Paying Attention and Loving

So many changes that have happened in over the year since I last posted. First we are in Utah and we doing better. Our little family has grown and we are blooming family of four. We are a fun and silly bunch which I'm glad to say that I learned from my family that I grew up in. Evelyn is a cute toddler who understands two languages, French and English, and speak one and a half. Julie Leanne joined our family four months ago and is a happy little girl who has thus far decided to Daddy's little girl and Evelyn has taken claim of Mommy.

I love to expound on the ways that our lives have gotten better but some of them are too personal to address on here. I will say that I have been doing some "Wii exercises" as one of my friends used to joke with me. I have also cut back on my reading which has helped me focus on families and friends. Wendy and I have made friends in our ward or congregation and we intend to only get more because we are greedy like that. I do want to say that I am married to my best friend who is wonderful and who is bent on helping me be a better man. I love flirting with her. Also if you haven't have listened to the song "Beauty and the Beast" it's awesome. My favorite line from it now is "learning you were wrong". I like it mainly because my first impression of the beautiful woman who would become my wife was not a positive one at first. I've had the good experience of learning just how wrong my first impression was of her.

I do want to mention that I am excited for the Pokémon Go App. I will only mention this topic in passing to warn anyone who might have an inclination of talking to me about it, as I might talk your ear off about that subject. I do want to mention that Brandon Sandersen has become my favorite author is another subject about which I could talk at length.

The title of my post is based on something I realized from an experience with my second daughter Julie. Wendy had just given birth to our daughter, I had clamped the cord and Julie was off to a great start. As always the nurses needed to check all of Julie's vitals and make sure that she was healthy and ensure that she could indeed survive on her own. I remember that there were three nurses checking all of the monitors and looking at Julie to make sure would be fine. In the midst of all of these screenings, I remember hearing Julie cry for probably the second time in her short little existence. I glanced at Wendy to ensure she was alright and then went over to little Julie. She was crying, red and flailing. I put my hand out to her and she grabbed my finger in her tiny little hand and suddenly stopped crying. As I reflected on this experience I realized that three very caring people were all paying attention to Julie but I had to reach out in love and that's what she felt. I think that we often tend to pay attention to what someone is saying or doing or we are thinking about our response. I think that we often forget the vital part that we need to love them. I'm not saying that things two things are mutually exclusive but I am saying that we tend to do one rather than the other. As both the Apostle Paul and the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni taught that if we don't have charity we are nothing. While we do need to pray for charity, I think that it is also important that we exercise the muscle that is love towards our brothers and sisters. I pray that as you go through out your week that you will exercise that muscle of love towards your neighbor. I know that as you do so you will touch the lives of others in positive ways and you will start to reflect the love our Heavenly Father and Christ to others.

The Blessing of Serving Others

So this week has been less productive then I wanted it to be. I will be honest and say that for most of the week, I've been moping or trying to avoid thinking about the ache. I have got somethings done but not as much as I'd like. It's been a while since I've been in a serious breakup so I had forgotten what I needed to do to properly handle it. This week I have again really felt the love of our Heavenly Father. Earlier this week I started preparing a lesson for Sunday school that I didn't need to and ended up learning something that I really needed to know. For me, it was tender mercy of the Lord.

This week I got to talk to my Bishop because I asked him for advice about something. It was really nice because I got to express my appreciation for him and he got tell me how much he's appreciated what I've done. It was really nice.

So I'm hoping to take a few pictures this week. I'm sorry, I've been slacking in that area too. I will say that I do like collecting inspirational posters and inspirational quotes. The poster above is one of my favorites. I feel like that's definitely been true in my life. Today was a good day. I directed my ward choir and it was really good. My choir didn't really mess up and the Spirit was definitely present after they had sung. That really made me happy because it was an answer to my prayer.

Yesterday I went to a party held by one of my friends. While I was there, I talked to a girl who had recently gone through a hard breakup. I told her that I'd been through a pretty bad breakup myself. She then asked me lots of questions about breakups. It was one of the few times that I will say that I was happy to have all my experience with breakups! I was so glad to be able to help her. This helped me to know that I was where the Lord wanted me to be. After talking to her, I realized that I knew what I needed to do recover my breakup; I just hadn't been doing that. For me this was another clear reminder of the truth which King Benjamin testified of, that as soon as you keep one of the Lord's commandments "he doth immediately bless you." (Mosisah 2:24) I've learned that in my life. I have also learned that in giving service to others that we are blessed.

I hope that y'all have a good week! I hope that you find some ways to serve others this week.

A Grateful Currant Bush

This week has been good but a little long because I worked hard on a big project and getting other things done. This week I had a ton of papers, finals, and other things that I needed to get done. Between this post and the last one, I have been able to give one of my good friends, Crystal Champion, two priesthood blessings of comfort because she was going through a really rough time since she's graduating this week and starting a whole new adventure. I won't lie, I'm going to miss her because she's like a sister to me. We've been friends since we both started school back in 2006. We're both dorks who love the South, the gospel and who both speak French (I speak it more than she does but she does a good job understanding me).

A few weeks ago, Barbara and I attended the annual Jane Austen Yule Ball. It was lots of fun to get dressed like the guys on Pride and Prejudice. For those of you who don't know, I have read the book and my favorite movie version is the A&E 5 hour version. I should note that it seemed to take quiet a while to get changed into the garb which made me thankful that I didn't live in that time period. It was a lot of fun doing the dances and seeing lots of different people that I know. Here's a good picture of Barbara and I.

Going back to the blessings that I gave Crystal, it was interesting because in one of them, I told her as the Spirit directed that "Heavenly Father was proud of what [she'd] done with the friendships that [she'd] made and the lives of the people [she had] blessed." I had to pause for a moment after that because it was a tender moment because my friend Crystal truly has blessed my life.

So this last week, I reflected a bit on my past and where I thought I'd be. I was reminded of the talk "The Currant Bush" by Hugh B. Brown. This is one of my favorite talks and some of my longer readers will recognize that this is not the first reference that I've made to it. I remember feeling like the currant bush earlier this year because I through a third and rather painful breakup. Coming to the close of a year, I am definitely not were I planned to be and this next year will be to be interesting and full of new challenges. While Elder Hugh B. Brown saw some 50 years later that the Lord had hurt him to put him on a new path, for me it has not been 50 years but I will say that I am thankful for the path that the Lord has put me on. Because here, I have been able to help my friends and family, and I was able to meet Barbara. Barbara has been a great blessing in my life (for the short time that she's been a part of it) and she has helped me to learn things that I could not have learned anywhere else.

I hope that you my dear readers will be able to look at your past and see the places where God put you on another path even if it meant hurting you a bit. I hope that you will see His hand directing you and thatone day, like I am today, you will be thankful for Him redirecting your life so that you grow more and better become who He wants you to be. This is my prayer for you. I hope y'all have a good week!

A Covenant People

This week was really pretty good. I was able to go to the temple twice which is always a good experience. I also got to catch up with a good friend of mine and talk about some fun plans. This week I finished one or two books of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I took a picture of one of them as my picture for the week but then I deleted it on accident. But I have pictures of the covers of the last two that I've read. The author Rick Riordan is now on my list of great authors of our day. I don't have a lot of authors on this list but Orson Scott Card is number one on that list. If you haven't read the series, I would invite you too.

Anyway I'll get to my thought for this week. My idea today started because I had an itch. So I had an itch and for some reason that caused me to look at what I was wearing. That reminded me of the school dress code which reminded me of covenants that I've made in the temple. When I think about those covenants, I'm always reminded of how grateful I am that I have the blessings that come from them. Elder D. Todd Christofferson gave a talk entitled "The Power of Covenants"; which I have a link to here. I remember loving this talk. At the time I was a freshly returned missionary from France. In the talk he tells us that keeping our covenants gives us an added measure of strength.

On my mission I heard the opening to song called Sleep on the CD "Trek: A Nashville Tribute to the Pioneers"; it has a quote by a pioneer woman. She talks about how without the power and influence that the saints felt in the temple that "it would have been like one taking a leap into the darkness". By the end of my mission, I felt the same way about my mission. I knew that there was no way, someone with the fragile testimony that I had should have been able to endure the trials and hardships that I had on my mission.

I also remember another experience from my mission. I remember a day when I wanted to give up and go home. I was in one of my favorite areas with one of my least favorite companions. The day before had been long and I had a few hours of sleep due to circumstances that were out of my control. In about a twelve hour time frame, I had three different people complain to me about things that I couldn't change. Under normal conditions that would not have bothered me but that day, I was stressed, tired, hungry, and generally in a bad mood.

My companion and I were in a train station waiting on our train to go to district meeting; I was talking to my companion trying to plan out our day because we didn't have time the night before. I was the senior companion and I told my companion that I thought it would be a good idea for us to take a nap in afternoon before doing more proselyting. My companion said "What did you just say?"; that was his usual response of disagreement. That was the straw that broke the camels back. I closed my planner and got up with saying a word. I went stamped our train tickets. I contemplated going home for a few minutes because as I selfishly thought "I didn't pay for this." As I was thinking this, I remember almost hearing almost an audible voice say to me "But you promised me that you'd stay here." I hung my head for second. I remembered the covenants that I'd made with the Lord and how I'd promised Him that I'd be where He wanted me to be. I apologized to the Lord. "I'm sticking in this one for you, Lord" I told Him "Just.... help me to endure some of this stuff." That day, my covenants saved me from making a very bad decision.

So my hope is that you will appreciate the covenants that you have made with the Lord. If, like me, you still have some covenants to look forward to making, then keep yourself worthy. I know that the covenants and promises that I have made to the Lord have given me extra strength and comfort in my hard times. So when you're going through hard times, I admonish to stay worthy or become worthy of your covenants with the Lord and I promise you that He will bless you with the added strength and comfort that you need so much. I hope you have a great week!

Appreciating Your Own Growth

This week started with me stressing out and freaking out about something I will have to learn to live with for a few weeks. It's not a big deal and the Lord made me aware of that. The Lord let me know that there is still much more happiness and joy to come in the future and I know that He speaks the truth. As some of you know my semester here is rounding to the close and so I will have many exams and things to get done. I also have to clean, pack, and change apartments. It will not be easy but it will "faisable" or capable of being done. The good news is that my weekend included going to the temple and doing some work for some of my family and going to the Family History Center on campus. It was very exciting because I managed to find new information and pictures of some of my ancestors. It was beautiful experience because I found a picture of one of my ancestors for whom I did vicarious work on July 16th of last year. (I didn't remember the date, I looked it up in my journal. I think this is an example that the Lord has perfect timing.)

Something that I've been reflecting on this week is being grateful for having time to learn. I know I sometimes that get frustrated in one situation or bored in another. I've recently thought about where I wanted to be this time two years ago and what it'd be like to be where I had intended. I realized how much worse my situation there would be in comparison to where I am now. I remembered how much I have learned having gone through all the experiences that I have had. While not all of them were pleasant, I recognized that the Lord has been teaching me little by little or "line upon line" while also helping me to draw closer to Him and His son. I like who I am now and I love the lessons that I've learned from my experiences. I'm glad that I'm slowly becoming the man that God wants me to be; I believe that he's a lot better man than the person I had envisioned for myself. This week, I finally thanked the Lord for something I thought I'd never thank Him for..... I thanked Him for the time that I've had to be single because of the opportunities that I've had to learn. I know that much of what I've learned, what I'm learning and what I will learn, will help me to one day get married and stay happily married.

So my thought for the week is to stop and ponder over the last few years of your life. Look at what you've learned and how the Lord has helped you grow and become stronger. Then find a time and place to express your gratitude to Heavenly Father for the more beautiful person that you've become.