Even though I mostly eat carnivore these days (mostly meat, some Greek yogurt with stevia and pumpkin pie spice, and then all that plus some low carb veggies on the weekend for more variety) I still like to follow Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett of Trim Healthy Mama fame. I have all their cookbooks still, even though the THM diet didn’t work for me to lose weight. You can read about that here. I was excited to find a THM cookbook used at a thrift store last fall for $2 to replace the same version I had at home that was falling apart after much use and water damage. It’s the one pictured below. It’s fun to hear in the video I posted down at the bottom of this post that Serene was actually in labor when they took the photo on the book cover below. I couldn’t even tell she was pregnant!
I don’t want to get rid of these books yet as I guess I figure that maybe someday I might cook their recipes again for myself and my family. For now I enjoy feeling so satisfied with meat and yogurt with one or two meals a day, and not having to eat the rest of the day to maintain my weight after using the carnivore and then the keto diet plus intermittent fasting to lose weight. I also like having the recipes available for my children to use. Right now we have four teen and young single adult children at home again (the number changes every season) so they fix their own breakfast and lunch, and are rotating dinner prep duty. I don’t expect them to eat carnivore and want them to have a variety of recipes to pick from. Mostly they use my Pioneer Woman cookbooks or recipes from the Internet. None of them have food issues so they don’t have to worry about eating carbs and having the carbs trigger cravings and overeating. I have found that the carnivore and keto diets are the best way to minimize cravings. The THM diet just stirred up my cravings. Even when I was strict and measured everything and restricted myself to the recommended numbers for two weeks I didn’t lose weight. It was refreshing to hear in one of their videos in the past few months that they acknowledge that some people don’t lose weight on their diet, including Serene’s husband, Sam. They found that he needed peptide hormone therapy to help. They have had experts on their podcast sharing information about that which I am still in the processing of understanding. They have also launched offerings to help people get this hormone therapy.
OK, I am digressing, so back to the topic of favorite THM recipes. Some of my favorite THM recipes are the Frappa drinks, the Lazy Lasagna, Stew of Love, the Cranberry Wassail, the Trimtastic Zucchini Chocolate Cake, and Skinny Chocolate. Serene says her favorite is the Yuck Yum Bitty drink. I think Pearl says that her chili recipe is her favorite.
It’s fun to watch and hear from Serene and Pearl in this latest video, as they share what recipes they still use and what ones they made only once and forgot about. I loved hearing that they are coming out with a new book, Trim Healthy Wisdom, maybe at the end of this year or beginning of next year. I’ll definitely be getting it to add to my collection. They said that it will include Serene’s perfected sourdough bread recipe so I’m looking forward to seeing that.
Look at this deer I randomly saw on my walking trail this past week! Oh my! So cool! It didn’t run off after it saw me! It just quietly bent down to take a cold drink in the stream by the trail. I’ve been walking at least an hour a day at least 4 days a week the past two weeks. I found this cool walking trail not far from my home and wondered why I hadn’t been using it before, in the past almost 4 years since moving here. Well, it’s because I didn’t know about it. I just love it! It is a tree tunnel. I can go walking there anytime I want and feel like I’m in a forest on the east coast instead of in a suburban desert.
For my Come, Follow Christ study this past week my family and I have been studying the Anti-Nephi-Lehites in the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. They were a group of hard-hearted bloodthirsty souls who softened their hearts and converted to Christ, due to the missionary efforts of Ammon and his brethren. In Alma 26 we seen the sons of Mosiah talking about their reasons to rejoice in Christ. That made made me ponder about all the things I have in my life that bring me joy, with it all because of Christ because He created all things. It’s his light that sustains the world and guides it. He works in partnership with His Father, our Heavenly Father, and the Holy Ghost, to facilitate my life.
Alma 26:16 quotes one of the missionary sons of Mosiah, Ammon, as saying the following:
“Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.”
That’s how I feel. I rejoice in Jesus Christ being my one clear, sure path to heaven. That brings me a lot of joy! When I was a younger mom I used to wonder what it would be like to be a millionaire. I wondered what it would be like to go about my day with the knowledge that I could spend whatever money I wanted because there was plenty more where it came from. I remember hearing a speaker at my church share the truth that when Jesus Christ atoned for our sins on the cross at Calvary and in the Garden of Gethsemane, it was like he gave us a spiritual blank check. Because of Christ’s atonement we are each inheritors of spiritual infinite amounts of millions. I can feel like I am heir to a millionaire because I am an heir to a spiritual millionaire, our Savior.
I also rejoice in this promise from Alma 26:22:
“Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance.”
I just love this promise! It’s so tremendous! We can know “things which never have been revealed.” It’s all conditional on us doing those four things mentioned: repenting, exercising faith, bringing forth good works, and praying continually. I recently heard a fellow Latter-say Saints express the truth that praying is repenting. Reading your scriptures is repenting. I had never thought about it that way.
In our process of moving and unpacking and organizing the past few months (it never seems to end!) I’ve had a lot of negative thoughts from satan go through my head like, “oh it’s so awful you can’t live in a bigger house,” thoughts of comparing my material blessings to others, thoughts of feeing sorry for myself that I’ve had to move three times in nine years when my sister has only had to move once in her married life of 20+ years (!) Oh how would it be?!?! And when she did move she didn’t have to do any of the packing because the professional movers did it all. Yes I admit it’s hard not to be envious of this! These scriptures I just mentioned and others help me to let go of those negative thoughts the enemy throws at me.
Reflecting on the random things that bring me joy also allow me to quickly dismiss those negative thoughts. Here are some random things that bring me joy that have happened lately:
-the walking trail I mentioned above
-bacon and beef, which I eat almost every day and don’t get tired of
-seeing one of my Veggie Gal friends (the one who rescued the bird in the story linked here) at a thrift store and discovering that she loves to thrift too! Now I have another thrifting buddy to text my discoveries to!
-this new home I’m in has such a better view from the front window than the old one. I sit and eat breakfast and look out the window at the mountains and absolutely love it
-my new house has a front room that doesn’t seem very big from the outside. It’s technically a living room but we are using it as the dining room, as it is off the kitchen and the only place in the home that makes sense to have our dining room. This dining room feels bigger when you are in it inside. It has a long wall. Before I moved here I was so excited to line it with bookshelves. My former home did not have any long wall because of either a doorway or window interrupting it. So that meant no ideal wall to line with bookshelves. So even though I miss the cheery yellow painted walls and French doors of the old place, I just love this new place because of this wall. My friend Katie convinced me to get new IKEA shelves to give it a uniform look, instead of just having a mish-mash conglomeration of all my old shelves. Can you believe I’d never been to IKEA before? So back in June off my husband and I went to get some. I just love my new dining room/library with all of these shelves and baskets! The baskets hold all the quiz game cards and conversation cards I like to use at mealtime, mostly dinnertime. This is not ALL the books I own but most of them. The rest of them are all on shelves downstairs. For the first time in our married lives, we are able to have most of our books together on nice shelves. I love it! I’m sad I didn’t get a “before” photo, with all the piles of boxes of books lining the walls, looking so chaotic. So even though I hated moving, and the move was arduous, as many moves are, it was a blessing in that for the first time in almost 4 years all my books are unpacked and I can access them! In the old house some of the books stayed unpacked in the garage, other books were in the upstairs bedroom which was packed with other stuff in front of the bookshelves, so it was hard to get to the books. Therefore I didn’t access them and I forgot what book was where. I just love my new dining room/library!
-I found this darling desk for only $50 used on KSl Classifieds. At first I had the desk by the IKEA shelves then decided to move it and replace it with another IKEA Billy bookshelf to match the other side. It would be nice to now get some white chairs and white dining room table to match the shelves. Ultimately I also want to add curved tops to the IKEA shelves to match the curved top of the desk.
-I just love the crown molding around the windows of my new dining room. It has been so fun to get out my Independence Day decorations and deck out the crown moldings with my banners and garlands. I’m sorry the tablecloth isn’t ironed in the photo below…too much unpacking and organizing still on top of regular living to stress about ironing tablecloths!
-one of my single adult sons told me of a recent decision he just made to save the rest of his kisses until he is engaged. Not quite the Duggar level of “pure” courtship that I idealize (waiting to kiss until married), but we are getting there! I’m so thrilled that he came to this decision without any input on my part. He realized the truth of what I heard John Bytheway say, “When you give out your kisses like they are free samples at the grocery store, they are as valuable as free samples at the grocery store.”
-this same son asked me about natural family planning. He said that when he helped us move he noticed one of my books about it in a box he moved. So I told him a bit about NFP. He said that when he’s married he wants to use that method. This makes my naturally crunchy mama heart so happy!!!!! My heart is turning backflips and cartwheels over this!
-my teen daughter decided to go to the temple preparation class for our ward/congregation. I am so pleased about this!
-my mom crocheted these gorgeous flowers for me. I love how they go with my different Pioneer Woman tablecloths.
-it’s summer so I can lie in the sun for a little bit daily like I’ve blogged about here
-thrifting treasures continue! I found some 2 x 2 IKEA kallax shelves at the thrift store for only $15! They are regularly $45. I’m building a similar bookshelf as the one in my dining room pictured above for my office/school room in the basement, but it is black. Then I found a 3×4 black kallax shelf on KSL Classifieds for $80. So then I just had to buy another 2×2 to complete the look. I got some beige bins this time instead of baskets like above, along with birch colored drawer inserts. We got it all built on Saturday and a lot of the cubes filled but I’m still organizing it all. So when I’m done I’ll share the finished look. I’ve also found a bunch of other fun stuff like a beautiful white chair to go with the white desk I bought used shown a few photos above, and some fun books, including the Food Nanny Cookbook which I borrowed from the library (and returned after devouring it) over 14 years ago and never bought. I found it for only $1.50 at D.I. in perfect condition in June. I had found it a few months ago as well, again at D.I. but it had a bent and torn cover. I told myself to wait for a nicer copy to come along, and it finally did. I also found three adorable photo frames in colors I love. For years I’ve had this photo of my husband and me from a Valentine’s Day church dance, back when we had only three children. As soon as I saw this frame at Savers I knew it would go well with our photo. So now I have this photo on my kitchen wall and love it! Sorry for the glare on the glass in the frame. It looks better in real life.
I also found this frame while thrifting and used it for an image I found in a church magazine. I love how the lavender in the image and the aqua color of the frame pair well with the other frame. They are both on my kitchen wall.
-My other single adult son came home from Maryland so we get to have him for 6 weeks until he moves out to his own apartment for fall. He wanted to watch Fiddler on the Roof as a family so we’ve been doing that. That’s probably my second-favorite musical, after the Sound of Music. This son is so sweet to me. Whenever he leaves he comes and gives me a hug and calls me “Dear Mother.” This is such sweetness making up for the few years we had of him being a rascal.
-some of my children gave my husband a BBQ grill for Father’s Day. This is something I’ve wanted for over a decade. We finally have one! In the old days sometimes the kids would take our huge electric pancake griddle outside and we’d have a cookout that way with burgers and dogs. Now we can finally have a real one. So I’m using the Food Nanny’s idea of Saturday night being grill night. I’m also asking my husband to be in charge of prepping and serving Saturday night dinner.
-My husband and I had a disagreement. I prayed that his heart would soften to my point of view and it did and he apologized. We had a great day together last Saturday with him running errands for me while I organized my aforementioned black IKEA shelves and then we dejunked our bedroom together. We capped off the day with a family BBQ using the new grill, then we had a movie date night in bed. I once again was blessed to find a great movie about married love. Stay tuned to hear about that movie.
-Yesterday we celebrated the 23rd birthday of one of my sons. We gave him an electric guitar! That spurred on the idea for three of us to make music together, my 14 year old on drums, 23 year old on guitar, and me on piano. I’ve always wanted to have a jam session with my children and this was the first time we did it, because we finally have a trio in the home who can each play an instrument. It took us a bit of time to figure out what we could all play together. Since it was the Sabbath Day we settled on “Gethsemane” by Melanie Hoffman and used the interactive feature on the music library page of churchofjesuschrist.org to transpose it into a key our guitarist could play since his capo is missing. Right during the climax of the song, when you sing “the hardest thing that ever was done, the biggest battle that ever was won,” our drummer (the 14 year old) got bored and had to add more, so he started clashing his cymbals. My 23 year old shouted, “Hey you’re ruining it!” and then burst out laughing. He said it was like the scene in Muppet Christmas Carol during Fozziwig’s party. The muppet Animal is in the background with the band, placidly dinging the triangle softly. Then he gets bored so he starts beating on the drums and cymbals, unleashing all his energy. He hijacks the music to turn it from a soft romantic tune to a rambunctious jig. We then all laughed so hard even more after watching the clip on YouTube. The Animal part starts at the 1:44 mark.
I’m looking forward to many more times of making music together. When I focus on all these positive things instead of the negative, my heart is just so happy. We are “prospering by degrees,” as it says in the Book of Mormon. Despite trials, we can all prosper by degrees as we turn to Jesus and look for the reasons to rejoice.
Last week I had a serendipitous event that delighted me so much! I got to play the fabulous game pictured above! Hooray! I’ve had this game for five years now. I’ve attempted to play it a few times, but the rules book overwhelmed me sooo much that I just didn’t get past reading the rules to play the game. So, it has sat unplayed on my shelf for five years. That all changed recently when my 22-year-old son arrived home, on Independence Day, after being on the U.S. east coast for a few months. He left Maryland on the Saturday before, drove to Maine to see my sister and her family, then left my sister’s on Monday afternoon and got to Utah on Thursday morning, during the grand parade. Wow! That’s some serious long-distance driving. Only for the single twentysomething life LOL!
He unpacked, and we ate a yummy BBQ dinner using the Freedom Loving Conversation Starters from this list I’ve linked over here, from Jennifer Flanders. Then we watched Episode 2 of the John Adams HBO mini-series. It’s a family tradition to watch it every year, because so far it is the best video depiction I know of that shows the Second Continental Congress in action declaring independence. After the movie was over, we had our homemade ice cream (also a tradition for the holiday) and then our relatives left. The other kiddos disappeared in bedrooms to do their own thing, my husband took a nap, so Mr. L was my captive audience with nothing to do. Yay! Of course I thought of playing a board game together. I gingerly suggested this game, in light of the patriotic theme of the holiday, and surprisingly he took me up on it! He agreed to read the rules, digest them, and teach them to us. I roused my husband after my son had read the rules and asked if he would play it with us. I was surprised that my husband agreed to do it as usually he only wants to play a game if someone in the group has played it before.
I was delighted by how fun and strategic it was. It was actually simpler than the rules book made it out to look. Just to clarify, this game is a simulation of the Constitutional Convention not the Second Continental Congress, which Independence Day is about. Some of the same people were involved in both events however, and both events took place in the same place, so the game still fits the theme of the day, patriotism. In the game, the goal is to get the most points. You get points in three ways: being on the winning side of the vote, winning debates (no actual debating is involved, it just means you place a marker on the debate track), and having people in the spillover room (I can’t remember the name) after the round of voting is over in the main assembly room.
Each player has a hand of cards, with a different Founding Father on each card. Each card has symbols to denote the causes or factions the person was aligned with, like Anti-federalists, Federalists, Small States, Big States. Those symbols determine where you can put the person/card on the debate track or on the floor for the vote. Each Founding Father has a “special power” kind of like the characters in the Villainous board game. Watch out for George Washington, as he can end the vote at any time so that you can win without waiting for the normal threshold of six “yeas” to be met. He’s powerful! There’s also a Founding Father card that antidotes that power preemptively. I was so glad I played that card when I did as my husband revealed he was about to play his George card. Ben Franklin also has amazing powers, as befitting the great statesman. I love the “flavor text,” which is the paragraph at the top of the card that teaches you real history about the real person. So you can be learning history as you play, if you take the time to read the cards.
Watch the video below for more about it and then go get the game! Play it anytime you are with people who enjoy learning about American history and also enjoy strategy games involving resource management.
Now that I’ve played the game, I hope to play it around every Independence Day and Constitution Day. I just love the vibes! I’m also going to add it to my list of July activities on my family traditions website over here.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus Christ has sometimes referred to himself as the Beloved Bridegroom? I have. It all started when as a 12-year-old I went to hear a speaker at my church speak about the Parable of the Ten Virgins. (You can read more about the Parable of the Ten Virgins here.) The speaker was the artist, Gayla Prince. (Her website is here.) She displayed her painting depicting this parable. In it, the bridegroom symbolizes Jesus. Her presentation planted a seed in my heart. That night, I distinctly felt a determination that I would be like one of the wise virgins, ready to attend the wedding, aka the Savior’s Second Coming. I decided that I wanted to be ready with my oil in my lamp, not asleep. (Here is a link to a site that shows the painting I saw and what is possibly what I heard that night.
It has been about 40 years since I heard this but it sounds right.)
The Wise and the Foolish Virgin by Jan Adam Kruseman, Wikimedia Commons
Fast forward to more than fifteen years later, when I heard Donna Nielsen, the author of the book Beloved Bridegroom, speak at a homeschool conference. I was fascinated! I asked for the book for my birthday and read it as a young mom of 3 kiddos. I enjoyed it and set it aside on my bookshelf. Well, it’s time to dust off and revisit this classic!
There’s so much more for me to dive into about this concept. I definitely want to read the book again! This desire to revisit the concept was rekindled this past spring. I experienced a Biblical Wedding Simulation back in April, courtesy of Marc and Tracie Hyde, of biblicalwedding.com. It was all so meaningful and beautiful! To attend the event, I took my 14-year-old son with me and a girlfriend. A big thank you to my friend Katie Hansen of houseoftheobok.org for hosting the event.
At the event, we got to experience firsthand what an ancient Hebrew wedding ceremony was like. This ceremony has so much symbolism involving the plan of salvation. Below you will see a bit about what it looked like at the start of the simulation with the wedding canopy erected in the front of the room. First off, we were divided into groups to sit at tables. Each person at the table was assigned a part of the wedding party: the bride, the bridegroom, the mother of the bride, the father of the bride, the mother of the groom, the father of the groom, the best friend of the groom, etc. Each table had a complete wedding party.
Credits for Photos of Wedding Simulation Above and Below: biblicalwedding.com
We followed the timeline of everything involved with an ancient Hebrew couple preparing for a wedding, including the betrothal and the time of separation and then the ceremony. It was both so educational and enjoyable. I got to go off with the sequestering “bride” and her “party” to a different room, while the “groom” and his party prepared his new “home” for his bride out of construction paper.
As the bridal party, we prepared a wedding bouquet and garlands. Then we came back into the room where the wedding ceremony was enacted. Interspersed into all of this we got quiet time to write down reflections. It was all soo beautiful!
Then the next month of May, my friend Katie and I each took a son, who are friends, and some of their friends, to the Layton Utah Temple open house, before its dedication. We were delighted to see that the Bride’s Room in this new temple features front and center, a huge painting of the Savior, to remind all the brides that he is a spiritual bridegroom to His Church of covenant people, the bride. The next month, in June, my niece got married in the same temple. (This temple is within walking distance of where I used to live in Layton. It was twilight when we drove over to take a photo after the wedding reception, and we still had an hour’s drive left to get home. We missed our curbside grocery order pickup as a consequence, but it was worth it to see the temple’s majesty and peace.)
Then in the end of June, here came along this video about the same topic, below. Thanks to The Stick of Joseph YouTube channel and the guest who appears, Andrea Woodmansee. I learned so much more about the wedding symbolism, Jesus Christ, and the plan of salvation. It’s all so amazing and beautiful!!! I even learned about the how the logo of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints connects to the wedding symbolism. It sounds like the book Andrea is writing about this will be like a sequel to Donna’s book. I can’t wait! If you want to learn more about the symbolism, go here and scroll down to get a study guide and a script for hosting your own Biblical Wedding experience!
Does anybody use periods in acronyms anymore? Not many. I added the periods to the acronym FEAST above in the title of this post to emphasize that each letter stands for something. In this case, we are talking about FEASTing on the word of God, the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I watched this video below which explains FEAST while getting ready for church this morning. It is sooooo good!
I just love that Brother Halverson has linked a word that involves enjoying everything involving food, the color, the nutrients, all the physical, mental, social, and spiritual aspects of food, which is the word feast, with the spiritual food that is the scriptures. It’s torturing me to put photos of food up right now while I’m fasting on Fast Sunday. I just love food!
Here is what each letter stands for:
F= Find the principle
E= Explain the principle
A= Apply the principle
S= Share the principle
T= Testify of the principle
Wow, this is so powerful! Brother Halverson states that not only is this a formula for finding more meaning in the scriptures, but this is a formula for ministering to others or giving a talk in church. It’s all so wonderful!
If you want more, here’s the website from Deseret Book that this lesson comes from. Go forth and FEAST!
P.S. If you want to dive deep, read what I’ve blogged about food, nourishment, and feasting here.
In light of the upcoming holiday, I finished listening to this book in audio. It was so delightful!
I love hearing about our nation’s history in the context of the colonial women who shaped the Revolutionary War. We see/read/hear so little about them in movies and history textbooks. It’s about time a book like this came out. Thanks to Ms. Cokie Roberts for creating such an accessible book. It was published in 2004, twenty years ago, but I didn’t read it until this current week. I finished it yesterday and I’m glad I did. It was worth reading! I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
This book features the following women:
-Abigail Adams
-Deborah Read Franklin
-Eliza Pinckney
-Phyllis Wheatley
-Mery Otis Warren
-Catherine Littlefield Green
-Esther DeBerdt Green
-Martha Washington
Here is a video with the author sharing about some of the women mentioned in the book, at a lecture at Mount Vernon. Ms. Roberts mostly talks about Martha and the history of the Mount Vernon getting restored due to the work of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. I blogged about that a bit here.) Skip to the beginning at 1:44 where the guy gives an introduction to the series of the lectures. If you want to omit all that, go to 8:10 when Ms. Roberts starts.
You will learn so many interesting factoids from this book, as well as read inspiring quotes. It’s a reminder that women, not just men, served the patriot cause well. We can learn much from their sacrifices. Here’s dear Abigail below speaking up about the sacrifices of women and slaves,
You can probably find this book at your local public library. If your library uses the Libby app, you can find it as an ebook or audiobook there. Or get it in Everand in both formats. Everand is a book lover’s dream! You can get access to unlimited ebooks and audiobooks to download and keep or just listen to once, for one low fee a month, all on your phone in an app. You can also use Everand with a laptop or PC. Go here to learn more!
Cokie has written two other books about women in American history: Ladies of Liberty and Capital Dames. The video below is an encapsulation of all three.
I’m so excited about this! My church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has released a batch of new hymns as part of a future publication of a new hymnbook. In my own congregation we have sung one of the new hymns “When the Savior Comes Again”. It’s so beautiful!
Here are all the details of the new hymnbook, copied and pasted from the church’s newsroom.
“The gradual release of the new global hymnbook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has begun with the release of 13 new songs. This new music may be accessed digitally through the Sacred Music and Gospel Library apps and in the online Church Music Library at music.churchofjesuschrist.org.
“Small batches of new music will continue to be published digitally in preparation for the full hymnbook release, currently expected in print and digital formats by the end of 2026 in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. The hymnbook is anticipated to be available in 50 languages by the end of 2030.
“A new training video in the Church’s online Media Library assists ward leaders and those with music callings as they include new music in worship services. Latter-day Saints are encouraged to incorporate this new music in their personal worship and study, and a second video suggests ways to do so.”
The song I am most excited about being included is “Gethsemane” by Melanie Hoffman, performed below by some talented sister missionaries, and then below that, by the composer herself with her husband Roger Hoffman Decades ago I heard Melanie speak about writing this song. She was definitely inspired by the Holy Spirit to write it. It is so beautiful and touching!
I’m so excited to share this video with you all! It just came out on David Alexander’s YouTube Channel. I blogged about David a few months ago over here. He’s a former pastor who searched for the true church of Jesus Christ for 47 years. His search ended when he got baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His new video features Aunt Nancy, who I’ve blogged about before over here. Aunt Nancy is a treasured member of my husband’s mother’s side of the family, the Hiltons. It was 23 years ago last month that Aunt Nancy joined our family when she married my husband’s Uncle Lynn Hilton. It was a second marriage for both. I fondly remember their wedding dinner that we attended. I remember who was there and exactly what I was wearing, a knit floral top and denim jumper that could fit my growing belly. It wasn’t the most elegant wedding attire but it worked for the dinner. I was hugely pregnant with Baby #5. It was May 2001. We attended the marriage the night before we left for a family reunion in Southern California for my side of the family. She was a lovely bride and she is lovely to this day. In this video below, you will hear Aunt Nancy’s story. She grew up Jewish. She bears testimony of feeling the love of Jesus Christ and how she came to find His true authorized church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her story is so beautiful! Watch below!
If you want to read more of Nancy’s story including her later courtship and marriage to Uncle Lynn, you can find it in the book from amazon, shown below. Spoiler alert: my mother-in-law was the matchmaker! Another version of the story, called, My Burning Bush, is also on amazon and you can read it for free here. You can also see Aunt Nancy’s art and get free digital downloads of two of her prints here.
Sorry for the lull in blogging. I have been moving! Oh the joys of it all! Not!!!! This post contains some photos of our old place that we have lived in and loved the past almost 4 years. I call it the “Cottage on the Corner” as it was on a huge corner lot. The yard was bigger than the house! I so loved decorating this home. It was the first home I’ve had that I loved to decorate. I just loved the cheery yellow walls and the bright, white kitchen. (We were forced to move because our landlords sold the home. We want to wait to buy again for when we have a 20% down payment, according to Dave Ramsey’s guideline. I wonder if he will change his tune with the astronomical cost of real estate these days.)
A week ago today was our semiannual stake conference. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I get to attend this meeting on two Sundays, about six months apart, each year. I get to gather with the other members of my “stake” (a unit of congregation) which is roughly equal to about 3000 people, I believe. We hear testimony of Jesus Christ and words of encouragement from our stake leaders and fellow members of the stake to continue living Christ’s gospel. Normally, every week, I attend church with a few hundred people from my local congregation, or “ward.” A stake is equal to about 6-8 wards. It’s always interesting to see other people who live in our area in addition to those in our ward. Every stake conference has a theme. This past week’s theme was prayer.
During the stake conference, I heard many stories about answered prayers that I absolutely loved hearing. One of my friends in the ward got to speak. I was sad to hear her story about how as a child, she, her mother, and siblings suffered abuse from her father. She prayed many times for this abuse to stop and it never did until they all moved out. This just hurts my heart. Sometimes, because of other people’s agency to choose, we don’t get the answers to prayers that we want. Another person, a man about my age, shared the story of his prayers not being answered the way he wanted as well. As a young man, when he was 13, his dad announced that he was moving out because he was divorcing the young man’s mother. This broke the young man’s heart and shattered his world. He thought his family was going to be “together forever.” He fasted and prayed multiple times that his parents would get remarried. This never happened. His parents split up, with his younger sister living with his mom and him living with his dad, and the older siblings doing their young adult things, not living with either parent. The young man grew up and said that thirty years later, his prayer was answered in the form of seeing his mom accidentally embrace his dad at the young man’s younger sister’s wedding. His mother thought her ex-husband was the groom’s dad. They hadn’t seen each other in over 10 years. This led to them sitting on the beach talking and laughing the next day, which in a small way, was healing for the man. He also shared that although his parents never remarried, He felt God answering his prayers for help in the form of ward members who ministered to him. He said that every week someone would say “Hi” to him at church and ask how he was doing. He said that his ministering brothers shoveled his sidewalk and driveway every morning at 5 AM during a snowy winter so he could get to swim practice without having to shovel snow. He said that he loves attending church, being a part of a ward family, where he gets to help people feel God’s love by the way he ministers to others in his ward.
All this talk about prayer made me think of my prayers through the years. Of course, I’ve had times when my prayers haven’t been answered in my way. I remember Elder Holland’s quote somewhere (I’m sorry I can’t find it right now) about how a “no” from Heavenly Father is often just a “delayed yes.” I also thought of prayers that have been answered in my desired way. I agree with what was said during the conference, that prayers aren’t always answered in the way we want. God does hear every prayer, however, and He answers them according to His will and timetable.
I’ve been thinking of my prayers involved with our moving during the month of May, which was hard, as all moves are. If a move actually only involved “moving” it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s all the other stuff involved. So may decisions to make every day! I am weary with decision fatigue. So much sorting, dejunking, organizing, packing, and then moving, with cleaning mixed into all of that. That’s on top of the day-to-day ordinary business of living! Then the whole process repeats in reverse order, like some grand universal chiasmus that parallels the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only with new decisions of where to put everything in a whole differently configured home. I’m so grateful for every Sabbath Day I’ve had to give me a rest after every 6 days from the hard work of moving. I’ve decided that if you ever want to torture anyone, just force them in less than a month’s time to move all of their stuff into a new home and leave the previous home spotlessly clean. Fortunately, we had more than month’s time to do it all.
Then there was my accident, which happened on what was supposed to be the last day of “moving.” More on that later. Suffice it to say, I’m so grateful for homeopathy and prayers. I got a black eye, cut lip, and could hardly walk for a day. Plus a sprained thumb which made it hard to squeeze or hold anything in my dominant hand fatter than a tube of lip balm. All on top of moving! I have, however, been healing nicely, and have almost regained all my strength, with almost all the wounds completely healed and almost all the pain completely gone. I have had enough healing and strength in my right hand to unpack and organize which has been a huge blessing. At first, I couldn’t even walk without pain. I needed lots of rest. I’m so grateful I can walk without pain now.
In the move, which involved packing a TON of books, board games, educational supplies and memorabilia,(let’s just say when you are a homeschooling mom with 7 children and over 30 years of marriage, you have a lot of books!, plus binders, flash cards, learning kits, educational toys, journals, art and craft supplies, etc. etc.), I found this book shown above at the top of this post. Providentially enough, this is a book that I received as a hand-me-down when one of my relatives moved over 20 years ago. I remember reading it back then. It totally helped me during that time when I was living in my in-laws’ basement with 5 children and desperately wanting to move out into a home of our own. Seeing this book resurface during the current move reminded me that yes, prayers do have the power to bring about miracles, always in the name of Jesus Christ, the source of all goodness and all miracles. I have seen this happen in my own life for sure. (Partly because of reading that book and with the resultant prayers, we did end up buying a home of our own and moved out.)
Here are some of my answered prayers/miracles lately, mostly involving our latest move:
We, my husband and I, found a house we wanted to move into which was still in our neighborhood but lacked a garage. We wanted to stay in the neighborhood so our son could stay with his friends in our ward. This is the first time that one of our children has had so many close friends in our ward. I value this and didn’t want to disrupt it. I figure three more years until he goes off to college in a house without a garage is a small price to pay for him to stay with close friends. You can’t buy such a great group of young men. So in moving to a home without a garage, we had to buy a shed to store all of our garage stuff. After determining that we wanted to buy a used shed (following the Duggars’ thrifting principle of “buy used and save the difference”), we basically had one week to find a shed, look at the shed to decide its worthiness, take down the shed, transport the shed, and build the shed back up. Then we could move the garage stuff. Then we could move other stuff. Moving from one small home into a different small home is like playing that puzzle game on a grid where there is only spot empty to shift things. Anyway, we prayed we would find a shed. I was able to find a Lifetime 8′ x 20′ shed, 4 years old, less than half the price of a new shed! With the help of my parents, sons, dad and brothers-in-law and nephew’s help, we got that shed down, transported 90 minutes by car, and up in a week!
2. On the appointed night of building the shed, it started raining. I gathered those involved for prayer and prayed that the rain would stop. It did. The men got most of the shed up that night, and then we finished it within the next two days.
3. On one of the last days I had to sort and pack, I felt so overwhelmed. As one of my homeschooling friends has said, when you move, “you hate everything you own!” So true. The amount of stuff I still had to sort though, dejunk and pack still felt endless. That morning, I pled with Heavenly Father to help me. I explained that I really needed help. I felt so overwhelmed! Later that day He sent three friends over who greatly helped me by cleaning and getting the stuff out with a lot of going to Deseret Industries. I felt so blessed! I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. The next day, two friends came, then the next day, even more people, this time from my ward, came to help.
4. For months I have been praying that I would find my retainers which I got after getting my braces off over 30 years ago, during my first year of college. Ever since we moved 4 years ago from AZ, they have been missing. I really wanted to start wearing them again at night to prevent any more drifting of my teeth! Where, oh where could they be? I had unpacked every single box of bathroom/medicine cabinet stuff I could think of. They had never turned up. I began to wonder if for some odd reason I had somehow packed them with unrelated things like the huge painting of George Washington in Valley Forge that we had never unpacked. Well last week, on the first day I had after my friends arrived to help me, I was finally attacking the “room of doom.” This was the storage room, the Black Hole of the house, where we had stockpiled boxes of long-term storage, as well as suitcases, bags, seasonal decorations, gift bags, wrapping paper, long term food storage, and random odds and ends. Lo and behold, I opened a big ugly black work bag of my husband’s that he has used on and off for his lawyer job. I had no idea what could be inside. What did I find? A ziploc bag full of an old toothbrush, Boiron homeopathy medicine tubes, and…drumroll please….my retainers!!!! I felt as if the heavens parted and angels were singing above my head!!! I also found our furniture sliders that would have come so in handy the previous week when we had moved a ton of heavy furniture into the new home with a hardwood floor, and a measuring tape, which we had also been looking for! So that long-time prayer I had been praying for months to find my retainers was answered! Apparently, dear husband had packed this bag up at the bitter end on the day we finished packing in AZ over three years ago and just stuffed a bunch of random stuff in the master bedroom/bathroom into this ugly bag. Then he completely forgot to tell me he had packed my retainers. And I, not knowing that this bag in the Room of Doom held them, never thought to unpack anything in this room that held mostly stuff of long-term storage.
5. On the final day of the move, which happened after the original “final day,” (mercifully, we got an extension of one day due to my injury), I prayed that people would come help us. Because of my accident, I was completely out of commission. I needed to stay in bed at the new home and rest. It was now up to my husband and two children at home at the time to get the final push done. I also texted people and asked for help. At least 8 people, including my married daughter and her husband, showed up and got us out and cleaned for the final inspection with the landlady. She said it was the cleanest she has ever seen the home. Whew! I am so grateful!
I conclude with the LDS Bible Dictionary definition of prayer, from the LDS Edition of the Bible, copied and pasted from over here:
“As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part (Matt. 7:7–11). Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.”
I’ve been reading this book (which I found while thrifting of course) and absolutely love it! I’ve been moving, which took us the whole month of May. This is a luxury or curse, depending on how you look at it, but this made sense because we moved just a block away from the old house. It was sooooo nice to have this book to read a page or two at the end of the day in bed. I felt like I was slipping into a harbor away from the storm, with sleep and dreamland to follow shortly.
Here are some quotes from the book:
“Little children don’t learn to walk in a day. Between the time a child is carried in a parent’s arms and the great day when he is running on his own, there is a lot of hand holding, baby stepping, and falling. For a child learning to walk, falling down may not be desirable, but the lessons learned from it are.
“Similarly, before we came to the world, God knew we had progressed as far as we were able without an earthly experience. He could no longer carry us by keeping us in His presence. It was time for His children to learn how to walk on their own. That’s why He lovingly placed us here – across the room, so to speak – and stepped just beyond our reach, all the while beckoning us to come. He knew the tumbles that awaited us. He knew the ups and downs ahead. That’s why He planned from the very start to send our older brother to hold our hands, lift us up, and guide us across the room back to His outstretched arms. We left those arms crawling. We can return to them running.” (p. 19)
“Christ’s requirements (commandments) are not so that we can make the best of the Atonement, but so that –on His generous terms–the Atonement can make the best of us”
I love that he explains the verse from the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, from 2 Nephi 25:23 which says, “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” Here is how he explains it, which is actually him quoting Stephen Robinson of Believing Christ:
“We are saved by Grace after all we can do — We are saved by grace ‘apart from all we can do’, or ‘all we can do notwithstanding.’ or even ‘regardless of all we can do.’ … ‘We are saved by grace, after all is said and done.” (p. 104)
“No matter where I am on the mountain, the motivation to climb higher is found not in trying to impress God and Christ with my sacrifices, but in letting their sacrifices be more deeply impressed upon me.” (page number forthcoming)
“[God] is bound to love me–not because I am good, but because He is good.” (page number forthcoming)
Those are just a few of the beautiful words in the book. I highly recommend it! 5 out of 5 stars! If you want to better understand what Jesus Christ offers us with His grace-filled atonement, this is the book to read. If you want more of Brad Wilcox on this topic, go here.
Tree of Life Mothering 