SERENDIPIDIES

Part of our calling is Public Relations so as volunteers for Army Community Services, we have been preparing to teach classes on post.  The first course we attended was called “Army Family Team Building” (AFTB) and the second was on building resiliency.   The AFTB program is to introduce spouses to Army family life with subjects ranging from Army acronyms, to protocols, to communication skills, to how to be a better leader.  We’ve met some wonderful people. 

The resiliency training turned out to be helpful to us as a couple.  We got sick again which slowed us down and we took time to actually discuss how to handle some of our long standing patterns differently.  We reduced our conflict to 0% the last 10 days which has been an amazing blessing! 

The malady we were fighting was another specialized GA flu (our 3^rd one).  It hit us in the chest this time without any coryza and left us with a congested cough.  We wheezed on exhalation instead of inhalation (sorta like a smokers cough).  Ohmygoodness!  It may BE a smokers cough.  I had to use Elder Baum’s hankie over my mouth one night because there was a blanket of smoke outside.  Apparently, lightning struck & started another fire.  It’s quite dry here because when it does rain, it pours and then quickly runs off without watering the plant life sufficiently.  Fire is actually the most common disaster.

We’ve been re-listening to conference talks.  Here are some quotes we didn’t hear the first two times:

Carl B Pratt:  President James E. Faust suggested that the payment of tithing is “an excellent insurance against divorce” (“Enriching Your Marriage,” Liahona, Apr. 2007, 5; Ensign, Apr. 2007, 7).  The payment of tithing helps us develop a submissive and humble heart and a grateful heart that tends to “confess … his hand in all things” (D&C 59:21). Tithe-paying fosters in us a generous and forgiving heart and a charitable heart full of the pure love of Christ.  

David A. Bednar:  Revelation is communication from God to His children on the earth and one of the great blessings associated with the gift and constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “The Holy Ghost is a revelator,” and “no man can receive the Holy Ghost without receiving revelations” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 132).  

M Russell Ballard:  The future growth of the Church will not happen through just knocking on strangers’ doors. It will happen when the members, along with our missionaries, filled with the love of God and Christ discern needs and respond to those needs in the spirit of charitable service.  When we do this, brothers and sisters, the honest in heart will feel our sincerity and our love. Many will want to know more about us. Then and only then will the Church expand to fill all of the earth. This cannot be accomplished by missionaries alone but requires the interest and service of every member.  

  

And last but not least is this gem from our former Bishop, Bruce D Porter, who is now a Seventy, from a talk he gave at BYU, printed in the June Ensign:  Regardless of what the future may hold, God has ordained that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, the parents of the Church will be given power to help save their children from the darkness around them.    

OH WHAT JOY!

We helped teach an amazing young woman and she was baptized today!  Her given name is spelled KCar-lene and she goes by KC.  She has been married a year but her husband was deployed 10 months of it.  He got home a week ago.  They have the most adorable baby named Temperance who tries to wave her hand to her daddy at the grand old age of 1 month!  McKenzie is Temperance's energetic, four year old sister.  At first, Tom didn't want KC to change anything about herself (which I thought was adorable), but then she convinced him that it would be better if she weren't smoking.  He did agree and is now very supportive of her.  

BROKEN AND CONTRITE

I’ve been thinking more about this God we worship who is called Jesus Christ.  Whenever I consider the worlds he has made, his wondrous life and works, I am astounded that He submitted to such humiliation and pain and that any of us could have inflicted it.  How could we have turned so far from Him whom we loved and supported not so long ago?  How could He love us so much and we be so fickle in our affection?   Even after all we have been given, I’m appalled at how “prone to wander” I am personally and I pray every day that He will forgive my unworthiness and extend His great mercy to all those around me.  


I did have an epiphany this week which I hope I can articulate.  We know we are given Commandments to protect us (like the fence at the top of the hill instead of the ambulance at the bottom).  We also know if we live the commandments, we will be blessed (all blessings are predicated on law).  But there is yet another reason that had never occurred to me.  As I was studying Preach My Gospel, I read where commandments are given to us to "apply gospel principles"--a lab assignment of sorts where we have to put abstract concepts into practice; somewhat like writing a paper improves our vocabulary and logic.   


Let's say the commandment I'm working on is charity (if we have not charity, we are nothing) and I am going to apply the first two principles of the Gospel which are faith and repentance.  I faithfully make my desire for charity a matter of study, prayer, and fasting, trusting God that He will teach me to love like He does.  My mind becomes more alert as to what charity is and what it is not.  I begin to notice how often I am impatient, unkind, puffed up, seeking my own, easily provoked or offended, and judgmental.  I am shocked.  Faith leads me to change my mind (the definition of repentance).  I stop indulging in "thought sins" that lead to hostility (as Elder Lynn G. Robbins taught). 


After awhile, I notice that I am miraculously losing my desire for sin through no thought of my own.  I wonder if this is what it means to be cleansed or sanctified by the Holy Spirit.  The "good news", the truth, is that even at this fundamental level, God is mercifully saving me from myself, making my burden lighter and my cross easier to bear.  I feel more gratitude and trust (more faith) and I am more successful at avoiding contention because I am not only losing my lust for it (I am becoming repentant) but I am feeling more love for the Savior (we love Him because He first loved us).   I notice that people are responding to the love God has for them because I am not getting in the way of it as much. 


In summary, love the verb becomes Love the noun as our growing faith (trust in Christ) leads to repentance (a change of mind and heart or conversion).  And what are we being converted to?  If His goal is to bring about our Eternal Life, then perhaps it has something to do with that.  Perhaps Commandments are the curriculum that produces the ability to live His kind of life.  So complaining or resisting would be like saying, "I don't want to be a King or Queen.  It's too hard, too long, too incomprehensible, too boring, too unlike me" (which is the whole point, I thought).  This God we worship paid an incomprehensible price so He could qualify to assist us and we don't  want it????  As for me, "I will reach for the joy of celestial to reward, till all that God offers is mine" (to quote one of my favorite songs).

WEDDING!!

Our son was married today to his mortal angel.  It was so hard not to be there.

THE BE-DO PRINCIPLE

We’ve been praying and fasting to recognize and follow the Spirit.  One of the things we teach is that faith in Christ leads to repentance (change of mind).   One of the things Elder Baum and I have been led to change is how we deal with conflict between us.  Instead of contention, we are becoming more loving, kind, patient, and long-suffering.  We find ourselves thanking God at the end of the day for the power (faith) to overcome habits that interfere with the Spirit.  Faith begets mercy which then begets greater faith.  

We have been volunteering at the hospital to help the chaplain cover the weekend.  It’s so satisfying to watch people rally after Elder Baum has prayed for them.  We are often prompted to do or say something we would not have ordinarily thought of…like printing pictures of Christ someone sent on the Internet and finding a perfect opportunity to pass them on, or singing a hymn, or giving a lesson on the Parable of the Sower, or encouraging someone to live their dream and then having them read James 1:5.  One gentleman began to weep when we pointed out that God must have something more for him to do.  I gave him a hug with the hope he didn’t mind and found out it was a very Baptist thing to do!!