We had lots of fun this week having an all-day play date with another homeschool family from our once-a-week liberal arts based family school that ended a few weeks ago. We went hiking to a cave and then explored the inside. It was soooo much fun! It was just cool to see the inside of this huge cavern. It was the length of a football field and had a big wide hallway plus a little side hallway and interesting little twists and turns and tunnels. So fun for the kids to explore! I really do want to get out in nature like Charlotte Mason talks about, to help my children be “keen observers.” We’ve been indoors far too much this past school year! This is such a shame since I live in AZ with a nice temperate climate, close to tons of hiking trails. Hopefully this is the beginning of a hike at least once a week through the summer and into the fall.

Then we had a picnic outside the cave, at the base of the trail to it. We found another example of teamwork in nature, like I did last year, in the form of these ants by the picnic table carrying a dropped Cheeto.  Then we came home and had a cookout on our patio and a bonfire with s’mores.

On the hike my homeschool mom friend said, “I love rocks!” In addition to seeing tons of rocks at the mouth of the cave and inside the cave, we saw this interesting boulder that had these ridges that looked like they had frozen in an instant on the outside of the rock after the lava that made the rock flowed out and cooled.

It got  me thinking about rocks.  We’ve been learning a lot about rocks in our homeschool by reading Vol. 1 in the Universal Model. We are learning that instead of the old theory of 3 classifications of rocks, there are actually 9! Yes, 9! I won’t go into all the details, I don’t want to spoil the fascinating answer to many long-held mysteries that the Universal Model answers in regards to rocks. Go here to order Vol. 1 and read about rocks in the chapter on the Hydroplanet Model. Everyday I read one or two pages to the kids, as part of our homeschool, usually just the captions to the pictures and diagrams because the language is geared towards adults. I have the digital copy so that it’s super lightweight and handy to open on my iPad.

Anyway, I think that God made rocks so universal because He wants us to remember that his priesthood and His gospel are universal, they for everyone. They are solid and foundational just like big, solid rocks. They are truths for us to build our life on. The priesthood is God’s power. He shares it with His children to bless them. He gets to decide how it is used. He requires humility in the use of it. It is to be used unselfishly to bless others, not for money or self-aggrandizement. Jesus Christ told Peter, that upon “this rock” will I build my church (Matthew 16:18). “This rock” means revelation. His priesthood is to be used by revelation. You can see scriptures relating rocks to Jesus and the gospel here.

Here is a fascinating talk from an LDS philosophy professor that I listened to recently about revelation. This talk is by Professor Ross Baron, a favorite philosophy professor of my older kids at BYUI. His daughter is also good friends with my married daughter, they were classmates at BYUI. He shares a story of being at a meeting and being challenged about what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stands for. He claims it is based on what the Bible claims to be based on, which is revelation from God. Here is the full talk, at the BYU-I’s web site here. You can see a clip of it below.

It takes humility to receive priesthood power and to use it to bless others. What if you thought you held the priesthood power only to be confronted with the truth that your church was not the authorized holder of this priesthood power? It takes humility to recognize that truth and change. Here is a story about that, called “Tell Me It isn’t True!” In this story, we see a chaplain from the Church of England who finds the restored gospel of Jesus Christ from two LDS missionaries. He doesn’t want to think their message is true but in the end, he humbly submits and is baptized. He gives up his job, his home, and his friends, in order to start a new life being baptized in the restored gospel. For him, healing came in the form of receiving the whole, restored gospel of Jesus Christ and the true priesthood authority. He says that he realized that with the restored gospel he could drink of the living water of Jesus Christ instead of feeling that he was getting water from a stagnant pond.

This story makes me think of my own dear son who is serving a mission. Missionaries truly are the weak things of the world (see 1 Cor. 1:27) who are taking the gospel to those who are humbly searching for truth. The above story is an example of the stories I have curated in my Family Devotional ebook, which you can order here for $4.99 through June 5.