I really appreciate learning about the idea of getting off the conveyor belt from Oliver DeMille when it comes to education. See http://tjed.org to learn more about that if you don’t already know. I have been applying the idea of getting off the conveyor belt in other areas of my life as well.Basically it means that you don’t just accept everything that comes to you at face value, as if you have to consume everything on life’s conveyor belt.You actually think before saying yest to things. For years, I just assumed and didn’t think when it came time for my son and daughter to go to Mutual activities when Mutual night rolled around every week. I just assumed it was best for my kids to go every time. When my daughters’ Beehive class watched Church Ball or some other lame “Mormon genre movie” I decided that wasn’t the case.

When the new school year started, I finally convinced my husband and kids in our Family Meeting (thanks to Nicholeen Peck’s inspiration of http://teachingselfgovernment.com we have been doing these on Sundays) that each of the older kids 12 and up should wash their own laundry. In the past the whole family’s laundryhas been one scholar phaser’s duty to own. First it was my son’s and then it was my daughter’s. The problem was after it was all washed, it was a nightmare to sort through for reach person to do their assigned clothes folding. If the three oldest each did their own then the rest of the family laundry would be easier to sort through.

For the previous two Wednesday mutual nights of the new school year, my three oldest kids have been leaving for Mutual without so much as a good bye from me. Then the next day, while they were gone to their Commonwealth school (see http://thelemi.com), I would find out that they had laundry they had washed but not put away. Or they would be doing homework early Thursday morning before they left for their classes all day. So I got the bright idea, Mutual is a checkpoint. They don’t get to go unless their laundry is done, folded, and put away, and their homework is done. And they certainly don’t get to go if they are watching videos or doing silly activities.

So the first week I implemented this AND communicated properly about it so that there was no misunderstanding, it happened to probably be the best ever Mutual night for the Young Men, with the visit of Larry Gelwix from Forever Strong fame. My two Young Men didn’t get their stuff done, so they didn’t get to go on time. I feared having a weaping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth for the regret. They were both almost done, and I was going to take them late after they finished, but then my older son said he realized he should stay home and do more homework (not for his commonwealth class but to study physics) and then my younger son said he felt sick. He vomited an hour later. Boy was I glad that he hadn’t left. I was so pleased that they both realized that it was for the best that they didn’t go. It was so swell the next day to have the mountain of laundry that the core phasers and I folded to be cut in half. I feel so pleased to have had that bright idea.

The next day at the commonwealth I saw my friend Katie. She organized a moms’ retreat last year about the Hebrew way. I mentioned to her that it had been a year that week since it happened. She agreed and said that this week, like last week, was the start of the new Hebrew year. Hmmm, interesting, I thought. The new Hebrew year starts with the General Relief Society meeting for the LDS Church, and then with the General Conference the next week. Is this a coincidence? I don’t think so. And Joseph Smith received the plates to translate the Book of Mormon at this same time, during the Feast of the Trumpets. At this retreat my girlfriend Kelli Poll spoke about the Hebrew way. She said if you are a member of the LDS church then you are surrounded by the Hebrew way, even though you might not notice it. You are also surrounded by the Roman way, because that is what the world is modeled after. I have been thinking A LOT about this since then. Different books I have been reading have given food for more thought about this.

I’ve got a presentation I wrote that explains more about the Hebrew way vs. the Roman way and how it affects us today. I hope to be giving it sometime in the next year. It is really startling. It involves ideas from history, fourth generations, Abraham Lincoln, World War I!, and 9/11. If we could all truly live the Hebrew way, as Jesus taught, then we would have world peace. Not a false world peace, like the Pax Romana, but true peace. The Founding Fathers, at least a lot of them, admired the Hebrew way and knew that the the ways of Europe, modeled after the Roman way, were not the way America should go. The Hebrew way was for America.

Did you all love the general Relief Society meeting? I had a party afterwards with three friends, a widow in my ward who I felt inspired to reach out to, and two of my homeschooling mom friends. One of them said that Pres. Monson’s talk about not judging others was sorely needed. She grew up in a home with a nonmember father who smoked. She said that she was shunned by some of the Young Women in her ward and their home was vandalized. I am so sad to hear this. Then my widow friend said that her husband smoked and many church members treated her and her children harshly. Sad. I hope we as Christians can be nice to people even if they aren’t like us. Thanks for calling us to repentance, President Monson!