The Parable of the Stream

I'm being stalked. For the last month or so, this talk by Elder Bednar has been following me around. It seems like the last two months have been nothing but lesson after lesson on the topic of conversion. This is following a year full of regular lessons about what it means to be truly converted.

The lesson assigned for the end of January in Relief Society was "Converted unto the Lord" by Elder Bednar. Our teacher also used the talk in her lesson the following week. The second week in February was our Ward Conference. Both our Bishop and Stake President addressed the topic in Sacrament Meeting, and the Stake Relief Society Presidency used the talk again to teach Relief Society. Finally, we went to hear my adorable niece Amanda give her mission farewell yesterday. The entire premise of her talk was based on (you guessed it) this very talk.

I think the Lord is trying to tell me something.

A few years ago, I came home from a Relief Society meeting where Elder Uchtdorf spoke to the sisters. I told Greg that the Lord had sent him for me. His response was, "Nah! A lot of people like him." While I adore Elder Uchtdorf, and his talks always seem to speak straight to my heart, the honest truth is that Elder Bednar's talks usually speak to the "time to make some changes, Emily" portion of my soul. 

Elder Bednar states: "Testimony is the beginning of and a prerequisite to continuing conversion. Testimony is a point of departure; it is not an ultimate destination. Strong testimony is the foundation upon which conversion is established. Testimony alone is not and will not be enough to protect us in the latter-day storm of darkness and evil in which we are living. Testimony is important and necessary but not sufficient to provide the spiritual strength and protection we need."

I had honestly never thought about testimony in this manner before. I never thought about my testimony as being a "point of departure." I know that there are people out there that believe that testimony and even conversion are one time events; a particular experience or moment when they just know. I believe that this is the experience for some people. For me, however, it is a constant evolution. Hopefully, most of the time, I am heading toward that goal of true conversion. I think about my testimony, and it is always changing. It is not even the same from day to day. I experience new things, have new thoughts, seek for new answers. I woke up Sunday morning with a testimony, but it was  different even after I heard my niece speak. She sparked thoughts and ideas in me that affect the way I think and feel about the gospel. I just have to make sure that I am constantly trying to improve and learn how to become truly converted.

Another part of Elder Bednar's talk that haunts me, is when he discusses the people of Ammon. These righteous, faithful Lamanites in the Book of Mormon that repented and buried their weapons and covenanted never to kill again, even in self defense. They eventually moved to the land of the Nephites and suffered greatly because of their beliefs. The scriptures tell us that these people were "converted unto the Lord" and they "never did fall away." As Elder Bednar states: "They never did fall away and surrendered 'the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more.' To set aside cherished 'weapons of rebellion' such as selfishness, pride, and disobedience requires more than merely believing and knowing. Conviction, humility, repentance, and submissiveness precede the abandonment of our weapons of rebellion. Do you and I still possess weapons of rebellion that keep us from becoming converted unto the Lord? If so, then we need to repent now."

What are my "weapons of war"? What are those earthly pleasures that I am not willing to give up? What do I need to sacrifice in order to grow as a person, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend? What is holding me back from being truly converted?

A lot of answers have been running through my mind. I find that my answers always come back to some element of fear and/or doubt. Fear of my abilities, fear of the future, doubt in my testimony, etc.

I have some work to do.

Amanda told this story at the close of her talk. I have a feeling that if I were just to apply the lessons taught in her analogy, that fear that I'm talking about would dissipate.

The Parable of the Stream

A woman was in an airplane when she looked out the window and down on the landscape. From her bird's eye view, she was able to see a variety of streams and rivers flowing down the hills. She noticed how they twisted and turned, how they followed the path of the natural terrain, and occasionally even ran together. She was struck by how beautiful and interesting the flow of the rivers and streams made the land. Then, she noticed the man-made canals. They were as straight as possible and forced their way down the hills and through the valley. She thought about how we, as the "natural man", try to find the shortest, quickest, most pain-free distance between Point A and Point B. We will do anything, even if we have to force it, to get there as quickly as possible. The problem is that we miss everything that makes life interesting and beautiful. When we submit to the Lord's will, and trust Him to take us on His path, we will still reach Point B (although it may take longer). When we submit to the Lord's will, we allow the beauty of life (our triumphs and trials) to shape us and mold us and refine us and just make life more amazing!

Tradition!!!

I'm not the greatest at traditions. I have a very hard time with anything that requires me to do the same thing at the same time (taking a daily medication...exercising...flossing). But, I have tried to establish some fun traditions so that kids actually have some happy memories of their childhood. 

My gift from Greg. Beautiful bouquet of flowers
(Paige helped him pick them out, therefore, they are all purple)
and 36 ounces of (my favorite) Cadbury Mini Eggs
(we like to intertwine our holidays around here)!
All I'm going to say is that the flowers outlasted the chocolate (by a long shot)!!!  

The kids all wake up to a candy poster.

A few years ago, I planned a romantic Valentine's dinner for Greg. (We are really not great at this holiday - never have been. It fell in the middle of the week, and instead of hiring a babysitter, I decided to cook it myself.) I set a candlelit table, put the kids to bed early, and dished up some filet mignon and king crab legs (if only we'd have eaten pizza for dinner, it would have been a complete meal of his favorite things). The kids, however, did not stay in bed. They wandered out, individually, asking for "just one bite" of crab. So, in the years that have followed, I have prepared crab legs for my entire family as our Valentine's Day tradition.

Since I don't own a tablecloth (that's right! my poor grandmother just rolled over in her grave), I borrowed one from my mother (along with her crystal goblets and my grandmother's china). We had a yummy dinner of sparkling cider, salad, bread, crab legs, and red/white heart-shaped pasta. The kids had a blast, and it was absolutely delicious!!!

Trying to crack open her claw.

Fizzy!

Not quite grasping the concept!

"Did I do that?"

Nerd day at school. We watched videos of Steve Urkel from Family Matters to get the kids in the mood.  

They still had to be in uniform, but most of the outfit was completely Macy's idea. I love the hair and the tie tucked into her shorts. 

 

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me...Guess I'll go eat worms

It has to be so hard to be the middle child. It's as if we are constantly trying to figure out where Paige "fits." Most of the time, we clump her with the older kids, because in my mind, time is measured as BT (Before Twins) and AT (After Twins). But the reality is that Paige was born at just 2 BT, which means that she is much closer to Spencer and Kade's age/mentality/ability/development. It's days like this that remind me of that fact.

It was the beginning of November. We had already had "winter-like" weather that year, but we were enjoying a particularly warm day for that time of year. Just a couple of weeks earlier, Paige "helped" us break down our garden (pulling up plants and getting ready for winter). She spent all summer learning that worms were good and snails were bad. For a girl that is deathly terrified of the smallest bug or flying insect, she was never afraid of creepy, crawly worms or picking up snails by their shell and throwing them over the back fence.

Knowing that this was probably one of the last warm days for several months to come, I decided that I would clean all of the windows - inside and out. This isn't my first rodeo. I've been at this mothering gig long enough to know that when I devote myself to a particular project, it means that disaster will undoubtedly occur elsewhere in the house. This day, however, Paige exceeded even my expectations.

I was working outside with the kids outside as well. Paige, Spencer, Kade, and Chase were all playing. We were all going in and out as I attended to my chore. I constantly had little children "at my feet," and occasionally stopped to push someone on a swing for a minute or assist with a potty break or open a banana. When I was finally finished, I came in the house to clean up and found a trail of mud leading from the backdoor to the bathroom. Naturally, I followed the trail. I found all four kids surrounding the pedestal sink in the bathroom, mud and ooze dripping down the sides of the sink and splattered all over the wall, landing in big puddles all over the floor. In the sink, I found about 30 worms with Paige picking them up and letting them run through her fingers. The three boys were standing around the sink staring at her and her worm army.

I vaguely remembered (in the middle of my chore), the kids asking for plastic cups so they could collect worms. Apparently, I did not anticipate the effects of that decision. I told her that worms belong outside and not in the bathroom sink, and asked her to get them out of the sink and back outside. I started mopping up the mud and ooze all over the family room floor and rug. When I went to get the cleaning supplies for the bathroom, I came back to find Paige walking from the sink to the back door with a handful of worms, dripping mud and ooze and worms all over my clean floor. Apparently, she had forgotten about the plastic cups to transport the worms.

I had her sit on my bed with a stack of books while I cleaned up. She was crying and carrying on and on about how I was mad at her. I explained that I wasn't mad, but I just needed to keep her contained for a few minutes just to allow me time to catch up with her.

Love her!

Eye of the Tiger

Okay. So I know I didn't blog at all last year. But, I really enjoy it and want to get back into it. When I woke up this morning, still in bed, and started telling him about my dream last night, and he interrupted me and told me about his dream. Apparently, we both had dreams about tigers. So, I got out of bed and wrote them down as fast as I could (while Greg made breakfast - isn't he the best)! This is what we could remember. Any interpretations???

My Dream:

I was all alone in our house (it wasn’t our house, but it was). I opened the door to one of the kid’s rooms to check on our pet tiger. My mom had given us a pet tiger. We kept it in a big glass cage, like an aquarium only much bigger. Everybody said that it was perfectly safe, and that tigers can’t get out, but I watched him take his giant paw and push on the top of the cage (even though we had giant rocks on top to keep it heavy), and he climbed right out. It was effortless for him to get out of the cage. 

He started walking around the house. He was huge. I remember noticing his paws and thinking that they were just gigantic. He was beautiful and enormous. I kept thinking that I have to trap him in a bedroom while I figured out what to do with him. Every time I tried to get him in a room, he would fight me. I would lure him in a room, and try to shut the door and block it, but he just pushed his way out. Finally, I decided that maybe if I was just nice to him then he wouldn’t eat me. So, I started petting him and scratching behind his neck and nuzzling his cheeks (kind of like you would pet a giant cat). I remember being scared and nervous and super anxious (especially when I was trying to lure it into a bedroom), but I knew I had to make friends with him or he would eat me. 

Finally, I calmed him down and he fell asleep in our bedroom. I shut the door and ran to the phone. I remember I got out the phone book - the yellow pages (hahaha) and started flipping through the pages trying to figure out who to call. I called Animal Control first, and the guy told me that there was nothing they could do. I remember he said, “Once they’re in your house, we can’t really do anything. Our hands are tied.” He told me that we can’t shoot a tiger because they’re endangered and we would go to jail. Next, I tried the exterminator, but they couldn’t do anything because they only killed bugs. I tried a pet store, but they said that it was illegal to sell tigers. Finally, I tried calling the zoo. I was on hold with the zoo when Greg came home. The tiger woke up, and Greg was so upset. He said that we had to get it out of here. He went barging into the bedroom and tried to force the tiger out. This was the first time that he growled and snarled and showed his giant teeth. Greg said he was going to shoot it, but I told him that it was illegal (and all I could think was that it would make a giant mess if Greg shot him in the house - all that blood splattered all over the place).

Greg’s Dream:

The kids were in the backyard playing. There was a swimming pool and a trampoline. (Again, it was our house in the dream, but it wasn’t really our house. We don’t actually have a swimming pool. Dang!) Greg brought out a big plate of pancakes and syrup for the kids to eat. All of a sudden, Greg saw a tiger approach the chain link fence that surrounded the backyard. He put his paws on the top of the fence and stood there, looking over. Greg thought, he’s not going to come over. And he jumped over the fence and started walking around. He was enormous and beautiful. Greg suddenly knew that he had to protect the kids. His plan was to lure him with the maple syrup. He put a big plate of pancakes on the ground and poured a big pile of syrup and made a path of syrup to the back of the fence hoping that the tiger would lick it up and follow the path away from the kids. Greg’s plan was to run downstairs and get his gun while the tiger was distracted by the syrup. 

It didn’t work, so Greg started plotting ways that he could kill the tiger. All these scenarios started running through his head. It was as if they were happening, but they weren’t. He knew that he couldn’t fight him in the swimming pool because tigers were excellent swimmers. He pictured the tiger clawing him to death in the water. He pictured the tiger attacking me with his paws up on my shoulders and Greg was going to side-kick him in the head. Greg remembered the feel of his foot hitting the tiger in his giant head. It didn’t work at all. His head was too strong. He decided that if he was going to shoot him, he couldn’t shoot him in the head. He planned on laying on his back, with his gun, and he would shoot him in the guts when the tiger jumped over him to attack him.