He is not here.....

A quick note to collect my thoughts this morning.  They are tender, and should be recorded as my testimony.  Today I will teach the account of the Resurrection to my Sunday School Class. 

President Howard W. Hunter once said, "He is not here, but is risen" (Luke 24:6) contains all the hope, assurance, and belief necessary to sustain us in our challenging and sometimes grief-filled lives." 

I must admit, that as the resurrection once seemed to me as a nice story, since March of 2010 it has become a real life anchor of hope to cling to.

In April of 2009, I saw the following picture in the Ensign:

  Since the day that I first saw this picture, I have never forgotten the look on Peter's face.  It seems to me that it contains all of the hope, anticipation, and desire that must have filled his heart.....running to see someone, just moments ago, completely lost to him. 

I have never forgotten the image of his face, because those same feelings are imprinted on my own heart.  .  HE IS NOT HERE, HE IS RISEN.  Could there be anymore powerful words uttered?

A Bribe??

So about a week ago I got the following text from an unnamed sister, "OK.  Thirty bucks to the first person to write my next talk on Keeping covenants and attending meetings will bring strength and peace.  Seriously a check will be in the mail today if you help me."  So, I am not all about the bribe (but I am not above that either :)  But it got me thinking, and I think I would like to share with the Anonymous sister! 

Peace, sing it with me...."Where can I turn for peace, where is my solace, when other sources cease to make me whole.  When with a wounded heart, anger or malice, I draw myself apart, searching my soul."  Now fast-forward a bit to where the song answers its own question (where can I turn for peace?)..."HE answers privately, reaches my reaching.  In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend." 

Through a bit of trial, and a lot of ERROR, I am here to concur with the song...The only thing that brings me peace is the Savior.  I have come to find that a state of PEACE is not something that you can WILL to happen, there will never be enough yoga exercises to clear your mind of troubles, sins, and self doubtings.  Peace is a gift from God that comes after A LOT  of  Hard work and even more OBEDIENCE.  It is the atmosphere that surrounds us and we walk the Straight and Narrow path. 

John Taylor said, "Peace is the gift of God. Do you want peace? Go to God. Do you want peace in your families? Go to God. Do you want peace to brood over your families? If you do, live your religion, and the very peace of God will dwell and abide with you, for that is where peace comes from, and it [does not] dwell anywhere else"

What happens to us when we aren't living our religion?.....When we desperately need something to ease our mind and bring us "peace"?  We search madly in all the wrong places.  We seek to please and gain acceptance from people that cannot give us peace.  We spend money on things that only give us more grief.  We find anything that is strong enough to hide our sorrow and the reality of what lies within us.  Remember, Peace is a gift from God, the atmosphere that surrounds us and we walk the Straight and Narrow path. 

The Savior, desperately wanting to grant us the gift of peace, has provided numerous blessings to keep us on that Straight and Narrow path.  Covenants and Meetings being at the top of the list.  When we covenant with God, we tell Him that we will be obedient to HIM first, before anything else.  When we put God first, all things fall into their proper order (PEACE!).  When we don't.....our own insanity reigns supreme.  But covenants are made at age 8, or 19, or once in a lifetime, right?  No, covenants are renewed each Sunday as we partake of the Sacrament. 

There is something that I am just barely realizing about the Sacrament.  Before you partake of the Sacrament, it requires a certain degree of worthiness.....When you take it, you promise to be a little more worthy next time.  When we pay attention to what we are really doing, we will realize that it is a gradual refiners fire. And what will keep us wanting to be a little bit better from one week to the next?  It all starts in Sunday School my friends...It starts with the scriptures.

I believe that is why Elder Cook said that the single most important thing to him was to see his children praying and studying their scriptures EVERY DAY.  I testify that those two things will keep our desires to be good intact, our sanity visible and the peace ABOUNDING.......

A little disjointed, but worth $30 right????

Mission WHERE?

Yesterday when we were eating dinner the topic turned to, "I wonder where I will go on my mission..."  The kids were giggling and talking and Jared said, "Okay, I will tell you where I want all of you to go on a mission."  Then pointing to Sam, Gary, Joseph, and Daniel he said, "China, India, Bangladesh, and Kuwait."  At which Ally sheepishly said, "Dad, if I go, where do you want me to go?"  Without missing a beat, Jared said, "NORTH CAROLINA!" 
Listen, I am all about women's rights, but I was in TOTAL agreement with the entire conversation :)

I Want TO BE

Imagine my most dramatic voice when I tell you that...."I have just recently found the 3 components to a satisfied life."  They are, in no particular order, my NEW COOKBOOK, my NEW FABULOUS HAIR STYLIST,  and my ROKU player.  I would love to expound on 1 and 2 if given (or taken) the chance.  However, today it is all about the ROKU. 

A while ago I decided that I had had enough of paying a lot of money to watch 2 channels of TV and putting up with pornographic commercials.  The bad finally overcame the good and in disgust I called and cancelled my subscription.  In turn, we quickly subscribed to Netflix and purchased a ROKU to play it instantly on our TV.   The Netflix has been good but the real prize from this entire transaction was the $60 ROKU player.  Not only does it play Netflix, but a host of other FREE channels.  Such as Pandora (where I listen free to my favorite commercial free music all day), or KBYU (Yep!, the same KBYU that you are paying for) and the Mormon Channel.  I LOVE THE MORMON CHANNEL.  We can now watch the church videos on Sunday, the MORMON MESSAGES for Family Home Evening, and I can listen to random things as I iron (as was the case yesterday) all at my fingertips, on my tv, for free.

So back to yesterday.  I was ironing and listening to a "Conversation" between Sherri L. Dew and Elder Jeffrey R. and Pat Holland. FABULOUS!  Jeffrey R. Holland is an Apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Speaking of this, he said, "It is a bold thing to declare that there are apostles on the earth again, but we have a bold message to declare." (surely you know by now that when I quote things, I quote how I remember them in my mind, this memory is pretty accurate :)  I would like to add my testimony to this as well.  As surely as I know that the sun will rise, I also know that these men are apostles and prophets of the Lord!   I treasure every word that I hear them speak!

I have always had a really soft place in my heart for Elder Holland.  It may be that he is an INCREDIBLE teacher.  It may be that he talks as LOUDLY as I do when I get excited about a gospel topic.  It may be that I feel like he loves me like a grandfather, although I have never met him.  However, I think the credit goes to a simple story that I heard YEARS ago. 

The story:  Brad Wilcox was serving as a mission president in Chile when Elder Holland was assigned to go there.  At the time, Brother Wilcox had a young daughter named Whitney.  As she was working on her school work one day she found a math problem that said the following, "Yesterday it took Jeff Holland 1 hour to get to work.  This morning Jeff drove to the train station in 20 minutes, waited for the train for 7 minutes, rode the train for 12 minutes, and then walked for 15 minutes to get to work.  How long did it take Jeff to get to work this morning."  Finding it humorous that it had Elder Holland's name in it, she sent it to Elder Holland with a note asking him to "please help me with homework."
Elder Holland quickly wrote back the following response, "Dear Whitney, I was pleased you discovered my day job.  I regularly submit problems for text books and sometimes I just don't know whose name to use I think I will use yours next....(If Whitney Wilcox has 5 boyfriends in Provo and gains 1 a day for 14 days in Chile, how many of them will be baptized, go on missions, and want to marry her?)  Thanks for being here.  I am immensely proud of you! --Jeff Holland (Read it yourself, it is about 6 minutes into the talk).

During the "Conversation" that I was previously talking about, Sherri Dew asked Sister Holland to tell us about Elder Holland.  One of the things that she said was, "He has a Gift to make every person he meets feel important."  I think I already knew this about him.  It is a quality that I have always wanted.  In fact, I am adding it to my "TO BE" list, I just don't know how to phrase it.  It is easy to say I want TO BE KIND, but this is a little different.  I want TO BE the kind of person that makes you feel that you are always worth their time, effort, and love.  I want to be like Elder Holland.

Point of View

The blogging has been slow as of late, and it will probably get slower.  Why, you ask?  Currently we are in Ashton, ID.  People in Ashton don't have time to blog, they have GRASS!  Why would you blog when you and your kids could be sitting on GRASS, running IN GRASS, looking AT GRASS.  A funny thing happens when you have lived in Southern Nevada for 7 years, South East Idaho suddenly becomes Ireland and all you can see is GREEN! 



This is a picture from my front room window.  (They have trees too!)  Do you see that street light hidden among the trees.  I have literally spent days of my life staring at that light.  During the winter, when night fell, the street light would either lay perfectly still, revealing just how cold it was outside, or it would unveil the snow falling.  And depending upon the amount of flakes and the angle at which they fell, I knew exactly how much faith I could place behind my nightly prayer that tomorrow would be a SNOW DAY (no school).

This is THE PINE TREE that stands in front of the house and blocks everything west of the house from view.  It was planted in the year 1973, the year my parents moved into this house.  At the time it stood 3 feet tall.  it grew as we grew.  Each year on the 1st day of school we would take a picture in front of it.  When we came home from killing gophers mom and dad would meet us in the shade with a treat and GRAPE kool-aid.  The Christensen boys would then proceed to fall fast asleep.  Before its height outgrew our decorating skills, we would string lights on it each Christmas.  And at night, if the branches were coated in snow and drooping slightly, and I squinted my eyes just right, it was a Christmas miracle.  It think it is quite possibly the most perfect tree in existence.  I think my mom thinks so too.  Yesterday she told Jared that we were to "tear the house down before we cut that pine tree down."

Now here is an interesting picture.  It is taken from the kitchen window.  If you look far in the distance, you can see the Ashton Hill.  I love the ASHTON HILL!  However, in this picture you can barely see it. If you were to ask me to imagine the view from the kitchen window in my mind, I would tell you that there are lush green fields leading to the hill and the view was perfect.  Now if you were to ask me if there was a logging business next door to my house I would say - Yes!  And I might even tell you that they store logs and random ugly equipment in the field directly behind my house (like the picture).  However, that never got in my way of seeing how beautiful the Ashton Hill was.  This little scenario reminded me of a recent conversation I had.

My sister said, "Kathryn did you know that Jesse (code name) did something really stupid?"  I said to my sister in return, "I really like Jesse, I tend to think that he has never done anything wrong."  It sounded funny when I said it, but as I have continued to think about it, it is TRUE.  When I have seen the REALLY good and kind part of someone's heart, it is so easy to overlook anything not so good, logging equipment, in other words.  It reminds me of a quote from Joseph Smith...."When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind." Sometimes all I see is the LOGS and sometimes all I see is the HILL.  I need to be a little better at looking for the hill before I look for the logs :)

And My Response IS......

Yesterday I read an article featured on businessweek.com.  It was called, "God's MBA's."  The premise of the article was that several men that have served missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have gone on to be very successful leaders in the business world.  The article was mildly interesting, however, it did not prove to be the most interesting part of this experience. 

 I decided to check the comments after the article.  This is generally a bad idea, yet I went against my better judgment and read several pages of personal commentary.  Most of the comments were all things that I had read before, including the one that I am about to talk about.  However this specific comment made my heart race, and after a day of quiet contemplation, I am ready to write my response.  On my own blog!  (My niece is starting a blog!  She is worried that people wont like it.  I told her,  "Addie, that is the great thing about a blog.  You write to NOBODY and NOBODY has to respond!") Back to the subject at hand….

The Comment:

 "I find it interesting that there are no Mormon women cited in this article."

My Response:

To that I say, You are wrong.

There is only a feature, an article, a story, because a mother took the time to nurture a child and a wife continued in the cause.  Speaking as a mother, I guarantee that the joy would have been somewhat diminished to have seen my own face on the cover, and not that of my child.

It must feel good to see your name displayed in lights or on the cover that millions will read.

To run or produce a company that crawls through the world with success and fame.  Buildings and Bank accounts untold. 

But to see a child, your child,  with integrity in his heart, and dignity guiding his actions, is true success. 

To see One that you nurtured become a CEO or President and, even greater , respectable enough to bear the name of "father" well...no amount of worldly lights or glittering words could ever compare. 

The only thing that this short-sighted feminist movement has done, is to foolishly convince us that trading lasting joy for a mess of pottage would be a "purposeful" life. 

Perhaps we could all take a lesson from David of old.  Most would say that his reign as king was BRILLIANT!  He united all tribes into a nation resting on a religious foundation, all the while securing the "undisputed possession of the country."  Yet as brilliant and as famous as he was, his family affairs were a MESS!  And in agony he cried out, "Have mercy upon me, O God!" 

In the end, David may have been a great warrior and a fabulous king.  However, everything enduring and eternal was in shambles.  How your family feels about you when you leave this mortal life, will be your greatest heartache or your greatest comfort. 

Sometimes I think....

Sometimes I think that Ally needs a sister.  This morning I overhear this conversation.  "Gary I am going to do your hair this morning."  Okay.  "We are going to do a mohawk!"  No Ally!  "Come on Gary!"  NO ALLY!  JESUS DOESN'T LIKE MOHAWKS!"  I am not sure where that came from, but it works for me.  I love my job!