The Green-eyed Monster

Recently in my 8-year old primary class, we have been talking about being covetous or jealous. It was a little hard to explain why jealousy is a sin. They kept asking if it was okay to want things that their friends have or the stores have, or what is on the tv and I found myself repeating the same thing over and over, "If we are jealous of what other people have then we are not being grateful for the things that we already have that God has given us."

A few years ago, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a conference talk called, "The Other Prodigal" in which he examines why the brother that has always been faithful and blessed is suddenly jealous of his brother who has come home from filth and hardships that left him a broken man. I personally felt a slap to the face when Elder Holland gave this talk in 2002. That was the year that my brother and my father came back to the church and I had to hear about how wonderful they were and I was literally acting like "the other prodigal." It took a lot of repentance and a change in perspective, but now I look at their lives and instead of being jealous of the attention that they receive, I can rejoice in their happiness with them.

" Who is it that whispers so subtly in our ear that a gift given to another somehow diminishes the blessings we have received? Who makes us feel that if God is smiling on another, then He surely must somehow be frowning on us? You and I both know who does this—it is the father of all lies...Brothers and sisters, I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us—insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn’t measure our talents or our looks; He doesn’t measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner, calling out that the race is against sin, not against each other."

In Memoriam

As it is Memorial Day, I was thinking about the soldiers and saints that have sacrificed their lives for the freedoms of their families, friends, neighbors, and strangers. I also thought about the example of our Savior Jesus Christ who led the way along that path and still strengthen those who are fighting for righteousness and humanity today.

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."--Helaman 5:12

"We are not alone in the Universe..."

"We are not alone in the universe. God is not the god of only one planet."--Neal A. Maxwell

Last night Nate and I went to see Hubble 3D at our local planetarium. I saw a billboard for it and my inspired friend called me an hour later and asked if we wanted to go. We said yes immediately because Nate is big on astronomy and I just knew he would love it. I had no idea when we went though, that it would turn out to be such a testimony building experience.

The movie follows the launch and subsequent repair missions for the Hubble space telescope. In the 3D format it also took us through the stars and the far reaches of the universe almost as if we were actually flying through it using renditions of Hubble's images. It was the most beautiful thing I have every witnessed. My favorite part was actually flying into the nebula on Orion's belt. once there we looked across the cloud into a canyon where there were baby stars they referred to as "tadpoles." Each of these stars were centered around a major star and encompassed by a shockwave from the fierce winds that surrounded them. The narrator spoke of how some of these stars could grow up and form their own galaxies some day, but the ones that could not withstand the fierce winds would never make it that far.

It's an easy comparison to make.. Each of us, as God's "tadpole" literally have the potential to grow our own galaxies someday if we can withstand the fierce winds of temptation. We will one day walk with Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Universe, and know God as He knows God, as a loving father and friend.

More about God's Message

To add on to Tricia's thoughts, today in Primary we had a special lesson on the Book of Mormon. Our Primary president is a pretty awesome lady and she was telling us about a goal she had to read the Book of Mormon before her youngest son's birthday and she had been lagging behind a bit so the few days before she was reading up to 50 pages a night. She gave this great analogy about how she feels when she keeps up with her scripture reading.

"Think of it as like a faucet. When I'm doing okay with my scripture reading it's like the handle is turned a little bit so there's a little stream of the spirit coming into my life. When I'm doing really well with my scripture reading, though, the handle gets turned all the way and I feel the Spirit begin to fill my life."

I loved her testimony and I know exactly how that feels. I know what Tricia says is true also, it's in those times when we're doing really well that we can see that God is answering all our questions through his inspired words. I can't remember who said this in General Conference a few years ago, but I remember it so clearly. "When you want to talk to God, get on your knees and pray. When you want him to talk to you, open your scriptures."

Personal Progress and Duty to God

The period of my life that really solidified my testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were the formative years I spent in Young Women's. It is where I first heard a sincere testimony from someone my age; where I learned that women can go on missions,too; where I decided that whether my family could be there or not, I was getting married in the temple. It was the most pivotal and strengthening group that I have ever been a part of.

One of the greatest learning experiences I had in Young Women's was earning my Personal Progress award. At the time we had to do four 25-hour projects in different areas. I still remember meeting with Andrea, our personal progress leader, and discussing what values I wanted to focus on, what types of projects would help me to improve in those areas, and setting goals and deadlines. I still use these planning and goal-setting skills today and it is because of those projects that I know how to play at least 10 hymns on the piano for times when the ward is desperate.

That is why I am so glad there was such an emphasis on the youth to complete their Duty to God and Personal Progress. I think the most beneficial knowledge that someone can gain is that spiritual goals are just as important (if not more so) as academic and professional goals. And that there are always spiritual mentors within our families and our wards to help us in times when we struggle. I especially loved the story that one of the mothers told that she has been helping her fourth daughter complete her personal progress and wished she had done the same for her first three daughters. I can only imagine how much more special the daughter's teenage years have been being able to watch her mother grow spiritually alongside herself.

I plan on helping my daughters and sons with these programs because I feel that it gives teenagers an active role in realizing that they are indeed sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father that loves them.

Paradise

On Sunday we had some really amazing talks about death and the life we will have after earth. We had a really entertaining speaker that asked us to close our eyes and envision what our Spiritual Paradise would be like. He described his as a tropical island with white sandy beaches. Looking to the right there was a line of lawn chairs because in his paradise you can lounge all day. There was no sunscreen because in his perfect world nobody gets sunburned. To the left there was a McDonald's and you could get as many Big Mac's as you wanted because in his paradise all the good things are free and you never gain any weight from them.

When he first asked us to close our eyes, though, the firsr thing I envisioned in my paradise was my whole family standing in front of me all dressed in white. I couldn't tell you where we were or what we going to do, we were just all together. The strongest and earliest part of my testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel was my knowledge that there is a life after this one, and our families are there and the Spirit World is part of God's plan for us. And I think when we get there our spirits will truly recognize each other as brothers and sisters and bad feelings will melt away.

It saddens me that so many people that don't believe in God think that when we die we disappear into the dust of the earth. But it makes me happy that they will be disappointed to find out that's not true.

We Are Meant to Live for So Much More

I love the music group Switchfoot. They always have such great Christian messages behind their songs. Although, there have been a few times when I've been reading Abinadi's story in the Book of Mormon when their song, "On Fire" has come on my iPod and I chuckle a little bit at the randomstance.

Last week the Switchfoot song, "We Were Meant to Live for So Much More" came on the radio and I started thinking about the message behind it. It's about a boy that is feeling down and depressed about how he can't seem to succeed in life and wondering if he can ever get out of his funk. I know that I have felt this way before. As I was lying in bed thinking about it last night and I came to this conclusion. We were meant to live for more than to focus on our failures. We were meant to live for more than to compare ourselves to others. We were meant to live for more than to daydream of what could have been and how hard things can be. My mission president said it best, "That which you focus on expands." In the end, we were meant to live so that we could grow, overcome, progress, and have faith on the Lord. We were meant to live for our families to be able to experience those things with us. We weren't meant to live for the world, but for the world after this one where, through the Atonement, everything will be made right.

My challenge to each of you and to myself is to live for the Lord every day and thank Him for the second (and third and fourth) chances that He gives us.

Being the Gospel

My mom is the Activity Days leader for the 8-11 year old girls in her ward. She asked me to cover for her this week while she and my dad were in Vegas. So the other leader and the girls and I played two truths and a lie and then talked about honesty. While we were sharing the message I felt impressed to share my testimony about how honesty affects your ability to do missionary work. I said to these girls, "As you are honest, people will trust you and then when you find missionary opportunities with those same people they will be more willing to listen to you and believe the testimony that you are sharing is sincere."
This moment of insight really struck me. I've heard the little sayings like, "Why do you do what you do when you know what you know?" or "Make your life so that those who know you will want to know Jesus Christ" so this week I came up with one of my own. Don't just live the Gospel, BE the Gospel. I know the biggest influence that I can have on other people isn't the words that I say or even in the special acts of service I give, it's the person I choose to be on a daily basis (which includes the words that I say and the service I give). Ever since that day with those girls, I have come home at night thinking, "What kind of missionary was I today?"
I know I'm not perfect, and there are things I wish I could have changed, but overall I'm proud to be a Latter-day Saint and I love that the people I work with know it. It helps me live up to the covenants I have made to my Heavenly Father by having others watch out for me.

We Are the Lord's Work and Glory

This week I've been pondering on Moses 1:39 all week long that says," This is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." In this scripture the Lord is speaking to Moses about the pre-earth life and the plan of salvation. This scripture is the capstone where the Lord tells Moses his purpose, the Lord's reason for doing anything that He does.

When I read this part of the Pearl of Great Price, I often picture myself in the Pre-Earth life, sitting down at the Heavenly desk of our Heavenly Father getting ready for my Pre-Earth life interview before I was able to cross the veil and be born into the life I have now. He tells me about my family and where I'll be going. I imagine while I sit at this desk my Heavenly Father and I go over what my strengths and weaknesses I have and what trials I will have to undergo while on earth to utilize my strengths and to overcome my weaknesses. I think of Him trying to lovingly explain how hard it is going to be and giving me promises that it will all be worth it and I can call on him whenever I need to. And I tell Him that I'm ready to go, and He says, "I know."

Every once in a while I think about that interview and think, "I signed up for this?" But then I remember how God and I made this plan together, and the whole purpose of it is to bring to pass my immortality and eternal life. And I remember that as I endure to the end, I become a part of His glory.

My Earthly Father

My dad turned 55 on Tuesday. You don't know him, but if you did, you'd love him. He's a great big polynesian guy that loves to laugh and dance and give to others. But the biggest thing he's given me is the knowledge that repentance is real.

My father's family was one of the first to be baptized into the LDS church back in the island of Fiji. However, by the time I was born, dad didn't want much to do with the church. He had made so many bad choices and he felt out of place all of the time. He was a grouchy and tired man without direction while I was growing up. And yet, it's almost funny to look back ten years ago and think that it's the same dad I have today.

When I was about seventeen, my cousin, Heather, got married in the temple. My brother, who had not been active for several years, decided that he was going to get married in the temple, too, and that his first step was going on a mission. He was wary of telling my dad because of how much animosity my dad had shown to the church before. My dad responded by telling him that he would pay for him to go. After that, my dad started going back to church. He had a lot of repenting, but he had such a determination to do it. I remember the day he passed the sacrament for the first time. He was all smiles and tears. Before long, they ordained him to the office of priest and the first time he blessed the sacrament is still a day that people in my home ward remember. At the part where he talked about the blood of the Son which was given for us, he just broke down in tears and the rest of the congregation started crying also. After this, my mother started going back to church and their marriage went from the brink of divorce to one that others envy.

And here we are, 8 years later, and the family I have now is completely different than the one I had back then. You wouldn't ever know that my family was inactive, except for when my dad shares his testimony about his experience and his gratitude for Jesus Christ in making his new life possible. I know that the Atonement didn't take away the past, but it made it so that it didn't matter anymore. My father is a new and improved father and my family is a new and improved family. And anytime someone has told me that they are too far off the path to come back, I tell them with tears in my eyes that I know for a fact that no one is so lost that God cannot find them and guide them back.

Self Reliance: It's Not Just Food Storage!!!

My visiting teachers came over on Wednesday and were sharing a message about self-reliance and their personal experiences with it. One of my visiting teachers shared a very poignant experience. Her first husband died suddenly not very long into their life together. They had one daughter and no savings because they were young and hadn't expected anything like this to happen. She had a wonderful ward that helped her financially, but also visited and brought her meals. She told me about how grateful she was for the emotional support because she was so spiritually and emotionally drained. One of the best things she has ever done was to go to the bishop of that ward a few months later and pay back every penny that they gave her plus a little more so that they could continue to help others like they helped her.

The whole of our visit was spent talking about how nice it is to be able to take care of ourselves because it allows us to take care of others, especially spiritually. We see it throughout the scriptures where the prophets repented for themselves and their weaknesses and then were able to feed their people the Word of God. As we live up to the spiritual goals we set for ourselves this year, let's hope it leads to the desire to help others reach that same place in their lives.

God Has Given Me...

Um...I don't even know where to begin after reading those last two posts...

Monday we received some very bad news. As my husband put it, "our little angel was not meant to come to earth at this time." It's been very hard to start out the week as a soon-to-be mama and to end it as a woman who had a miscarriage.

But I am so grateful for the lists of awesome things that God has done for my husband and I that I shared with you last week. Although I am filled with all kinds of anger and sadness right now, I still know that God is fighting for me. Nate and I have such great family, friends and workplaces that have been supportive and understanding at such an awful time. And although my prayers have been mostly tears this week, God has seen each and every one of them and is providing a way to wipe them all away.

If there were anyone who would know the pain of losing a loved one, it would be our loving Heavenly Father. He so loved the world He gave the world His Only Begotten Son that we might have eternal lives. He suffered loss so that in the eternities, we would never have to fully suffer it ourselves. I understand that sacrifice know more than ever now and I am eternally grateful for it.

Cast Away Not Therefore Your Confidence

It seems to me since the day I got married back in June my husband and I have had one hard thing after another happen to us, and not because of our relationship or our relationships with others, it was just stuff that we had no control over and just felt we had to sail through. My husband wasn't able to find a job that didn't make him work on Sundays, our finances we being stretched thinner and thinner with flat tires and medical bills, our ward seemed to forget we were even there and we went almost four months without a calling, and my job was getting more and more difficult and time consuming so that we weren't even seeing each other in the evenings when I came home.

These weren't very hard things to bear at first, but I got to a point where I just dreaded facing them everyday and they never really went away. And then around Thanksgiving we got the impression that we needed to start trying to have a baby. I was tempted to ignore it because logically it made no sense, we didn't have the means. But my mom always said, "You're never really ready for a baby no matter how much you plan." In short, Nate and I got pregnant right away. I was scared for a millisecond, but then a peace came over me that we did what we were supposed to and God would make it right.

About a week later, Nate got a job at Salt Lake Community College (where I work and I love it) and so he doesn't have to work weekends and they are flexible with his school schedule. He didn't even have to interview, they just called and asked if he wanted it. That same week, we got paid for some packing and moving work we did back in October out of nowhere, my boss got me some money for all the overtime I put in during our big projects, Nate's stipend for student government is twice as much money as we thought it would be, and my insurance issues were all worked out so that our medical bills were finally paid.

I am so filled with gratitude right now for a loving Father who gave me these trials. I see so many moments where I could have ignored promptings or gave in to temptations that would have made one or several of these blessings disappear. But we have received counsel from the Lord so many times that if we pray about something and we receive revelation we know that it is right, then it will always be right. I KNOW the Lord is fighting for me and will make it all work out.

I'm sorry so many of you are going through trials right now, and I know that they are much harder and more stressful than my own, but I know the Lord is preparing you to receive a blessing that will overshadow those trials in comparison. Have confidence in His Spirit to guide, or at times just to strengthen you, and God will continue working in the background to make it all right again.

Plan of Happiness, Plan of Joy

Tomorrow for the first day of teaching a new primary class, I have been preparing a lesson on the Plan of Salvation. I really enjoy lessons that get back to the very basics of doctrine that form the foundations of testimony. Ironically enough, the first scripture in the lesson is Romans 8:16-18, which I remember because a young Hna. Ferrell shared with me in the MTC while I was learning how to teach the Plan of Salvation.

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

At that time Hna. Ferrell shared with me her amazement that we are not only heirs to our Heavenly Father's fortune, but joint-heirs that have the opportunity to inherit all the Christ, our perfect brother, will inherit.

We learn in the Book of Abraham that when we learned of the Plan of Salvation we cheered for joy. Just as we feel joy when we reach major events of our lives, I imagine that we feel a joy equal to that expressed in the scriptures when we reach major milestones of the plan like birth and death. It gives me a great sense of peace to think that when people cross through the veil again they aren't sad and melancholy over all that was left behind, but instead they cheer for joy and all that lies before them in the plan, especially that realization of the promise that through the Atonement of Christ that all that was unfair in their earth lives are made right and all sufferings is made perfect.

I know that God has a plan and a purpose for us and I rejoice in the knowledge we have of it through the restored gospel. It truly is a Plan for Happiness.

Two Hearts

There's a Cheri Call song called "Gifts" that has become one of my favorites to listen to during the holiday season. The link will take you to the lyrics and a version you can listen to for yourself, but the part I especially like is the third verse:

I told Him it was broken, but it was all that I had
And He said that it was just what He wanted
And somehow I believed what He said
And it wasn’t gold or Frankincense like they gave Him from the start
It was just my heart; it was just my heart

I think it's a special thing to be reminded that all we can give is ourselves to our Savior. After all, that's what he gave us and THAT was and is the greatest gift of all time.

I've got a secret for all of you. Nate and I learned about a month ago that we are pregnant with our first baby due in July. On Christmas morning, I woke up for the first time and as I was laying in bed I swear I could feel my baby's heartbeat just slightly after mine. I don't know if that's possible, but that was the greatest Christmas gift I have ever received. And I thought of Mary holding her little baby and touching His hands, the hands that would one day be pierced with nails, and smoothing His face, the face that another Mary would see as the resurrected Lord, and I felt grateful for life and sacrifice and what that all means. I wish you all a Happy New Year with a new start in each of your lives and an opportunity for me to prepare to greet a brand new life into my own.

What An AWESOME Week!!!

I have really loved the posts this week. They have truly reflected everything that has touched my Spirit this week. I'll try to keep my thoughts short so you can get back to the Christmas season.

This past week was FINALS WEEK. On top of that, I was majorly sick and I missed the final review before the test and was feeling really down about it. There is an awesome girl in my class named Annie that was my angel this week. She actually tracked me down through the school e-mail system to send me her notes from the review, which made the whole thing much much easier than it would have been otherwise. She earns a place in my "Incredible People Pile."

I love this time of year but not because I think everyone is nicer but because I notice it more. I am more geared to recognize the service I receive. I once attended a Midnight Mass with one of my friends and the priest said in his homily a line a will never forget," Every year we hear the Christmas story and it's always the same, but hopefully something has changed within us in the last year that makes the story mean something different."

Merry Christmas Season Everyone!!!

Moving

My wife just told me that it's hubby night on the blog and handed me the computer. Wow I thought, what a great opportunity to share my experiences with people I barely know. I then asked my wife to tell me what I should write about and the helpful advice she gave was "something spiritual". With a topic that specific, how could I go wrong? I guess a big test of faith in my life somewhat recently has been moving to Salt Lake.
I grew up in a small town, Mendon, just outside of Logan. It's a tight-knit community and everyone knows everyone else. I was raised by loving and sheltering parents. The only significant amount of time I've spent away from Mendon was to serve a mission to Philadelphia (which was an eye opener, and no doubt). I give this history to give perspective on my somewhat recent activity.
I met a beautiful woman, who seemed to like me in return. We dated until I realized she really did like me, then I proposed and we got married.
Thus we are eventually led to my real story. Right before we were married I moved from my small town to West Jordan. The initial hardship was (and is) driving. It's way different here than in a small town. Then there was adjusting to a new home and meeting our funny neighbors. It wasn't until later that I found myself feeling somewhat depressed. I had left everything and everyone familiar for a city where I knew nothing and no-one. I had gained something far more valuable in return but there was definitely something lacking.
I found that I had to lean more and more on prayer to help me feel something familiar. I still feel alone sometimes, cut off from the familiar. I still feel like an alien sometimes. But the Spirit of the Lord always makes me feel lat home anywhere.
One day, I was alone in our apartment, I was feeling particularly out of place. I had no job, and no friends other than my wife. I was feeling so bad that I finally fell on my knees and asked for something to make me feel better. I knelt there for a couple of minutes, nothing happened. So I got up and started doing some dishes. A few minutes in I felt suddenly like I was at home. The same feel that was always around me growing up, and on the mission. It wasn't a huge spiritual moment full of tears and heartfelt repentance. It was just a comforting, loving feeling. Very subtle and still. The feeling lasted for several hours afterward, only leaving right before I went to bed.
Whenever I hold my wonderful, caring, loving, doting wife I get that same feeling. Like everything is ok. She is my home. My incredible Father in Heaven has given me a great gift. The gift of a home I can take with me anywhere. Sometimes I still feel lonely but whenever I hug my wife or even think about her, everything feels ok.
Two sister in-laws are pregnant right now so I've been thinking about babies. I wonder if babies feel that way. They just left all that was familiar, a family they had known for millenia, personal relationship with the Father. They come to this new, scary, and sometimes mean world. Our Father in Heaven provides earthly parents to help us remember that feeling, and eventually our awesome spouses. He loves us so much, he always wants us to have some way to feel his love.
Well that's my spiritual thought. I'm not a talented writer, which is probably apparent. But I do have a testimony of God and His son Jesus Christ. He has been so good to me. I am so grateful for the comfort of the Spirit and the gospel in my life.
Signed by yours truly,
Nate G.

I Don't Know What Words to Say...

My husband and I have received a new calling to teach the 9 and 10 year olds in our ward. They are such awesome kids!! I can't believe how smart they are, albeit rambunctious. I've gotten to know them pretty well and some of their stories have really broken my heart, especially how many of them have gone through or are going through their parents' divorce. Last week, at the end of class, we asked for volunteers to say the closing prayer and one of the boys said, "I would but I don't know what words to say." And I realized that he had never been taught how to pray. And it broke my heart. And so, today, we are teaching our class how to pray (in English AND Spanish, wahoo!) and I thought of some points about prayer I would like to share with this blog that have really helped me.

A woman named Mary Jane Woodger wrote an article in the New Era a few years ago called, "What I Have Learned About Mighty Prayer." It's suggestions can be used to teach a Family Home Evening. I put the main points from the article on a post-it note and stuck it on the wall next to my bed where I would see it every night before I prayed.

1. Prepare for prayer
2. Remember that God loves you
3. Express sincere gratitude
4. Pray fervently
5. Pray in specifics
6. Pray aloud

There have been times when just be preparing myself for prayer I have been brought to tears over how much God loved me and all the things I had to be grateful for.

If you have a copy of Preach My Gospel, before you kneel down for prayer, review pages 94-95. It gives some amazing pointers of how to get the most out of prayer. In my mission we had to review these pages every night while saying the end-of-the-day-companion prayer. It sometimes took forever to go through all of it, but I know that those were the most complete and helpful prayers I have ever prayed. Of course, it's geared towards missionaries, but it can be easily modified to fit anyone's prayers.

And lastly, the final part of prayer is receiving the answers to the questions we have asked. I have heard counsel stating that remaining on our knees and allowing the Spirit to speak to us through thoughts and impressions will often be the way we get those answers, or, my favorite GenCon quote, "We speak to the Lord in prayer, he speaks to us through the scriptures." As far as interpreting those answers, I recommend a talk by Richard G. Scott titled "Learning to Recognize Answers to Prayer." It goes over the ways we receive answers and what we can do to follow them. In closing, I want to leave with a quote from the talk:

"It is vitally important to recognize that the Lord also responds a third way to prayer by withholding an answer when the prayer is offered. Why would He do that?

He is our perfect Father. He loves us beyond our capacity to understand. He knows what is best for us. He sees the end from the beginning. He wants us to act to gain needed experience:

When He answers yes, it is to give us confidence.

When He answers no, it is to prevent error.

When He withholds an answer, it is to have us grow through faith in Him, obedience to His commandments, and a willingness to act on truth. We are expected to assume accountability by acting on a decision that is consistent with His teachings without prior confirmation. We are not to sit passively waiting or to murmur because the Lord has not spoken. We are to act.

Most often what we have chosen to do is right. He will confirm the correctness of our choices His way. That confirmation generally comes through packets of help found along the way. We discover them by being spiritually sensitive. They are like notes from a loving Father as evidence of His approval. If, in trust, we begin something which is not right, He will let us know before we have gone too far."

Button Down

My family has been having kind of a scary week this week. On Monday, my grandma fell and broker her...nose (you thought I was going to say hip, didn't you). She's okay and was quipping and being her funny sarcastic self the whole time. Nevertheless, I've been going to her house a lot more this week just in case she and grandpa have needed anything. Yesterday I went to borrow some buttons for a primary lesson I have today, and sure enough they were in the tin in the second drawer to the left of the sewing machine. The same buttons and the same tin that has been there since I was born. We also found every picture that my siblings or cousins have ever drawn for her. I showed my husband the bow and ribbon drawer where my grandma has kept every cute bow or ribbon from every present she's ever received. It brought back a real sense of security to see all these things that my sister and I used to look through when we were little.

In my spiritual life, my grandma has been my spiritual confidante. Having grown up as the only active member in my home, my grandma was the one I turned to with gospel questions and with whom I shared my deepest spiritual experiences while I was growing up. My grandma's just one example of something that I seem to be constantly seeking: stability. It's the number one thing I love about the gospel. It never changes, but we change as we live it. It's like how the scriptures say that there is only one path, we all stray from it or we go more slowly along it then others, but it's always in the same direction, towards God. In the book, Our Search for Happiness by M. Russell Ballard it says, "As we commit ourselves to [Jesus Christ]--spiritually, physically, emotionally--He blesses our lives with loving direction. Every decision we make from that time on is affected...Our actions become more disciplined, our relationships become more righteous; even our language becomes more pure as we live a life that is centered on Jesus Christ and His teachings."

I know that when life gets too crazy, the gospel can bring us down level ground again. We can always go to God with our insecurities and he will secure us to His knowledge that we are His children and we are loved no matter what.

How Can I Be?

I enjoyed this song and thought you guys would enjoy it, too.