughter is not there yet) call and need me, it is usually because they have exhausted all of their other resources and their time is critical, and it usually involves money.  But that's OK, because we have all been there right?

Have you ever noticed that the Lord does that for us too?

Just today I was stressing because with extra boys at home, there are no leftovers.  The things I plan for meals just do not seem to stretch as far and I am functionally feeding four and a half men three meals every day.  In another month, it will be five men (for a week, then two will leave).  But the point is, I do my grocery shopping on Thursdays and it is Tuesday afternoon and the fruit basket is empty, the eggs are gone, some of the condiments are out, the refrigerator is looking like bachelors live here, you know what I mean.  (I can see how badly the fridge needs to be cleaned.  It is that empty!)

As I put on the beans to cook for dinner tonight and realized that I didn't have enough left in the bucket to feed everyone tonight, I didn't think it would be such a big deal because I always have a bucket of beans somewhere.  So I searched through the food storage cupboards.  Nothing.  I looked in all of my buckets.  Couldn't find any more.  As I was starting to panic, I had the thought, just keep looking in the food storage.  OK.  I have checked my cupboards.  The only place left is the garage.  I think I only have 30 year old wheat out there.  But, true to the prompting, I went out.

I looked in my pile of wheat bags, not yet put into buckets.  No beans.  I stared at the shelves and shelves of someone's weathered and aged #10 cans that came to our house because someone couldn't bear to throw out their 30 year old food storage and neither could my spouse (we might need that someday you know?  We are still working on his ability not only to declutter, but not to bring it home in the first place.  I throw out more things that way........SSSSSHHHHHH!!  Did I say that out loud?)

What did I see?  Some shiny #10 cans mixed in with the weathered ones.  I got closer so that I could read the label.   BEANS!!!  Sweet!  6 cans of beans!!  I recognized that they were older, not 30 years old, though.  When I opened them the seal broke.  That's good, I thought.  Inside were red, black and pinto beans, our favorites!  Hip hip hooray!!  I didn't even know they were in our house, but the Lord knew.  Kind of like that feeling I get when I know one of those big boys is going to call and ask us to transfer money to help them cover something (not like toys, or entertainment, I'm talking food, rent, getting home, you know, the important stuff).

I was just so very, very grateful that the Lord knows us, loves us, and will do what He can (and what we will let Him) to help us.  And as we help one another, like Drew and I do for the boys and Tams, and the other kiddos, we answer each others' prayers and we become angels employed in the service of our God.  "As ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."  And King Benjamin's amazing address:  "...I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God."

copyright:  Karen Larsen photography

(Even when it rains, there is beauty)

 

So even, no especially, when our service may be limited to feeding, clothing, bathing, wiping noses, and bottoms and soothing hurt feelings, for little people or big people or one person, we are making a contribution to the work of the kingdom.  Some day those little people are going to grow into big people, (who need money) and love and attention, and sometimes advice, but sometimes just a listening and sympathetic ear.

Yea to the Lord for putting us into the service of one another, through families, or church, or neighborhoods, or work or whatever.  We are truly brothers and sisters of the same Father, who even cares about beans for dinner tonight!

In the Trenches!--Family First Friday #19

While I was at Slim's graduation, I had plenty of time to contemplate life and the cosmos.  As I relished in the quiet and the lack of people demanding my attention and time, enjoyed having all of my meals prepared for me, someone else cleaning the bathroom and cleaning up after dinner, not worrying about laundry or housework or children or service to those who live by me or homework, I just soaked in the solitude.  I drank deeply of the peace that surrounded me.

this is where I had breakfast every morning!

Don't get me wrong, I love people!  But the older I get, the more I enjoy solitude.  Maybe it is because I have so little of it.  I love sitting in the morning sun, watching nature around me as the world wakes up.  The warmth of early morning sunrise, the smell of the new day----time to be alone with my thoughts, time to commune with God, my Father in Heaven.  Oh Solitude!  Thy name is Peace! Envelop me in tranquility!

And yet, even though that joy fills my heart, where is the service?  Where is the growth?  Where is the assistance to my fellow man?

There is a lot to be said for helping one another to claw and scrape through daily mortal mire, to hear the lament and tales of another, to problem solve, and to comfort and assist, to bear another's burden, or at least assist in the process.  That brings us humanity, charity, closer to our eternal goals and becoming of the Christ-like character we hope to emulate.

Those ties and demands upon us----the children, a spouse, parents, neighbors---those relationships keep us real, keep us grounded, hone our appetites, desires, and passions as we make sacrifice for one another.  Those ties that bind----that is reality.  Continued solitude is selfishness---necessary on occasion, but too much is good for neither man nor woman.

As I sat around pondering for those four days, I recognized that the life I was participating in at that moment was all fluff.  It was not a thing of eternity.   I wasn't doing anything that was going to help anyone else reach their exaltation.  In  that moment, I recognized that the true battles are won and lost in the home, doing the mundane, the things I do every single day, that is where the fight is won and lost, in the trenches of motherhood.  I was up to my eyeballs in that scenario.

It was good to get some perspective and to receive a little grounding.  For I have been exhausted and quite weary in well-doing.  I have been thinking that the grass IS greener on the other side and I have been ready for quite a while, to jump ship and go build Zion somewhere else.  The truth of the matter though, is that my 'exhausted in Zion building' syndrome would follow me, being that the magnitude of my work, I live with.  So living somewhere else with a few different people, but all of the important and significant and exhausting ones living within the walls of my home, really wasn't going to change anything, except that I would probably have more stress because these darling children of mine would be more discombobulated because of a move.  Lovely, how I would create my own drama!  Oy!

So this great morning, I was reading my Doctrine and Covenants, and came across this scripture:

64:33-34
Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work.  And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.
Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these last days.

As tired as I am, I am laying the foundation of a great work!  I know that.  But sometimes foundation building is just exhausting.  I mean seriously, when all you do all day is go around slapping down cement and fitting two by fours for the erection of some major house, it is hard to get excited about what the gardens are going to look like, everything is always gray!

Listening to Elder Ballard's CES address this month also helped my perspective and taught me where I can go to strengthen my perspective and how to tune my spirit into the spiritual reality and significance of what I am doing.

He said as he was sharing part of the dedicatory prayer of the new Arizona temple, in effect:

[All temples] are a "a sanctuary of serenity, a refuge from the storms of life, and the noise of the world.  May [the temple] be a house of quiet contemplation, concerning the eternal nature of life and Thy divine plan for us."

Then he continued his personal remarks (speaking to the young adults):

"Satan is working overtime to confuse God's sons and daughters and divert the very elect from fulfilling their duty and receiving a fulness of the Lord's blessings.  Satan wants you to stop practicing good habits you learned on your missions, such as having daily scripture study, praying daily, worthily partaking of the sacrament weekly and giving genuine heartfelt service.  He also wants you to stand on the sidelines in today's important crucial battles.

Remember my dear young people, we at at war!  But not a war of guns and bullets.  Nevertheless, the war is real, with countless human casualties.  The war is in fact a continuation of the one that began in the premortal world existence.

Paul invited us to put on the whole armor of God, he said, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

As an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I invite all of you within the sound of my voice in the vast world that we now live in to put on the whole armor of God and join the battle today, like the sons of Helaman did so many years ago.  Don't wait until you get married, or start your life long career or get older.  The church needs our youth now!  The Lord needs you now!....

You will recall 2000 stripling warriors entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites.  The church needs modern stripling warriors who have made a covenant to stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things and in all places...

You young men and women are the modern sons and daughters of Helaman.  May it be said of you as it was said of them, they became now at this period of time, a great support....."

And guess what?  You and I are their parents, those who were so strong in the conviction of their repentance and love for the Savior, that they buried the weapons of their rebellion, never to pick them up again, but to lose their lives first.

We need to set that kind of example for our modern stripling warriors.  We need to remind them every day of who they are, what they are to do, and why they are to do it.  This is our battle as much as it is theirs.  We are at war.  And we are in the trenches of mortality, where the battles for the souls of men are won and lost.  May we be true to our stewardship and not diverted from our duty!

Mother's Day!

Yes, I know it's a little late, but whatever!  Things are just busy here and I cannot always keep up.  (Just ask the kids or Drew about the laundry......................)

So my sweet little ones, and the not so little ones, showered me with gifts on Mother's day.  I received personally made stationery and pens, notes of appreciation, stuffed animals, silhouette necklaces, breakfast, cards, and phone calls.

It was kind of interesting trying to speak with our missionaries, as both phone calls/skype came in during church.  The one in Brazil, we couldn't manage making changes to mostly because the scheduling is a little tighter in the MTC on Mother's Day.  For us, church starts at 1.  The phone call was suppose to come in at 2.  So after the intermediate hymn, the counselor conducting made the announcement that he would be the concluding speaker, but that wasn't the reason the Bishop and all of his family were leaving.  He explained our circumstances to the congregation, and we left.  I was already in the foyer with Spike, because during the sacrament, he kept yelling "NO!" at the top of his lungs.

We tried to skype with our missionaries.   After 15 minutes of trying to get skype to work from Brazil, we finally gave up and used the cell phone.  Scuff only got to talk to us for 10 minutes before they were telling him he needed to go or be late for the devotional.  We were only expecting 15 minutes anyway, as there are plenty of missionaries in the MTC or the CTM as they say in Brazil, who want to speak to their mothers.

We then made our way back to the chapel.  If we lived farther away, that would have never worked.  I got there just in time to do my sharing time in primary, and made my presentation to the junior primary.  Then I did it again for the senior primary and left again about 20 until 4, grabbed Spike out of nursery, and Sun out of young women's, and let the Bishop know we were on our way home for the 4 o'clock skype with Tammy.  Her call came in a little late.  If we had known that, we could have stayed for the rest of our block.  We had a great conversation!  We love her!  She is doing so well and looks so good and so happy!

We finished off with Tams, and then Drew and I headed back to the chapel to take in the Spanish sacrament meeting.  That has been kind of funny.  It is just a small, small group, but the entire meeting is in Spanish.  I had a whopping one year of high school Spanish and my husband is fluent in German.  So we are there mostly to support the other bishop, who speaks Spanish fluently, conducts the entire meeting, blesses the sacrament, and is usually the speaker.  It reminds me of the year we spent in Oklahoma where we attended a branch of the church.  I felt like the same people spoke all the time.  Oh wait!  That's because they did!  Those of us who only have to speak every few years, really have nothing to complain about!

Anyway, that was our Mother's Day!  I hope you had a great one too!  See you on Friday!